Past Events
Mocapay - A Colorado Success Story
When: 06/10/2008: 5:00 PM - 8:00 PMWhere Denver Marriott City Center
1701 California Street
Denver, 80202
Mocapay is a leading innovative and integrated mobile payment and marketing company, that lets consumers use their mobile phone to pay for goods and services at the register and online. It simplifies the payment process, providing total transaction security and saves merchants money vs. credit card transaction fees, while providing consumers with unprecedented value via real-time promotions from their favorite retailers.
Mocapay has received funding from Lacuna Ventures and eonBusiness, and our speakers will simply tell their story: how the founders came together, first dollar raised, first customer, getting cash flow positive, exit strategy. You’ll hear the “good, the bad and the ugly,” and leave recognizing that everyone deals with the same issues you are facing and a better understanding of how to get to the next level.
Moderator:
Dave O'Brien, CEO
The Business Catapult
Panelists:
Rob Hooke
eonBusiness
Michael Ferkiss, VP Business Development
Mocapay
Lance Gentry, CMO
Mocapay
20th Annual Colorado Capital Conference
When: 05/22/2008: 7:30 AM - 6:00 PMWhere Denver Marriott City Center
1701 California Street
Denver, 80222
Details for this signature event can be found at the dedicated conference site www.coloradocapitalconference.org.
Pathway to Entrepreneurship - the Challenges and the Choices
When: 04/08/2008: 5:00 PM - 8:00 PMWhere Denver Marriott City Center
1701 California Street
Denver, 80202
“Can you teach someone to be an entrepreneur?” Paul Jerde, the Executive Director of the Deming Center is often asked, “Can you really teach entrepreneurship?” Paul is the keynote speaker at the Rockies Venture Club monthly program, “Pathway to Entrepreneurship – the Challenges and the Choices”.
He will speak about the influence and pervasiveness of entrepreneurship as the engine of innovation and change in our business world and society in general, and about the ingredients of an entrepreneurial community - why are Boulder and the front range of Colorado along with Silicon Valley and other known hotbeds of entrepreneurship so “friendly” to entrepreneurs?
Paul will share the approach that is taken to educating young entrepreneurs and the many paths that graduating students take in applying their entrepreneurship education whether it’s by launching their own startup or by joining an entrepreneurial team.
He feels strongly that entrepreneurship education is the true capstone integration of all of the traditional business disciplines – finance, marketing, management, and others. It is as much about a mindset as a skill set and many of the lessons learned by educators will be applicable to you in your business as well.
Larry Nelson, co-founder of w3w3.com will be introducing Paul. Larry is a serial entrepreneur that has lived in and has owned businesses in five foreign countries. He said, “The school of hard knocks is the way I went, but I sure wish back then there was a Deming Center as an alternative.”
Colorado IT Live!
When: 03/11/2008: 5:00 PM - 8:00 PMWhere Denver Marriott City Center
1701 California Street
Denver,
Cosponsored by Denver/Boulder Software Clubs
For the 3rd year in a row, Rockies Venture Club is pleased to cosponsor this informative and topical event with the Denver/Boulder Software Clubs. Each year the event grows and we expect a great turnout to hear the presentations and investor questions.
Presenters:
Mark Dreher, CEO, Knowledge Factor
Peter Flanagan, CEO, Transzap
Donavon Guyot, CEO, Peaksware
Investor Feedback Group:
David Cohen, Founder, Techstars
Jim Conboy, Partner, Wolf Ventures
Andy Rourke, Senior Associate, Centennial Ventures
Companies Making a Difference
When: 02/12/2008: 5:00 PM - 8:00 PMWhere Denver Marriott City Center
1701 California Street
Denver, 80202
Hear two highly successful software entrepreneurs share their stories and what makes their companies unique. Both companies have great stories to tell - stories that can provide road maps for success and inspiration to all entrepreneurs.
You’ll also hear from an investor perspective how unique companies get the attention of investors, and the climate for investing today.
Terry Gold, CEO, Gold Systems
Gold Systems is a software company developing telephone applications utilizing IVR, text-to-speech and speech recognition solutions for Global 1000 clients. Their software has supported over a billion telephone calls resulting in huge savings for our customers.
Ryan Martens, Founder and CTO, Rally Software Development
Today's software company leaders must adopt techniques that execute multiple development activities in parallel, in order to deliver high-impact software in smaller batches on quarterly or monthly cycles. Now, more than ever, the agility, speed and quality of development organization directly powers the speed and profit of the business. Rally Software Development Corp. provides the software-driven enterprise with the knowledge, coaching and tooling needed to succeed with Agile development practices. Additionally, as part of their overall philanthropic culture, Rally has committed 1% of the company's future profits to support local philanthropy through the Entrepreneurs Foundation of Colorado. The '1% Fund' also encourages their executives and employees to pledge 1% of their personal equity in Rally to philanthropy, and helps the Rally team donate 1% of our working hours to local charities and non-profits.
David Link
David recently left Greenmont Capital Partners I, LP (“Greenmont I”), which was founded in 2004 with $20 million of committed capital. Greenmont’s fund was founded by natural product industry insiders, focusing on early-stage companies in the $500 billion Lifestyles of Health and Sustainability (“LOHAS”) market. Operations are strategically headquartered in Boulder, a city widely regarded as the epicenter or "Silicon Valley" of the natural products industry, providing optimal flow of information, contacts, resources and investment opportunities in the LOHAS space. Greenmont was an early investor in IZZE. Prior to Greenmont, Link was a founding principal of Denver-based VC firm, Appian Ventures.
The New Tech Companies
When: 01/08/2008: 5:00 PM - 8:00 PMWhere Denver Marriott City Center
1701 California Street
Denver, 80202
To start the new year, RVC is pleased to present two companies that exemplify a “new tech” company. These are companies that operate totally online, and can be located anywhere. They are sometimes referred to as a “no shipping tape, no UPS trucks” model.
Each presenter will talk about the challenges and successes of running a new tech company, and will also incorporate the importance of blogging, new media and social networking for startups, and why this is a good test for fundability!
Speakers
Dave Taylor
askDaveTaylor.com
Dan Murray
Ravenwood Marketing
December Dinner Meeting
When: 12/04/2007: 5:00 PM - 8:00 PMWhere Denver Marriott City Center
1701 California Street
Denver, 80202
Photonics: Financing and Entrepreneurship
Cosponsored by Colorado Photonics Industry Association
Photonics encompasses a family of technologies that generate, modulate, guide, amplify or detect light. This "enabling" technology is fueling advances in diverse fields such as health care and medicine, environment and energy, manufacturing, information systems and communications, display, defense and aerospace, entertainment, etc. For example, experts generally agree that information technology will not reach its full potential until photonics technology, i.e., optical fiber, brings high bandwidth communications to every home, business, and desktop.
The main opportunities within the Photonics industry are in new and emerging applications. Industry analysts predict that the market for photonics is expected to reach $230 billion (US dollars) by 2003 and close to $470 billion by 2013. The global photonics sector is expected to be the world's next trillion-dollar sector. However, because photonics as an industry is still so new, there are few geographic areas that dominate the market. Four general areas where the U.S. photonics industry believes opportunities exist for U.S. companies are imaging, new information age applications, medical technology and transportation.
Even if this industry is rife with opportunity, are U.S. photonics companies able to attract financing? If so, where is the funding coming from? And, are there opportunities for entrepreneurs within this industry?
Join us as RVC and the Colorado Photonics Industry Association will host a joint program that will attempt to answer these and other questions about the U.S. Photonics industry.
Confirmed speakers
Ranier Kunz, ColdQuanta
Rob Morrison, Coherent Investments
Angel Capital Summit
When: 11/13/2007: 1:15 PM - 7:30 PMWhere Denver Marriott City Center
1701 California
Denver, 80202
"An Exciting New Collaboration ..."
The Angel Capital Summit is a unique and new collaboration of the premier professional organizations that serve entrepreneurs and early-stage investors. Instead of simply presenting pitch after pitch, this collaboration makes possible an entirely new approach to helping entrepreneurs and investors find each other.
Here's what's unique about this Summit:
- A collaborative selection process: Each of our investor partners will screen candidate companies to present, from among the companies with which they are working. This results in a broader selection of companies from a wider range of industries.
- An intensive coaching process that puts soundness of the business concept before "spit and polish": Each presenting company is put through a structured process that starts with a standards-based assessment of strengths and weaknesses, and follows up with one-on-one coaching with industry experts to address the weaknesses. The presentation itself is honed through a collaborative "pitch practice", where companies do a dry run to each other. Few companies go through this process without making significant, positive changes in their business plans. The result: better presentations, based on better business concepts.
- An emphasis on helping the right entrepreneurs and the right investors find each other: Many early-stage investors prefer to play an active role in their investments. With a standards-based process, it's easier for investors to find companies that are closely aligned with their interests.
- Business intelligence data available nowhere else: The Summit will include a unique "State of Entrepreneurship in Colorado" report derived data about the presenting companies.
The Angel Capital Summit is hosted by the Rockies Venture Club (RVC). The RVC is the region's premier networking organization that connects entrepreneurs, service professionals, investors, venture capitalists and other funding sources. Founded in 1985, the RVC was one of the first non-profit organizations in the country to help entrepreneurs launch and manage high-growth potential companies.
The Angel Capital Summit is a dramatic new extension of the RVC's mission. Through the use of the Benchmark Survey developed by the Entrepreneurial Standards Forum, and the automated deal flow management system (DFMS) provided by The Business Catapult, the Angel Capital Summit has created new opportunities for entrepreneurs and investors alike to better understand their businesses and the investment opportunities they represent at a scale never before attempted in Colorado.
About the Entrepreneurial Standards Forum Benchmark Survey
The Entrepreneurial Standards Forum's Benchmark Survey is simple in concept and elegant in execution. In the Benchmark Survey, an entrepreneur's answers are compared to the answers given by successful companies. The resulting Benchmark Report shows the entrepreneur where they are on the 'success path'. The Benchmark Report has proven to be a highly effective gap analysis for the entrepreneur, and a due diligence framework for investors that works to standardize the interface between them. Standards create new efficiencies. Entrepreneurial standards create entrepreneurial - and angel investor - success.
About the Business Catapult's Deal Flow Management System
With standards information can be put up into a database, searched for, retrieved and compared. Trends can be identified and statistics can be generated. New business intelligence can be created, as can new forms of measurement. In the sense that 'if you can't measure it, you can't manage it', with these tools, art becomes science. Working in partnership with the Entrepreneurial Standards Forum, the Business Catapult provides software as a service (SaaS) to organizations that work with entrepreneurs and investors to better improve performance for both.
| Please note: Presenters were pre-screened and chosen in advance for this event. If you were not chosen to present at the ACS, please do not register as a presenter. |
