Raising money is one of the most critical and time consuming tasks for entrepreneurs when starting and growing a company. Times and terms have changed dramatically since the boom days of "dot-com". On Tuesday, February 4, you will learn about raising money for your company from a Private Investor (Angel) and Venture Capitalist (VC), and a CEO who has done it. Our panelists, with backgrounds in raising and investing money, and as entrepreneurs, will provide point-counterpoint. The panel will also discuss the return to basics that have replaced "eyeballs" as investment criteria: Markets, Customers, Management Team, and ROI. Find out what domains are hot, and not.

Ralph Wagner has been an Angel Investor since 1987, and is a charter member of Walnut Venture Associates. Walnut is a group of experienced entrepreneurs and investors seeking investment opportunities in seed and early-stage companies in the New England area. Walnut is focused on information technology companies addressing rapidly growing markets. As a group, Walnut can commit $250,000 to $1,000,000 to a single financing, and had averaged $1.5 million over eight investments in a three year period.

Ralph was a former IBM executive, and has been active in computers and software since the mid-50s. He founded MicroSource in 1980, one of the pioneering microcomputer resellers that he sold for a "nice profit" in 1985. Ever since, he has been recycling those dollars. He also co-founded KeyFile Corporation, one of the first document management software products. Ralph has been involved in several high-tech start-ups both as principal as well as investor. He sits on the boards of KeyFile, DYS Analytics, Softrax, Viveca Software, Collego and Netegrity. Ralph received his BS and MBA degrees from Columbia University.

Alain Hanover is Managing Director and CEO of Navigator Technology Ventures, an early-stage venture firm focusing on technology-based companies. Previously he was Managing Partner at Main Street Partners, a seed-stage venture capital firm. Before that, he was co-founder, President and CEO of Incert Software Corp., marketing software to predict and automatically trace software bugs and quickly determine the cause of a program failure. Earlier, he was founder, CEO, President, and Chairman of Viewlogic Systems, Inc, which marketed electronic design automation software. Alain raised 4 rounds of venture capital and took Viewlogic public. It had sales of $150 million and 700 employees when it was sold. For his efforts, Mr. Hanover was named "Entrepreneur of the Year" in 1993. He also serves on the board of directors of Applix Inc., Bitpipe, Inc., Incert Software Corp., Sionex Corp., the Massachusetts Software and Internet Council and the Massachusetts Technology Park Corporation. Alain holds BS degrees in electrical engineering and mathematics from MIT, an MS degree in applied mathematics from Harvard, and an OPM program degree from the Harvard Business School.

Jay Habegger is the CEO and a founder of Bitpipe Inc., a private information technology (IT) content company based in Boston. As CEO, Jay guided the company from founding to profitability. Along the way he raised three rounds of venture funding from Angels, Venture Capitalists and Corporate Investors, including Reuters Venture Capital, Common Angels, Claflin Capital, and MTDC (Massachusetts Technology Development Corporation). Before founding Bitpipe Jay was the Vice President of Internet Development at State Street Global Advisors. Before SSGA, Jay was a Vice President at The Thomson Corporation, responsible for implementing Internet solutions for information publishing. Jay has been in the Internet and Internet publishing industry since 1992, where he has spent the majority of his career at the nexus among corporate IT, information publishing and the Internet. He earned B.A. and M.S. degrees from the University of Colorado at Boulder.

Les Brown is an Angel investor, and President of Brown & Burstein, Lexington-based management advisors to VC firms, Boards of Directors, CEOs and senior executives of technology-based companies. Mr. Brown is an interim CEO for startups and turnarounds, and rapidly resolves business and technology issues in company performance, markets, management, and technology implementation. Les founded three firms and was instrumental in starting and mentoring many other companies. He has over 25 years of multidisciplinary experience, and has commercialized $250 million of successful products and services. Les earned advanced degrees in engineering and business, and has been an invited speaker and moderator at many conferences, seminars, and universities. He was also a founder and for five years Chair of the IEEE Boston Entrepreneurs' Network, and was past Chair of the 11,000 member IEEE Boston Section.

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