Strategic Alliances and Partnerships: to build, finance, and develop early stage companies
NOTE: Meeting at the Forefront Center, Waltham, MA
Meeting Overview:
For today�s entrepreneur - who faces high hurdles to funding, ever increasing competition, thin barriers to entry, and shortened cycles from invention - strategic alliances and partnerships have become a key survival technique. For the startup company, your strategic partner can be your first source of outside funding, the beta tester of your product or service, and source of credibility for your first angel or venture capital investment round. For the early stage company, alliance partners can help you to gain competitive advantages, increase sales, scale up production, penetrate new markets and deliver new products and services. Sounds good. Well, how do you do it? On November 7, our panel will consist of (1) a major venture capitalist, speaking to the issues of using alliances to fund and bootstrap early stage companies and to gain credibility to attract finance, (2) a CEO and Founder of four different start-up companies, each company rising to growth fueled by alliances, (3) a prominent consultant in the medical device and biotechnology fields, who has worked on numerous alliances and partnerships to develop early stage companies in those fields and (4) a panel moderator, who is a Boston attorney, who will add contract and legal insights to the issues raised by strategic alliances and partnerships.
At the same time, the panel will also look into such important issues as: (a) the process of identifying possible partners, drilling down to the best one and securing the relationship; (b) sharing experiences on what made partnerships successful, and what went wrong and why (c) discussing how these relationships can increase (or decrease) the company�s valuation, and (d) risks involved and things to look for at each stage of the partnership relationship.
Panel:
Charles Lax, Managing General Partner, GandBanks Capital
Gwen Acton, President, Vivo Group
Steven Rogers, CEO and Founder, Rivulet Communications, Inc.
Moderator:
Robert A. Adelson, Attorney and Partner, Engel & Schultz, LLP,
Meeting 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
Forefront Center for
Meetings & Conferences, 404 Wyman Street, Waltham, MA
There is a $20.00 fee for non ENET members.
No reservations are necessary for either the meeting or dinner
Click here for directions and a map to the dinner and meeting
Panel:
Charles Lax -
Managing General Partner, GrandBanks Capital
Charley Lax (
[email protected]
) is the founder and Managing General Partner of GrandBanks Capital (GBC)(
www.grandbankscapital.com
)and focuses on early-stage investment activities in the areas of Internet
infrastructure, software and software services, security and storage
applications, media technologies and services, financial technologies and
services, and wireless technologies and services. Mr. Lax�s investment career
includes investments in 42 portfolio companies, which have resulted in 26
exits thus far. His track record includes 15 public companies, of which 10
achieved market caps in excess of $1 billion. With over 16 years of venture
capital experience, Mr. Lax currently serves on the boards of GBC companies
including Colubris Networks, Coradiant, CXO Systems, Ember Corporation,
Incipient, and manages GBC�s investment in OutStart. Additionally, Mr. Lax is
a founding General Partner of both SOFTBANK Venture Capital (Mobius Venture
Capital) and SOFTBANK Capital Partners, and co-created Flatiron Partners of
New York City. Prior to his career in venture capital, Charley worked for a
series of software companies in marketing, product management and sales roles,
including Phoenix Technologies Ltd., the BIOS developer. Mr. Lax was awarded
a B.S degree, magna cum laude, from Boston University in 1982. A graduate of
Boston University with a BS degree, magna cum laude, in 1982, Charley was
elected secretary of Boston University's Alumni Council in 2005 and is a
member of its Executive Committee. He is also an Advisory Board member to
Boston University's Office of Technology Development (OTD) Ignition Award
Program. In 2001, Charley received the Alumni Award for Distinguished Service
and gave the Class of 2001 Graduate School of Management commencement address
titled, "Lessons Learned from the Internet Bubble." In 2003, the Boston
University Entrepreneurial Management Institute awarded him the Henry Morgan
Award for outstanding contribution to the Institute. Charley is also a
founding judge of the university-wide Boston University Entrepreneurial
Management Institute�s yearly business plan competition.
Gwen Acton, PhD ([email protected]) is president of Vivo Group (http://www.vivogroup.com), a strategic consulting firm specializing in improving scientific productivity in research and alliances. Prior to this, she was Director of Scientific Development at the Whitehead Institute, where she ran the operations for the Functional Genomics Program, a $40M multi-party research collaboration between Bristol-Myers Squibb, Millennium Pharmaceuticals, and Affymetrix. Dr. Acton is the author of two industry reports published by the Cambridge Healthtech Institute, and the book (italics)The Bluffers Guide to Genetics(end italics) to be published in 2007. Dr. Acton received a doctorate in molecular biology and genetics from M.I.T. in 1991, and served as a faculty member at Harvard University in the department of Molecular and Cellular Biology. Dr. Acton is currently a member of the Board of Trustees at Forsyth Institute in Boston, Massachusetts.
Steven Rogers - CEO and Founder,
Rivulet Communications, Inc.
Steven Rogers ([email protected])
has over 20 years of experience in the communications industry. He has been
the founder and CEO of four network product companies: beginning in 1980s
with Cryptek, Inc., where he built the company from scratch to over 50
employees and $12 million in revenues and profitability, and the company
remains profitable today; then, in 1990s with Objective Communications, Inc,
where he build the company to over 100 employees and led it through its 1997
IPO (Upside Magazine named it as the best performing IPO of the
year); then Cetacean Networks, Inc.: where Mr. Rogers raised over $50
million and the company rose to over 100 employees before he moved on to his
most recent venture. Since 2003, Mr. Rogers has been CEO of Rivulet
Communications (www.rivulet.com),
where he has raised of 50$ million of financing, and the company now employs
over 50 employees. Rivulet Communications, Inc. has strategic partnerships
with a major equipment manufacturer and carrier. He has negotiated numerous
alliances in the past as well, with major carriers and equipment companies.
Mr. Rogers� extensive background also includes management and development
work at Unisys, American
Satellite, and COMSAT Mobile Telesystems. Mr. Rogers has a BSEE from
Virginia Polytechnic Institute. He has also authored over 10 patents, 3
classified papers presented at government symposia, several articles and
papers in trade journals to his credit. Mr. Rogers has also been a general
session speaker at Telecom.
Moderator:
Robert
A. Adelson - Attorney and Partner, Engel & Schultz, LLP
Rob Adelson ([email protected])
has been a corporate and tax attorney since 1977. He began his law career as
an associate at the New York City mega firm Dewey Ballantine and later Weil
Gotshal & Manges before returning home to Boston in 1985. He has been a
partner in medium and smaller Boston firm and is today a partner in a
6-attorney general practice Boston firm Engel & Schultz, LLP (www.engelschultz.com).
Mr. Adelson�s clients are early stage technology-based companies,
consultants, senior executives and key employees, and family businesses. His
main practice areas are: (1) Business formation, finance and capitalization;
(2) Commercial contracts, licensing and strategic alliance agreements; (3)
Executive employment, stock and options and severance; (4) Trademarks and
intellectual property protection; (5) Joint ventures, mergers and
acquisitions; (6) Phantom stock and succession in family businesses. Mr.
Adelson is a graduate of Boston University with a B.A. degree, summa cum
laude, and a member of Phi Beta Kappa and Phi Alpha Theta.
He received his J.D. degree from Northwestern University in Chicago, where
he was a member of the Law Review and his LL.M. degree in Taxation
from New York University. Mr. Adelson is a frequent lecturer for
entrepreneur and professional groups, and has written numerous published
articles, including articles in the Boston Business Journal, Mass High
Tech, Family Business Magazine, Darwin Magazine, Genetic Engineering News
and The Culpepper Letter (serving the software industry). Mr. Adelson
is a member of the Massachusetts and New York Bars, and Vice Chairman of
Boston Entrepreneurs� Network and a member of the Advisory Board of the 128
Innovation Capital Group. Mr. Adelson�s work as an attorney has been
recognized in articles in the Boston Globe, Boston Herald and
Business Week Online and in a chapter of the book, The End of
Shareholder Value, published in 2000.
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