"How to Raise the Money"
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 entr�e 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
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
