NEW DELHI: “Meet the Drapers”, a crowdfunding-based reality series produced and directed by Sarika Batra is premiering across the United States on 19 November 2017 on Sony Entertainment Television.
According to a Sony Pictures Networks announcement, this innovative show will be on air at 6pm ET.
The programme shows new up-and-coming startups pitch their ideas before three generations of venture capitalists from one of the most prominent families in Silicon Valley: Bill Draper, Tim Draper, and Jesse Draper.
Each episode will feature three exciting startups trying to convince the Drapers to invest in their company and simultaneously convince millions of viewers to fund them through their crowdfunding page on the Republic platform.
Episodes will also feature a guest judge, who is a legendary success in his/her respective field.
Bill Draper began his venture capital career in 1959 and is one of America’s first venture capitalists. Currently, he is Managing Director of Draper Richards LP and Draper International. He serves as the co-chairman of the Draper Richards Kaplan Foundation. Draper is also author of the book, The Startup Game: Inside the Partnership between Venture Capitalists and Entrepreneurs.
His son Tim Draper has been named one of Worth Magazine’s 100 Most Powerful People in finance and is the founding partner of Draper Associates and DFJ. His original suggestion to use viral marketing as a method for spreading a software application from customer to customer was instrumental to the success of Hotmail, Skype and others. Tim also received the World Entrepreneurship Forum’s “Entrepreneur for the World” in 2015.
Tim’s daughter Jesse Draper is helping female founded and led companies through her new venture capital fund Halogen Ventures. Through Halogen Ventures, Jesse spearheads early stage seed investing in female founded consumer technology startups; some of her portfolio companies include: Laurel & Wolf, Move Loot, Carbon38, BlockCypher, Beautycon & Sugarfina.
Tim Draper said: “It is finally possible for the individual investor to participate in the funding of exciting young ventures. ‘Meet the Drapers’ allows viewers to watch us interview entrepreneurs and then, invest in companies that have the potential to change the world. We are thrilled to have created a unique show, that invites viewers to become investors in exciting new startups. We’ve been blown away by the entrepreneurs we’ve met so far, and believe viewers will be too.”
The guest judges for “Meet the Drapers” include business executive, entrepreneur and the founder and former CEO of InfoSpace Naveen Jain; founder and former CEO of TIBCO, a multimillion-dollar real-time computing company Vivek Ranadive, and Jyoti Bansal who founded and was former CEO of AppDynamics, which he sold to Cisco for $3.7 billion.
“South Asians are a vibrant part of the Silicon Valley startup culture,” said Jaideep Janakiram, Head of the Americas at Sony Pictures Networks. “We created this show to showcase these trailblazing entrepreneurs, VCs and angels, and to allow SET viewers to participate in their ventures.
Pitching companies will be accepting investments via Republic – a leading equity crowdfunding platform that makes startup investing available to anyone. Republic is the easiest way to become an investor in breakout early-stage startups for as little as $10.
