Join StartOutSF for a celebration of the National Coming Out Day and a panel hosted by StartOut and Howard Rice. Our terrific panel will share practical tips, as well as common pitfalls, of raising early-stage capital from the perspective of both an entrepreneur and an investor. Moderated by Howard Rice director Julia Vax, our panel is composed of notable investors Amy Errett...
[read more] Join StartOutSF for a celebration of the National Coming Out Day and a panel hosted by StartOut and Howard Rice. Our terrific panel will share practical tips, as well as common pitfalls, of raising early-stage capital from the perspective of both an entrepreneur and an investor. Moderated by Howard Rice director Julia Vax, our panel is composed of notable investors Amy Errett (partner at Maveron) and Alex Sloan (VP at Advanced Equities) as well as successful entrepreneurs Conor Madigan (CEO and Founder of Kateeva) and Geoff Lewis (CEO and Founder of Top Guest). Panelists: Amy Errett Amy Errett is a Partner at the venture capital firm Maveron. Errett brings to Maveron more than 25 years of business and operating expertise as a leading entrepreneur, senior executive and social mission visionary. Her focal point is in emerging consumer trends, e-commerce social shopping, the environment and reaching niche audiences. Errett currently serves on the Altius Education, Livemocha and KidZui Board of Directors. Errett’s multi-faceted career has ranged from the online Web 2.0 media industry, to the off-line consumer marketplace, and even to volunteer, non-profit leadership. Most recently, she was Chief Executive Officer and partial owner of Olivia, repositioning the travel company as a lifestyle company both online and offline for lesbians while multiplying revenues from $6 million to an expected $25 million in 2007. In 2006, Errett was awarded the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year for Northern California. Prior to her work at Olivia in 2002, she founded and served as chair and Chief Executive Officer of The Spectrem Group, a worldwide strategic consulting, information and M&A advisory firm. Errett sold Spectrem to an IPG subsidiary, NFO Worldwide (NYSE: NFLOW) in 1996. After the sale, she joined the senior management team at E*Trade where she diversified the company’s business beyond brokerage and ran a $200 million business that encompassed the management of E*Trade’s growth areas including their business to business stock option division and launched a successful asset-based products and investment management services division. Early in her career, Errett was a banker at Banker’s Trust. Among Errett’s citations is the Israel Fellows Award by the San Francisco-based Jewish Community Federation. A passionate humanitarian, Errett is the Chair of the Board of Glide Foundation, San Francisco’s largest non-governmental, direct social services organization. She also spends time horseback riding and fly fishing, and is an avid skier and snowboarder. A New York native, Errett earned an MBA in Finance from The Wharton School and a BA in Liberal Arts from the University of Connecticut. She and her partner live in San Francisco with their daughter. Alex Sloan Alex has spent his entire career investing in and successfully growing innovative private companies from seed stage through IPO/acquisition in a variety of technology sectors, including Clean Technology, entertainment and media, eBusiness services, enterprise software and communications services. Alex is currently Vice President, Investment at Advanced Equities, Inc, a global investment banking firm with comprehensive capital raising, strategic advice and wealth management expertise. Alex has been a senior investment professional at several leading venture capital firms including Noribachi LLC, a Cleantech venture accelerator, and Cleantech venture firm Expansion Capital Partners, where he was actively involved with investing in and managing the firm’s portfolio companies SensorTran, ConsumerPowerline/CPower and Element Labs. Previous to Expansion Capital, Alex co-founded and was a partner at Blackwolf Partners, an early stage Cleantech venture capital firm. Alex has also served as a venture investment professional and senior manager at JPMorgan Partners and Hambrecht & Quist. He started his career at the Vietnam Fund Management Company, managing one of the first venture funds in Vietnam based in the firm’s Hong Kong and then Ho Chi Minh City offices. Alex has held several operating company leadership roles, including most recently CEO for Paula Abdul, Inc., managing a portfolio of entertainment, business and online/social media enterprises for the global entertainment personality. Alex is a member of the Advisory Council of the Center for Sustainable Global Enterprise at Cornell University. Alex often lectures on venture capital financing, entrepreneurship and sustainable technologies. Alex has served as Chairman and President of the Excelerate Foundation and its predecessor non-profit organization since 1991. Excelerate supports innovative nonprofit organizations that motivate under-advantaged youth to initiate positive change and leadership in the areas of community, the environment and entrepreneurship. Conor Madigan Conor Madigan is co-founder and CEO of Kateeva, a developer of high performance manufacturing equipment for the emerging organic light emitting diode (OLED) flat panel display industry. Conor led the effort to spin Kateeva out of MIT in 2008, leveraging core technologies he invented with two colleagues as part of his Ph.D studies. Before Kateeva he was a post-doctoral research scientist at MIT and has worked on organic electronic device technology for more than a decade. Kateeva has completed three rounds of financing from leading venture capital and strategic investors, including Sigma Partners, Spark Capital, Madrone Capital, Varian Semiconductor Equipment, and Veeco Instruments. In 2010, Conor was honored as one of the TR35, the list of top young innovators in technology named annually by Technology Review magazine. Conor is also a member of the Princeton University Department of Electrical Engineering Advisory Board and serves on the Board of Directors of edventureMore, a non-profit developing and running science and technology education enrichment programs in the Bay area. Conor earned a Bachelor’s degree from Princeton and a Ph.D. from MIT. Both degrees are in electrical engineering. Geoff Lewis Geoff Lewis is the Co-Founder & CEO of Topguest, an early-stage technology Loyalty SaaS company that is pioneering the use of loyalty points to drive beneficial actions on social applications. Launched in 2010, their clients include the largest travel loyalty programs including United MileagePlus, Hilton HHonors, Priority Club, Wyndham Rewards, Virgin America Elevate, Choice Privileges, Caesars Total Rewards, and many more. The Company is backed by notable Silicon Valley investors including Founders Fund, Ron Conway, Naval Ravikant, Keith Rabois, and Jeff Clavier. Topguest is headquartered in the San Francisco Bay area. Prior to his entrepreneurial endeavors, Lewis was the Vice President of a macro hedge fund, and began his career in Global Brand Management at Procter & Gamble. Lewis has appeared as an expert commentator on CNBC Power Lunch, MSNBC Your Money, TechCrunchTV, and on Canadian television. He’s been a featured speaker at Web 2.0 Summit, TechCrunch 50, Social Media Travel Summit, and the Eye for Travel CRM Conference. Lewis mentors other young entrepreneurs for Founder Institute, The Brandery, and is a regular contributor to The Business Insider. Moderator Julia Vax Julia Vax, a director with the firm's Business Department and member of the Management Committee, practices general business, corporate and securities law. Her clients include emerging growth and public companies primarily in the life sciences and technology sectors. Ms. Vax represents issuers of publicly traded securities, privately held companies and founders, issuers and investors in venture capital financings, and other financial and strategic transactions. She has represented life science and technology companies at all stages of development, from entrepreneurs to publicly traded entities. She has advised clients in the biopharmaceutical, genomics, medical device, diagnostics, Internet and media, software, IP telephony, telecommunications and financial services sectors in all aspects of their corporate development.
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