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| SURVIVAL IN A TIGHT
ECONOMY |
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What do you do to hold the course of your company in the face
of all the negativity from; the dotcom meltdown, venture capital portfolios in
trouble, accounting scandals, the stock market nose dive, entire industries
suffering, the US economy uncertain, giant companies filing for bankruptcy?
Some answers will surface tonight as we present a panel of entrepreneurs and
investors to talk about how they are managing their own companies and advising
companies they have invested in under these economically difficult times.
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| Panel: |
Vanu G. Bose,
Ph.D. is the CEO & Founder of Vanu, Inc., an OEM supplier of
waveform software and design consulting services for software radio systems.
They are "the software in software radio", partnering with companies that build
wireless devices to incorporate software radio technology into their product
offerings. The goal of Vanu, Inc.'s approach is to lower the development cost
and cost of ownership of wireless communication equipment. To accomplish these
savings, they ensure that all of the signal processing for a wireless device is
implemented in software, including the physical layer. This permits them to
provide end users with the flexibility to use one device to meet any of their
wireless communication needs.
Dr. Bose founded the company in 1998 to
commercialize software radio research he started in the SpectrumWare group at
MIT. Since 1998, the Company has doubled in size each year and developed
significant intellectual property in the form of software and reference
architectures. The novelty of their approach to software radio coupled with our
commitment to fundamental research has allowed us to apply for a number of
patents that will be fundamental to future commercial software radio. The
Company draws heavily on MIT for its employees and presently employs 5 PhD's.
Dr. Bose completed his doctoral thesis on software radio in April
1999, and received his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
(EECS) in June 1999. He received his masters degree in EECS from M.I.T. in 1992
and two bachelor's degrees, one in EECS and one in Math, from MIT in 1988.
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James P.
Iuliano, President and CEO, E Ink Corporation, was founded in 1997 to
create the next medium for visual communications. E Ink's electronic ink
display technology helps unleash the full power of our connected world by
uniquely combining a paper-like reading experience with the ability to access
information anytime, anywhere. E Ink's technology delivers the look, form and
utility of paper encompassing broad design freedom, manufacturing flexibility
and the ultimate in readability and portability. E Ink is headquartered in
Cambridge, Massachusetts and has an office in the Tokyo, Japan area. To date, E
Ink has raised over $100 million, largely through strategic investors. E Ink
raised $15.8 million in its first equity round in 1998.
E Ink has won
many prestigious awards and accolades, including Fortune's "Cool Companies,"
Upside's "Hot 100" Private Companies, Industry Week's "Technology of the Year,"
Popular Science's "Best of What's New" and a Technology Partners' Technology
Outlook "Investor's Choice. "
Jim Iuliano, a veteran of the high
technology manufacturing industry was recruited to develop and implement the
strategy for commercializing electronic ink. Prior to joining E Ink, Iuliano
was president, director and CEO of Molecular Devices Corp. (NASDAQ: MDCC), an
analytical instrumentation company. At Molecular Devices, Iuliano completed a
successful turnaround, and led the company through a highly successful initial
public offering and grew its market capitalization to nearly $250 million. In
his career, Iuliano has raised over $100 million in public and private
financing, negotiated acquisitions and technology licensing deals and built
worldwide market leadership positions in emerging technologies. He worked at
both IBM and VLSI Technology. He earned an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School
and a B.S. from Boston College. |
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Alfred S.
Woodworth, jr. is Managing Director and founder Echelon Ventures, a
venture capital firm making investments in New England-based, early stage
technology companies seeking $1 million to $3 million in equity. Echelon works
companies beyond raw start-up, where an initial management team has been
formed, some start-up capital has been secured and operations have begun,
generating revenue, or just pre-revenue. Investments go to internet,
communications, information technology, drug discovery, semiconductor
manufacturing, manufacturing processes companies who have an enabling
technology with a demonstrated a proof-of-concept.
"Woody" founded
Echelon Ventures in the Spring of 2000. Previously, he was a Managing Director
of Gateway Financial Group where he engaged primarily in venture investment and
investment banking transactions. He is also a founding partner of the Brook
Venture Fund, a $10 million private equity fund of which he remains a Special
Limited Partner. Woody's career has been characterized by working with small,
growing companies both domestically and internationally. He started his career
in commercial lending and investment banking at the State Street, and served as
Director, Strategic Development for the Commercial Banking Group. He was Deputy
Secretary for Commerce and Development in the Weld/Cellucci Administration. He
is a director of RealityWave Inc., an early stage company with a patented
technology for streaming 3D content across the Web, a trustee of the MarcValve
Liquidating Trust, set up to collect royalties after the successful sale of a
portfolio company's technology. Woody has an AB from Harvard College and an MBA
from the Amos Tuck School at Dartmouth. |
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| Moderator: |
Larry Grumer,
Chairman, Boston Entrepreneurs' Network & Founder & Managing Director,
Technology Associates & Alliances (TAA), - management advisory and
investment company that commercializes technology for early-stage companies and
corporate spin-outs preparing these businesses for accelerated growth, high
valuations, funding and strategic corporate partnerships and business recovery.
TAA establishes and implements companies' growth strategies through; emerging
markets, corporate partnering, sales and licensing to bring the technology
research and commercial product concepts to manufacturing, and market
realities. Mr. Grumer has held profit & loss management positions a Textron
(Avco), Arthur D. Little, John Brown Group, and Foster-Miller where he helped
effect their business turn-around. He received a BS in Engineering and MBA with
high distinction in International Marketing and Finance concentration from
Northeastern University. He has held a Top Secret clearance. |
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