CHARLOTTE – After a successful first year in 2017, the Southeast Fintech Venture Conference is back for a full-day program highlighting the freshest innovations in fintech from companies throughout the region.

The event, taking place November 14 at Barings in downtown Charlotte, is organized and hosted by Queen City Fintech, a Charlotte-based accelerator that supports financial technology startups through mentoring, capital and connections. The six startups in the program’s ninth cohort will be showcasing their products and services at this year’s conference.

Over a dozen founders from Queen City Fintech’s partner portfolios and Carolina Fintech Hub will also showcase their startups in pitch sessions held in between the program’s keynotes, panels and meetings with investors and entrepreneurs.

The opening keynote will be delivered by Doug Lebda, founder of Charlotte-based consumer lending company LendingTree.

Two “mix and mingle” sessions will be held in the morning and afternoon, offering attending founders one-on-one meetings with investors.

There will also be a fireside chat with Johnson Cook, president and COO of Atlanta-based Greenlight Financial Technology.

Later, a panel will discuss investment insights featuring Mac Lackey of VentureSouth, David Hall of Rise of the Rest and Matt Kennedy of Bank Street Partners.

The Queen City Fintech demo day portion of the event is set for 5 to 6:30 p.m. Each founder in the ninth cohort will have a six-minute time slot to pitch their company. The presenters are:

  • New York City-based AskMyUncleSam, a chatbot that answers questions and provides tips for U.S. taxpayers.
  • Charlotte-based Collateral Velocity, a service that helps banks extract more value from their OTC derivative collateral portfolios.
  • Charleston-based ImpactCents, an impact investing app geared towards younger generations.
  • Atlanta-based iTrust, a cybersecurity risk and compliance management platform.
  • Portland-based Mimble, an app that rewards users’ savings and helps them set and track financial goals.
  • Canada-based DivDot, an app that lets users send payment requests or accept payments from customers on the go.

An after party will follow the demo day program at Ink n Ivy, just a few blocks away from Barings.

Speaking about this year’s programming, Queen City Fintech Director Dan Roselli said, “Our team focuses on curating a conference that emphasizes quality over quantity. Our goal is to make it effortless for entrepreneurs, investors, and operators to meet. We keep our event intentionally intimate in size, presenting a contrasting experience to unmanageably large conferences like Money 20/20, Finovate or SXSW.”

“This is a deal-making conference, so venture firms can expect to see dozens of companies that are investment ready,” Roselli added. “Companies, on the other hand, can expect a room full of venture firms looking to deploy capital in quality companies.”

According to Betsy Yang, the conference’s director, the program is expected to sell out with more than 250 attendees “representing entrepreneurs, investors and financial services executives.”

Tickets to the conference are priced at $399, available on Eventbrite.

https://wraltechwire.com/event/southeast-fintech-venture-conference-2018/