SVASE Event: 'MAIN EVENT: What’s Hot And What’s Not For 2007 – Web, High Technology And Energy' January 4, 2007

Event: 'MAIN EVENT: What’s Hot And What’s Not For 2007 – Web, High Technology And Energy'

Date: Thursday, January 04, 2007 At 06:00
Duration: 2 Hours 30 Minutes
Contact Info:
Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati (WSGR Campus) 950 Page Mill Road Palo Alto, 94304 Laura Weigant Email: [email protected]
URL: www.svase.org/index.php?option=com_extcalendar&Itemid=149&extmode=view&extid=566

In recent quarters there has been a flood of investments in biomedical companies, reshaping the landscape long dominated by software, semiconductors, the Internet and telecomm. And many VCs seem to be jumping on the “digital living room” band wagon, while others are pounding on the doors of viral breakouts like HotorNot and Meebo. Do these moves define the trends for 2006, or are there other influences at work?

Will your startup be Hot, or Not, in the coming year?

This lively panel discussion will explore current trends and panelist opinions on topics including:

• How much money is sitting on the sidelines, waiting to be invested?
• Where in the world will it go – Silicon Valley, India, China, somewhere else?
• How much will be available for seed and early stage investments?
• What will be the Hot market segments?
• What will be the Hot applications within these segments?
• Where will your money be going?

The Panel:
• Ken Elefant, General Partner, Opus Capital
• Rob Rueckert, Senior Investment Manager, Intel Capital
• John Steuart, Managing Director, Claremont Creek Ventures
• Ann Winblad, Partner, Hummer Winblad Venture Partners

Moderator: Matt Marshall, VentureBeat

WHEN: Thursday, January 4
6.00-7.00 pm: Networking and Hors d'oeuvres
7.00-8:30 pm: Panel discussion and Q/A

To reserve an Exhibit Table:
Contact [email protected], $500 Members, $1,000 Non-members.

LOCATION:
Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati (WSGR Campus), 950 Page Mill Road, Palo Alto, 94304

PRE-REGISTERED RATES (All Rates Include Hors D’oeuvres):
Members - $20; Affiliates who advertise this event - $29;General Public - $49

WALK-IN RATES: Add $10.00 to the listed price

Seating is limited, so early registration is recommended to avoid disappointment on the day.

Speaker Bios

Matt Marshall, VentureBeat (www.venturebeat.com)
Matt Marshall is founder and editor of VentureBeat, a blog he started under the SiliconBeat banner while still with the San Jose Mercury News. Prior VentureBeat, Matt was a staff writer focused on venture capital and emerging technologies with the San Jose Mercury News. Prior to Mercury news Matt worked at some of the well known names in print journalism including The Wall Street Journal, The Washington post and Los Angeles times. He has won several awards including James Madison Freedom of Information Act Award and Journalist of the Year, awarded by the Northern California Society of Professional Journalists. These days Matt prowls Silicon valley looking for exciting technology startup companies, the entrepreneurs who start these companies and the VC’s who fund these emerging companies. Matt received a Ph.D. in government from Georgetown University and a BA in Economics and Politics from UC Santa Cruz.

Ann Winblad, Hummer Winblad Venture Partners
Ann Winblad is the co-founding Partner of Hummer Winblad Venture Partners. She is a well-known and respected software industry entrepreneur and technology leader. Her background and experience have been chronicled in many national business and trade publications.

Ann has over 25 years of experience in the software industry. She began her career as a systems programmer at the Federal Reserve Bank. In 1976 Ann co-founded Open Systems, Inc., a top selling accounting software company, with a $500 investment. She operated Open Systems profitably for six years and then sold it for over $15 million. Prior to co-founding Hummer Winblad Venture Partners, Ann served as a strategy consultant for prestigious clients such as IBM, Microsoft, Price Waterhouse, and numerous start-ups. In addition, Ann has co-authored the book Object-Oriented Software and has written articles for numerous publications. Ann received a BA in mathematics and in business administration, as well as an MA in education and international economics from the University of St. Thomas, St. Paul, Minnesota. Ann also has an honorary Doctorate of Laws from the University of St. Thomas.

Ann has served as a Director of start-up and public companies and currently serves as a director of Intacct, Voltage Security, Krillion and Mulesource. She is also a member of the Board of Trustees of the University of St. Thomas and is an advisor to numerous entrepreneur groups.

Board Member of:
• Intacct
• Krillion
• Mulesource
• Voltage Security

John Steuart, Claremont Creek Ventures
John has spent the last 20 years managing, building and investing in technology and life science companies. John focuses on the intersection of the information technology and life sciences markets including bioinformatics, molecular diagnostics, genomics, proteomics, software and instrumentation for med-tech industries.

John serves on the board of directors of Arcxis, PropertyBridge, and Tibion Bionic Technologies. He is an Industry Fellow at the Center for Entrepreneurship and Technology at the College of Engineering as well as a member of the Advisory Council to the Lester Center's Berkeley Entrepreneurs’ Forum at UC Berkeley. He recently joined the Advisory Board for Technology Ventures Corporation (TVC), an organization which fosters entrepreneurs and technologies coming out of the national labs such as Lawrence Berkeley, Sandia and Lawrence Livermore.
Early in his career, he joined Alafi Capital, an Emeryville-based venture firm specializing in early-stage biomedical companies, where he served as an officer of the General Partner. At Alafi, John lead investments in more than a dozen successful start-ups, and served as the senior executive and board member of various firms such as Tanox, Software Ventures, Lipomatrix, and Megan Health.

In the mid-90s, together with colleague Nat Goldhaber, John helped start Cybergold, an Internet marketing and payments company, serving as the early COO and CFO through its IPO, merger with Mypoints and sale to United Airlines. John continued with the Mypoints unit of United serving as the Senior Vice President of Strategic Partnerships.
John lives in Berkeley with his wife and three children, a block away from the Triple Rock brewery.

Ken Elefant, Opus Capital
Ken Elefant is a founding partner of Opus Capital focusing primarily on internet and software investments. Ken serves on the board of Wirefree Partners and Royalty Services and was involved with several prior investments including Virsa Systems (NYSE: SAP) and Riverbed Technology (Nasdaq: RVBD). Previously, Ken was a Senior Associate at Lightspeed Venture Partners. Prior to this, Ken was a Senior Associate and Kauffman Fellow at Battery Ventures.
Ken brings strong operating experience to Opus. Previously, he worked at Radius Inc. as Director of International Sales and Marketing when the revolutionary Radius Pivot Monitor was the hot seller in Japan. His role at Radius included serving as a member of the executive staff and opening the company's first sales and marketing office in the Benelux region of Europe.
He has also held various marketing and business development positions at Claris Corporation (the software subsidiary of Apple Computer) and RealNetworks. While at Claris, Ken devised the compensation plan for the U.S. sales force that helped move the company from being a Macintosh-only company to being a cross-platform company.

Ken holds a BS in Economics from the Wharton undergraduate division at the University of Pennsylvania and an MBA from Harvard Business School.

Rob Rueckert, Intel Capital
Rob Rueckert is a senior investment manager at Intel Capital focusing on investments in internet solutions and enterprise software. He has over 12 yrs of software experience as an engineer, consultant and investor, including five years with Arthur Andersen. Rob has experience in a variety of executive management roles with start-ups as well as senior management roles with large corporations. His current investment focus with Intel Capital is on Web 2.0 technologies and emerging enterprise solutions (including RFID and sensor networks).

Recently, Rob created, assembled and is leading the efforts behind SuiteTwo (www.suitetwo.com) which is an Enterprise 2.0 offering of blogs (SixApart), wikis (SocialText) and RSS (NewsGator and SimpleFeed) software for businesses, integrated by SpikeSource. Other recent investments include Datallegro, Edgeio, Arch Rock and InSync Software. Previous successful exits include TimesTen, Oblix and Demantra.

Rob holds a BS in Information Systems from Brigham Young University and an MBA in finance from the University of Chicago

Official Website: http://www.svase.org/index.php?option=com_extcalendar&Itemid=149&extmode=view&extid=566