"How to Raise the Money"
Note: Meeting at Emerging Enterprise Center at Foley Hoag, 1000 Winter Street, Suite 4000, Waltham, MA. PRE-MEETING DINNER at 5:15 PM (sharp) at Bertucci's, Waltham. Directions.
Meeting Overview:
The entrepreneur may have a good idea addressing a
real need in a large and growing market, but will your business be funded?
Who is being funded and why? What are the key considerations investors focus
on that compels them to do the deal? Our panel of capital providers and
entrepreneurs will talk about those deals that are getting funded today and
why. They will guide the audience in the process of raising money, to
understand what is important to investors now and in the next stages of
company growth. Our panelists will address these issues and provide insight
about investor perspectives, due diligence, and the soft criteria regarding
people, personality, and first impression in evaluating the team. They will
talk about positioning your company to be attractive to the investor and
identify critical milestones to gain a preferred entrée to the capital
market providers. Our panel will also offer their perspective on current
investments, investment trends emerging, and share their opinions on what
the early stage investment markets may look like in the next year.
Keynote:
Ken Lizotte CMC, Author: The Expert's Edge, CIO, Emerson Consulting Group. www.thoughtleading.com
Moderator:
Lawrence C. Grumer, Managing Director, Technology Associates & Alliances (TAA) www.taacorp.com
Panel:
Jerome J. Schaufeld, Boynton Angels, Launchpad Venture Group, Cherrystone Angels www.boyntonangels.com
Jon Karlen, General Partner, Flybridge Capital Partners www.flybridge.com
Scott Cohen, Chief Executive Officer, Dropfire, Inc. www.dropfire.com
Keynote:
Ken Lizotte CMC,
Author
Long-time thoughtleader Ken Lizotte CMC is CIO (Chief Imaginative Officer) of
Emerson Consulting Group Inc. Ken is a popular keynote speaker on such
topics as becoming a thoughtleader, getting books and articles published,
and unlocking creativity, motivation and enthusiasm. He is past president of
IMCNE (the New England chapter of the Institute of Management Consultants)
from 2000 to 2005. Currently he serves on the Board of Directors of the
Institute of Management Consultants USA. , He is also a seminar leader at
Harvard University and co-founder of the National Writers Union. Over the
years, Ken has been interviewed by Newsweek, Business Week, Fortune
Magazine, CBS-TV, Writer's Digest, and many others. He is a co-author or
author of many books including, From Secretary Track to Fast Track, High
Inside: Memoirs of a Baseball Wife , Balancing Work and Family, Beyond
Reason and his most recent book published in January 2008 by McGraw Hill,
and titled; The Expert’s Edge: Become the Go-To Authority People Turn to
Every.
The Expert’s Edge…“outlines little-known yet proven techniques that can lift
entrepreneurs and their companies to the top of the heap.” Ken reveals five
simple but powerful “thoughtleading pillars,” that have helped legendary
thoughtleaders like Harvey MacKay, Martha Stewart, Stephen Covey, Suze Orman
and Tom Peters build empires from humble beginnings, transforming themselves
personally into business celebrities and gurus.
Moderator:
Lawrence C. Grumer, Managing Director, Technology Associates & Alliances (TAA) www.taacorp.com
TAA is a management advisory and investment company he founded in 1994 that commercializes technology for early-stage technology ventures and corporate spin-outs with go-to-market strategy, capital formation, business transition and profitable growth execution. His most recent venture which he co-founded was Elecsci Corp. a high tech start-up company with 24 patents issued/pending developing MEMS-based Energy Harvester devices that “couple” motion from the environment or from “walking around” and converts this to useful electrical energy. He has founded five companies. Larry held profit & loss technical, marketing and business management positions at Textron (Avco), Arthur D. Little, Marketing Dynamics, John Brown-Leesona, and Foster-Miller where he helped lead their business turn-around and introduced the SBIR program to them. For nearly a decade, he led the IEEE Boston Entrepreneurs' Network, as its Chairman and Vice Chairman. He serves on the Boards of Directors of corporate businesses and non-profit organizations. He was a founding Board member of a regional technology council and most recently created the EntreTech Forum www.entretechforum.org to address the commercialization of university and government technology. Larry is a Phase 2 proposal Grant Reviewer for the National Science Foundation. He received a BS in Engineering and an MBA with high distinction in International Marketing and Finance concentration from Northeastern University. He has held a Top Secret clearance.
Panelists:
Jerome J. Schaufeld, Boynton Angels, Launchpad
Venture Group, Cherrystone Angels www.boyntonangels.com
Jerry’s wealth of experience in entrepreneurship, operations and
general management of technology-based companies ranges from his current
role as Professor of Entrepreneurship at WPI, and a commercialization
consultant to Children’s’ Hospital in Boston, his recent assignment as
Director of the RI Slater Fund, past President and CEO of Mass Ventures to a
“hands on” track record in several early stage companies in both functional
and board level advisory roles.
Jerry is a member for the Launchpad Angel Group, Co-founder of the
Cherrystone Angels in Rhode Island. He is an advisor to the newly formed
Boynton Angel group in Central Mass., a charter member of national Angel
Capital Association (ACA), and participates in the regional NE Angels group
as a charter member.
He was co-founder of a venture capital funded, technology company Phoenix
Controls Corporation. The company pioneered an approach to the control of
air flow in critical laboratory and hospital environments. The company was
sold to a Fortune 500 company. Jerry also worked at Arthur D. Little, Disc
Technology Corporation, Ferrofluidics Corporation, and Waters Associates in
a variety of functional executive roles.
Jerry was a founder and the first Chairman of the MIT Enterprise Forum. He
founded the Incus Group which is a CEO level business acquisition and
resource organization. He has served on numerous Boards including : Bay
State Medical Physicians, MetroWest Hospital, several technology and
manufacturing companies, and Navigator Technology Ventures. He is also a
member of the National Association of Corporate Directors and the
Association for Corporate Growth.
Jon Karlen, General Partner, Flybridge Captial Partners
Jon is a General Partner at Flybridge Capital Partners whose investment interests and experience include enterprise software, consumer-focused products and online services, and energy technology.
He
currently represents the firm on the boards of
GuildCafe, Old Road Computing, and
previously sat on the board of
ZING Systems (acquired by
Dell).
Prior to joining the firm in October 2005, Jon served as Director of Product Marketing at OATSystems, an RFID software company, where he led the company's product positioning and marketing activities. Jon joined the company following a successful Entrepreneur-in-Residence position at Greylock, where he developed the investment opportunity in OATSystems.
Before Greylock, Jon was an executive at NTRU Cryptosystems, an early-stage company focused on commercializing data encryption technology for constrained devices. During his tenure at NTRU, Jon served as General Manager for the RFID and Smart Card group and Director of Product Management. Jon also spent time as an Associate with Greylock and an Equity Research Associate at Montgomery Securities.
Jon holds a BA in Philosophy from
Scott Cohen, Chief Executive Officer, Dropfire, Inc. http://dropfire.com/index.html
DropFire, Inc. is a leading software development company
dedicated to the interoperability of public safety data across agencies and
networks. Scott founded DropFire in 2000 with the vision of creating a
reliable and cost-effective solution for transmitting image-rich data
between disparate systems over both wired and wireless networks. DropFire's
first product, The Photem (short for Photo-Modem), overcame significant
technological challenges and offered wireless imaging prior to the existence
of camera phones or any off-the-shelf solutions. Anticipating the changing
marketplace, Scott next applied this patented technology to public safety,
which resulted in DropFire's flagship product, BLAZE™, a revolutionary
application interchange platform that solves complex data exchange issues.
Under Scott's leadership, DropFire has evolved into a dominant force in both
public safety and homeland security software systems. Before founding
DropFire, Scott was a successful commercial real estate developer. In fact,
the motivations for DropFire's original product were to protect the assets
on his construction sites against theft and vandalism. Scott holds a BS from
Site and Cost:
5:15 PM Pre-meeting
Dinner
Bertucci's Restaurant
475 Winter St., (exit 27B off Route 128), Waltham, MA ("pay-as-you-go")
7:00 - 10:00PM
Meeting Presentation
The Emerging Enterprise Center at Foley Hoag, 1000 Winter Street, Suite 4000, Waltham, MA
There is a $20.00 fee for nonmembers of ENET.
