Keiretsu Forum and MDB Capital Close 2025 With High-Impact Investor Summits, and Announces Expanded Summit Series for 2026
PHILADELPHIA, Dec. 11, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Keiretsu Forum Mid-Atlantic, South-East, and Texas (K4-MST), together with MDB Capital Holdings, LLC (NASDAQ:MDBH), today announced the successful completion of the Southeast Investor Conference in Atlanta and the Mid-Atlantic Investor Summit in Philadelphia, two investor-first events designed to reset how accredited angels and venture partners approach early-stage capital, syndication, and exits.
Across both events, more than 150 accredited investors, family offices, and venture ecosystem leaders came together to dissect current market realities, debunk myths that keep investor groups siloed, and develop practical pathways to higher-quality deal flow and more predictable liquidity.
Atlanta: Southeast Investor Conference Sets a High Bar
Hosted July 29–30 at Georgia Tech's Advanced Technology Development Center (ATDC), the Southeast Investor Conference was built explicitly for accredited investors and qualified family offices, in collaboration with Keiretsu Forum South-East, the Angel Capital Association (ACA), and ATDC.
The program combined educational sessions with investor-only content and structured networking. The conference featured:
- Approximately 75 accredited investors on site and more than 20 presentations over two days.
- A curated block of 10 diligence-ready, actively funding companies.
- An innovation showcase of 10–12 earliest-stage founders from the Southeast ecosystem, including companies emerging from Georgia Tech's ATDC and regional angel portfolios across AI, MedTech, FinTech, and consumer products.
"The Southeast Investor Conference proved what many of us suspected: when you put serious investors in a room with good, curated deal flow and real data on returns, the conversation moves quickly from ‘what's wrong with the market' to ‘what we can do together,'" said Howard Lubert, Area President of Keiretsu Forum MST.
Philadelphia: Mid-Atlantic Investor Summit Focuses on Faster, Better Exits
Held November 19–20 at Drexel University's James Creese Student Center, the Mid-Atlantic Investor Summit extended the Atlanta momentum to the Mid-Atlantic corridor. Hosted by Keiretsu Forum MST in partnership with Drexel's LeBow College of Business, and regional partners, the Summit emphasized disciplined portfolio strategy, syndication, and time-to-exit.
Over two days, the Summit delivered:
- Two blocks of "best-of-the-best" companies actively funding, with diligence already in motion and structured for syndication.
- A Mid-Atlantic Dragon's Den Showcase with 10–12 emerging companies sourced from leading accelerators, incubators, and university programs across the region.
- Parallel Investor and Founder tracks on portfolio construction, rights discipline, capital stacking, and realistic exit timelines, led by experienced investors.
Program elements such as the Restart. Refocus. Fast Track to NASDAQ session, investor panels on governance and rights, and founder-focused content on "getting truly fundable" directly addressed the reality that many early-stage exits have stretched from the traditional five-to-seven-year window to 10–12 years or more.
From Talk to Pathways: Building a New Playbook
Both the Southeast Investor Conference and the Mid-Atlantic Investor Summit were intentionally structured as working sessions, not pitch expos. Discussions centered on:
- Identifying companies capable of achieving profitability or a meaningful liquidity event in 24–36 months.
- Using rights, distribution structures, and "re-start" strategies to shorten time-to-exit and recover value from underperforming portfolio companies.
- Increasing cross-group syndication to reduce friction for founders and create larger, more consistent checks for investors.
- Creating clearer pathways from regional angel funding into MDB Capital's public venture and IPO model via IPO Angels.
"These events weren't about incremental tweaks, they were about changing the operating system," said George Brandon, President and Head of Community Development at MDB Capital. "By aligning disciplined angel investing with a proven public-venture pathway, we are giving investors and founders a more direct route from Series A to IPO, and creating a structure where liquidity in months, not decades, is a realistic target, not a marketing phrase."
Looking Ahead: Dallas, Atlanta, and Philadelphia in 2026
Building on the 2025 momentum, Keiretsu Forum MST and MDB Capital are announcing plans for an Investor Summit series in 2026:
- Dallas – March 2026: A Southwest-focused summit leveraging MDB Capital's home market and public-venture platform.
- Atlanta – June 2026: A return to the Southeast, deepening the work begun at the 2025 conference and expanding syndication across surrounding hubs.
- Philadelphia – October 21-22, 2026: A second Mid-Atlantic Investor Summit at Drexel University, scaling the Showcase and investor tracks introduced in 2025.
Each Summit will again feature:
- 10–12 local innovation-stage startups to highlight the health and depth of the regional pipeline.
- Approximately 10 companies with strong due diligence, defined investment packages, and active funding rounds.
- Investor- and founder-focused education modules that translate market signals into actionable portfolio and fundraising strategies.
"The road to Dallas, Atlanta, and Philadelphia in 2026 is being paved right now," Lubert added. "We're already seeing new syndication conversations, co-led deals, and founders redesigning their capital stack. The bottom line is simple: founders and funders working together, with a shared expectation that exits can and should be faster, cleaner, and better structured."
About Keiretsu Forum Mid-Atlantic, South-East & Texas
Keiretsu Forum is the world's largest and most successful accredited investor – private equity community, with more than 2,000 members across 53 chapters on four continents. Since its founding, Keiretsu Forum members have invested over $1 billion in 1,400+ companies across technology, life sciences, real estate, consumer products, and other high-growth sectors.
Keiretsu Forum Mid-Atlantic, South-East & Texas (K4-MST) has presented more than 250 vetted companies to members in the last three years and facilitated over $39 million in direct member investments, maintaining one of the highest conversion rates from presentation to funding in the angel ecosystem.
About MDB Capital
Founded in 1997, MDB Capital focuses on launching "Big Ideas" through a unique approach to public venture capital. The firm emphasizes community-driven financings of early-stage leaders in significant business and technology categories via early public offerings, primarily on NASDAQ, as well as post-IPO offerings for qualifying companies. MDB Capital Holdings, LLC (NASDAQ:MDBH) and its subsidiaries—including MDB Capital, a venture-focused broker-dealer with the MDB Direct trading platform, and PatentVest, the first integrated IP strategy and law firm—operate under the MDB Capital brand. MDB Capital is a registered broker-dealer, Member FINRA/SIPC.
For more information, please visit www.mdb.com.
Media Contact
Cindi Sutera
Communication Manager, K4-MST
[email protected]
610-613-2773
