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SoCal Startup Day, Feb 26 2020

Here are the Investor speakers from our Sold-Out San Diego Investor RoundTable, sponsored by Irvine Company, Law Offices of Jacob J. Sapochnick, TechLaw LLP, Amiri Law Firm P.C., FundAmerica, CapSchedule. This event was in on Friday, June 27, 2014.

Jim Brailean, PhD, Co Founder & Managing Partner, Karmel Capital

James Brailean, PhD, is the co-founder and managing partner of BFT Equity Partners and KARMEL Capital. Dr. Brailean started BFT Equity Partners in January of 2013. The fund focuses on investments in early stage companies with disruptive technology or manufacturing processes. The fund has made five investments ranging from Intelligent Blends, manufacturer of single serve drinks, to BURL Concepts, a company developing a portable medical device to enable the detection of stroke in pre-hospital settings.

KARMEL Capital was founded by Dr. Brailean and his partner Scott Neuberger. KARMEL Capital is a Private Equity fund with a focus on unlocking value by bringing operational excellence and strategic direction to technology companies. KARMEL’s principals partner with current investors/owners to create a turnaround strategy and a win/win deal structure for all stakeholders. In June of 2013, KARMEL Capital acquired 85% of the Qualcomm subsidiary, Snaptracs. In March of 2014 Karmel Capital successfully partnered with Parallax Partners and Stepstone Capital to acquire the DivX business unit from Rovi Corporation (NASDAQ ROVI). Dr. Brailean is currently serving as a director on the board of directors of both Snaptracs and DivX.

Prior to starting BFT Equity Partners and KARMEL Capital, Dr. Brailean founded PacketVideo in 1998 and became its CEO in 2000. Under Dr. Brailean's leadership, PacketVideo launched the world's first commercial end-to-end wireless mobile media delivery platform in 2000, and helped create a new industry for wireless multimedia communications. PacketVideo was acquired by NTT DOCOMO, a large Japanese telecommunications company, in October 2010. In January of 2013 after 14.5 years of leading PacketVideo and shipping more than 700 million pieces of software worldwide, Dr. Brailean stepped down as CEO.

Dr. Brailean has previously served on several public and private company boards including DivX (NASDAQ DIVX), Sonic Solutions (SNIC), NextWave (NASDAQ WAVE), Wireless On-ramp, Perseus Wireless, and Nik Software. Currently, Dr. Brailean serves on the boards of Micropower Technologies, Inteligent Blends, Burl Concepts, Snaptracs and DivX. Dr. Brailean also served on both AT&T’s and Verizon Wireless’ Application Developer Advisory Boards from 2007 to 2010. From 2000 to 2004, Dr. Brailean served on the advisory board of DOCOMO Labs USA.

Dr. Brailean received his doctorate of philosophy in electrical engineering from Northwestern University. He holds a MSEE from USC and a BSEE from the University of Michigan - Dearborn. Dr. Brailean has 17 patents in the area of video compression and transmission. He is a recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Mobile Entertainment Forum for his contributions to the acceleration of the development and adoption of mobile multimedia services worldwide.

Dr. Sergio Gurrieri, Angel Investor, Tech Coast Angels

Dr. Sergio Gurrieri is currently a highly active Investor with Tech Coast Angels (TCA). He is a Board of Director and Vice President of Due Diligence of TCA San Diego. Dr. Gurrieri is also a Board Director of Pediatric Bioscience and a Member of the Board (Observer) of Savara Pharmaceuticals. Current investments include: Anabios, Groundmetrics, Virtualmetrix, Gemmus Pharma, Deal Current, Savara Pharmaceuticals, Infobionic, Avaxia Biologics, Yapert, Mogl, Kalyra Pharma.

Dr. Gurrieri possesses a unique combination of a strong business acumen with an advanced technical background developed over his 25 years of experience in Life Sciences, Biotech/Drug Discovery & Development, Medical Devices, Molecular & Clinical Diagnostics. Dr. Gurrieri is a successful, dynamic business professional with entrepreneurial drive. He is a highly energetic and self-motivated strategic thinker excelling in operational execution by leveraging his exceptional leadership, problem-solving, interpersonal and communication skills.

Prior to joining TCA, Dr. Gurrieri was member of the executive management team at NextBio. As Sr. Director of Business Development, he played a key strategic business and marketing role in the identification of new growth opportunities. Before NextBio, Dr. Gurrieri was Marketing Group Manager at Millipore Corp. where he lead the development and execution of eBusiness strategies, covering a portfolio of about 25,000 Life Sciences products and over $700 million in total revenues. Dr Gurrieri also held a number of Business Development, Marketing and R&D roles at Invitrogen Corp. and BD Biosciences Clontech. He also initiated and led a collaboration with Xeotron Corp., which resulted in the full acquisition of the company by Invitrogen in 2004.

Dr Gurrieri holds an MBA in Management and Marketing from San Diego State University, and a PhD in Biophysical Chemistry from the University of Oregon.

Dan Caulfield, Angel Investor

Dan is active angel investor and a member of the San Diego Tech Coast Angels and the Entrepreneurs Organization (EO). Dan is also a Board member of two new media companies: Dayak.com, Recyclers Network.

He most recently worked as the CEO of Tweetphoto, a realtime photo sharing service.

Currently, Dan is the Chairman of the Board of the Hire a Hero program operated by the Armed Forces Support Foundation. Hire a Hero is a web based community, with web 2.0 social networking and referral systems, designed to help the military community network and connect locally so that its members can find the best career opportunities and support as they reintegrate into civilian society.

Dan was the Managing Director of Helmets to Hardhats from 2002-2006.

Prior to founding HQ Group, LLC, Dan was a Senior Manager & Principal at Cap Gemini Ernst & Young. Dan was on the leadership team that grew DareStep, the interactive agency and consultancy.

Before joining Cap Gemini Ernst & Young, Dan was the founder, President and board member of MilitaryHub.com, a business-to-consumer internet portal serving the past, present, and future members of the US Armed Forces.

Before MilitaryHub.com, Dan founded and was the President of Hire Quality, Inc., a staffing company which specialized in high-volume placement of people transitioning from the military. The company grew quickly from the back bedroom to over ten million in sales. It spun off and sold its technology business, called Hire Technology; it was one of the first Application Service Providers (ASP) that served the Human Resources, and professional recruiting industries, as well as the US Military. Hire Quality was sold to H. Ross Perot prior to the funding of MilitaryHub.com.

Prior to founding Hire Quality, Inc. Dan was an infantry officer in the US Marine Corps.

Bill Orabone, Angel Investor

A veteran of global business, a successful serial entrepreneur, a prolific angel investor and an exceptional problem solver whose career includes:

Four successful technology start-ups resulting in exits worth over $400M on raised capital of less than $10M.

46 angel investments ALL leading to profitable returns.

Four ‘industry first’ product introductions two of which turned in sales of greater than $1B.

Two successful company turnarounds.

Countless multinational partnerships, joint ventures & supplier agreements.

Several technology acquisitions and licenses.

A very early Six Sigma black belt in quality control.

Welcome Address: Aaron Sahagun, Southwest Regional Director, FundingPost

Prior to FundAmerica, CapSchedule, and FundingPost, Aaron founded Alumwire, Inc. where he managed corporate networking events during the early days of the Company in Berkeley, CA. He drove the Company's strategic direction, business development, technical activity, and marketing activities as its CEO. Aaron has been named by BusinessWeek as one of "The Top 25 Young Entrepreneurs." Aaron has been also featured on NBC, CBS and CNET. The initial sales of $100K+ from Alumwire's Fortune 500 beta clients led to a $1.4 million dollar financing round. Aaron successfully exited Alumwire in 2011.

Aaron earned his Bachelor of Science in Business Administration from The Walter A. Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley. Prior to attending the University of California, Berkeley, Aaron attended a private, technical high school in Los Angeles where he majored in computer science and developed games in Visual C++, C++, Visual Basic and Javascript. He programmed e-commerce web sites for several companies and organizations in the southern California area during his teenage years.