East Meets West: Speakers
Keynote Speakers Include:
Luis Villalobos
Luis Villalobos is an angel investor and a former entrepreneur, and is the founder of the Tech Coast Angels. He is currently raising a VC fund, Angel Venture Partners www.AngelVenturePartners.com, to co-invest with the leading angel groups. He received the 2007 Hans Severiens Memorial Award for Outstanding Contribution to Angel Investing (see photo below).
Villalobos has made direct investments in 63 early-stage ventures; with ~5x returns; 4 IPOs, 10 successfully acquired, and 31 remain active. He led the financing of 19 ventures and sat on 15 boards; he currently sits on the boards of BigStage, Vigilistics and YouMail. He also sits on the boards of the Paul Merage School of Business (University of California, Irvine), and the Harvard Business School AOC Board; and is Executive In Residence at Pepperdine University Graziadio School of Business and Management. He holds several patents as lead inventor and as technology consultant helped two ventures obtain blocking patents. He has testified before Congress, serves as an expert witness, and provides 409A valuations for early-stage ventures.
He founded the Tech Coast Angels (TCA) in 1997 and led TCA as President from inception through its first two years, and remains a member of its Board of Governors. With nearly 300 members, TCA is the largest and most active group of angel investors in the United States. Since its founding in 1997, TCA members have invested $84 million of their personal capital in 132 Southern California ventures, coupled with $894 million from co-investors.
Villalobos has developed and led over 100 workshops for angel group leaders, angels, bar associations (for MCLE credit), and entrepreneurs – on valuations, due diligence, term sheets, deal structures, diversification, venture capital, angel investing, early-stage funding, business plans, patents/IP, tech transfer, and entrepreneurship; he has a book under development that expands upon these workshops.
Villalobos earned an MBA from Harvard Business School and an ScB in mathematics from MIT, where he was a National Merit Scholar.
Jeffrey E. Sohl
Jeffrey E. Sohl is Director of the Center for Venture Research and Professor of Entrepreneurship and Decision Sciences at the Whittemore School of Business and Economics at the University of New Hampshire.
He received his Bachelor in Electrical Engineering from Villanova University and his MBA and Ph.D. in Management Science from the University of Maryland. Prior to joining the Whittemore School he was a consultant to the Department of Energy in the area of public policy analysis. His current research interests are in early-stage equity financing for high growth ventures. He currently serves on the Advisory Board of the New Hampshire Community Loan Fund, the eCoast Technology Roundtable and MerchantBanc, and the Editorial Board for Venture Capital and Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice. He also serves on the New Hampshire Governor’s Advisory Committee on Capital Formation and is on the Board of Directors for NetworkNH.
In 2006, Sohl was awarded the national Hans Severiens Award by the Kauffman Foundation in recognition of his research on angel investing in the US. He has presented his research in academic and practitioner forums in the United States, Europe and Asia, and in briefings for several government agencies and scholars from the United States, Europe, Scandinavia, Australia, Asia and Africa. He has appeared on CNBC, MSNBC, National Public Radio, NHPTV’s NH Outlook, and has been quoted in Inc., Forbes, Fortune, the Wall Street Journal, The Economist, Red Herring, Newsweek, Business Week, Newsweek-Japan, Financial Times, New York Times, Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times and the Financial Times-France.
Sohl has written many articles which have been published in academic and business journals, including Venture Capital: An International Journal of Entrepreneurial Finance, the Social Science Journal, the Journal of Forecasting, Frontiers of Entrepreneurship Research, Entrepreneurship and Regional Development, Entrepreneurship: Theory and Practice, Entrepreneurship 2000 and the Journal of Business Venturing.
David Cohen
David Cohen, co-founder with Brad Feld of TechStars in Boulder, has been invited to describe their experiences running an entrepreneurial “boot camp” this summer.
David has a soft spot for technology startups and enjoys helping innovative early stage technology companies succeed. He also has a passion for Colorado and believes it's a fantastic community for any startup. The Colorado TechStars program combines these passions with capital, connections and real-world experience to provide a unique opportunity for early stage startups.
David is a founder of several software and web technology companies including Pinpoint Technologies (now ZOLL Data Systems) of Broomfield, Colorado. While at ZOLL Data Systems, David was also the CTO. The company was acquired by ZOLL Medical Corporation (NASDAQ: ZOLL) in 1999. You can read about it in No Vision, All Drive [Amazon].
David was also the founder and CEO of earFeeder.com, which was sold to SonicSwap.com in 2006.
David is also an active startup advocate, advisor, board member, and technology investor who comments on these topics on his blog at ColoradoStartups.com.