Sponsors

BMW of North America, LLC has been present in the United States since 1975.  The BMW Group in the United States has grown to include marketing, sales, and financial service organizations. BMW Manufacturing in South Carolina is part of BMW Group's global manufacturing network and is the exclusive manufacturing plant for all X3 and X5 Sports Activity Vehicles and X6 Sports Activity Coupes.  BMW Group was named the most sustainable automobile company worldwide for the seventh consecutive year by the Dow Jones Sustainability Indexes. The South Carolina plant is currently ranked fourth by the U.S. EPA as a Top 20 On-Site Green Power Partner. 50% of the plant's total energy requirements generated through on-site turbines are powered by methane gas. A 100-piece hydrogen fuel-cell material handling fleet provides the plant one of the largest hydrogen fuel-cell fleets in the U.S. Recently, the factory added solar to its energy portfolio to power the Zentrum Museum. For more information on BMW Manufacturing, visit www.bmwusfactory.com.

At the heart of Wall Street, Kranjac Manuali & Viskovic LLP represents financial, commercial and business clients, both domestic and international, in the global marketplace and is firmly dedicated to providing exceptional client service and innovative, pragmatic solutions.  Our clients work exclusively with senior, experienced attorneys at cost effective and sensitive pricing, which is often vital to the success of their business plans.  KMV handles a wide variety of general corporate, tax, commercial and real estate matters.  Our attorneys focus on structuring, negotiating and properly documenting client transactions, which may include mergers and acquisitions, corporate financings, purchase and sale transactions, investment management fund start-ups, joint ventures and commercial transactions.  Given the breadth of experience of KMV attorneys in all aspects of corporate and securities representation, our firm is adept at serving our clients' needs in a wide range of legal areas impacting their respective businesses.

Amex Ventures is the strategic venture arm of American Express.  The $100M digital commerce initiative is focused on minority investments in the digital commerce space broadly, including mobile payments, big data and analytics, online to offline commerce, offers, point of sale solutions and loyalty and rewards.
www.americanexpress.com

Venue® is a secure online workspace with a powerful feature-set and an intuitive design that allow you to easily organize, manage, share and track all of your sensitive information. Venue® data rooms provide complete control, ensuring that you can manage who has access to your data room, which documents they see, and how they can interact with those documents. Venue® data rooms are backed by RR Donnelley, a $10.6 billion corporation with more than 500 locations and 58,000 employees worldwide. RR Donnelleys total revenues are larger than all other virtual data room providers combined. We bring extensive experience to providing integrated communications services.

RR Donnelley is a global provider of integrated communications. The company works collaboratively with more than 60,000 customers worldwide to develop custom communications solutions that reduce costs, enhance ROI and ensure compliance. Drawing on a range of proprietary and commercially available digital and conventional technologies deployed across four continents, the company employs a suite of leading Internet based capabilities and other resources to provide pre-media, printing, logistics and business process outsourcing services to clients in virtually every private and public sector. www.RRDVenue.com

Astia is a global not-for-profit organization with a distinct focus and mission - to propel womens full participation as entrepreneurs and leaders in high-growth businesses, fueling innovation and driving economic growth. Guided by a proven philosophy that gender diversity is an essential element of innovation, Astia works with startups around the world as they access capital, grow their businesses, and hone the leadership skills of their founding teams.

The Astia model of engaging a community of experts to the benefit of the select startups it serves has resulted in an exceptional success rate: since 2003, over 60 percent of companies that have participated in the Astia Investor Forums have secured funding or achieved an exit within one year of presenting, totalling more than $1 billion raised and 25 exits, including two IPOs. www.astia.org

The Cradle to Cradle Products Innovation Institute is a non-profit organization created to bring about a large-scale transformation in the way we make things. Our mission is to provide a continuous improvement quality standard to guide product manufacturers and designers in making safe and healthy things for our world.

The Institute, using the Cradle to Cradle® framework, works with leaders from academia, the NGO environmental community, government, and industry to implement a standard for assessing and constantly improving products based upon five categories:

1. Safe and appropriately sourced materials  
2. Material reutilization
3. Renewable energy and carbon management
4. Water stewardship 
  
5. Social fairness

Products that meet the transparent criteria of this rating system receive the Cradle to CradleCM product certification mark. www.c2ccertified.org

The Forum for Women Entrepreneurs is a place for women entrepreneurs to get tough questions answered. FWE is dedicated to providing visionary women with the knowledge, support, and connections they need to become wildly successful entrepreneurs.

The programs at FWE are designed to support and mentor women who are venturing into new business opportunities. From start-up advice to general tips and tricks, FWE leaders, advisors, and business professionals are ready to share their expertise.

Founded by Christina Anthony in 2002, FWE has been encouraging, educating, and mentoring women entrepreneurs for over a decade. With 140+ E-series program participants, 500 mentees partnered with mentors through the HSBC Mentor Program, and a growing list of programs and events offered throughout the year, the team at FWE, along with its members, continues to see success. www.fwe.ca

Investors Circle is the oldest, largest and most successful early-stage impact investing network in the world.  Hundreds of angels, venture capitalists, foundations and family offices have joined us to promote the transition to a sustainable economy. IC has propelled $152 million plus $4 billion in follow-on investment into 255 enterprises and funds dedicated to improving the environment, education, health, and community.

Find out about membership  |  Apply to us for funding | Seek sponsorship opportunities 
www.investorscircle.net

mergermarket is an independent M&A intelligence service that provides proprietary origination and deal flow opportunities integrated with a comprehensive deals database. With an unrivalled network of 300+ M&A journalists based in 65 locations worldwide, mergermarket is the only tool that offers active intelligence on potential transactions, and historical data to analyze past deals, providing a full M&A picture that achieves real revenue for clients. mergermarket is part of The Mergermarket Group, a division of the Financial Times Group, publisher of the Financial Times newspaper and FT.com. The FT Group is a division of Pearson plc, the international media group. Visit www.mergermarket.com.

The Encyclopedia of Private Equity and Venture Capital is the definitive e-compendium on all aspects of Private Equity & Venture Capital fundraising. The Portfolio Company Analysis Tool is used by both buy-side and sell-side professionals to drastically reduce the time it takes to analyze an investment or financing event and model related exit scenarios. The Valuation & Deal Term Database provides more financial data points than any other information source for institutionally backed, high growth companies. www.vcexperts.com

VentureLoop is the leading website dedicated to job postings for emerging venture-backed companies and startup companies with over 100,000 unique monthly visitors. VentureLoop creates direct relationships with the world's top venture capital firms to connect their portfolio companies with quality candidates. Candidates can search the VentureLoop website for thousands of jobs at startups and growth companies backed by top-tier venture capital firms. VentureLoop's VentureCareers product is a hosted career page for venture capital firms, allowing portfolio companies to advertise job openings directly onto their venture capital firm's public website. VentureLoop also provides recruiting and outsourced HR, payroll and benefits services through its LoopTwo and VentureLoopHR affiliates. Find out more at www.ventureloop.com.