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Here are the Investor speakers from our Sold-Out Portland VC and Angel Event, sponsored by Perkins Coie, Oregon Angel Fund, SocialRadius. This event was in Oregon on Wednesday, May 23, 2012.

Rick Gibson Angel Investor Hot Ventures Read the full profile for Rick here!

Rick Gibson has had a 38-year career building businesses. He founded and co-founded several successful technology companies and has advised over (75) others. He is 60-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, in a range of domains as diverse as Ballistic Armor to Agriculture, including Information Technology, Health Sciences, 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’s been involved with several companies that have had liquidity events. Rick has also served as an expert witness regarding technology business cases.

Rick has been an investor, advisor or board member in: Avisere, Beamz, The Book Patch, Bourque Industries, CopperKey, DarkPulse, DueBook, EquiSight, Flypaper, Funding Universe (now Lendio), LabTrack, LifeBot, Medipacs, MedSphere, MDS VetInfo, Mobile Authentication Corp (MAC), MojoVideo, MSDx, NuvoMed, Octopi, Real Time Companies, Sokikom, StrongWatch, World Wide Wheat and Zero Waste Wines. He has been a limited partner in Solstice Capital II (one of the largest venture capital funds in Arizona) and is an early shareholder in Bill Gross’ Idealab and a partner in Elite Desert Ventures. In Tucson, for many years Rick served on the Executive Board and still the Screening Committee of the Desert Angels, and is on the board and is Mentor-Emeritus for 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 UA’s MBA Advisory Council.

In Phoenix, Rick was on the board of Arizona State University's Technopolis and was an Entrepreneur-in-Residence, an instructor for both the LaunchPad and LaunchPrep entrepreneurship programs, and a mentor for ASU TechBA, coaching companies from Mexico. He is on the Executive Committee, Selection Panel and chair of the Angel Investor committee for the Invest Southwest Capital Conference. He is an advisor to an ASU team in NSF’s I-CORPS program and The Green Chamber: Greater Phoenix. 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. Rick participates as a director/mentor for the Tallwave ‘Labs’ accelerator program and continues as a judge for the AZ Commerce Dept’s ‘Arizona Innovation Challenge’.

In Flagstaff, Rick is on the Executive Board and is Treasurer of the NACET incubator (Northern Arizona Center for Emerging Technologies) and is also a mentor.

Elsewhere, Rick has been a judge for Ernst & Young’s Entrepreneur of the Year Awards, and on the Angel Capital Association’s National Collaboration Committee. He was a guest instructor for the Power of Angel Investing seminar for Angel Capital Association Summit. He is a judge for the Arizona Innovation Challenge. Rick often pinch-hits as the Mentor for the FundingPost workshops.

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 about 3,200 stores worldwide including Old Navy and Banana Republic.

Scott Sandler Fund Manager Oregon Angel Fund (OAF) Read the full profile for Scott here!

Scott joined the Oregon Angel Fund in 2012 and manages the day-to-day activities of the Oregon Angel Fund including generating deal flow, evaluating business plans and due diligence management. Scott became CEO of electronic design automation (EDA) startup Novas Software in 2000. There he honed his management skills and engaged his passion for building teams and brands. After selling the company to Taiwanese EDA leader SpringSoft in 2008 he fulfilled a promise to pursue something completely different at mid-life in 2010. He stopped commuting to San Jose, returned to Oregon full time, and invested in the Oregon Angel Fund, quickly becoming one its most active members. Scott is an engineer who found out early that he liked talking about technology and products more than designing and testing them. Starting at Intel in the mid-80s provided a solid launching pad for a career in high-tech startups and marketing. He was the first applications engineer for the Verilog hardware description language, spent a year in Japan with formal verification pioneer Chrysalis Symbolic Design, and created a partnership with Microsoft while with early networking vendor Shiva Corporation. Scott received a BS in Computer Systems engineering from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.

Angela Jackson Managing Director Portland Seed Fund Read the full profile for Angela here!

Angela brings a decade’s experience placing 30+ angel investments (multiple sectors) and a serial entrepreneur family history to Portland Seed Fund. She has advised hundreds of entrepreneurs and seed‐stage companies across a broad spectrum of industries at AB Jackson Group, and also oversees the Portland State University Business Accelerator, with 25+ resident bio-tech, technology and clean-tech companies. She is current President of the Portland chapter of Keiretsu Forum, the largest angel network in the world, and was Chair of the state’s premier angel investment event, Angel Oregon, in 2010. Prior, she served as a principal at Emergent, an incubator/investment fund for emerging technology and consumer products. Earlier in her career, she started and operated several small companies and drove key partner relationships and sales channels at Auctionpay (acquired by Global Payments: GPN) during a period of explosive growth. Very early, she trained for a career in ballet and spent three years sailing globally as a professional tall ships sailor. She holds a B.A. in English and History (Boston University) and a M.A. in Environmental Studies (University of Oregon).

Angela can’t turn off the switch that sniffs out and grows potential, whether scouting entrepreneurs, raising her kids, locating the next hotspot or collecting emerging artists. When not thus engaged, she is usually home enjoying great dinners with her husband and kids.

Matt Miller Managing Director Walden Venture Capital Read the full profile for Matt here!

After writing his first computer program in the late 70’s Matt’s passion for new technology eventually drew him to Silicon Valley in 1989 to work in the newly created Desktop Division of Oracle Corporation. He was hooked, and spent the last 22 years deeply involved in a wide range of early stage tech companies, first as an operating executive and then as a venture investor. He joined Walden in 2002 after a successful career that included roles at Oracle, Remedy Corporation and Moai Technologies, where he was CEO. At Walden, Matt focuses on cloud software and services and loves meeting companies with very early products based on world-class technology.

As CEO of Moai, Matt helped to build revenues to over $14 million in a difficult environment and positioned the company for its exit. Before Moai, Matt served as VP & General Manager at Remedy Corp., where he managed a division with over $175 million in revenue and 200 worldwide employees in Engineering, Marketing, and Business Development. He has also served as VP of Marketing at both Remedy and Gupta Corp. and Director of Marketing at Oracle Corp. and Versant Object Technology Corp. The common thread among these roles was the attraction of a groundbreaking technology. At Oracle, he was a part of the small Desktop division that developed and launched the world’s first database server running on an Intel chip. Remedy was built on the world’s first workflow system, invented at SRI, while Gupta pioneered the first graphical development environment on Windows. Running product and marketing organizations at these companies helps Matt recognize early technology which has mass market opportunities and strong barriers to entry.

As a venture investor, Matt was responsible for Walden’s successful exits at Niku (acquired by Computer Associates), Vitalstream (acquired by Internap), and Iconoculture (acquired by Corporate Executive Board ). He is currently a director at PowerCloud Systems, Image Vision Labs, Blazent, H5, Ignite, and Palamida.

Education: Matt received a Bachelor of Arts from Cornell University and a Masters of Business Administration from Columbia University.

Matt is a guest lecturer at the Notre Dame De Namur Executive MBA Program and a past president of the Portola Valley Schools Foundation. He enjoys golf and collects game used baseball equipment from the Boston Red Sox and San Francisco Giants.

Peter Weiss Angel Investor Read the full profile for Peter here!

Peter Weiss’s career includes more than thirty years of finance and managerial experience; a dozen years consulting on corporate finance and general management issues for early stage companies; and twenty-five years as an early stage investor.

Mr. Weiss’s consulting practice centers on tailoring capital structures and financing plans to match a business’s capital needs, economics and long-term goals. His experience as a manager and an arms-length investor provides a context for understanding the goals of different stakeholders and has led him to think carefully about how to foster alignment between and among disparate parties. His wide-ranging background has allowed him to develop a variety of tools and techniques to help attract capital and return cash and profits to investors and owners.

Mr. Weiss’s business principles are rooted in his family’s specialty food company where he worked while growing up. His professional career began on Wall Street with mergers and acquisitions and leveraged buy-outs. His consulting clients include technology, retail, service and manufacturing companies. Mr. Weiss has owned and operated businesses, served on multiple Boards of Directors and been active in a variety of community service organizations.

Rob Wiltbank Partner Montlake Capital Read the full profile for Rob here!

Rob joined Montlake Capital in 2006 as the firm's Oregon-based Partner, and opened the firm's Portland office. He leads Montlake's Oregon activities and is a professor at the Atkinson Graduate School of Management at Willamette University. He served on the board of Montlake portfolio company Veriwave, prior to it being sold to Ixia in 2011.

His research focuses on strategy making under uncertainty, particularly as it relates to new venture development. His study of angel investing performance is the first empirical examination of the outcomes achieved by angel investors in the U.S. At Willamette University, he teaches courses on New Venture Creation, Strategic Management, and Venture Investing. Rob and his students work with angel investor groups throughout the North West, sourcing, evaluating, and actively investing in new ventures. He is also a Batten Institute Research Fellow with the Darden School at the University of Virginia, conducting an in depth study on organic growth in existing corporations.

Professionally, his background includes corporate finance and sales for Tektronix, strategic marketing for two startup firms, and five years consulting and performing due diligence for many private equity investments.

He holds a Ph.D. in Strategic Management from the University of Washington and a degree in Finance and Accounting from Oregon State University. Rob lives in Lake Oswego, Oregon with his wife and three children.