Investor Meetings Programme 2023 Guide and FAQs – For Startups
The Investor Meetings Programme is Investor-driven, meaning - Investors are the ones who select startups to meet based on their interests and investment criteria/mandate.
FAQs
To take part in the Investor Meetings Programme, you firstly you must be an Exhibiting startup at Gitex Impact or Future Urbanism Expo. You will have received your login to the Exhibitor Portal where you will need to submit your company information.
Please complete the set of questions in the “Company Profile” and “Matchmaking and Networking” section on the Exhibitor Portal to ensure relevant matches are shown to you and the right companies, buyers, and investors can find you as well on the GITEX Plus mobile app based on your interests. Please complete and submit your responses by September 1st, 2023. If any changes are made to your submission, the team cannot guarantee that your changes will be reflected.
Please make sure to fill all mandatory questions on Company Profile, Matchmaking & Tag Products.
As an initial filter, Startups who have chosen that they would like to meet with an Investor in the “Who would you like to meet” Question and Startups who have responded Yes to the “Are you looking to raise funds?” and “How much funding are you looking to raise?“ Questions in the “Matchmaking and Networking” section of the Exhibitor Portal are the most likely to have Investors prioritize them for meetings.
Then, startups are further matched based on the responses to the rest of the questions to determine the best fit based on the mandate of participating Investors. Participating Investors have also shared their criteria and mandate to determine the best matches. The responses on each side (Startup and Investor) are used for matchmaking.
If you are matched with an Investor who has confirmed to meet, concierge meetings manager will setup the meeting through GITEX plus app based on Investor’s availability and you will also receive an email with an ics calendar invite with the details of the meeting. You will continue to receive reminders ahead of the actual meeting taking place.
A: Meeting confirmations will begin from September 15th, 2023. In order to consider your profile for meetings, you MUST have your profile and matchmaking questionnaire completed and submitted on the Exhibitor Portal.
To view meetings confirmed you can also log into the GITEX Plus app and go to ‘My Schedule’ section to view all confirmed meetings organised by concierge meetings managers.
Each meeting will be a maximum of 20 minutes long.
Confirmed Investor meetings will take place in the Expand North Star Investor Lounge in Hall 6 @ Dubai Harbour OR the GITEX Impact Lounge in Hall 27 @ Dubai World Trade Centre. Your meeting location & table numbers will appear in the ‘My Schedule’ section of the GITEX plus app.
Once you arrive at the Investor Lounge, a concierge team member will check you in and guide you to your meeting table.
Be sure to exchange contact details with the Investor! You can follow up with the Investor after the event or re-connect later when your startup has reached a new milestone if the Investor is not ready to commit when you met. The Investor might also suggest other investors that could be interested in your startup so make sure to keep this in mind when meeting. Please note, the team does not follow up with the Investor on your behalf after your meetings.
If the investor has re-scheduled, cancelled, or missed any meetings, you will receive an email notifying you:
Meeting Rescheduled – You will have to accept the meeting if the time slot suits you (action required by the Startup exhibitor)
Meeting Cancelled – Concierge Team will try to re-schedule however this is subject to confirmation from the other party.
Meeting Missed – If there are missed meetings on-site at the confirmed time of your meeting, a Concierge team on-ground will assist in cancelling or re-scheduling the meeting.
If you would like to re-schedule or cancel a meeting, you can log into the GITEX Plus app then click on “My Schedule’ section to view all meetings and perform any of the above actions from your end.
Concierge Meetings managers will try their best to put forward all the relevant startups to investors based on their interests, however you are not guaranteed any number of meetings with Investors as it depends on your startup’s details and what an Investor is looking for.
Investors will be roaming around on-site so be sure to catch them!
- You can network on-site at the event as Investors will have a badge that says “Investor” to help you identify them.
- You can also meet Investors at evening events and side of events of the week.