TOMORROW night, on Tuesday May 3, 2016 at 630pm the Boston Entrepreneurs’ Network (ENET) will present a panel of four speakers on this subject at the group’s Waltham location: Constant Contact, 1601 Trapelo Rd., 1st Floor, InnoLoft, Waltham, Massachusetts (Exit 28, I-95/Route 128).
Are you getting ready to raise seed investment for your company? Want to know what goes on behind the scenes when angel and seed investors contemplate whether or not to fund a venture? How do you create an investor-friendly financial model for your business?
On May 3rd, ENET will host a panel of leaders from the Boston seed and angel investing community who will answer your questions about how they make investment decisions. No presentations. No slides. At this meeting it will be just you, our panel of Angels, and your questions. As a founder, or founder-to-be this is your chance to ask the panel all those questions that are going through your mind about raising capital. Here are a few very common questions:
What are the best ways to find an angel who’s investment interests align with your objectives?
How do Angels pick investments? What criteria is most important to them?
How do Angels decide how to value my company and how much to invest?
As with every ENET meeting you will also get the chance to network with the panelists and other meeting attendees, both before the start of the meeting and afterwards. There will also be a pre-meeting dinner for additional networking.
Panel:
Deb Kemper, Managing Director, Boston Chapter of Golden Seeds, http://www.goldenseeds.com/ , Twitter: @Deb_Kemper
Deb Kemper is Managing Director of the Boston Forum of Golden Seeds, a national angel investor group. She is also a member of Clean Energy Venture Group. Her investment focus is high growth companies in the clean tech, health care, and technology sectors. Previously, Deb was a consultant with McKinsey & Company where she served clients in a variety of industries including energy, utilities, electronics, and healthcare. Her functional experience includes manufacturing, product development, operations, strategy, professional development, and leadership coaching. She has provided leadership support to organizations in China, Peru and the United States. Deb earned her MBA from the Amos Tuck School at Dartmouth College where she was named an Edward Tuck Scholar. She holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Civil & Environmental Engineering from Cornell University where she graduated With Distinction. .
Joseph W. Alsop, Venture Partner, Alsop Louie Partners, Co-Founder & former Chief Executive Officer Progress Software Corporation
JOSEPH ALSOP is a Venture Partner with Alsop Louie Partners, focusing on supporting early stage companies applying information technology in innovative ways. He was the co-founder and until 2009 the CEO of Progress Software Corporation, a global supplier of application infrastructure software used to develop, deploy, integrate and manage business applications. Joe led Progress from its founding to its position as a global software industry leader with annual revenue exceeding one half billion dollars. Alsop has over 25 years of management and technical experience in the computer industry. Alsop received his B.S. degree in Electrical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and attended the Sloan School of Management at MIT.
Barry Coffman, Angel Investor and Mentor, Launchpad Venture Group , http://launchpadventuregroup.com
Barry has been a professional investor and institutional money manager for 30 years. Currently he focuses his time on his angel investing activities through his membership in Launchpad Venture Group and his network in the startup community. Barry serves or has served as a board member or advisory board member for many of these companies including Smart Lunches, Happie, Woo Sports, Testive, Punchbowl, Pixability, Krash, A2a Media and ProCamps. Prior to joining Launchpad Barry was a Co-Founder, Managing Partner and Portfolio Manager for Boldwater Capital Management, a credit focused hedge fund firm from 2002-2008. Barry helped launch the firm along with its two funds which totaled $250mm at their peek. Barry received his MBA in Finance from Columbia University and a BS in Economics from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.
Moderator:
Greg Dawe, https://www.linkedin.com/in/gregdawe, is ENET’s Vice Chair of Operations and has been working in the software industry for over 30 years, first as an engineer, and later, in management. For over 10 years, Greg held senior management positions in the computer network security industry including experience with RSA Security, Inc. Greg specializes in establishing and growing new organizations directly linked to improving company results.
Greg Dawe @GlostaKenshi
For more information or to register for the May 3 ENET meeting, go to http://www.boston-enet.org/event-2017602 or www.boston-enet.org
I helped the moderator with this meeting. I also organized and moderated another ENET panel on Seed and Angel Financing (for Stratup companies) that was held in Waltham October 2, 2012.
If you would like more information on that October 2012 Seed and Angel Finance panel, I moderated go to http://boston-enet.org/event-545603 At that link you can view slides from all three of our angel and seed investor speakers that included James Geshwiler, Managing Director of Common Angels.
The slides of our October 2012 panel tell how investors approach the problem of making a good investment? The slides also go behind the scenes of the decision making to discover the process our three panelist-investors use to choose and to invest in emerging and seed stage companies.
Hopefully, these presentations on Seed and Angel Financing will be helpful to entrepreneurs in small and early stage companies I represent. Hope to see you at ENET’s Waltham meeting place, at Constant Contact tomorrow night at 630pm!
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I remain active in ENET, a Waltham and Cambridge based group that aids founders, entrepreneurs, small and early stage companies, and people who invest or work in those companies. I have been on the ENET Board since 2002, and served as Chairman since 2009, re-elected in May 2015 to my fourth 2-year term as ENET Chair. During the period of my leadership, ENET’s annual program has grown from 10 meetings per year to 19 planned for 2015-16: 10 meetings in Waltham, and 9 in Kendall Square Cambridge, plus our annual cruise of Boston Harbor to end the program year. Each meeting has three or more speakers on a subject of interest to entrepreneurs and company founders, in life science, tech and other areas of New England’s innovation economy.
Besides my work as ENET Chair, I have organized and moderated four earlier meetings this program year.
Last month, on April 5, 2016, I was meeting organizer and moderator for the ENET meeting on “Strategic Alliances for M&A and Successful Exits”. We had three great speakers including Charles Lax of Grand Banks Capital and Richard Kimball of Bigelow, LLC. To see my write up on the meeting and slides from each of our four speakers, go to http://www.boston-enet.org/event-2017600
On January 5, 2016, I was meeting organizer and moderator for the ENET meeting on “ Product Development in Life Science & Tech Startups.” We had four wonderful and quite complimentary speakers, a full house in Waltham, with 112 in attendance, and great audience questions. We began with the big picture of product development across life science fields and then focused on a single company’s successful development, launching and sales of a customer-driven medical device / consumer product. Then moving to tech, our third speaker focused on key design issues and our 4th speaker closed on scaling and production issues. To see my write up on the meeting and slides from each of our four speakers, go to http://www.boston-enet.org/event-2017595
On October 6, 2015, I was meeting organizer and moderator for the ENET meeting on “Innovative Ways to Bootstrap Your Startup Company.” We had three great speakers, a full house in Waltham and great audience questions. To see my write up on the meeting and slides from each of our three ENET speakers, go to http://boston-enet.org/event-2017582
One of the highlights of the October 6 ENET meeting was the presentation of Joanne Lang, Founder and CEO of AboutOne, www.aboutone.com/about/our-story/ Joanne is based in Philadelphia and flew in special, at her own cost, to give her presentation for ENET. Joanne’s slides, “”Bring Your Product to Market Bootstrapped Style… and Keep it there” – were also excellent, a great and continuing resource for founders and entrepreneurs to use and reference, LINK http://boston-enet.org/resources/Documents/Presentation_Lang.pdf
On September 1, 2015, I was meeting organizer and moderator for the kick-off meeting to ENET’s 25th year. For that meeting in Waltham, our subject was “Giants of the Startup Community, Founders who made it Big, tell what’s Important”. It was a great evening for ENET where our founders of startup companies heard stories of entrepreneurial challenges, surprises, disappointments, victories and triumphs.
To see slides from the September 1 ENET event, go to – http://boston-enet.org/event-2005499
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