SVCWireless Entrepreneurship Workshop Series (III)

-  What do VCs and Angels want to see in your companies?

You are in the Silicon Valley. You have heard lots of successful stories that creative people build up their own companies: Intel, Microsoft, Yahoo, Cisco, Google, Marvel ... You get excited. You have the passion to be one of these brilliant entrepreneurs. You want to make big impact! 

But where should you start from? What skills does a successful entrepreneur have? How to avoid all of the traps during the journey? Bring your questions to the SVCWireless Entrepreneurship Workshop Series. Directly communicate with the top attorneys, accountants, VCs, and entrepreneurs. Have your case study in the field. Get first-hand information about corporation laws, financing, taxation, entrepreneurship skill, VC, equity allocation and more!

What do VCs and Angels want to see in your companies? 

Running business is not easy, especially for startups: You may have a great idea, but you don’t have enough funding to materialize it; You may be one inch away from profit, but you are almost running out of your hard-saving money as seed funding; Your business is drastically expanding and you really need a best partner to help you out, but you don’t have enough connections to find him/her; You want to cash out your business, but you want to make sure your company is properly priced when you go for IPO or private equity firm; … For all these questions, you may turn a well-established VC and/or Angel Fund for the answer.  

But what are the common practices of VCs and Angel funds? How can you stand out in front of them? How to make sure you are working with the best VC and/or angel fund partners that fit the needs of your companies? Come to our workshop. Discuss face to face with our industry leaders:

-          How do VCs and angel funds evaluate a company? What is the most valued factor when VCs and angel funds look at a startup?

-          Which kind of role will VCs and angel fund play in a startup? What help can a startup get from VCs and angel funds in addition to financial support and industry connection?

-          How to find the best VCs and angel funds? How to make sure you are making a mutual beneficial deal with them?

-          What are VCs’ and angels’ exit-strategies?

-          What is VCs’ and angels’ observation of the wireless/mobile industry’s business trend?

-          How will the global ecosystem shape the VC and angel fund industry and their relationship with entrepreneurs?

Date:    August 15, 2007

Time:    6:30 – 7 pm, Registration and networking

            7:00 - 9:00 pm, workshop

Venue:  Fenwick & West LLP, Silicon Valley Center

            801 California Street, Mountain View, CA 94041,

           650 – 988 – 8500

Fee:      Regular member: Free

            Associate member: $20 RSVP, $25 at the door

           Non-member: $20 RSVP, $25 at the door

           Student: $5 (Student ID required)

RSVP:

rsvp@svcwireless.org with the following subject line: “08/15: Your Name”

Contact and more information:

Yuan Tian, yuan.tian@svcwireless.org

Panelist:

    Sanjiv R. Parikh, Director - Mobility Emerging Business Team, Microsoft Corporation

    Dr. Ray Wei, Angel VC investor

Speaker Bios:

Mr. Sanjiv Parikh is a Director for the Emerging Business Team at Microsoft, based in Silicon Valley. The Emerging Business Team manages Microsoft’s interaction with venture capitalists and start-ups world wide to accelerate innovation and foster the software ecosystem. Within the Emerging Business Team, Sanjiv is in charge of engagements with mobility oriented start-ups, venture capitalists and enterprises. Prior to joining Microsoft, Sanjiv was Managing Director of FairWinds Ventures, a private equity advisory and investment firm. Previously, Sanjiv was a Managing Director of Atrium Capital, a 16 year-old Sand Hill Road venture capital firm. Atrium’s investments include AdForce, B2BWorks, DigitalPersona, FieldCentrix, InfoUSA.com, MapQuest, MetaTV, Multex and RedEnvelope. Prior to joining Atrium Capital, Sanjiv helped launch RightWorks Corporation; an enterprise software company in supply chain management and procurement that was sold to Internet Capital Group for $1.25 billion and is currently part of i2 Technologies. Previously, Sanjiv was a Principal with Mehta & Company, Inc.. Sanjiv invested in and helped turnaround several portfolio companies in various operating capacities, including: a $50 million nationwide healthcare services firm and a $100 million European seat belt manufacturer, among others.

Outside of work, Sanjiv has been actively involved with The Indus Entrepreneur (TiE) since 1994. He is currently a Charter Member and on the board and faculty of the TiE-Institute which aims to further education for entrepreneurs. Sanjiv also serves on the Board of Directors of the Wharton Club of San Francisco, a community and professional development organization of The Wharton School.

Sanjiv holds an engineering degree from the University of California at Berkeley and an MBA from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.

Dr. Ray Wei is a serial entrepreneur, angel VC investor, and hi-tech business consultant with over 20 years of experience. He founded ACEO Technology, an EDA software company, and sold it to Avant! (now Synopsys) in 1998. He was most recently investor, co-founder and CEO of Anchiva Systems, Inc., a now $15M VC-backed start-up for content security networking solutions, which he incubated, led, and invested along with other angel VCs who are among the earliest investors of Netscreen. He was also Vice Chairman of Pro Broadband Inc. (PBI), a China company with 3000+ employees and a leading OEM/ODM for digital TV Set-Top-Box (STB) and broadcasting equipments. In 2002, he helped PBI merge with PESI to become a public company in Taiwan. PESI is now a leader in worldwide OEM/ODM of STB, multimedia WLAN, and satellite LNB. He co-founded SoftKnot Corporation, a provider of Internet infrastructure software. He founded Achiema Systems, Inc., a hi-tech marketing and management company that helps promising US start-ups enter the exploding China markets and promising China start-ups secure US venture funding. He was COO and VP Engineering briefly at Accelerate Software Inc., a provider of Web services software for supply chain management. During the Internet boom and today still, he also advised for many young Internet start-ups, particularly those targeting at China and Taiwan. His investment portfolio covers many technology and Internet services sectors. Before his entrepreneur career, he was Engineering Director at Cadence Design Systems, and once held senior technical positions at AT&T Bell Labs, IBM Watson Research, and Intel.

Dr. Wei received his Ph.D. from University of California, Berkeley, MS from University of California, Los Angeles, and BS from National Taiwan University, all in EECS. He has one US software patent, and numerous technical publications.