Plug and Play, the international corporate innovation and venture capital firm, is holding itsWinter Summit Demo Day this week in Silicon Valley.
At the two-day event, dozens of startups that have come through one of Plug and Plays many accelerator programs will pitch their products and services to executives at corporations and early-stage investors who may be interested inworking with them.
Plug and Play charges attendees from the general public for tickets to attend and watch the pitches as well.
Unlike other accelerators, Plug and Play Ventures doesnt automatically invest seed funding, or demand equity stakes, in every single company it admits.
And its admissions committee for each batch includes not just Plug and Play mentors and investors, butacommittee ofcorporate executives who review applicants. The corporate anchor partners who will be involved in each acceleartorare listed on the Plug and Play website so entrepreneurscan decide if they want to reveal what theyre working on to theselarge industry players before applying.
Otherwise, Plug and Plays acceleratorsare what youd expect, 3-month bootcamps for promising tech startups indifferent industry segments.Plug and Play aimsto help startups in a given category move from prototyping and design into a stage where theyve got a refined business model and are generating income.
And it uses accelerators tohelp large employers,who pay Plug and Play for corporate innovation as a service,toconnect and work with some of the best and the brightest startupsin their field.
Typically the corporations are not lookingto invest in newly formedstartups, but to learn about emerging tech and trends from them, and begin to engage themon a limited basis, say ina pilot project, a non-recurring engineering contract, or a first sales contract.
Phillip Seiji Vincent, the Director of Internet of Things and Mobility at Plug and Play, tells TechCrunch that Theaccelerators arejust one vehicle we make investment decisions through. Its always case by case and we back over 100 startups each year, and makehundreds of connections between startups and corporate partners that lead to meaningful business for them both.
On Thursday, companies will be presenting inhealth and insurance, and on Friday companies will be presenting across travel and hospitality, internet of things and mobility.
