By GREGORY ZELLER //
The Long Island Capital Alliance always has an appetite for success, but the next installment of its Capital Forum series takes that mantra fairly literally.
Scheduled for March 8 in Melville, the alliance’s first capital forum of 2019 will cater to foodies – specifically, to small companies in the food & beverage and agricultural-technology industries.
The forum is a quarterly breakfast-networking platform that places innovators – often, but not exclusively, in their earliest business-formation stages – before an audience of potential investors. To kick off its 2019 slate, the Capital Alliance is preparing a menu of food-focused enterprises, each with its own recipe for commercial success.
Among the scheduled presenters are Crepini, a 12-year-old Brooklyn company focused on healthy alternatives to breads and wraps; the Subtle Tea Co., a Centereach-based 2013 startup offering preservative-free, 100-percent organic, lightly sweetened teas; and Lindenhurst-based Viachem LLC, makers of Coffee Savr, an organic “extender” meant to lengthen the shelf life of brewed coffee.
Also scheduled to present are representatives of PopShots LLC – a New York City company presenting LIQS Cocktail shots, self-billed as “the world’s first single-serve cocktail shot” in flavors including LemonDrop and Orange Cinnamon – and MunchMoney, a circa-2017 West Islip software company that recently retooled its rewards-program foodie app and is now in the midst of a national launch.
Gives us the crêpes: Promising a healthier alternative to bread, the Brooklyn-based makers of Crepini are expected to make a pitch at the next LICA Capital Forum.
The companies will each make short presentations and then answer questions from an expert panel of industry insiders (panelists to be announced, according to the LICA), all in front of a live audience stocked with potential investors from around the Greater New York region.
The forum is slated to be keynoted by Douglas Whitcomb, founder of Islandia-based Whitsons Culinary Group. As the company’s chief product officer, Whitcomb oversees the Whitsons Culinary Group’s purchasing department, nutritional focus and menu-development operations.
Sponsors of the March 8 AgTech, Food & Beverage Capital Forum include accounting giant EisnerAmper, law firm Carter DeLuca Farrell & Schmidt LLP, the Suffolk County Industrial Development Agency and NYIT, among others.
To date, LICA capital forums have helped regional companies in various stages of development raise more than $150 million in capital investments, according to the capital alliance.
Pre-registration is required to attend the March 8 capital forum at the RXR Center in Melville. Ticket pricing, registration and more information available here.
