Kelly Porter & Farzad Naimi: "Raising Venture Capital Finance" April 27, 2006

Speakers: Kelly Porter, Founder & Managing Partner, Zap Ventures & Farzad Naimi, CEO of Litescape Technology


When: Thursday, April 27th 2006


Where: Washington Square Hall, Room 109


Time: 6pm to 8pm

Kelly Porter, Founder and Managing Partner of ZAP Ventures, has been investing in venture-stage companies since 1990. Kelly founded ZAP Ventures in 2001. Prior to becoming a full-time investor, Kelly was Chairman/CEO of CatchTV, a San Francisco-based software company which was acquired in 1999 by Liberty Media/ACTV; Executive Vice President at InterActive Corp/HSN (Nasdaq: IACI), where he worked closely with Barry Diller as part of the Home Shopping Network's turnaround management team; and Vice President of Fox (News Corp) in Los Angeles, where he was one of the founders of the company's cable television division, and held responsibility for business relations with cable operators. His operational experience was particularly focused on starting-up and growing new entities from conception to liquidity or profitability. He is a member of the Society of Cable Television Engineers. A native of Palo Alto, CA, Kelly attended Stanford Graduate School of Business as a Sloan Fellow (Masters, Management, 1999), and the University of Southern California (Bachelors, Broadcast Management, 1985).

Farzad Naimi is a co-founder of LiteScape and brings 19 years of successful Silicon Valley startup leadership to LiteScape. Farzad is responsible for leading the LiteScape team and managing its strategic direction. Farzad started his high-tech career at a start up, Centex Telemanagement, as the head of Engineering and Technology, and led Centex to its IPO, which preceded its subsequent acquisition by WorldCom. Farzad continued his career as Executive Vice President and COO at Prestige International, Japan's largest Customer Relationship Management organization that later had a successful IPO in Japan. Farzad also participated in a successful start up, VisaNet do Brazil, funded by Visa International and four major banks in Brazil. VisaNet do Brazil has become the largest e-Commerce and retail banking group in Latin America and seventh most profitable company in Brazil.