Real Time Conference Coverage : 2026 Mid-Atlantic Capital Conference; November 10, 2026 Philadelphia PA
Reporter: Stephen J. Williams, Ph.D.
Mid-Atlantic Capital Conference
November 9 & 10, 2026
Philadelphia, PA | Presented by PACT
“Cap Con” is one of the largest venture capital conferences on the East Coast — a dynamic platform where innovation meets investment. For over 30 years, the conference has connected emerging growth companies, investors, advisors, and corporate leaders from across the region.
The conference culminates in the Lion’s Den — our version of Shark Tank — where real dollars are invested and real deals are made in front of the room.
Agenda
Tuesday, November 10th 2026
2026 Mid-Atlantic Capital Conference – Pennsylvania Convention Center – 1101 Arch St. Philadelphia, PA 19107
Corporate Innovation Panel Track
10:20 AM – 11:00 AM
201 ABC
Navigating the AI Future: Where Will Value Be Created and Destroyed?
Envision potential future AI scenarios and their implication over the next 3-5 years.
It’s a whole new world. AI is reshaping not only what companies build, but what a company can look like. This interactive session will challenge attendees to explore three possible AI Future Scenarios covering shifts in technology, economics, regulation, and societal response to AI as well as the implications for future enterprises from established companies transforming with AI to AI-natives companies disrupting existing markets with a fraction of the employees.
Through scenario discussions and audience polling, investors, founders, and corporate leaders will consider where durable value will exist, what will remain uniquely human, and how these shifts should change the way we invest and innovate.
10:20 AM
204 A
Featured Company Presentations Round 1
Healthcare & Life Sciences
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SynchNeuro
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Carenostics
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Moberg Analytics, Inc.
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Polygon Health Analytics LLC
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Mind and Match
10:20 AM
204 B
Featured Company Presentations Round 1
Growth Stage
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DermaSensor Inc.
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Endomedix, Inc.
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Meduloc
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BLUEWAVE Technologies
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Chromatan Inc
10:20 AM
204 C
Featured Company Presentations Round 1
Technology
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Raptor Defense Company
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Serpent Robotics
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BleedIo, Tech
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TechNovaTime
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Alive3D
11:15 AM – 11:55 AM
201 ABC
Beyond the Pilot: Building AI That Actually Delivers
As organizations gain a clearer understanding of AI’s potential, the focus is shifting toward how these technologies can be thoughtfully adopted and applied to create measurable business value. This session will explore what it takes to move AI, agents, and agentic systems from experimentation into production, where organizations are seeing real ROI, and how leaders can distinguish transformative applications from expensive experimentation.
- how can AI be made relevant at scale? How do we move from the pilot AI to a scaled up AI solution
- CGI moderates the panel of Jefferson Health, Haleon, and TransAmerica
- Abhijit Singh: people were not trusting the new technology; the biggest takeaway he had after initiating pilots was that reengineering the solution was an issue because they had to do AI audits but it tooks time to see which pilots failed, especially in health care; Abhijit agrees with Dean on the pain points that it is even more crucial in healthcare; what is problem trying to solve as experts are needed, a general agentic would not be good enough to give value to healthcare industry; Mark from Haleon agrees with this synopsis
- Mark Manning: Consumer healthcare company; they had lots of pilot projects started; they experimented with multiple ideas but had issues with measuring success; the AI platform only good as what it has access to; AI was not giving the depth of answers; they need more relevant agentic AI; he calls the results ‘shallow’
- Dean Holland: TransAmerica decided to make their own platform which they call Agentic and seen an acceleration by building their own platform than using an LLM from others like OpenAI; at first they have been having problems with the outcomes; they see an issue with a need for DOMAIN EXPERTISE, it appears to be a pain point in the industry
- Question: how are you changing operations in digital teams to produce most value? Mark says their teams are now focused on specific goals so they remain focused on outcomes. How are they partnering with the hyperscalers? Abjihit: There are lots of decision makers in a hospital so multiple teams evaluate adopting any solutions from partners or hyperscalers: for example radiology imaging has acute shortage of radiologists so can they leverage AI to improve radiology workflows;
- Question: What comes next and what have you learned from pilots?: Mark; agentic commerce (who do they talk to), should they partner with people or companies; Dean: we are going back to beginning and starting to put projects on hold, they are revisiting their AI strategy (customer engagement and operations will be main focus) and they are needing that deep domain expertise; Jefferson is mainly focused on workflow optimization, however they do see potential to increase physicians interaction time with patients; Jefferson believes in changing entire workflow not just piecemeal solutions to individual problems or time-consuming tasks
- TransAmerica wants to work closer with the Anthropics and OpenAI but it is imperative to work with internal teams
- question from audience on partnering: Abhijit says AI is actually making partnering harder; Mark agrees that it takes months for internal teams approval to establish a partnership
11:15 AM
204 A
Featured Company Presentations Round 2
Healthcare & Life Sciences
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Little One Nutrition Co
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Nospharma
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Prolifagen, Inc.
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BioCurie
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CTIBIOTECH USA
11:15 AM
204 B
Featured Company Presentations Round 2
Growth Stage
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Mussel Polymers Inc
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Setex Technologies
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Antithesis Foods
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BioFluff Inc
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Persevere Therapeutics
11:15 AM
204 C
Featured Company Presentations Round 2
Technology
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Phyll
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Seedless
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Syntropiq Inc.
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GreenIRR Inc.
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Value Unlimited Inc DBA OnPoint
12:30 PM
Ballroom A/B
Keynote Fireside Chat: Building a Championship Culture with Jay Wright
What does it take to build a winning team and sustain success over time? Join legendary Villanova men’s basketball coach and Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame inductee Jay Wright for a fireside chat with Stephanie Humphrey on leadership, teamwork, and building a culture of excellence.
Drawing from more than two decades leading Villanova, two NCAA national championships, and four Final Four appearances, Wright will share lessons on developing talent, fostering trust, navigating challenges, and creating an environment where individuals and teams can perform at their best. The conversation will explore how the principles behind championship teams can be applied to business, entrepreneurship, and organizational leadership.
1:30 PM – 2:10 PM
201 ABC
Startup × Investor × Corporate: Reinventing the Innovation Model
The traditional playbook for corporate innovation is changing. As AI accelerates ideation, experimentation, lowers barriers to entry, and shortens the time between idea and market, startups, investors, and enterprises are rethinking how they build, buy, partner, and invest. Through real-world examples, this panel will explore how each player can work together to bring innovation to market faster—and what successful partnerships look like in the AI era.
This presentation features a panel with:
Harris Kaplan, Litmys, LLC
Amanda McBride Wilk, Accenture
Ridhard Friedman,Noom
Moderator: Mikchael Bachman, Boomi
What is one thing AI has made less valuable this year?
- Amanda: less impressive is flashy demo; need a concrete outputs; domain Knowledge is becoming more and more important; Accenture has the ability to look at large clients data; organizations are not sure where to go with the new technology; most of their successful deals are partnerships; humans are needed for judgement in investment decisions; AI is great at parsing large amounts of information; experts are still needed for judgement calls; AI does not have the experience
- Richard: outputs may not be as valuable as the process; why are you doing something is not as important for a builder agentic systems; he says they tested the small models by putting in the LLMs and LLMs are working better for them; context is important; curious why they are stilling feeding LLMs with SLMs
- Harris: more valuable faster time to trial; less valuable is increasing using output of AI to do corporate strategy; he talks first hand to physicians and payer and now AI is focusing on the what but lost is the why (like how we change behavior); strategies do not change just the speed at which they can be executed; AI allows companies to assess what is going on quickly and pivot; VC firms need to pivot; AI can be the tool to allow for quick pivot in implementation of strategy
- moderator: there will be changes in focus of AI in 2027-28; he has been hearing a lot about outcome based pricing; people are wondering how do you value to metric you are using to make the outcome based pricing; with deal making, Accenture would rather partner than invest and create value of the startup; Noom always looks at the platform and how platform increases value; Most of panel thinks there will be a lot less IPOs in 2027 except in niche areas
1:50 PM
204 A
Featured Company Presentations Round 3
Healthcare & Life Sciences
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Dialysis-X, Inc.
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Earable Intelligence
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TOPAS Solutions, Inc.
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Vivifi Medical Inc
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Ozie
1:50 PM
204 B
Featured Company Presentations Round 3
Growth Stage
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Burro
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Raise Robotics, Inc.
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Deepwave
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Tiami Networks Inc
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Transcendap
1:50 PM
204 C
Featured Company Presentations Round 3
Technology
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BOSS Controls Inc
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BUCKSTOP
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CoStream Technologies, Inc.
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Dunya Analytics
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NanoSepex
2:30 PM – 3:00 PM
201 ABC
Building Advantage in the AI Era with Philip Moyer: Where Will the Next Generation of Value Be Created?
As AI becomes embedded across industries, access to powerful models alone won’t create a lasting competitive advantage. The next wave of opportunity will come from what companies build around them—the proprietary data, industry context, tools, workflows, and feedback loops that turn AI capabilities into differentiated products and measurable value.
In this fireside conversation, Philip Moyer of McGraw Hill will explore where value is being created across the emerging AI stack and what that means for startups, investors, and established companies. Drawing from his experience across the technology industry and now leading within a legacy organization undergoing its own transformation, Moyer will discuss how companies can identify opportunities for differentiation, build stronger data and context with every interaction, and create advantages that become more valuable over time.
The conversation will also examine what young companies should be building today, how established organizations can modernize their operating models, and where the next generation of enduring AI businesses may emerge as the technology continues to evolve.
Moderator: Frederic Miskawi
Where is the next value coming from?
Philip Moyer:
- started out at Microsoft in this Philadelphia area. The last mile of any technology is the hardest part. At Mcgraw Hill he has been over the educational spectrum listening to customers (grade school, high school. medical school) The era of Large models will end. In his day AOL was the big player but it all will end. They are encoding all these learning objectives during education (about 30,000 into ontologies). LLMs don’t have the contextual ontology (memory).
- Mcgraw Hill has over 1 million curriculums they serve… They want universities to use agentic models as they will help protect copyrights.
- most of the clouds like AWS built on open source and
- digital moat: 1. speed to market 2. trust (through partnerships) 3. context (move at speed)
- McGraw Hill most is built on trust. Education market is 7 trillion market… higher than IT market
- disruption only happens when you respect the industry.. respect teachers
- show the data and outcomes to everyone (all stakeholders)
- pace is also a moat for them: getting the pace of rollout of innovation is important
- AI moves from answering questions to making goals. AI can’t make goals now so it is important for human integration to make the goals and let agentic perform the workflows
3:05 PM – 3:45 PM
Ballroom – A/B
Reverse Pitch Live: Corporate Innovation Challenges
The tables turn as corporate leaders take the stage to pitch their biggest business and technology challenges to the room. Instead of hearing what startups want to sell, founders and investors will hear directly from enterprises about the problems they are actively trying to solve, where they are looking for innovation, and what they need from potential partners.
The session creates a live marketplace for collaboration: giving startups insight into real enterprise demand; investors visibility into emerging opportunities; and corporations access to new ideas and potential solutions.
4:00 PM – 5:15 PM
201 ABC
Lion’s Den
The conference culminates in the Lion’s Den — our version of Shark Tank — where real dollars are invested and real deals are made in front of the room. Watch innovation meet opportunity as the most impressive start-ups from the day take the stage to pitch their businesses before a panel of investors.
Each company will share how much capital it is seeking and the equity it is offering in return, while investors ask tough questions, evaluate the opportunity, and determine whether to make an investment. More than a competition, Lion’s Den offers an unfiltered look at what it takes to secure investment. Expect bold ideas, candid feedback, and an exciting glimpse into the future of healthcare, technology, and innovation.
Meeting Synopsis
This importance conference brought together three groups of stakeholders in corporate AI adoption: AI engineers, AI corporate strategists and consultants, and investors in AI. There were multiple insights in discussions with these three groups including the long time it takes for any one entity, be it a hospital or a healthcare company, to adopt AI strategy into their workflows. It was apparent that AI is generally being adopted to decrease workflow time and increase efficiency rather than use in discovery. For instance, Jefferson Health mentioned they have to go through teams of physicians and healthcare workers along with IT people to see if any agentic AI can be integrated into their workflows, like radiology. This takes months of strategy meetings before a partnership or deal is made. I did find it interesting that a beta test among patients is not included. Another theme with the investors and consulting firms was they would rather do partnerships and pay for that instead of one off deals. They had mentioned that there will be a dearth of IPOs in the next year 2027. Many of the panelists mentioned it is easy to make agents but the real question is WHY instead of what function does it serve. They were careful of AI costs as well and some eluded to a sort of Blockchain system to contain AI costs. Finally some had mentioned about the last mile for the technology will be the hardest phase for AI. They had mentioned that although these large systems had been built out there is a severe lack of context which only experts in a field can offer. The consulting firms are actively recruiting such experts with domain Knowledge as well as the engineers see this as a pain point in their organizations (the lack of domain expertise).
Tweet Collection
New CEO Philip Moyer. We are developing multiple agentic #AI to assist teachers on classrooms; a $7 trillion market
agree pain point is lack of domain expert agentic systems
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