"Exit Strategies - Cashing In"
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:
Creating a business so that it will become well positioned to be acquired is a smart plan and a very well-regarded business model that is highly attractive to investors. Mergers and acquisitions are the dominant path to liquidity for most companies. Being able to plan for this exit requires market and business insight and a path for technical accomplishment that will be compelling to leading commercial partners as acquirers. Tonight our speakers will talk about what companies have done early on to "position" for their exit and how they appealed to the right buyer. They will emphasize the preparation, structuring, and negotiations and how to make the best possible deal.
Andrew
Updegrove, Gesmer & Updegrove
www.gesmer.com
Andy has a broad range of experience in
representing both mature and emerging high technology companies. He has
advised many hundreds of startup companies with respect to their strategic
and legal needs, assisting them in their progress from a concept to a mature
company. He has represented mature companies in financings, mergers and
acquisitions, the redeployment of services and assets onto the Internet, and
complex intellectual property matters. Since 1988, he has represented and
helped structure more than 80 worldwide standard setting, open source,
promotional and advocacy consortia, including some of the largest standard
setting organizations in the world.
His awards include being recognized as: one of the top 100 attorneys in
Massachusetts, a MHT “Mass All and one of the "Best VC Lawyers" in Boston by
the Digital Industry News. He was the sole representative of the consortium
community to be appointed as a member of the United States National
Standards Strategy Committee. He received the 2005 President’s Award for
Journalism from the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) for his
work at ConsortiumInfo.org and the Consortium Standards Journal.
Andy is a graduate of Yale University and the Cornell University Law School.
He is a certified mediator, and is a member of both the Panel of Mediators
of the Massachusetts Software and Internet Council and the World
Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) Arbitration and Mediation Center's
List of Arbitrators, Mediators.
Chris Whalen focuses on strategy, operations and technology. Prior to Progress Partners, Chris was Managing Director of BCW Capital Partners, a boutique advisory firm he co-founded. BCW focused on strategy consulting and advisory services for emerging companies as well as monetizing intellectual property assets for Fortune 50 companies such as NEC. Prior to BCW, Chris was VP-Business Development for CatalystOne, an Oslo and Boston based strategy execution firm. Chris helped build the company from three to 180 people in less than 18 months, raised series A and B capital, created key strategic alliances (CGEY, Cisco, Palm, Compaq, USOC, etc.), and opened offices in six countries. Chris has spent his entire career in start up and entrepreneurial ventures in various executive capacities, raising capital, corporate growth and executing merger and acquisition activity.
Chris graduated from Assumption College and has an MBA from the Olin School of Management, Babson College.
Mike
Grandinetti, Serial Entrepreneur
Mike Grandinetti’s life work is focused on starting and building globally
successful venture – backed technology companies and in rapidly
commercializing advanced technologies. Mike has spent 15 years as a senior
executive at five venture-backed technology companies most notably in the
capacities of Chief Marketing Officer often coupled with his joint
appointment as VP of Business Development.
He helped lead the first four to successful exits for their investors.
Taking Raptor Systems through a successful IPO and designation as the
Fastest Growing Software Company in the US, and subsequent acquisition for
roughly $250M, Connected Corp’s acquisition for $120M, Viewlogic’s
designation as Deloitte Fast 50, IPO, and subsequent acquisition for roughly
$500M, and was part of the senior executive team that merged Yantra with
AT&T for 6X trailing revenues, or approximately $200M.
His most recent company, Virtual Iron Software, is a leading provider of
data center virtualization and management solutions for Global 2000
enterprises and backed by world class venture and strategic investors
including Matrix Partners, Highland Capital, Goldman Sachs, SAP Ventures,
and Intel Capital who have invested $65M to date.
Mike holds a faculty appointment as Senior Lecturer in the Practice of
Entrepreneurship at the MIT Sloan School of Management and is a long serving
judge in the MIT $100K Global Entrepreneurship Competition. He sits on the
Advisory Board of Flagship Ventures, Echelon Ventures, and SEED Capital
(Denmark). Early in his career, he served as a strategy consultant at
McKinsey and Company. Mike received his BS in Engineering, magna cum laude,
from Rutgers, where he was named to the National Engineering Honor Society,
and his MBA from Yale, where he was named the Jess Morrow Johns Memorial
Scholar and was the recipient of the Procter and Gamble Marketing Leadership
Award as well as a Yale Teaching Fellowship.
Meeting Organizer:
Lawrence
C. Grumer, Managing Director, Technology Associates & Alliances (TAA)
www.taacorp.com
Moderator:
Sandeep
Baidwan, Project Manager, Investment Management, National Grid
Sandeep brings with him
vast experience in the field of energy infrastructure project development,
and project management from concept to implementation cycle. He has done
investment planning of electric transmission and power generation projects
totaling over $1B across the Midwestern footprint of
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
The meeting are free to ENET members and $20.00 to non-members of ENET. Register Online!
