Peter Gardner of Wavepoint Ventures

Peter Gardner

Speaker & Advisor

Peter Gardner brings 17 years of professional venture investing to Wavepoint Ventures and has extensive experience raising capital, managing investment portfolios, structuring financings, and building management teams. He has served on the boards of more than a dozen early-stage, venture-backed technology companies. Prior to Wavepoint Peter was a general partner at Allegis Capital, a $515 million venture capital firm located in Palo Alto, CA. During Peter’s tenure at Allegis the firm increased its capital under management seven-fold. Prior to Allegis, Peter was a vice president at Technology Funding, Inc., a $315 million venture capital firm. Before entering the venture capital industry Peter was a project leader at Weston Solutions, a national engineering and consulting company. He began his career in lab positions at Genetics Institute and Brookhaven National Laboratory. He currently advises PATH, an international non-profit organization, on the use of venture capital in the commercialization of medical technologies that meet the health needs of underserved populations in the developing world. Peter has an MBA from The Anderson School at UCLA and bachelor’s degrees in both Biology and Environmental Science from Tufts University.

Susan Preston of CalCEF Clean Energy Angel Fund

Susan Preston

Speaker & Advisor

Susan Preston, General Partner at CalCEF Clean Energy Angel Fund, has spent most of her career in senior management positions in public and private companies, from general counsel to CEO. She has also been a partner in two national law firms and is a patent attorney. Susan is a world-recognized expert in angel financing, and is the author of numerous articles, white papers and books on angel financing. Her most recent book, Angel Financing for Entrepreneurs, was released by Wiley Publishing. She has been and continues to be a national and international speaker on economic development, angel and venture financing. She was an Entrepreneur-in-Residence with the Kauffman Foundation for six years focusing on initiatives related to angel investing, angel organizations and women entrepreneurs. She is the architect of the Access to Capital for Entrepreneurs Act, a bi-partisan federal income tax credit bill for private equity investing, which will be re-introduced in Congress this session. Ms. Preston received her JD, cum laude, from Seattle University and her BS, magna cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa, in Microbiology and Public Health from WSU.

Bruce Schechter of Band of Angels

Bruce Schechter

Speaker & Advisor

Bruce Schechter is a member of the Band of Angels, and is an advisor to several technology startups. In particular, he enjoys mentoring early-stage founders on business strategy, go-to-market strategy, and fund raising. Bruce began his career at Intel Corporation in 1980, and served a 17 year stint at the company in a variety of roles including Fab Process Development Engineering, Microprocessor Product Management, Technical Assistant to the Sr. VP of Corporate Strategy, and Director of Online Marketing. In 1997, Bruce was among the founding team of Pandesic LLC, a pioneer application service provider, where he served as Director of Operations Management and then Director of Strategic Alliances. In 2007, Bruce received his MS in Computer Science from Stanford, at twice the age of most of his classmates. He received his BS in Physics and Math from Purdue University in 1980.

John Giddings, co-founder of The Silicon Valley Angels

John Giddings

Speaker & Advisor

John Giddings is the co-founder of The Silicon Valley Angels (now Tech Angel Group), which focuses on high tech seed stage opportunities and Clean Tech issues. He also is Principal of Clean Tech Integration, a consulting practice specializing in technology, business plan and funding services for clean tech start-ups, due diligence projects for venture capitalists, and analysis on the clean tech industry for Wall Street. John recently joined the adjunct Faculty of Santa Clara University’s Graduate School of Engineering as a professor of entrepreneurship. He is on the Board of Directors for HBSTech, and the Industry Advisory Board for the Santa Clara University School of Engineering. He is also editor of The Solar Evangelist Blog, offering insight, commentary and advice for the new solar industry toward delivering on the promise of Gold from the Blue Sky. His home is in Los Gatos, California and this summer he climbed Mt. Fuji–for work.

Pete Sinclair of Leapfrog Ventures

Pete Sinclair

Speaker & Advisor

Pete Sinclair’s background includes over 20 years of senior operating experience in high tech companies and more than 10 years in venture capital. He has been a serial CEO, successfully selling companies to Microsoft, Novell, and Adobe Systems, and has participated in two IPOs. He started his career with Hewlett-Packard and joined Apple Computer when it was still a small private company. Pete founded Leapfrog in 1999, and is rated as one of the Top 30 VCs by Business Insider. Pete has a BS in Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he graduated in the top 10% of his class in 3 years. He is also a graduate of Stanford Business School’s Executive Program for Small Company Presidents and twice served as the Mayor of the Town of Woodside. He is an avid aviation buff and is currently flying a high performance pressurized airplane that he built himself.

Todd Kimmel of Mayfield Fund

Todd Kimmel

Speaker & Advisor

Todd Kimmel is an experienced entrepreneur and investor in the cleantech sector. Todd joined Mayfield Fund from Advanced Technology Ventures, a bi-coastal venture capital firm, where he led cleantech investing in its West Coast office. Todd was also the co-founder and president of Coskata, a leading next-generation bio-fuels company, where he helped drive key product development, technology and financing milestones. Prior to venture capital, Todd was a co-founder and senior vice president at Innovance, a Canadian-based developer of optical networking solutions for telecommunications service providers and worked in investment banking with Wasserstein Perella & Co., Inc. in New York. Todd holds a BA from Amherst College and was a history major.

Carol Sands of The Angels’ Forum

Carol Sands

Speaker & Advisor

Carol Sands is the Founder and the Managing Member of The Angels’ Forum and The Halo Funds. Carol’s career started as a bank officer with First Bank Systems. She has also held marketing or sales positions with Motorola and Xerox Computer Services and executive positions at Arthur Young (now Ernst & Young) and Coopers & Lybrand (now PricewaterhouseCoopers). She later founded Sands MarketingPlus, an international sales management and marketing consulting firm with advertising and PR agencies. In 1997, she incorporated The Angels’ Forum Management Company, the parent company of The Angel’s Forum, a revolutionary company in angel investing that organizes individual investors with previous entrepreneurial experience to invest as a single entity using a venture capital model for due diligence, mentoring, and board management. Starting in 2000, Carol co-founded a series of four venture funds to invest in early-stage Silicon Valley start-ups. Carol received her BA in Business Administration from The University of Iowa.

Ryan Spoon of Polaris Venture Partners

Ryan Spoon

Speaker & Advisor

Ryan Spoon is a principal in San Francisco at Polaris’ Dog Patch Lab. He focuses on investments in internet, technology, and digital media. Ryan blogs at www.ryanspoon.com. Prior to joining Polairs, Ryan worked at Widgetbox as VP of Marketing & Business Development. Ryan spent 2003-2007 at eBay Inc. As part of the internet marketing team, Ryan focused on user acquisition, search engine optimization and social content properties like eBay MyWorld and Reviews & Guides. Most recently, Ryan launched and managed the Kijiji.com business. In 2000, as a collegiate swimmer for Duke university, Ryan founded beRecruited, a sports recruiting platform for high school athletes and college coaches. beRecruited was acquired by RVS Ventures in 2007 and Ryan currently serves on the board of directors. He is also the founder and president of sfEntrepreneurs, an organization of Bay Area investors and operators, which first launched InGameNow.com. Ryan holds a B.A. from Duke University.

Sam Kingsland, Granite Ventures

Sam Kingsland

Sam Kingsland of Granite Ventures brings extensive experience working with emerging growth companies to the team.  Over Sam’s eighteen-year career in the venture industry, he has worked with more than 70 venture-backed companies and on more than 115 financings.  During his career, he has worked with early-stage companies in the wireless, semiconductor, software, internet and consumer markets.  Sam lead Granite’s investments in DigitalThink (acquired by Convergys), NetBoost (acquired by Intel), Nexabit Networks (acquired by Lucent), Sierra Wireless (NASDAQ: SWIR) and SnapTrack (acquired by Qualcomm).  He currently serves on the Boards of Directors for Agilence, Fulcrum Microsystems, Grid2Home and Venturi Wireless.  Sam holds a B.A. from Dartmouth College.

Neal Hansch, Rustic Canyon Partners

Neal Hansch

Neal Hansch of Rustic Canyon Partners brings over fifteen years of venture capital, technology operations and financial advisory experience to Rustic Canyon and its portfolio companies. Before joining Rustic Canyon in 2005, Neal worked in the Corporate Development group at Macromedia (Nasdaq: MACR), where he was responsible for global M&A transactions and strategic equity investments. Prior to Macromedia, Neal was an investor at Technology Crossover Ventures (TCV) and also spent time in Product Marketing at webMethods (Nasdaq: WEBM). Neal is also a co-founder of WebAssist.com, a mature start-up that provides popular extensions for Web development tools. Neal began his career as an investment banking analyst in the Software Group at Robertson Stephens & Co., where he worked with clients such as BEA, BroadVision, HNC, Hyperion, Informatica and Intuit.

Don Ross of Sand Hill Angels

Don Ross

Founders Space Speaker & Advisor

Don Ross is co-founder of HealthTech Capital, Board Director of Sand Hill Angels, and a Member of Life Science Angels. Don also is Board Director of Figure 8 Surgical and OncoHealth Corporation. Don is active in syndications among Angel groups and early stage venture firms. Within Angel groups, he chairs screening and didactic committees. Don provides strategic guidance, operational experience, and investments to a variety of startups, which include companies in diagnostics, medical devices, eHealth, mobile, and Internet. He has a particular interest in health tech—the intersection of healthcare and information technology. Don began working in life sciences in the early 1980s, when he developed software applications for psychological testing, health behavior change, and health monitoring. Don co-founded, built, and operated a life sciences publishing company, which was sold successfully in 2000. Don is an honors graduate from UC Berkeley (architecture).

Steve Bernardez of ONSET Ventures

Stephen Bernardez

Founders Space Speaker & Advisor

Steve Bernardez joined ONSET Ventures in 2006, bringing more than a decade of experience in the IT industry. He has had director-level management responsibility in business development and market strategy at both large technology companies and startups. Steve came to ONSET from Microsoft, where he sourced and developed go-to-market alliances with venture-backed software startups. Prior to Microsoft, Steve led the business development function at an early stage ecommerce search startup. He also was a strategy management consultant at Andersen Consulting (now Accenture) where he advised large software and hardware vendors on corporate strategies including new market entry, acquisition, and licensing strategies. At ONSET Ventures, Steve specializes in evaluating and nurturing IT investments. Steve holds B.S. and MBA degrees, both from Stanford University.

Richard Koffler of Koffler Ventures

Richard Koffler

Founders Space Speaker & Advisor

Richard Koffler has been a C-level executive for over 25 years, successfully launching and nurturing technology ventures.  He is a founding member of the Tech CEO Network, and is on the executive committee of the Los Angeles network of Tech Cost Angels.  He was president of both the Los Angeles Venture Association (LAVA) and the Technology Council of Southern California, and currently serves on the advisory boards of the California Emerging Technology Fund and the Wells Fargo Center for Small Business and Entrepreneurship at Cal State University, Northridge.  He is also a board member of El Centro Latino for Literacy.  He holds computer science degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of California, Berkeley.

Jack Wolosewicz of MediaClaw

Jack Wolosewicz

Founders Space Speaker & Advisor

Jack Wolosewicz of MediaClaw has founded and managed four startups as CEO and CTO. He has a track record of pioneering new technologies, innovation, IP development, technology implementation and team management. Jack co-founded MediaClaw, a web video content monetization and tracking startup. He developed and patented enabling technologies to give MediaClaw a sustainable technical lead over competitors. He is also the founder of Cyberus Consulting, which specializes in providing technical diligence services, patent analysis, project management and fast execution by assembling ad-hock design teams tailored for each task. He co-founded StorageZip, a provider of lightweight, SSL based secure web services delivery platform incorporating advanced encryption, records security, integrity and non-repudiation. He also consulted as DRM industry expert for Napster and for Roxio.

Klaus Hambuechen, The Angels’ Forum

Klaus Hambuechen

Founders Space Speaker & Advisor

Klaus Hambuechen joined The Angels’ Forum in 2010.  Prior to that, he served for 36 years at Siemens Healthcare and for more than 20 years as CEO in various medical imaging business units. He gained world–wide business and device technology knowledge in ultrasound, computerized tomography (CT), interventional cardiology, interventional radiology, – neuro-radiology and MRI.  In his role as The Angels’ Forum Partner, he explores investment opportunities in innovative diagnostic and therapeutic LS companies. In his time as CEO at Siemens Healthcare he applied process management tools to accelerate development and improve business results. He serves on the Board of Mochida Siemens Medical Systems (MSMS) in Japan, as an observer for TAF on the Board of OncoHealth, Inc. and on the Scientific Advisory Board of Bell Biosystems, Inc.  In 1973 he received a Dipl. Ing. degree in EE from the University of Aachen (RWTH), Germany.

Bill Reichert, President of Garage Technology Ventures

Bill Reichert

Founders Space Speaker & Advisor

Bill Reichert has over 20 years of experience as an entrepreneur and an operating executive. Since joining Garage in 1998, Bill has focused on early-stage information technology and materials science companies. He sits on the Boards of CaseStack, WhiteHat, ClearFuels, cFares, and ThermoCeramix. Prior to Garage, Bill was a co-founder or senior executive in several venture-backed technology startups, including Trademark Software, The Learning Company, and Academic Systems. Earlier in his career, he worked at McKinsey & Company, Brown Brothers Harriman & Co., and the World Bank. Bill earned a B.A. at Harvard College and an M.B.A. from Stanford University. He was a founding board member and a Chairman of the Churchill Club, and a Charter Member of the Silicon Valley Association of Startup Entrepreneurs. Currently he is the Chairman of the Small Fund Roundtable of the VC Taskforce and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations in New York.

Don Butler of Thomvest Ventures

Don Butler

Founders Space Speaker & Advisor

Don Butler of Thomvest Ventures has a 20-year career spanning a variety of roles with emerging growth technology companies.  Don began his career in investment banking at Lehman Brothers, where he worked on a number of initial public offerings as well as mergers and acquisitions.  Don then was a business developer on behalf of a number of start-ups in the software and networking industries as a consultant with Asia Pacific Ventures.  Don is currently on the Board of Directors for Axcient, Flashsoft, Milyoni, NetBase, and YottaMark.  Don has a B.A. in Chinese from UCLA and M.A.s in both East Asian Studies and Political Science from Stanford.

David Teten, Partner at ff Venture Capital

David Teten

Founders Space Speaker & Advisor

David is Chairman of Harvard Business School Angels New York and Founder and Chairman of Navon Partners, a data and analytics company focused on analyzing private companies.  He was formerly Acting CEO of Vertical Key, a web-based software service for managing large-scale events. Previously he was a Managing Director with Evalueserve, a 2,500-person global research and analytics company, and Founder and CEO of Circle of Experts, an investment research firm acquired by Evalueserve.  (Circle of Experts was later acquired by Advantus Global.)  Read more...

Gautam Gupta of General Catalyst Partners

Gautam Gupta

Founders Space Speaker & Advisor

Gautam Gupta of General Catalyst Partners focuses on investments in new and existing technology businesses.  His areas of special interest include financial services, enterprise IT, consumer services, and new media.  Gautam is also actively involved with GoodData.  Before joining GC, Gautam analyzed brand strategy and consumer preferences in the Consumer Market Knowledge Group of Procter & Gamble’s North American Fabric Care business unit.  Prior to that, he worked closely with the sales and marketing groups at SinglePoint (fka: Wireless Services Corporation), and CTB Live on Campus during his studies at Babson College.  Gautam is a graduate of Babson College, earning a B.S. in Business Administration.

Arif Janmohamed of Lightspeed Ventures

Arif Janmohamed

Founders Space Speaker & Advisor

Arif Janmohamed joined Lightspeed in 2008 and focuses primarily on investments in the areas of infrastructure, communications, networking, and software.  Prior to joining Lightspeed, Arif worked in the Corporate Business Development group at Cisco where he focused on opportunities in the unified communications and SaaS market. Before joining Cisco Systems, he was with Novitas Capital, an early-stage venture capital firm.  Earlier in his career, Arif worked in technical development and product management roles at WebTV (acquired by MSFT), Andes Networks (acquired by SUNW), and Sun Microsystems.  Arif holds an MBA from the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania and a BSc in Computer Engineering from the University of Waterloo, Canada.

Dafina Toncheva of Tugboat Ventures

Dafina Toncheva

Founders Space Speaker & Advisor  Read more...

David Horwich of PGP Capital Advisors

David Horwich

Founders Space Speaker & Advisor

David Horwich has over 20 years of diversified financial experience in the investment banking business.  He has participated in over 50 corporate finance transactions, includeing mergers and acquisitions.  During his career, he has been involved in raising over $1 billion in capital for his clients.  Mr. Horwich’s transactional experience spans working in a variety of industries, including technology, food, specialty retail, consumer product, and aerospace to name just a few.