Date: Thursday, January 22, 2009
Time: 6 – 8 pm
Venue: Prairie Star, 288 Prairie Star Rd, Bernalillo, NM
Map: Google Map

About Kristin Martinez
Kristin Martinez is the founder and CEO of Sound Point Ventures, a new venture development and management company started in Seattle in 1998. Through Sound Point she created and manages Angels with Attitude, the first active angel fund focused on sustainable cleantech investments. Most recently, Kristin was a founder, director and CFO of biotech startup Acoustic Cytometry Systems, Inc., in Los Alamos, NM. The angel-funded company was sold to Invitrogen after 27 months. Kristin spent 10 years in the electric utility industry, most recently as Chief Operating Officer and Treasurer of Pepco Energy Services, Inc., an unregulated spinout from Potomac Electric Power Company (now Pepco Holdings, Inc.). Kristin has a BS from Boston University and an MBA in Finance and Investments from The George Washington University.

About John Elling, PhD, MBA
After receiving a Ph.D. in Analytical Chemistry from the University of Wisconsin, John Elling started his career in New Mexico in 1991 as a Technical Staff Member at Los Alamos National Laboratory. In 1998, he left the Lab to start Bioreason which grew to 30 plus employees, marketing its data mining and computational intelligence information technology to automate high throughput screening data analysis. In 2001, he started Cytoprint, which, until its acquisition by Atto Bioscience, developed image analysis technology for biological assay discovery. Three years ago, as CEO of Integrated Genomics in Chicago, Elling redirected the company’s business into bioinformatics, initially downsizing to achieve profitability and then ramping up a 15% to 25% CAGR and arranged a 6x merger. As a Visiting Entrepreneur at Los Alamos in 2005, he helped develop the business plan for Acoustic Cytometry Systems and later led the company until it was acquired in 2008 by Invitrogen.

Presenting Technology
BROOM Software – A software-based tool developed by Sandia National Laboratories for managing the collection, visualization, and analysis of environmental sampling data. The system was developed to help decision makers during the planning phase and throughout actual cleanup operations to speed up reoccupation and return to service of contaminated buildings and facilities. The tool provides an efficient and scientifically defensible approach to planning and executing sampling and cleanup activities. To date, there has been no comprehensive system for handling and assisting with this process. Read the “BROOM Software news release here”:http://www.sandia.gov/news/resources/releases/2006/broom-commercial.html.

Description:
When is the right time to exit a deal and provide liquidity for investors? How do you determine when to sell, whom to sell out to, and how to conduct the negotiations? Our speakers will discuss these and other challenging issues in the context of a recent deal-MesoFuel-which was sold to an international company less than two years after it was founded in 2002.

Description:
One of New Mexico’s most successful technology entrepreneurs, Mr. Bice founded ProLaw Software shortly after graduating high school. He served as CEO of ProLaw from the founding until its sale to West Group, the pre-eminent provider of information resources to the legal industry.

Download Bill Bice’s Presentation (PPT; 133 KB)

The VC Forum
VC Forum: Trevor Loy,
Flywheel Ventures

Download Trevor’s presentation on Flywheel Ventures (PPT; 2.9 MB)

Description:
Clinton Bybee is a Managing Director of ARCH Venture Partners. He established ARCH’s Albuquerque, NM office in 1996 and the Austin, TX office in 1999. Mr. Bybee has helped organize a number of companies including MicroOptical Devices (acquired by EMCORE), ePolicy Solutions, InnovaLight, Intelligent Reasoning Systems (acquired by Photon Dynamics), and Xtera Communications. He is currently a board member of Nanosys and InnovaLight. Previously, Mr. Bybee managed a venture investment fund for the State of Illinois and was a production engineer with Amoco Corporation. He holds an M.B.A. from The University of Chicago and a B.S. in Engineering from Texas A&M University.

Download Clint Bybee’s Presentation (PPT; 1.5 MB)

The VC Forum
VC Forum: Tom Stephenson
General Partner, “Verge-New Mexico Seed Fund”:http://www.vergefund.com/

Download Tom’s presentation on Verge Fund (PDF; 152 KB)

Description:
Dennis Wood leads vSpring’s human capital practice with a focus on building world class management teams inside the vSpring portfolio. Dennis also works with the portfolio to leverage his understanding of which human resource practices offer the greatest return on shareholder value. Prior to joining vSpring, Dennis built an executive search practice in technology and finance at The Diestel Group, a boutique executive search firm. He worked nationally and was instrumental in helping organizations expand their operations and succeed by attracting and retaining world-class talent.

Download Dennis Wood’s Presentation (PPT; 1.3 MB)

The VC Forum:
VC Forum: Mike Connolly
Principal, “vSpring Capital”:http://www.vspring.com/

Download Mike Connolly’s Presentation (PPT; 1.1 MB

Description:
Prof. MacLean has a unique track record for entrepreneurial success as a founder, CEO, seed investor and board member. She has been listed by BusinessWeek as one of the 50 most influential business women in America and was featured by Forbes in a cover article on Angel Investing under the headline, “The One to Know in Silicon Valley.” MacLean has nearly three decades of combined experience in the computer and communications industries. She was a founder of Network Equipment Technologies which went public in 1987 and later co-founded and was CEO of Adaptive which merged with NET in 1993. Building on her own entrepreneurial success, MacLean has been instrumental in helping to launch and grow successful companies through her work as a mentor capitalist and as a professor of entrepreneurship. The companies she has seed funded which have gone public include: Pure Software, Pete’s Brewing Company, AdForce, dsl.net, and Selectica.

Venture Capital Forum:
Richard Harding, Santa Fe Venture Partners, http://www.cvf-nm.org/devsite/?p=70 Presenter:
David Liddle, General Partner, U.S. Venture Partners

Description:
David Liddle joined U.S. Venture Partners in January 2000, after retiring as president and CEO of Interval Research Corporation, a Silicon Valley-based laboratory and incubator for new businesses focused on broadband applications and advanced technologies, founded in 1992. David is also a consulting professor of Computer Science at Stanford University and has spent his career in Silicon Valley, in activities spanning research, development, management and entrepreneurship. David has served as a director at Sybase, Broderbund Software, Borland International and Ticketmaster Group, as well as numerous private companies, and as Chair of the Board of Trustees of the Santa Fe Institute. He has served on the DARPA Information Science and Technology Committee, and the Computer Science and Telecommunications Board of the National Research Council.

Click here to view a PDF of the power point presentation.

Description:
For the first time, Coronado Ventures Forum (CVF) and Technology Venture Corporation’s New Mexico Equity Capital Symposium (NMECS) have coordinated efforts to tie the two technology venture industry programs together. One of the industry clusters at NMECS features aspiring entrepreneurs and start-ups in the information security marketplace. On the evening of Thursday, May 15, at the Hotel Santa Fe, CVF will continue the focus on security from the NMECS conference, which ends for the day early on Thursday afternoon in Albuquerque. NMECS will wind up on Friday morning with a private tour of Los Alamos National Lab for attendees.

If you would like to view the power point presentation, please email Trevor Loy.

Venture Capital Forum:
Murphree Venture Partners

Murphree Venture Partners is a seed and early stage venture capital firm, making direct equity investments into emerging entrepreneurial enterprises, primarily in the southwestern U.S. region. The firm seeks to align itself with entrepreneurs and management groups with whom it can develop strong working relationships, and with whom it can act in concern as owners/investors. They have offices in Albuquerque, Austin, Boulder, and Houston.

Download the power point presentation.

Description:
Business development objectives can often be achieved more easily with effective public private partnership. The New Mexico State Investment Council has been working diligently on a variety of initiatives that aim to increase investment options for New Mexico businesses. Gary Bland, newly appointed State Investment Officer and SIC staff member Greg Kulka will discuss progress on the SIC initiatives and what their efforts will mean for investors and for the business investment environment in New Mexico. The State Investment Officer working with the State Investment Council manages the Land Grant Permanent Fund and the Severance Tax Permanent Fund. The funds generate revenue from the more than 8 million acres of state-owned lands held in trust to benefit public schools, and the more than 13 million acres of mineral resources that are extracted and taxed. Governor Bill Richardson, Chair of the State Investment Council has proposed the the state use up to $200 million or 2 percent of these permanent funds to invest in New Mexico business.

Entrepreneur’s Forum:
Matthew Ennis
Biophoretix

Biophoretix provides biological separation and detection tools to the immense and rapidly expanding worlds of biodefense, healthcare and management, and pharmaceutical and environmental monitoring. The company is based in Albuquerque, NM. Mr. Ennis is currently president of Argus Insights, a technology competitive intelligence provider with close associations with the pharmaceutical industry.

Description:
Successful investment entails more than writing a check. Successful early stage investors are routinely involved in helping the companies they invest in to make good decisions, make useful connections, and exercise discipline in working their business plan.

Scott Caruso, a New Mexico-based angel investor and business adviser will share his knowledge and practical experience with making the most of an investment once the investment decision has been made. Scott is a long time resident of New Mexico and a NMSU graduate who spent the early part of his career at Sun Microsystems as a systems engineer. In 1994, Scott left with several other Sun employees and founded an ISP/consulting business. The company was acquired by Verio in 1997, and then went through an IPO in 1998. Verio was ultimately bought by NTT at the peek of the dot com bubble. During this time, Scott took on various roles including managing the Verio Consulting Group and several IT projects. He operates Hotspare, Inc., a consulting practice that works in the arenas of information technology and business development.

Download the power point presentation.

Entrepreneur’s Forum:
Chuck Call, CEO, MesoSystems

MesoSystems is a market-leading biotechnology company specializing in the development and manufacture of systems for the assessment of environmental biological hazards. The company’s products enable its customers to determine if people are being threatened by or have been exposed to harmful and even life-threatening bio-organisms. MesoSystems has offices in Kennewick and Seattle, WA and Albuquerque, NM.

Description:
Informatics, and specifically bioinformatics, is one of the strengths of the northern and central New Mexico entrepreneurial community. This market is inherently global in nature. As a result, private investors, as well as entrepreneurs, need to be aware of developing trends in the marketplace and the criteria used by investors to evaluate companies in the bioinformatics sector. Ms. Ramasastry will provide an overview of the key elements of growing a bioinformatics company, using a case study example of a company she followed from pre-venture stage through its public offering four years later. She will also provide her views on developing trends in the bioinformatics arena.

Ms. Ramasastry worked in Mergers and Acquisitions prior to joining Merrill Lynch. She received an M.Phil. in finance from the University of Cambridge and an M.S. in Applied Math from Stanford University. She was elected to Phi Beta Kappa at Stanford University and graduated with distinction with a dual B.A. in Economics and Music. She is also a published author of fiction.

You may email Saira.

Entrepreneur’s Forum:
Dwight Kuhns, Solaria Corporation, Taos, NM

Solaria is a technology innovator that has developed a technology platform for solar photovoltaic (PV) systems that will dramatically reduce the production cost of solar panels. The company intends to bring solar power to the masses by making it accessible and affordable.

Description:
As many investors have learned the hard way in the past 2 years, valuation is only one of the relevant factors to consider in structuring an investment that will succeed in the long-term. Good term sheets create a win-win relationship for both the investor and the entrepreneur. In this presentation, Robert will draw on his professional experience investing in seed-stage technology companies to describe what to look for in a term sheet from an investor’s perspective.
Robert von Goeben is Starter Fluid’s founder and lead investment director.

Prior to starting Starter Fluid, Robert was a founding director of Redleaf Venture Management, one of Silicon Valleys first Internet-only venture funds. Robert has an MBA from the University of Southern California and a BA in Mathematics from the State University of New York.

Download the power point presentation.

Description:
Ram discussed the dramatic changes in company valuations over the past three years. He pointed out several tools for investors in researching potential portfolio companies, and discussed the most common negotiables on a typical term sheet. Ram Shriram started Sherpalo in January 2000. Sherpalo’s strength lies in turning entrepreneur’s dreams into lasting profitable businesses.

Ram Shriram was an officer at Amazon.com, reporting to Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO until September 1999. Ram was an early member of the Netscape executive team joining them in late 1994 where he built Netscape’s indirect channels of distribution worldwide, and managed several hundred people across three continents producing well over half of Netscape’s $346 million in revenue in ’96. Ram currently serves on the boards of Google.com, Yodlee (a next generation personalization engine), Elance (digital delivery of services), and 247Customer.com (outsourced remote services).

Download the power point presentation.

Description:
Mike discussed how investors should evaluate a potential deal. Prospective investors learned what to look for and how. Entrepreneurs seeking investment capital learned how their business plans and credentials are evaluated by investors. Mike brings considerable experience in performing due diligence on potential investments.

For the last seven years, Mr. Pogue has focused his attention primarily on technology companies, working with over twenty companies, either as an investor or in senior management roles. He is a board member of the International Angel Investors Institute and is chairman of the San Francisco Chapter of International Angel Investors Institute.

Entrepreneur’s Forum:
Elisar Software Corporation, Albuquerque, NM
Greg Heileman, Chairman, Co-Founder, and CEO

Greg talked about Elisar’s experience in raising capital. Elisar Software provides secure and flexible digital rights enforcement solutions that empower content creators and distributors to compete confidently in the expanding e-commerce marketplace. Elisar Software received its Series A private equity funding from Murphree Venture Partners and The Telecommunications Development Fund in 2001.