Purdue boot camp introduces faculty to venture capitalism
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - Purdue University faculty, staff, students and collaborators on Oct. 9-10 will have the opportunity to learn about company formation and funding at the Fund Raising Boot Camp.
Sponsored by Lonergan Partners and the Burton D. Morgan Center for Entrepreneurship in Discovery Park, the free program will include panel discussions and presentations by nationally recognized experts in company formation and funding including venture capital. The boot camp's goal is to educate the Purdue community about company formation. It will be held in Room 112 of the Burton D. Morgan Center for Entrepreneurship.
"This is a very concentrated and sophisticated event for faculty, students, staff and collaborators to understand how to turn research into a commercial enterprise," said Mark Lonergan, founder and managing partner of Lonergan Partners. "This boot camp gives us access to some of the major players in the nation's venture capital world."
The two-day workshop, which also is open to collaborators from outside Purdue, will begin with a keynote speech by Purdue President Martin C. Jischke. Two panel discussions will follow in the morning, covering topics that include the value of intellectual property, company control, management, market assessment, due diligence, reasonable equity expectations, dilution and exiting the investment.
The Faculty Success Stories panel includes discussions with faculty who have experience with starting companies and will be moderated by Bill Reichert, managing partner of Garage Ventures.
The panelists are:
• Stephen Smith, a professor of electrical engineering at the University of California-Berkeley and founder and chief technology officer of Alien Technology Inc.
• Winslow Sargeant, an adjunct professor of electrical engineering at the University of Pennsylvania and managing director of Venture Investors LLC.
• Fred Regnier, Purdue's John H. Law Distinguished Professor of Chemistry.
• Sangtae Kim, Purdue's Fedderson Distinguished Professor of Mechanical Engineering.
The second panel discussion, The Process of Raising Money, will cover topics including reasonable founders' equity expectations, term sheet basics and negotiations, and dilution.
It will feature nationally recognized Midwest investors who will discuss how they partner with investors from the West Coast to fund companies. The panel will be moderated by Harvey Scull, former CEO of KeyEye Communications Inc. and former chief technology officer of Tellabs Inc.
The panelists are:
• Mark Losh from Prevail Ventures.
• Matt McCall from Portage Venture Partners.
• Tim Newell from DFJ/Element Venture Partners.
On Oct. 9, four lectures will be given following the morning panel discussions. Valuing IP, a lecture about market assessment and pre-money value, will be given by John Wheadon, adviser to Sandia National Laboratories and former president of Xerox Ventures.
Lonergan will speak on human resource issues and Reichert will present Top Ten Rules for Starting a Company.
The fourth lecture on company formation and management will be presented by Scull and will cover company structure and control.
At the conclusion of the first day, there will be a reception from 4:30-6:30 p.m. in the Birck Nanotechnology Center at Discovery Park.
The second day will begin with a lecture by Kim Marinucci, Structuring the Content of Your Investment Pitch. She is a principal at Winning Pitch, a Silicon Valley-based firm.
Faculty members and researchers who have an interest in presenting an idea to potential investors will have the opportunity to meet with a coach at the boot camp who will help them review their investment presentation and executive summary for potential investors.
Participants will have the opportunity to submit their presentation materials to an outside
panel. Chosen finalists will earn an expense-paid trip to Silicon Valley to meet with possible investors and venture capitalists.
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Goonewardene holds a joint appointment between the Burton Morgan Center and the Office of Technology Commercialization to ensure the smooth and successful transfer of technology from Discovery Park to the Purdue Research Park.
Those who want to register for the Fund Raising Boot Camp can go online.
Discovery Park is Purdue's $330 million hub for interdisciplinary research and is home to 10 primary centers focusing on everything from biosciences and manufacturing to oncological sciences and health-care engineering.
The Burton D. Morgan Center for Entrepreneurship is a platform to launch technology-based enterprises based on Purdue research. The Discovery Park center also helps faculty, students and Indiana entrepreneurs better understand how to bring research and technology to market.
Writers: Bethany Bannister-Andrews, (765) 494-2073, bbannister@purdue.edu
Phillip Fiorini, (765) 496-3133, pfiorini@purdue.edu
Source: Julie Goonewardene, (765) 494-8645, jkgoonewardene@prf.org
Purdue News Service: (765) 494-2096; purduenews@purdue.edu
Note to Journalists: Media who are interested in covering the two-day boot camp can contact Phillip Fiorini, Purdue News Service, at (765) 496-3133, pfiorini@purdue.edu.
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