The next Vator Splash event is being held on the evening of September 30, 2010. The Splash event, hosted by Vator, is a celebration of entrepreneurship. The evening gathering brings together high-profile, successful tech entrepreneurs sharing their lessons and advice alongside promising startups showcasing their innovative ideas.  Hear their lessons and advice on how to be a successful... [read more]

The next Vator Splash event is being held on the evening of September 30, 2010. The Splash event, hosted by Vator, is a celebration of entrepreneurship. The evening gathering brings together high-profile, successful tech entrepreneurs sharing their lessons and advice alongside promising startups showcasing their innovative ideas.  Hear their lessons and advice on how to be a successful entrepreneur.   The event includes keynotes from Peter Thiel, co-founder of PayPal, who also co-founded Founders Fund and Clarium Capital, Twitter COO Dick Costolo, who also sold his last company Feedburner to Google for some $100 million, as well as founder and CEO of Eventbrite, Kevin Hartz. The event includes wine, beer and drinks, and ends with an afterparty, starring venture capitalists and executives from Facebook gracing the stage.  Meet up-and-coming entrepreneurs with innovative ideas that could change the world. Ten companies selected by their peers and vetted by VC judges will get a chance to present onstage with a 4-minute presentation. At the Splash event, one company will be voted by the audience to present one more time on the segment Splash Box - Vator's American Idol for startups, with venture capitalists as panelists. It's too late to enter. But you can check out the competition here: Vator Splash (September)        Agenda: 4:00 to 5:30 - Snacks, drinks (wine), socializing and time to see demo pits 5:30 to 5:45 - Bambi Francisco (Welcome remarks) 5:45 to 6:15 - Keynote 1 (Twitter COO Dick Costolo) 6:15 to 6:45 - First five startup pitches (4 minutes each) - (Investor panel: Raj Kapoor - Mayfield, Tim Chang - Norwest, Dana Stalder - Matrix) 6:45 to 7:15 - Keynote 2 (Kevin Hartz, Eventbrite CEO and founder) 7:15 to 7:45 - Networking break - snacks/drinks (wine), time to see demo pits 7:45 to 8:15 - Next five startup pitches (4 minutes each) - (Investor panel: Jed Katz - Javelin, Ezra Roizen - Ackrell Capital, Thao Tran - Washington Post) 8:15 to 8:40 - Keynote 3 (Peter Thiel, Founders Fund, Clarium Capital) 8:40 to 9:10 - Splash Box - (Investor panel: Aydin Senkut - Felicis, Rob Hayes - First Round, Rick Heitzmann - Firstmark, Gideon Yu - Khosla Ventures) 9:10 to 9:30 - See demo pits 9:30 to midnight - Wine and drinks during Media Temple's afterparty in the night club with Raj Kapoor (VC at Mayfield), Phil Kaplan (Blippy), Tim Chang (Norwest), Ethan Beard (Facebook), Prashant Fuloria (Facebook) About the speakers Peter  Thiel  is an American entrepreneur, hedge fund manager, libertarian and venture capitalist. With Elon Musk and Max Levchin, Thiel co-founded PayPal and was its CEO. He currently serves as president of Clarium Capital, a global macro hedge fund with more than $2 billion under management, and a managing partner in The Founders Fund, a $275 million venture capital fund he launched with Ken Howery and Luke Nosek in 2005. He was an early investor in Facebook, the popular social-networking site, and sits on the company’s board of directors.   Dick Costolo is COO of Twitter. Twitter, founded in 2006, is the leading micro-bloggin site, that has raised $160-plus million from Insight Ventures, T.Rowe Price, IVP, Morgan Stanley, Union Square Ventures, and more. Dick was an early investor in Twitter. Prior to Twitter, Dick sold his company Feedburner to Google for $100 million. Kevin Hartz is founder and CEO of Eventbrite. Eventbrite has raised $6.5 million from Sequoia Capital. Kevin was previously Founder and CEO of Xoom Corp., an international money-transfer company, servicing more htan 40 countries. Xoom is backe by Sequoia, Capital, NEA, Fidelity Ventures, Stanford Univ, and Peter Thiel. Kevin is an active angel investor, having invested in PayPal, Geni, Friendster, Tripit, Flixster, Adnectar, Yammer, TokBox, Boku, Flexilis, Anonymizer, and Trulia.      About the VC/judges Rob Hayes is a managing partner at First Round Capital. Rob came to First Round Capital in 2006 from Omidyar Network where he was their first venture investor. Prior to joining Omidyar Network in 2004, Rob was at Palm where he started up their corporate venture fund.  While in that role he also managed the strategy effort around Palm OS that led to the spinout of PalmSource.  Rob started at Palm as product manager for the initial device-independent releases of Palm OS.  During this time, Rob was responsible for the versions of Palm OS on dozens of devices including the initial Treo products.Rob has an MBA from Columbia University and a B.A. in Political Economy from the University of California, Berkeley. Rick Heitzmann is a founder and managing director at FirstMark Capital. Prior to founding FirstMark, Rick was a partner at Pequot Ventures, where he started in 1999. Rick focuses on investments in emerging media and advertising and data and information services. Rick has led or co-led many investments in the consumer technology market including StubHub (acquired by ebay) and US Search (First Advantage