The Balkan Venture Forum came to Slovenia. After visiting the grassroots communities in Albania and Bosnia & Herzegovina, the 6th edition of the Forum moved to one of the region’s powerhouse economies. For this sixth edition, the BkVF team is joining hands with COINVEST of COBIK (home to the annual COINVEST Tech Investment Conference). With combined forces, the BkVF COINVEST was one of 2014’s most exciting entrepreneur-meets-investor events. Set across 2 days, 50 tech companies took the stage at the Perla Casino & Hotel in Nova Gorica. But the action-packed program included a host of cool speakers who shared their experiences on:

• How To Succeed Globally (A Founders’ Story)
• What you can expect from being in a startup accelerator
• How to build working relations with large corporate groups
• How to attract EU funding for your startup
• What motivates investors to invest in your company
• What are the hottest trends in startups & investment
• What fundraising in the US is like
• How to sell software to small & medium size companies,
• How a VC makes his money (and for whom!)
• What the life of a serial entrepreneur is like

As always, the BkVF included many international and regional heavyweight investors. The list had been growing rapidly over the weeks before the event, and the final list of confirmed investors to evaluate the startup pitches looked like this:

• Baybars Altuntas – President of the Business Angels Association of Turkey and board member of the EBAN;
• Torbjorn (Toby) Jorgensen – President at Federation X Holdings;
• Branislav Vujovic – Founder and President at New Frontier Group;
• Rupesh Chatwani – Technology VC focused on Russia, Turkey, CEE and MENA;
• Jure Mikuz – Managing director as RSG Capital;
• Todor Breshkov – Managing Partner at LAUNCHub;
• David Keresztes – Principal at Central Europe Trust
• Stephane Gantchev– Partner at LAUNCHub;
• Tatjana Zabasu – Partner at RSG Capital;
• Riccardo Aimerito – Partner at ERA Kapital, business angel and post-doctoral lecturer on private equity;
• Marius Ghenea – Business angel, board member of VentureConnect;
• Michael Schuster – Business Development at Speedinvest;
• David Beatty – Serial Entrepreneur from USA;
• Michael Gold – Managing director at Crimson Capital;
• Nicholas Barlett – Serial Entrepreneur from New Zealand;
• Branko Drobnak – Angel Investor
• Selma Prodanovic – Founders at Austrian Business Angel Association, Founder at Brainswork Consulting;
• James Burnham – ex-EVCA;
• Maxim Gurvits – Teres Capital;