EntreTech - Crowd Funding: The Power of Alternative Financing for Entrepreneurs

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When: Tue June 19, 2012 6:30 pm

Organization: The EntreTech Forum

Location: Emerging Enterprise Center at Foley Hoag, 1000 Winter St. Suite 4000, Waltham, MA.

Website: http://www.entretechforum.org/mm_june2012.html

Crowd funding for your venture provides a powerful means to directly access large groups of potential investors and capital without the burden of middlemen costs and complexities. Crowd funding has successfully funded projects, products and ventures from startup companies, to film makers, and Rock Bands like Marillion to the most successful +$10m fund raising for a smartwatch from Pebble Technology. Crowd funding tools are an essential resource to any entrepreneur who seeks to leverage the latest in a formidable alternative finance strategy.

In our next Entretech Forum, we will identify some of the leading crowd funding players and discuss how to use crowd funding, creating a pitch, successes, pitfalls and what the future holds in store.  Please join us for this exciting topic.

Panelists include:

David R. Pierson, Partner, Foley Hoag Emerging Entreprise Center

David chairs Foley Hoag’s Venture Capital/Emerging Companies Practice Group. He represents a broad range of emerging companies, including companies in the software and technology, life sciences, cleantech and other industries. David also represents U.S. and foreign venture capital firms in connection with their investments throughout the U.S. His practice at the EEC focuses in particular on start-up companies, and includes providing advice regarding corporate formation, founder arrangements, angel and venture capital financings, equity incentive plans, mergers and acquisitions and other strategic transactions, contract negotiations and general corporate matters.

Jed Cohen, RocketHub.com, Co-Founder and COO

Jed is a Co-Founder and the Chief Operating Officer of one of the world’s largest and most successful crowdfunding platforms, RocketHub.com.  His management career began when he assumed the responsibility of running a boutique residential real estate brokerage in New York City. Through the most difficult market in recent memory, Jed tripled the firm’s size, helping it reach new levels of profitability. However, Jed’s professional career actually began (at the age of eight) when he took to the stage as an actor and singer. During his twenty-year career as a performer, Jed toured both nationally and internationally as a boy soprano, made his Broadway debut (at the age of fifteen) in the Tony Award winning musical The Secret Garden, and is featured as “Rod McCalister” in the hit movies Home Alone and Home Alone II: Lost in New York.  Jed is a graduate of Harvard University where he earned his degree in Astronomy & Astrophysics. He lives in New York City with his wife Kate, son Zeke, and little dog Sophie.

 

Joseph Schlesinger, Founder – ArcBotics, Founder & Director - MakeIt Labs

Joseph was trained as an electrical and computer engineer at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, and has worked across many fields, with a passion for robotics. A serial entrepreneur since a young age, he is the founder of MakeIt Labs.  MakeIt Labs is an open-access workshop in Nashua, NH, where anyone can come to brainstorm, learn and create with like-minded people. Joseph is currently working on his company ArcBotics, which develops and sells open, low-cost robotics platforms for hobbyists, education and research. ArcBotics is dedicated to helping igniting a wave of innovation in robotics through Open-Source Hardware.  The company aims to provide easily-accessible tutorials, plans, kits and parts for anyone from the enthusiast to the dedicated researcher, to make it cheaper and easier to build robots.  

 

Jack Kelly is CEO of Adva Mobile, a technology and mobile marketing company focused on the music industry. Jack leads the strategic, product, and Artist Relationship initiatives of his firm, which provides more than 1,500 Artists with tools and services that help musicians like Natalie Stovall, Glen David Andrews, Jimmy Mack, Dumpstaphunk and Laurie Krauz connect with their fans on mobile phones. Prior to Adva Mobile, Jack led sales and marketing activities at public, venture backed, and bootstrapped communications technology companies and has rewarded stakeholders and investors with more than $650 million of value. Jack has raised more that $25 million through venture capital, private equity, SBA grant, angels, friends and family, and most recently a crowd funding campaign using IndieGoGo. Jack has degrees from Boston University and New England School of Law and is the chair of the MIT Enterprise Forum Digital Media Special Interest Group.