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Pitching Across America 2010


Here are the Investor speakers from our Sold-Out AZ Early-Stage Venture Capital & Angel Event, sponsored by Sedona Rouge Hotel & Spa. This event was in Sedona, AZ on Thursday, December 3, 2009.

David  Lam Managing Director WI Harper Group Read the full profile for David here!

David Lam brings over 10 years of private equity, technology and investment banking experience to WI Harper. He is responsible for investment activities in information technology companies. Prior to joining WI Harper, David was a Vice President at The Carlyle Group, a global private equity firm, where he led and managed investments in telecommunications and technology-enabled business services sectors for its U.S. venture and growth capital fund. While at Carlyle, Mr. Lam served on the Board of Directors and as the Audit Committee Chair of Actelis Networks, and as a Board Observer of Air2Web, eScreen, Ingenio and Panasas. Previously, David served as Director of Business Development at Panasas, a leading provider of distributed networked storage systems. Mr. Lam also spent several years in marketing and business development roles at CIENA Corporation (Nasdaq �CIEN�), ONI Systems (Nasdaq �ONIS�), Cisco Systems (Nasdaq �CSCO�) and Proxim (Nasdaq �PROX�), and worked in the M&A group at Robertson Stephens & Company. Prior to Robertson, Mr. Lam served as an Executive Fellow in the California Governor�s Office.

David earned an M.B.A. from the MIT Sloan School of Business where he was a Merit Scholar and recipient of the Patrick G. McGovern Award for Entrepreneurship. He earned an MA in Sociology and a BS in Industrial Engineering from Stanford University, and completed coursework at Beijing University and the Beijing Language Institute. Mr. Lam currently serves on the Board of Directors of the Silicon Valley chapter of the Asia America MultiTechnology Association.

Stephen Silver Partner Mavn Funding Read the full profile for Stephen here!

Stephen is a partner with MAVN Funding Advisors which specializes in providing a range of funding and business development services for both investors and emerging growth companies.

Stephen is an avid networker, and currently sits on the board for the Southern California Venture Network (SCVN.org), a professional networking group focused on helping emerging growth companies accelerate their businesses.

Prior to MAVN, Stephen was the Entrepreneur Director for the Southern California Keiretsu Forum, the nation's largest angel investment group. Stephen screened the best deals from over 500 startups, connecting them with the group's 250 Angel investors.

Stephen attended Babson College, the nation’s #1 school for entrepreneurship and graduated with a B.S. in business administration, with concentrations in entrepreneurship and marketing.

Hitesh Anand Senior Manager Nokia - Corporate Business Development Read the full profile for Hitesh here!

Hitesh Anand, veteran in the semiconductor & mobile communications industry with more than 10 years of experience currently serves as Senior Manager, Scouting & Corporate Business Development, for Nokia. Hitesh is responsible for discovering, identifying and validating external innovations in North America, using an "outside-in" venture capital approach, to help create new business opportunities for Nokia. In this role, Hitesh drives the Corporate Business Development open innovation process in North America by screening and analyzing start-ups and proposing & steering high impact candidates for new business opportunities.

Hitesh joined Nokia in 2005, and has held various positions including Senior Manager, Corporate Strategy where he helped drive Nokia�s technology strategy.

At Nokia, Hitesh was instrumental in developing Nokia�s Symbian Strategy leading to its subsequent acquisition; providing guidance to the Web Runtime, Browser, Open Foundation & Linux strategy work; formulating the competitive strategy for Java business group; recommending action and influencing change in Nokia Semiconductor Strategy; as well as analyzing acquisition targets and performing quantitative analysis to drive business decision making for Nokia Software Strategy.

Hitesh has held business & engineering positions at Lucent Technologies, Analog Devices and Motorola Semiconductor Product Sector (now Freescale). Hitesh earned a an MBA from Duke University, USA; an MSE in Electrical Engineering from Arizona State University, USA; and a B.Tech in Electronics & Communication Engineering from Guru Nanak Dev University, India.

Scott Caruso General Partner Flywheel Ventures Read the full profile for Scott here!

Scott brings a decade of angel and venture investing experience and over 25 years of technology industry experience as a founder, builder, manager and advisor to over two dozen early-stage ventures in the Internet, Software and IT arenas. A seasoned tech entrepreneur and engineer, he has particular strengths in supporting company transitions from product development to sales-driven businesses and developing effective corporate infrastructure for scale.

Scott joined Flywheel as a General Partner in 2003 and leads the firm’s investments in Groople, Lingotek, Intelisum, Sindhara Supermedia, 4Blox and Trackvia. He is also a board observer for Filtrbox.

Prior to Flywheel, Scott was an active angel investor from 1999 to 2003 investing in 12 start-up companies ranging from biotech to IT infrastructure. He founded and led two successful technology start-ups – as Founder/President HotSpare, a self-financed, profitable internet infrastructure services company and as co-Founder of Compute Intensive, a self-funded ISP services company to the SMB market (acquired by Verio and sold to NTT for $6 billion). Between 1989-1994, Scott was a Systems and Sales Support engineer at Sun Microsystems. Prior to Sun, he managed the computer operations group of New Mexico State University’s Computer Sciences Dept. and was responsible for connecting NMSU to the Arpanet (predecessor to today’s internet) and building the first campus-wide email system.

He is past Director of New Mexico Angels from 2004-2006 and is a board director of Lingotek, Intelisum, 4Blox, and Trackvia, a board observer at Groople and past board observer at SAMBA.

Scott received a BS, with a minor in Computer Science from New Mexico State University in 1987.

Rick Gibson Angel Investor Desert Angels Read the full profile for Rick here!

Rick Gibson has had a 34-year career building businesses. He founded and co-founded several successful technology companies and has advised over (75) others. He is 57-years old. Since 2000, Rick has served as Managing Director of HOTventures, a "mentor capital fund" for the Southwest U.S., which invests in and advises fast-growth companies, specializing in Information Technology, BioSciences "light", GreenTech and Media. As an investor and entrepreneurial activist, he’s totally immersed in early-stage growth companies...finding them and making them great.

Rick has been an investor, advisor or board member in: Aquarius Water, Avisere, Beamz, CopperKey, Flypaper, Funding Universe, High Throughput Genomics, High Spirits, Humshakal/Chakraa, Medipacs, Medsphere, MSDx, Octopi, Regenesis, StrongWatch and World Wide Wheat. He is a limited partner in Solstice Capital II (one of the largest venture capital funds in Arizona).

In Tucson, Rick is on the Executive Board and Screening Committee of the Desert Angels and on the board of UA’s Arizona Center for Innovation (AZCI). For several years, was Adjunct Instructor and then Practitioner Faculty for UA’s Eller School Entrepreneurship Program, and also served on the MBA Advisory Council.

In Phoenix, Rick is on the board of Arizona State University's Technopolis and an Entrepreneur in Residence, an instructor for both the LaunchPad and LaunchPrep entrepreneurship programs, and a mentor for ASU TechBA. He is on the Executive Committee and Screening Committee for the Invest Southwest Capital Conference. He was creator of "Entrepreneur's Resource Guide" for bizAZ magazine and a member of the Philanthropic Development Council of the Banner Alzheimer's Foundation.

In Flagstaff, Rick is on the board of the NACET incubator (Northern Arizona Center for Emerging Technologies) and on the management committee of the Northern Arizona Angels.

Elsewhere, Rick is a judge for Ernst & Young’s Entrepreneur of the Year Awards, and on the Angel Capital Association’s National Collaboration Committee. He is also on the selection committee for the Rocky Mountain Life Science Investor Conference. He was a guest instructor for the Power of Angel Investing seminar for Angel Capital Association 2008 Summit.

Rick was an early shareholder in Bill Gross' Idealab and founded one of its first companies, E-Ticket Inc, which merged with the Nederlander Organization's RealTime Syndication Network to become FeatureCast Inc. Rick served as Vice-Chairman. FeatureCast secured the online license for and executive-produced: Fox's America's Most Wanted, Teen Magazine and National Enquirer. Rick participated in strategic planning with the ten original Idealab CEOs. Idealab is known for its creation and investment of several well-known technology companies including: Overture (acquired by Yahoo), United Online (was NetZero and Juno), Aptera, Internet Brands, CitySearch, Energy Innovations, eSolar, Desktop Factory, Picasa, Tickets.com, eToys and Evolution Robotics. [See http://idealab.com]. 1998-2000, Rick was an advisor to the board of directors of Petersen Publishing, producers of 100+ magazines including Motor Trend, Hot Rod and Teen.

Rick co-founded GNP Development Corp and in 1986 they sold it to Lotus Development Corp for $10 million. In 1991, they co-founded Knowledge Adventure Inc, which in 1996 they sold to Cendant for $100 million. Knowledge Adventure became the world's largest children's CD-ROM edutainment software company (almost $400 million in annual revenues), owned by Vivendi-Universal, known for its 'JumpStart' (20 million units sold) and ‘Blaster’ series.

1986 through 1991, Rick consulted to several software companies including Ashton-Tate, Que Software/Macmillan and SPSS Inc, and arranged sales of technology to Symantec, Microlytics and Paramount Publishing. Rick directed a division of Ashton-Tate and was Chairman of 4-5-6 WORLD, a direct marketer of Lotus products. Earlier, Rick directed national sales and or marketing and helped start or re-start: Fisher Corp, KLH, Ultralinear and Androbot Inc (the personal robot start-up by Nolan Bushnell, who founded Atari and Chuck E Cheese). Rick began his career as one of the first store managers for The GAP Inc, which now has over 3,000 stores including Old Navy and Banana Republic.