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A Fully Immersive Virtual SaaS Conference

Helping SaaS & B2B Leaders Grow Faster

September 30 – October 1, 2020

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2500

Companies

6000

Attendees

30

Sponsors

+40%

C-Level

+50%

VP-Level

About our Virtual Conference

At Ascent, we provide multiple avenues for you to grow your SaaS company through our annual conference.

  • Mainstage Virtual Speaker Talks with Live Q&A to help you discover new growth opportunities
  • Networking with thousands of attendees through our AI-powered networking app with built-in Zoom
  • Workshops with mid-sized groups centered around building and enhancing specific skills that you need to prosper
  • Roundtables in a small-group setting focused on pressing skills to help you grow your career and company
  • Startup Exhibition Booths for companies (primarily startups) looking to increase visibility, sales, find more investors, and participate in a pitch competition with 300 top startups in all sectors competing to win prizes worth $10,000.
  • VIP Tickets for those of you who want a premium experience and access to top c-suite executives
  • Sponsorships for companies looking to simultaneously support SaaS leaders and get in front thousands of attendees. These are companies with hand-picked solutions to help your business grow faster
  • Investor-Only Networking and Programming for investors looking to make more connections in the investment community and increase the quality of their fundraising rounds


Virtual Conference Floor


Why Attend?

For the past two years, we’ve held huge annual two-day conferences that has become a staple of the startup, SaaS, and venture capital communities of the greater New York City area.

Our goal has been to empower these communities with fantastic opportunities to network, fundraise, learn, and build skills. We have done that and will continue to, but with Covid-19, we are bringing our annual event to you virtually, instead!

How the Conference Works

We bring you as close to real life you can get.

NETWORK AND MAKE NEW CONNECTIONS

Network and set up video meetings with the right people using the Brella networking app

ATTEND WORKSHOPS AND ROUNDTABLES AND BUILD YOUR SKILLS

Each interactive roundtable and workshop is designed to help you build the skills needed to thrive

THE VIRTUAL CONFERENCE FLOOR HELPS YOU STAY INFORMED

“Walk” the virtual demo floor to see what conference events are occurring and engage with game changing startups

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You could be one connection or skill away from reaching the next level

Our mission is to even the playing field so all founders have the same chance to succeed and we are committed to that goal now more than ever.

We provide a satisfaction guarantee – if you don’t take away one connection or actionable insight that can immediately impact your business, then you can come back free.

Conference Demographics

TITLES and LEVELS

C-Level/Founder (39%)
Other (19%)
Director (16%)
VP (14%)
Manager (12%)

POSITIONS and CATEGORIES

CEO/Founder (23%)
Marketing (20%)
Sales/Biz Dev (17%)
Investing (12%)
Operations (12%)
Client Success (7%)
Dev (4%)
Press (3%)

ANNUAL REVENUE

$50M+ ARR (24%)
< $1M ARR (18%)
$1-5M ARR (29%)
$6-20M ARR (14%)
$21-50M ARR(15%)

2020 Speakers

Sarah Bird

CEO Moz

Lu Zhang

Founder & Managing Partner Fusion Fund

Neal Sales-Griffin

Managing Director Techstars

Esther Dyson

Executive Founder Wellville

Chris Savage

CEO & Founder Wistia

David Siegel

CEO Meetup

Christi Olson

Head of Evangelism for Search Microsoft

Rand Fishkin

CEO SparkToro
More 2020 Speakers 2019 Agenda

Sarah Bird

CEO Moz
Sarah Bird serves as the CEO of Moz, the world leader in Search Engine Optimization software. With Sarah’s leadership, the company has grown to over 34,000 customers, 150 employees, $60+mm annual revenue, raised $30mm venture capital, launched multiple software products, and created a beloved marketing brand. Prior to Moz, Sarah practiced law and travelled the world. She regularly speaks about entrepreneurship, business models, search marketing, women in tech, and fostering an inspiring company culture. She has served on the boards of Sitrion, a private company, and the Washington Technology Industry Association. Sarah was named a Henry Crown Fellow, Geekwire CEO of the Year Finalist three times, Role Model of the Year, Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year Finalist, Puget Sound Business Journal 40 Under 40, a Top 100 Women in Tech.

Lu Zhang

Founder & Managing Partner Fusion Fund
Lu Zhang is the Founder and Managing Partner of Fusion Fund, a renowned Silicon Valley based investor, a serial entrepreneur and a Stanford Engineering alumna. Fusion Fund is active in supporting early-stage entrepreneurs who are looking to build globally disruptive companies using innovative technologies to drive systemic change originating from the U.S market. For the past couple of years, Lu leads the Fusion Fund team funnels exits of multiple portfolios’ IPO and M&As. Lu received the title of 2018 Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum (Davos). She has also garnered other accolades including the Featured Honoree in VC of Forbes 30 Under 30 (2017), Silicon Valley Women of Influence (2018), Town & Country 50 Modern Swans – Entrepreneurship Influencer (2017) and Top 10 All America Chinese Youth (2018). Prior to starting Fusion Fund, Lu was the Founder and CEO of a medical device company focused on non-invasive technology for the early diagnosis of Type II diabetes (acquired in 2012). Lu is active in the entrepreneur and investor communities and serves as a board member and 2020 president for Youth Council of Future Forum.

Neal Sales-Griffin

Managing Director Techstars
Neal Sáles-Griffin is an entrepreneur, teacher, and nonprofit leader. He co-founded the first beginner-focused in-person coding bootcamp, and most recently ran for mayor of Chicago. He's currently the Managing Director of Techstars Chicago, serves as co-chair of the School of the Art Institute's MakeWork council, and is an Adjunct Professor at Northwestern University's McCormick School of Engineering where he teaches entrepreneurship.

Esther Dyson

Executive Founder Wellville
Esther Dyson(@edyson) is executive founder of Wellville(@WaytoWellville), a 10-year nonprofit project (2015-2024) to nudge society towards long-term and equitable thinking by showing the social and financial value of investing in health for all. She is also an active angel investor, focusing on human capital and health (more than “care”), space travel and a variety of useful innovations in areas such as agtech and logistics. She started her career as a proofreader, journalist, Wall Street analyst and finally editor/publisher/conference manager (Release 1.0 and PC Forum - 1982-2007). In 1996, she wrote the best-seller “Release 2.0: A design for living in the digital age (Broadway Books). In addition to a Harvard BA in economics, she earned a certificate of completion from the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center (2009) outside Moscow, for her six months of training as a backup cosmonaut.

Chris Savage

CEO & Founder Wistia
Chris Savage is the co-founder and CEO of Wistia, a web-based software solution that helps marketers turn viewers into brand advocates to grow their businesses. After graduating from Brown University, Chris and his co-founder Brendan Schwartz, started Wistia in Brendan’s living room in 2006. They founded the company with the goal of helping businesses effectively market their products or services more creatively through video. Recently, Savage and Schwartz turned down an offer to sell Wistia and took on $17.3M in debt instead, which allowed them to buy out their investors, gain full control of Wistia, and take the path less traveled in the tech industry. Now, more than 500,000 businesses across 50 countries depend on Wistia's products to build their brands and their businesses, including HubSpot, MailChimp, Sephora, Starbucks, and Tiffany & Co.

David Siegel

CEO Meetup
David Siegel is the CEO of Meetup, the leading social media platform dedicated to online groups that meet in person. He has over 20 years of experience as a technology and digital media executive leading organizations through innovative product development, rapid revenue growth and traffic acceleration. Prior to joining Meetup, David was CEO of Investopedia and before that, President of Seeking Alpha. David holds a BA in Philosophy, Politics & Economics and an MBA from the University of Pennsylvania. He is also an Adjunct Professor at Columbia University and Pace University where he teaches courses in Strategic Planning & Entrepreneurship.

Christi Olson

Head of Evangelism for Search Microsoft
Christi is the Head of Evangelism for Bing at Microsoft, and since 2015 has been annually recognized by PPC Hero and her peers as one of the 25 Most Influential PPC Experts. For over a decade she has managed digital marketing and analytics teams across Enterprises, Agencies and Start-Ups. Her love for digital and expertise in search has led her to keynote and speak at hundreds of conferences globally, including at over 80 conferences in 2018. She is a contributing author about all things search, conversational AI, and digital marketing across the web at Entrepreneur, TheNextWeb, MarketingProfs, Search Engine Land, and Search Engine Journal.

Rand Fishkin

CEO SparkToro
Rand Fishkin is the cofounder and CEO of SparkToro. He’s dedicated his professional life to helping people do better marketing through his blogging, videos, speaking, and his book, Lost and Founder. When Rand’s not working, he’s most likely to be in the company of his partner in marriage and (mostly petty) crime, author Geraldine DeRuiter. If you feed him great pasta or great whisky, he’ll give you the cheat code to rank #1 on Google.

Companies That Attended Past Conferences

"The conference pulls all the key audiences--from startups to VCs to corporates--together for two days of high-caliber education and networking to tackle the most pressing issues and important technologies facing businesses today."

Jason Williamson

Vice President, Oracle, Global Startup Program

"This program convenes a high-caliber and diverse set of leaders to discuss today’s most important technologies and debate how they’ll shape the future."

Matt Harris

Partner, Bain Capital Ventures

"There were tons of networking opportunities; almost every month I am connecting someone up with a person or company I learned about at Ascent."

Gabe Landes

COO, Calculate Green, Inc.

“Ascent Conference is an incredible opportunity for you to meet the East Coast tech-leaders who are uniquely positioned to provide you with the talent, technology and network to help you grow your business.”

Bonin Bough

Founder & Chief Growth Officer, Bonin Ventures

"From an ROI perspective, Ascent was one of the best events I've been to. We just sat back and let the leads come right to us."

Carissa Marker

HR & Benefits Advisor, TriNet

Reach for New Heights

 Ascend to the Top and Join Thousands of Other SaaS Companies at our 2-Day Conference

SEPTEMBER 30 – OCTOBER 1, 2020

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