Entrepreneurial Best Practices Series: Startup War Stories

Loading Map....

Date/Time
Date(s) - 03/20/2014
7:00 pm - 8:30 pm

Location
Banatao Auditorium - Sutardja Dai Hall


Join Matt Kirmayer, Partner in the Tech Group at Lowenstein Sandler, and a panel of VCs and early stage entrepreneurs as Matt continues his deep dive into the foundation of successful startups. Explore the issues surrounding company formation from the founders’ perspective: Time and effort, personal and financial costs, co-founder equity and control issues, egos and the myriad of other things that you might not think so strongly affect your startup.  In the words of the Wide World of Sports program, come to this session to experience the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat.

For more information about the Entrepreneurial Best Practices Series, click here, call 510-642-4255 or email lester@haas.berkeley.edu.


FEATURED SPEAKERS

Matt Kirmayer

Matt Kirmayer
Partner
Lowenstein Sandler

Matt Kirmayer is a Partner in Lowenstein Sandler‘s Tech Group in the firm’s Palo Alto office. He represents clients in many industries, including digital media, clean technology and renewable energy, Internet infrastructure and security, nanotechnology, life sciences, and medical devices. When working with emerging growth companies, Matt often serves the role of general counsel, advising on formation, assisting with introductions to, and negotiations with, angel and venture capital investors and, when it all works to plan, an IPO or sale transaction.  Matt has practiced corporate law for more than two decades, and has worked on hundreds of financings, IPOs and M&A transactions. In addition to enjoying the breadth and depth of the entrepreneurial and financing world in Silicon Valley, Matt takes advantage of his roots in NY City and the firm’s leadership position there, and maintain an active practice counseling companies in the Northeast, particularly those seeking access to venture capital on the West Coast.

 

Michael-Berolzheimer

Michael Berolzheimer
(MBA 07)
Partner
Bee Partners 

Michael Berolzheimer is an angel investor and entrepreneur, and in 2008, Michael formed Bee Partners, a genesis-stage venture capital firm.  Bee Partners works with entrepreneurs with deep market insights and who are passionate about company building.  Frequently the first angel capital into a company, Bee also invests at the Seed-stage and then helps to deliver reference customers, additional capital sources, strategic insights, leadership support and more. He’s been investing in and advising entrepreneurs since 2004, after he took a shot on a young team selling ‘Bear Naked’ granola out of their van.  Since then, he’s invested with TubeMogul, Indiegogo, Evol Foods, Ordergroove, Magoosh, Tagstand, Mobileworks, Skycatch, Modify Industries, Outline and many others.
 
Michael began his career in New York with Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette / Credit Suisse, an investment bank, and with Harvest Partners, a middle-market private equity fund managing over $2 billion in assets.  He earned his MBA from Haas School of Business, UC Berkeley, and completed his undergraduate studies at Vanderbilt University in Computer Science & Economics.  Michael resides in the Bay Area with his wife and young family, and enjoys spending time in the mountains.

 

Surbhi Sarna

Surbhi Sarna
CEO and Founder
nVision Medical

Surbhi Sarna is a patient turned impatient entrepreneur and is the founder and CEO of nVision. nVision is an early-stage, venture backed medical device company that is dedicated to filling the void in female health-related innovation. Surbhi graduated with a B.A. in Molecular and Cell Biology from the University of California, Berkeley in 2007. Surbhi complemented her understanding of theoretical science with extensive hands on research as an engineer, becoming a UC Berkeley Guidant Bioengineering Fellow. After graduating from Cal and before starting nVision, she worked as a medical device engineer, first at Abbott Vascular and then at a cardiovascular device start up. She has authored numerous patents, been an invited speaker at universities including UCSF and Harvard, and has been featured in publications such as Businessweek, Bloomberg and GigaOm. Most recently, she was named on the Forbes 30 under 30 list for 2014.