Event is more than SOLD OUT!

On July 30th (Saturday), CSPA is proud to present its 3rd @Venture Series with a 2-part session: "Gold Rush 3.0 - The Rise of Apps" and "The Rise of Angels".

Are you looking to start or working on a mobile app venture now?   Are you looking to raise funds for your startup or gearing up to make your app venture a success?  In the first session of this event, ‘The Rise of Apps’, you will gain valuable insights from successful individuals who have started their own company in the apps space. 

We will tackle questions such as, how to approach this market, lessons on the do’s and don’ts and other inspiring stories and valuable advice.  In the second session, ‘The Rise of Angels’, we have put together a stellar panel of angels, super angels, and VC to discuss how startups are being funded now.   Come and learn from the bright minds of the Valley.

Session 1: The Rise of Apps!

Angry Birds, Flipboard, Tap Tap Revenge and 500,000 other apps are infiltrating lives of millions around the world.  With the introduction of apps, Apple has forever changed how software is delivered!   The popularity of app has opened up a lot of new opportunities for entrepreneurs.  Being in the Silicon Valley, we are fortunate to have some of the best talents and environment that foster the wheel of innovation that changes the world.

Join us at this special event to meet with successful entrepreneurs who will share their success stories and insights in the app industry!   Be ready to gain a new prospective on how things work in the app space.  We will tackle important questions such as:

•          How to participate in this trend?

•          What are the ingredients of success?

•          What to expect when dealing with Apple or Google?

•          How to get the first 100,000 downloads?

•          Where are the new opportunities?

Speakers:

•          David Barrett - CEO / Founder of Expensify

•          Jeff Haynie - CEO / Founder of Appcelerator

•          Benjamin Joffe - CEO, Plus Eight Star

•          Cole Ratias - CEO & Founder of Loytr 

•          Perry Tam - CEO of Storm8

•          Chris Yeh - (Moderator) VP of PBWorks

Session 2: The Rise of Angels                                                             

Starting a company is much cheaper now.  The rise of open-source software, cloud computing, and social media have substantially lowered the costs of starting a business.  This results in a paradigm shift in how startups raise money.  We are seeing an increasing number of early stage companies being funded by angels. 

Come and find out how angels are funding many startups these days, and how VCs are addressing this shift.  We have invited a great mix panel of angels, super angels and VCs to provide some insights of this trend.  

•           Where to find your angels?

•           What can angels do for you?

•           What are angels looking for?

•           Does angel help or hurt you in getting VC money?

•           Do entrepreneurs get better valuation with angels or VC?           

Speakers:

•          Jeff Clavier - Founder & Managing Partner of SoftTech VC

•          Steve Eskenazi - Angel investor, ex Managing Partner of Walden Ventures

•          Peter Hsing - Co-founder, Partner of Merus Capital

•          Deep Nishar - Founding Partner of Angel Pad, VP of Product at Linkedin

•          Bill Reichert - (Moderator) Managing Director, Garage Technology Ventures

Agenda for July 30, 2011

Food & Drinks

Light breakfast and refreshments will be served

Speaker Biographies

Session 1: The Rise of Apps

David Barrett | Founder, CEO | Expensify
David is the CEO and founder of Expensify. He previously was a software engineer at Akamai until 2008. He hated expense reports so much he decided to do something about it, and created the first expense report that "doesn't suck." Expensify launched in the demopit of the TechCrunch 50 in 2009 and was selected as the second-place “popular choice” out of over a hundred other companies.

Expensify does expense reports that don't suck! It is considered one of the top 5 best apps for business by CNN Money. It has processed over 1,000,000 receipts and has over 300,000 users!

Jeff Haynie | CEO | Appcelerator
Jeff Haynie is Co-founder and CEO of Appcelerator. Jeff is a long-time serial entrepreneur, technologist and blogger. Previously, Jeff was Co-founder and CTO of Vocalocity, a software provider in the communications arena and before that, CTO of eHatchery, a digital incubator and off-shoot of Bill Gross’ Idealab. Jeff has worked on numerous standard committees such as IETF and W3C as well as core contributor to a number of important open source technologies such as JBoss and OpenVXI.

Appcelerator is one of the best web-enabling platforms for web developers to build intuitive, content-rich applications for mobile, tablet and desktop platforms.

Benjamin Joffe | CEO | Plus8star
Benjamin Joffe is a renowned expert on Asia's digital scene. Benjamin shared insights in over 100 talks across 17 countries, and was selected among China's Top 100 Mobile Industry Influencers in 2007 and 2008 as founder of Mobile Monday in Beijing. He has been part of Japan's mobile revolution, Korea's Internet boom and the rise of China as a digital superpower.

As CEO of the strategy consultancy +8* (www.plus8star.com), he brings the best practices from Asia's digital world to clients worldwide (e.g. Microsoft, IMVU, Kabam, Citi Ventures, China Mobile, Harvard Business School, etc). Bridging technology, sociology and anthropology, his research covers virtual economies, digital third places, artificial intelligence (AI) and online social dynamics.

He is also an angel investor in Asia-based startups, including Cmune, the leader of 3D social games on Facebook and Mac App Store, and MyGengo, a global human translation platform.

Cole Ratias | CEO & Founder | Loytr
Cole Ratias is the CEO and founder of Loytr, the developer of MyPad. With over 11,000,000 downloads in just 6 months.  MyPad is the largest social networking app for iPad, allowing for easy access to Facebook, Twitter, and now social games.  MyPad has spent over 12 weeks in the Top 10 (free and paid), and currently sees 10 million minutes of usage each day making it one of the largest mobile publishers with over 300 million impressions each month.

Prior to Loytr, Cole co-founded Fwix, whose local news network reaches 40 million people each month. Cole received his undergraduate degree from University of California at Berkeley.

Perry Tam | CEO | Storm8
Perry Tam is CEO and co-founder of Storm8, the game developer of the most downloaded social titles on iPhone and Android. Every title released by Storm8 has reached the Top 10 Free Apps in the App Store. Having never taken funding, Storm8 is also the parent company of the #1 mobile social game developer, TeamLava.

Prior to Storm8, Perry played a role at Facebook, where he was instrumental in developing payments and architecting Facebook Credits. The author of four patents, Perry received his undergraduate degree from Cornell University.

Storm8, the game developer of the United States’ most downloaded social titles on iPhone and Android such as iMobsters, World War, Restaurant Story and Farm Story.

Chris Yeh | VP | PBWorks
Chris Yeh has been building Internet businesses since 1995. He is the VP Marketing for PBworks, the world's leading provider of hosted collaboration solutions. PBworks serves over 85,000 businesses, including 1/3 of the Fortune 500.

Previously, he was the first investor in and interim CEO of Ustream.TV, which provides an open and distributable platform for live interactive online video. He also helped start numerous other companies, including Symphoniq Corporation, TargetFirst, and Juno Online Services and FarSight Financial Services (divisions of D. E. Shaw & Co., L.P.).

Chris is an active angel investor and advisor to a wide array of startups ranging from network equipment makers to vertical search engines. He is also the founder and Chairman of the Harvard Business School Technology Alumni Association, the co-chair of SD Forum's Startup SIG and the author of the popular blogs, Adventures in Capitalism (http://chrisyeh.blogspot.com), and Ask the Harvard MBA.

Chris earned two degrees from Stanford University and an MBA from Harvard Business School, where he was named a Baker Scholar.

Session 2: The Rise of Angels

Jeff Clavier | Founder & Managing Partner | SoftTech VC
Jean-Francois “Jeff” Clavier is the Founder and Managing Partner of SoftTech VC, one of the most active seed stage investors in Web 2.0 startups.  Since 2004, Jeff has invested in close to 100 consumer internet startups in areas like social media, monetization, search, gaming or B2B/B2C web services. With over 20 years of operational, entrepreneurial and venture capital experience, Jeff is able to add relevant perspective and value to his companies as they grow from inception to maturity, and hopefully, success.

 Jeff was recognized as one of the 13 “Web 2.0 King Makers” in 2007 by Business 2.0.  In 2008, Business Week named him one of "The 25 Most Influential People on the Web", and one of the "Top 25 Angels in Tech" in 2010. He was also nominated in the "Best Angel" category at the Crunchies in 2009 and 2010. He is often noted for his investments in categories such as “passion-centric communities” or online gaming, or for having sold a number of his Web 2.0 startups to the likes of Yahoo, AOL, Intuit or more recently Twitter and Groupon.

 Some of Jeff's representative investments include Mint (Intuit), Brightroll, Truveo (AOL), Userplane (AOL), Rapleaf, Ustream, Milo (eBay), Blekko, Eventbrite, Tapulous (Disney), DNANexus, FanBridge, BillFloat,...

 Jeff was born, raised and educated in France, earning a MS in Computer Science and a research degree in Distributed Computing.  Jeff likes to spend time with his family and friends, cook, and collect wine.  He also skis, hikes, dives and plays golf so poorly it is not even funny.

Steve Eskenazi | Angel Investor
Steve has had a long and successful career in venture capital, investment banking, and technology, spanning more than 20 years. From 1997 to 2008, he was a Managing General Partner with Walden Venture Capital. During that period, he led successful investments and exits in many companies, such as AdKnowledge (acquired by CMGI for $250 million), BlueLithium (acquired by Yahoo! for $300 million), Cybertrust, (acquired by Verizon for $450 million) and DigitalThink (DTHK, which attained a market capitalization in excess of $2 billion before selling to Convergys). Walden is also a significant investor in Glam Media and Pandora.

Steve is interested in investing in capital-efficient companies in two areas - digital media and technology-enabled services. He is particularly attracted to companies that “do well by doing good” (like GoAmerica) as well as micro-cap public companies. Steve has built a strong network of operating executives, consultants, and co-investors who bring significant value to the companies in which he invests.

Steve currently serves on the Board of Directors of RadiumOne. Steve is also an active member of the Israeli Venture Network, a venture philanthropy network of executives in the United States and Israel.

Peter Hsing | Partner | Merus Capital
Peter co-founded Merus Capital in November 2007. He was Managing Director of the Corporate Strategy Group at Microsoft, where he led a team in identifying and evaluating new growth opportunities for the company in areas that included online advertising/commerce, business software-as-a-service, and cloud platform services. Peter was also a member of Microsoft's Corporate Development team focused on online consumer services, digital media, and interactive entertainment, in the U.S., Greater China, and Japan.

Prior to his eight years with Microsoft, Peter was an Associate in JP Morgan's investment banking group in Hong Kong and a management consultant with Price Waterhouse.

Peter holds an MBA in Finance from The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, and a BS in Industrial Engineering from Columbia University.

Deep Nishar | Founding Partner | Angel Pad
Deep is the founding partner at Angel Pad, one of the hottest incubators in the Valley. Deep is also the Senior Vice President, Products and User Experience at LinkedIn. He has nearly two decades of experience as a leader in the Internet and software industries, with a focus on product strategy and global business building. Deep came to LinkedIn from Google, where he headed product strategy for the Asia-Pacific region, led the company’s worldwide mobile initiatives and built the back-end systems used for managing Google's global customer base.

Prior to his time at Google, Deep was a member of the founding team of the Universal Application Network business unit at Siebel Systems and an associate at The Boston Consulting Group. He was also the Founder and Vice President of Products at Patkai Networks, a venture-funded pioneer in SOA software, that enabled online businesses to partner with each other and create customized product bundles.

Deep holds an MBA with highest honors (Baker Scholar) from Harvard Business School, a MSEE from University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, and a B. Tech with honors from the Indian Institute of Technology. He has co-authored seven patents and is a recipient of the Google Founders Award. He has a passion for entrepreneurial cultures and served as an advisor to social search engine start-up Aardvark, acquired by Google in February 2010.

Moderator - Bill Reichert | Managing Director | Garage Technology Ventures 
Bill Reichert has over 20 years of experience as an entrepreneur and an operating executive. Since joining Garage in 1998, Bill has focused on early-stage information technology and materials science companies. He sits on the Boards of CaseStack, WhiteHat, ClearFuels, cFares, and ThermoCeramix.

Prior to Garage, Bill was a co-founder or senior executive in several venture-backed technology startups, including Trademark Software, The Learning Company, and Academic Systems. Earlier in his career, he worked at McKinsey & Company, Brown Brothers Harriman & Co., and the World Bank.

Bill earned a B.A. at Harvard College and an M.B.A. from Stanford University. He was a founding board member and a Chairman of the Churchill Club, and a Charter Member of the Silicon Valley Association of Startup Entrepreneurs. Currently he is the Chairman of the Small Fund Roundtable of the VC Taskforce and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations in New York.