Agenda

Here is what happened at this year’s summit. Three stages with nonstop content that appealed to all attendee types. We had time for open networking and private spaces available all day to make 1:1 connections with other attendees.

Our mobile app gave you access to an attendee directory, detailed agenda with speakers, meeting requests, bookable meeting space, and more.

growth stories

These founders and their investment partners came together to share their growth stories. To read each speaker’s bio, simply click on their photo.

Co-Founder & General Partner
Jason Caplain

Venture Partner, Pappas Capital

Karen LeVert

Head, Marketing and Communications, Pairwise
Megan Thomas

Co-founder and CEO | BIOMILQ
Michelle Egger

CEO & Co-Founder, Xilis, Inc
Xiling Shen

President & CEO | Vestron

Anna Rath

CEO, ServiceTrade

Billy Marshall

Billy Marshall is the CEO at ServiceTrade and author of two books: The Digital Wrap and Money for Nothing. He is a sought-after speaker on topics relating to innovation, technology, digital marketing, and sales methodology for commercial service contractors.

Billy’s professional experiences include leadership roles in product, sales, and business development at a range of companies, including Fortune 100 companies, family-owned contracting businesses, and startup ventures. His experience offers a broad perspective from which he coaches commercial service contractors on best practices to thrive in increasingly competitive markets.

Billy has presented at national and regional conferences for associations including the American Fire Sprinkler Association (AFSA), the Automatic Fire Alarm Association (AFAA), National Association of Fire Equipment Distributors (NAFED), and the Mechanical Contractors’ Association of America (MCAA).

Billy graduated from Georgia Tech with a degree in aerospace engineering, and he also holds two graduate degrees in engineering and management from MIT.

Outside of ServiceTrade, Billy is always busy, whether that’s as pitmaster at the smoker, as captain on his fishing boat, and as dad, enjoying outdoor activities with his three beautiful daughters.

Speaking with Jason Caplain, Bull City Venture Partners

Conti Ventures

Chris Abbott

Chris is Co-Head of Conti Ventures and joined Conti in 2018. Previously, Chris led Craig-Hallum Capital Group’s investment banking group efforts focused on sustainability, agriculture and agtech. Prior to Craig-Hallum, Chris worked at Piper Jaffray & Co. and AWJ Capital Partners, focused broadly on technology, sustainability, healthcare and consumer companies. He currently serves on the boards of several Conti companies. Chris loves to compete in triathlons, basketball and tennis. He is an avid supporter of charity: water and serves on the board of InnerCity Tennis.

Speaking with Anna Rath, Vestron

Dan Tomso

Dan Tomso is a long-time member of the North Carolina biotechnology community. He has held leadership roles at Athenix Corporation, Bayer Cropscience, and AgBiome. His roles at AgBiome included seven years as Chief Science Officer and three years as the Head of Business Development. He continues to work with AgBiome in an advisory capacity, and also maintains advisory board seats and a private consulting practice in agriculture.

Co-Founder & General Partner

Jason Caplain

Jason is a General Partner and Co-Founder of Bull City Venture Partners. Prior to co-founding BCVP, Jason co-founded Southern Capitol Ventures. Previously, he was at Red Hat (NYSE:RHT) in their finance group through the successful IPO in 1999. Before joining Red Hat, Jason was at Harrison Hurley and Company, an investment banking and business-consulting firm headquartered in Providence, RI.

Jason currently serves on the board at Spiffy and is a board observer at Circonus, Levitate, and Tiny Earth Toys. Past Board or Observer seats include ChannelAdvisor (NYSE:IPO), Contactually (acquired by Compass), DoublePositive (acquired by OSG), Etix (management-led buyout), Medfusion (acquired by NextGen Healthcare), ServiceTrade, Synthematix (acquired by Symmx Technologies) and WeddingWire (acquired by Permira).

He is also on the board of Venture Atlanta and on the Investment Advisory Board for the Virginia Venture Partners, consistently the most active seed investor in Virginia.

Jason received his BS in Finance from Bentley College. He lives in Raleigh, NC with his wife, son and two daughters.

Speaking with Billy Marshall, ServiceTrade

Venture Partner, Pappas Capital

Karen LeVert

Karen LeVert is a Venture Partner with Pappas Capital and is leading the expansion of the firm’s Specialized Fund Management business with a focus on identifying attractive agricultural technology investment opportunities. She has a proven track record of progressing early-stage technologies from university research labs to commercialization as co-founder and CEO of two innovation labs, Southeast TechInventures, Inc. (STI) and Ag TechInventures, LLC (AgTI). Karen’s business experience encompasses both corporate and entrepreneurial worlds with over twenty-five years of successful leadership experience in executive management, start-ups, and technology commercialization. Karen started her career at a Fortune-500 insurance company holding positions of increasing responsibility from programmer to controller, to general manager of a 500-person Property & Casualty service center. Before founding the innovation labs, her first entrepreneurial venture was launching a franchise bioremediation company that she later sold. Her next entrepreneurial venture was co-founding a Silicon Valley based software company. Along with her professional duties Karen serves as a board member for the North Carolina Biotechnology Center, the Economic Development Partnership of North Carolina, the North Carolina Arboretum, AgLaunch, North Carolina State Agriculture and Life Science Foundation, and LCBA Life Insurance Company. She has an MBA from the University of Dayton and a BBA in Information Technology from Eastern Michigan University.

Head, Marketing and Communications, Pairwise

Megan Thomas

Megan Thomas heads up Marketing and Communications for RTP food+tech start-up Pairwise, where she oversees both the Pairwise parent brand and the new Conscious Foods produce brand. She has worked in brand leadership roles for companies such as Smithfield Foods and Fleet Labs, launching 28 products in her brand marketing career. She also served as Group Vice President at shopper marketing firm The MARS Agency, developing marketing programs for consumer healthcare clients GlaxoSmithKline and Abbott Nutrition. She holds an MBA from the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan and a BA from Northwestern University.

Co-founder and CEO | BIOMILQ

Michelle Egger

Partner | KdT Ventures

Phil Grayeski

CEO & Co-Founder, Xilis, Inc

Xiling Shen

Dr. Xiling Shen is the Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder of Xilis, Inc. He is also the Chief Scientific Officer and Professor of the Terasaki Institute for Biomedical Innovation. He was formally the Hawkins Family Associate Professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering and the director of the Woo Center for Big Data and Precision Health at Duke University. He received his BS, MS, and PhD degrees from Stanford University and the NSF career award at Cornell University. He was the steering committee chair of the NCI Patient-Derived Model of Cancer Consortium, chair of the NCI Tissue Engineering Consortium 2021 conference, and cancer track chair of BMES 2019.

Speaking with Phil Grayeski, KdT Ventures

more info

Looking for more information? Here are some helpful links that can get you where you need to be… Event Info, Celebration.