Entrepreneurial Best Practices Series

Venture and Angel Financing: A Panel of Perspectives

Thursday, April 19, 2011
6:30-8:30pm
Wells Fargo Room - Haas School of Business

Program Information and Speaker Biographies

Video (video on YouTube site):

Program Information and Speaker Biographies

Please join us for the final session of the Entrepreneurial Best Practices Series 2010-2011 season. Our panel will discuss the latest investment trends with a focus on maximizing your investment potential. Learn what investors look for in funding opportunities and how to prepare your company to close funding once you have generated interest. Optimize your team, your pitch and your business plan. The panel offers diverse perspectives ranging from angel investing to traditional venture capital. The panelists' experiences span a number of industries and backgrounds. The workshop will include Q&A, so come with the questions you've been waiting to ask an investor.

The program starts with food and networking at 6:30pm. The presentation will open at 7:00 pm. There is no registration for this event. For more information about the Entrepreneurial Best Practices Series, call 510-642-4255 or email lester@haas.berkeley.edu.

MODERATOR

George Willman

George Willman (MBA 93)

Wilson Sonsini Goodrich and Rosati

George Willman is a technology attorney at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich and Rosati. He represents clients in the areas of technology transactions, intellectual property counseling and patent prosecution. George works with both startups and mature companies in a variety of industries including software, hardware, semiconductors, communications, Internet and clean technology. Representative transactions include licensing, development, service, distribution, manufacturing, long term purchase/supply, electronic commerce, joint venture, merger, acquisition and spin-off agreements. Prior to his legal career, he worked as a telecommunications software engineer for IBM and Siemens. He holds a J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center, a B.S., Computer Systems Engineering, from Stanford University and an M.B.A. from the University of California, Berkeley, Haas School of Business. He is active in the Silicon Valley angel community.

George has returned to Haas as a guest lecturer in addition to serving as a mentor at the Lester Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation. He is a recipient of the Lester Center’s Richard H. Holton Teaching Fellow Award.

FEATURED SPEAKERS

Bill Reichert

William M. Reichert
Managing Director, Garage Technology Ventures

Bill Reichert is Managing Director of Garage Technology Ventures, a leading seed-stage and early-stage venture capital fund, based in Palo Alto. Garage makes small investments – generally $500,000 to $1 million – in promising early stage technology companies and works intensively with them to help them to the next step. Some of Garage’s most successful startups include Pandora, Tripwire, LeftHand, Coremetrics, Hoku Scientific, Kaboodle, MiaSole, and Simply Hired.

Bill has spent most of his career as an entrepreneur and operating executive. Prior to joining Garage in 1998, Bill was a co-founder and senior executive at several early-stage, venture-backed technology companies, including Trademark Software, The Learning Company, Infa Technologies, and Academic Systems. Earlier in his career, Bill worked at McKinsey & Co. in Los Angeles, the World Bank in Washington, DC, and Brown Brothers Harriman & Co. in New York. Bill earned his BA from Harvard University and his MBA from Stanford University.

Noah Doyle

Noah J. Doyle (MBA 96)
Managing Director
Javelin Venture Partners

Noah Doyle has founded, launched and grown dozens of high technology products and companies in 20 years of entrepreneurship and management of innovation. Noah most recently directed the enterprise product line for Google's geospatial products, Google Earth and Google Maps. Prior to Google, Noah managed the Marketing Strategy and Corporate Development functions at Keyhole, Inc., the venture capital backed company that created the first Web-hosted digital earth model and was acquired by Google in 2004. Prior to Keyhole, Noah helped establish the Internet loyalty rewards marketplace as a co-founder of MyPoints.com, the largest Internet loyalty program with over 6 million active members, where he led product management and business development functions from the company's inception through an initial public offering and subsequent acquisition by United Airlines. Prior to MyPoints, Noah was based in Tokyo where he managed overseas sales and marketing for the OEM channel of Panasonic’s graphics communications equipment subsidiary in Japan.

In other roles, he was chairman of the management board of the University of California, Berkeley's campus bookstore, a $17 million retail operation, and also held product management and operations management roles at IBM/Rational (Pure Atria) and Oracle. As an angel investor prior to forming Javelin Venture Partners, Noah has supported over a dozen start-ups including Keyhole (Google), Cantametrix (Gracenote), Amae Software (Verint), Nuvon, Ritter Natural Sciences, Emdigo, Magnacash (Yaga), and i-mint India. Noah holds M.B.A. and B.A. Economics degrees, as well as certificates in Management of Technology and Global Management from University of California – Berkeley and is a recipient of the United States Air Force Fellowship for New Technology in Japan.

Cathy Chiu

Catherine Chiu (MBA 86)
Founding Partner, Opero Partners

Catherine Chiu is the founding partner of Opero Partners. Opero Partners provides consulting services to CEOs, investors and board members of technology-driven businesses to improve growth and profitability. Opero does this through a customer-focused, outside-in strategic review of the business, followed by implementation, mentoring and support – leaving the client at a higher level of performance. With comprehensive cross-functional expertise, Opero services develop business strategies, enhance direct sales force's effectiveness, uncover customer needs, strengthen positioning and messaging, streamline engineering operations, improve customer service and satisfaction, raise capital, develop alliance partnerships, and negotiate acquisitions and exits. Cathy is a finance specialist among Opero's partners. For more information, visit www.operopartners.com.

Cathy has worked in investment banking, venture capital, and served as a member of senior management team of public and private companies. During her career, Cathy as advised Intel, AMD, Sun Microsystems, Synnex, along with many private startup companies. She has consummated financing and M&A transactions ranging from $1.5 million to $2 billion. Cathy is also an active angel investor and a member of the Keiretsu Forum, the world’s largest angel investor network. She has led or participated in the due diligence of over 30 companies at Keiretsu, and has led investor academies on terms sheets, valuation, and how to conduct a due diligence.

Cathy obtained her BS in Electrical Engineering from Johns Hopkins University and her MBA from the Haas School of Business.

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