When
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
6:00PM to 6:30PM – Registration and Networking
6:30PM to 7:45PM – Main Event
7:45PM to 8:30PM – Networking
Where
Arbuckle Lounge and Bishop Auditorium at Stanford Business School
(click for directions & parking information)
Event Description:
Is venture capital still the lifeblood of start-up companies? With so much conflicting advice on funding needs, this whole raising-money thing can seem a little like applying to college: Everyone has a different idea about what it takes to succeed.
Is it as simple as a having a defendable technology or business model, paying customers, a proven team, a solid business plan and a clear exit strategy to garner interest from venture capitalists?
What is the best route for you? Should you bootstrap to build personal equity in your venture or seek funding at an early stage? Come listen to the view points of successful institutional venture capitalists and angel investors.
Limited Seating. Reserve your seats soon!
Please click here to log into your VLAB account before registering
Register Now!
Moderator
Ravi Belani, Draper Fisher Jurvetson
Panel
Howard Hartenbaum – August Capital
Josh Kopelman – First Round Capital
Mike Maples – Maples Investment
Dave Strohm – Greylock
Bios
Howard Hartenbaum – August Capital
Howard Hartenbaum joined August Capital in 2008. Prior to joining, he served as a General Partner at Draper Richards LP where he was the founding investor in Skype and a former member of the board of directors where his achievement resulted in his joining the Forbes Midas List of top venture capitalists.
Before entering the venture capital field, Howard was at Hughes Electronics, where he was responsible for supporting business development, marketing and sales of satellite, information security and automotive technologies developed by HRL Laboratories. He also worked in engineering positions in ergonomics and user experience at Honda Motor Company and manufacturing at Teledyne Relays.
Howard has worked overseas for a total of ten years in Luxembourg and Japan. He is a graduate of M.I.T.
Current Investments: Pixazza, Swoopo
Previous investments: Skype (acquired by eBay – EBAY), Photobucket (acquired by Fox Interactive Media – NWS), Bebo (acquired by AOL – TWX) and Netkraft (acquired by Adea Solutions)
Josh Kopelman, First Round Capital
Josh has been an active entrepreneur and investor in the Internet industry since its commercialization. In 1992, while he was a student at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, Josh co-founded Infonautics Corporation – an Internet information company. In 1996, Infonautics went public on the NASDAQ stock exchange.
Josh founded Half.com in July of 1999, and led it to become one of the largest sellers of used books, movies and music in the world. Half.com was acquired by eBay in July 2000 — and Josh remained with eBay for three years, running the Half.com business unit and growing eBay’s Media marketplace to almost half a billion dollars in annual gross merchandise sales. In late 2003 Josh helped to found TurnTide, an anti-spam company that created the world’s first anti-spam router. TurnTide was acquired by Symantec just six months later.
In addition to being an active angel investor, Josh has served as an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Comcast Interactive Capital – a $350 million venture capital fund affiliated with Comcast Corporation.
In 2001 Josh and his wife created the Kopelman Foundation, a non-profit organization focused on angel philanthropy to provide “start-up” grants to social entrepreneurs. He currently serves on the Board of Directors of Main Line Health, suburban Philadelphia’s most comprehensive healthcare resource, operating four of the region’s most-respected hospitals. He also serves on as a member of the advisory boards for Wharton Entrepreneurial Center and the Weiss Tech House at the University of Pennsylvania.
Josh earned a Bachelor of Science degree cum laude in Entrepreneurial Management and Marketing from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.
Mike Maples, Maples Investment
Mike Maples, Jr. is the managing partner of Maples Investments, and was recently named as one of “8 Rising VC Stars” by Fortune Magazine for his investments in business and consumer technologycompanies. Before becoming a full-time investor, Mike was an entrepreneur and operating executive who worked in a variety of senior management roles in high-growth companies. His background spans a variety of markets including consumer technology, small business, and the enterprise, and he has led various functions in product development, marketing, business development, and corporate strategy.
Before founding Maples Investments, Mike co-founded Motive, Inc., the world’s leading broadband software company in 1997, and played key roles in its growth from raw start-up through sales of more than $75 million. Motive was one of the only successful technology IPOs in 2004, and the most successful infrastructure software IPO for the prior three years. At Motive, Mike was General Manager of Motive’s Corporate Business Unit, as well as Chief Marketing and Strategy officer.
Prior to Motive, Mike was responsible for worldwide product marketing at Tivoli Systems, where he managed the company’s product portfolio from its early-stage development through its 1995 IPO and growth to a $750M line of business within the IBM Software Group. Mike began his professional career at Silicon Graphics, where he served in business development and product marketing roles.
In his spare time Mike is an amateur artist, movie-maker, and calligrapher. He holds an Engineering degree from Stanford University, an MBA from Harvard Business School, and is a frequent speaker at industry conferences and a guest-lecturer on entrepreneurship at Harvard Business School, Stanford University, Princeton University, and the University of Texas.
Dave Strohm, Greylock
Dave joined Greylock in 1980 and opened our west coast office in 1983. He is a graduate of Dartmouth College and the Harvard Business School.
Dave is on the board of AtHoc, Bounty Jobs, Cuil, CoWare, EMC Corporation, OpenDNS, Progreso Financiero, richrelevance, SuccessFactors, Tabula and VMware.
Dave also led Greylock’s prior involvement with companies such as Doubleclick (Nasdaq:DCLK), Forte Software (acquired by Sun Microsystems), Kiva Software (acquired by Netscape), Legato Systems (acquired by EMC), Decru (acquired by Network Appliance), Internet Security Systems (acquired by IBM), Mentor Graphics, Mobile Automation (acquired by iPass), ccMail (acquired by Lotus/IBM), and Cygnus (acquired by RedHat), Net Effect Systems (acquired by Ask.com), Octane Software (acquired by Epiphany) and Wily Technology (acquired by CA).
Ravi Belani
Ravi Belani is an Associate at Draper Fisher Jurvetson, where he serveson the boards of DesiHits, Redux, LiveMedia, TinyPictures, YieldSoftware, and Vizu. Ravi also led the firm’s investments in Komli andPubmatic.
Ravi is a Phi Beta Kappa and Tau Beta Pi graduate of StanfordUniversity, holding a BS with Distinction and MS in IndustrialEngineering and Engineering Management. Ravi also holds an MBA fromHarvard Business School. As a Board Fellow at Harvard, Ravi served theGlobal Board of TiE (The Indus Entrepreneurs). Ravi is also a graduateof the Kauffman Fellows Program.
Limited Seating. Reserve your seats soon!
Please click here to log into your VLAB account before registering
Register Now!
For any questions, please email ebf@vlab.org
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