MELVILLE, NY -- (Marketwire) -- 12/07/12 -- The Long Island Capital Alliance ("LICA"), the leading non-profit capital formation and business development organization serving regional companies, today announced the presenting companies and panelists for its Social Media Capital Forum to be held on December 14, 2012. The capital forum will be held in partnership with Accelerate Long Island and Social Media Association, Inc.

The presenting companies to be showcased at LICA's Social Media Capital Forum were selected by LICA for this event from a wide selection of developing social media companies on Long Island. Several of the presenting companies provide best-in-class solutions to enhance social and business practice via the Internet or a through a cloud-based format. These exciting social media companies are in need of private investment and other business development assistance. Each of the companies selected for presentation will provided a comprehensive discussion of their technology, application or service, a financial overview and catalysts for significant growth. A panel of social media investors will also participate in the event. The panel will provide insights on presenting companies' business plans and investment potential.

Social Media Capital Forum on December 14, 2012 - Participants

Panel of Investors

Theodore B. Smith III: Co-founder and Managing Partners of Canrock Ventures, one of Long Island's leading Internet software investment funds. He also is President and CEO of one of the largest privately held manufacturers of metal parts and fasteners, a company headquartered in Westbury, NY, where he has been employed since 1989 following several years on Wall Street.

John Ason: An investor in over 40 companies over 16 years, specializing in early stage pre-revenue companies in e-commerce, technology, advertising, digital social media and entertainment. He is a guest lecturer at Wharton, NYU, Rutgers, NJIT and, Fairleigh Dickinson. He is a visiting executive at the Iaccoca Institute, a founding investor in Digital Entertainment Ventures VC, and a mentor at the ERA, DreamIt, TechLaunch and WIN accelerators.

Alan Berkson: Investor and the founder and principal of Intelligist Group, a team of innovative strategists that help businesses move past blockages, leverages unidentified or underutilized assets and identify opportunities for growth.

Presenting Companies

CollectorZoo™: CollectorZoo is an Internet-based Social Commerce company designed by collectors for collectors. The CollectorZoo website will be the ultimate destination where enthusiasts, serious collectors, or anyone with an inventory of collectibles will organize, value, analyze and, sell collectibles, and connect with fellow collectors. CollectorZoo brings the collector community tools to instantly create value for their collectibles -- effectively creating wealth that wasn't there before (Value My Collection™).

• CollectorZoo Wow Factor: The core of CollectorZoo is a one-of-a-kind Inventory Management System. Utilizing collector data, CollectorZoo utilizes Social Media technology to connect collectors in similar categories anywhere in the world.

EventNow: Since 2010, EventNow has been making party and event planning easier and has sourced more than $24 Million in event and party budgets to its vendors; the free, easy-to-use service helps those looking to throw the perfect soiree hire the best vendors for their event.

• EventNow Wow Factor: Unlike other online services that merely serve as a directory of qualified vendors by industry and proximity, EventNow provides consumers a one-stop-shop of options and immediate proposals and bids.

General Sentiment: General Sentiment's social media analytics deliver insights that change the way brands make product and marketing decisions. General Sentiment provides a dashboard, an API and a custom reporting service, all of which allow corporate executives to comprehensively understand brand perception, identify trending topics in specific industries and optimize the effectiveness of marketing campaigns based in large part on sentiment expressed in social media.

• General Sentiment Wow Factor: Fueled by large-scale natural language processing, General Sentiment offers real-time social intelligence to assist clients in interpreting online conversations and discovering actionable social insights.

GroupGifting.com: GroupGifting.com's innovative social and mobile technology, MyGiftWand gifting service, a web and mobile app, promotes friend-to-friend and group gifting. The Company emphasizes retailer solutions and social gifting to gain traction with social media marketing efforts while driving real, measurable commerce in the process.

• GroupGifting.com Wow Factor: Social gifting is a growing phenomenon thanks to the rapid expansion of social and mobile markets, and GroupGifting.com is poised to help retailers capitalize on these growing trends with its flagship application, eGifter. Groupgifting.com helps retailers who are experimenting with various ways to realize the promise of social commerce and leverage the invaluable information available in the Facebook Social Graph.

Karma 411: Karma 411 provides online social fundraising solutions for nonprofits by facilitating crowd funding, energizing and monetizing events online, and customizing fundraising activities.

• Karma411 Wow Factor: Karma411's social networking platform serves as a model for businesses looking to fully integrate traditional websites and application development with new social tools for the web 2.0 world.

Student Launcher: An online fundraising platform for schools that leverages social media and crowdfunding to increase a school's total donor pool and number of donations with fewer resources needed.

• Student Launcher Wow Factor: A project of Swift Kick, the three-time award winning training/consulting company that has worked with over 250 colleges & universities to increase student engagement and retention, Student Launcher uses social media and web-based solutions to provide schools with free micro-fundraising platforms while collecting fees for ongoing services and credit card processing for each donation.

BoomerPPL: A social networking website focused on providing Baby Boomers with many value-added benefits. Information on the site includes highly-relevant content on retirement issues and interests, discount member benefits including travel and leisure benefits and, insurance products complementary to offerings currently found on over-50-year-old websites.

• BoomerPPL Wow Factor: This new social networking platform provides an opportunity for people of similar age and interests with better networking and information sharing opportunities.

LICA, Accelerate Long Island and Social Media Association will host the Social Media Capital Forum on December 14, 2012 from 8:00 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. at 68 South Service Road, Melville, NY. At the capital forum, the seven selected social media companies will showcase their technologies, applications and services. A panel of investors and industry experts will observe these presentations and provide their insights on the development of the social media industry and its investments prospects. For more information about the event, please contact LICA today or register online.

About the Long Island Capital Alliance:

Since 1984, the Long Island Capital Alliance (www.licapital.org), formerly known as Long Island Venture Group, has been promoting business growth on Long Island. LICA seeks to create a productive and business-friendly environment that will afford area businesses access to the resources necessary to compete successfully in today's markets. LICA serves as a focal point for the exchange of ideas among new and existing business enterprises, successful entrepreneurs, investors, and service providers. Through quarterly capital forums and special meetings, LICA brings together members of the region's business community, and has been recognized as the place to turn to when small businesses need equity, debt, or other financing, or for investors to find an attractive investment opportunity.

LICA's mission is to encourage economic development on Long Island by facilitating capital formation for a broad range of companies in various industries, from early stage to mature middle market closely held and publicly-traded businesses. LICA accomplishes this primarily through education, networking, quarterly capital forums, periodic special educational meetings, and alliances with other regional organizations. LICA brings together members of the region's business community and serves as the finance arm for significant local business and organizations.

About Accelerate Long Island:

Accelerate Long Island (www.accelerateli.org) was created in 2011 to foster the development of an innovation-based economy on Long Island. Long Island's world class academic and research institutions have approximately $1.2 billion in annual research funding. It is the goal of Accelerate Long Island to commercialize that research into start-up companies in three industry clusters: Information Technology, Biotech/life sciences, and Energy. Accelerate Long Island received a $500,000 grant to start a seed fund for early stage companies, which is matched by $750,000 from the Long Island Emerging Technologies Fund, a partnership of venture capitalists. Accelerate Long Island will provide mentoring to start-ups and is working to attract more venture capital investment to Long Island.

About Social Media Association, Inc.

Social Media Association, Inc. is an independent social media group that provides a platform for teaching, sharing, and learning together in pursuit of empowering, informing and inspiring professionals and social media enthusiasts. The organization is a think tank that shines a light on social media for leveraging opportunities and inspiring possibilities to increase brand visibility and enhance business opportunities.

For more information on LICA and its next event, please contact LICA today or register online.