U.S. Venture Capital funding continued its four-year upswing in 2007 to $30 billion, with huge infusions into clean technology, life sciences, Internet and media. $23 billion went into late-stage and expansion stage investments and a number of firms tapped the IPO market. How will the dynamics of the industry change in 2008 and beyond? Which areas are likely to get more attention? Is the line between early and late stage investing getting blurred? How are the VC firms embracing globalization? How is the credit crunch impacting VC industry, if at all? Our panelists will share their recent success stories and discuss the future trends in Venture Capital investing.

Geoffrey Yang - Moderator
Managing Director
Redpoint Ventures
www.redpointventures.com

Geoffrey Y. Yang is a founding partner of Redpoint Ventures, a $2 billion family of early-stage venture capital funds. In addition to Redpoint, Geoff is a general partner with Institutional Venture Partners (also a $2 billion family of early-stage venture capital funds), a firm he joined in 1987.

Geoff emphasizes investments in consumer media and infrastructure. His media and advertising investments include Ask Jeeves, Excite, MySpace, TiVo, and Gaia Online. His networking investments include BigBand, Calix, Foundry Networks, Juniper Networks, MMC Networks and Wellfleet.

Geoff was formerly Director of the National Venture Capital Association (NVCA) and Director and President of the Western Association of Venture Capitalists (WAVC). In addition, Geoff has served on the President’s Information Technology Advisory Committee (PITAC). Geoff was also an Associate with First Century Partners, an affiliate of Smith Barney. Earlier, Geoff had been in technical support and marketing at IBM Corp.

Geoff is a member of the Executive Committee USGA, a trustee of the US Ski and Snowboard Association Foundation, and on the Advisory Council of the the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

Geoff holds a BSE in Engineering and a BA from Princeton, and an MBA from Stanford Graduate School of Business.

 

PANELISTS:

Ken Lawler
General Partner
Battery Ventures
www.battery.com

A 20-year veteran in the venture industry, Ken joined Battery in 1995. He manages Battery's Menlo Park office and focuses on investments in communications infrastructure equipment, clean tech and advanced materials, and semiconductor companies. Since joining Battery, he has led the firm’s investments in Airespace (acquired by Cisco), Advanced Analogic Technologies (NASDAQ: AATI), Advent Solar, Aurora Networks, Lara Networks (acquired by Cypress Semiconductor), Lion Cells, MaxLinear, Nanoconduction, Optichron, Packet Engines (acquired by Alcatel), and SigmaTel (NASDAQ: SGTL).

Prior to joining Battery in 1995, Ken spent 10 years in venture capital at Patricof & Co. Ventures and Berkeley International Capital Corporation. Before starting his venture capital career in 1985, he worked in product management at Advanced Micro Devices and in engineering management at Teradyne and Fairchild Semiconductor. Ken holds a BS and an MS in Industrial Engineering from Stanford University and an MBA from the University of California, Los Angeles. Ken is currently on the Venture Capital Advisory Board for the Fabless Semiconductor Association.

Rob Chandra
Managing Partner
Bessemer Venture Partners
www.bvp.com

Rob Chandra is a Managing Partner in Bessemer's Menlo Park office. Since entering the venture capital industry in 1996, Rob has been involved with 19 early-stage investments that have gone public or have been acquired by public companies.

Rob is the founding managing partner of the firm's investment practice in China and India where he recruited an experienced local team, established the offices, and led investments in Anant Raj, BA Systems, Rico Auto, Motilal Oswal Financial Services (which has since listed on the BSE and NSE), OnMobile, New Vernon Capital, Sarovar, and Shriram EPC. He also contributed to the firm's investment in FG Wireless. Rob is active in the semiconductor industry and led the firm's investments in Avnera, Berkeley Design, PA Semi, and Summit Micro. Rob is also interested in printed electronics, alternative energy, and consumer driven health care and led the firm's investments in Kovio and Miasolè and is involved with IPC – The Hospitalists Company.

Over his career, Rob has helped build companies in a variety of industries. He was involved with communications equipment ventures such as Altiga (acquired by Cisco), Catena (acquired by Ciena), NBX (acquired by 3Com), and Wavesmith Networks (acquired by Ciena). He has experience with semiconductor investments such as Envoy (acquired by TI), LightLogic (acquired by Intel), Mellanox (IPO), Mobilian (acquired by Intel), and Morphics (acquired by Infineon). Rob has also been involved with consumer internet start-ups such as BuyerZone.com (acquired by Reed Elsevier), Direct Hit (acquired by Ask Jeeves), SmarterKids.com (IPO), MotherNature.com (IPO) and Centra (IPO), and a health care investment, American Hearing Centers (acquired by HearUSA).

Prior to joining Bessemer, Rob was a general partner with Commonwealth Capital Ventures, which he joined after 10 years of industry experience. Rob was an engagement manager with McKinsey & Company in their Los Angeles and then Palo Alto offices where he served high tech and health care related clients. Previously, Rob spent three years with Accenture working in their San Francisco, London, and then New York offices where he served financial services and high tech clients. Rob worked for IBM in sales and marketing where he focused on the Unix workstation product line. Early in his career, Rob worked in the strategic planning department for Lucky Stores which was acquired by Albertsons, the nation's second largest grocery chain.

Rob holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and a BA from University of California at Berkeley. In his spare time, Rob is active in Palo Alto youth sports and coaches little league baseball. He roots for the 49ers and Giants, plays golf, has an interest in global politics, and enjoys reading.

Warren Packard
Managing Director
Draper Fisher Jurvetson
www.dfj.com

Warren Packard is a Managing Director at Draper Fisher Jurvetson. He currently serves on the Boards of Anagran, BinOptics, CastTV, EoPlex, Imago, Media Lario, and Ooma. Mr. Packard also leads the firm's investments in CallGate, Jaxtr, Microfabrica, Primet, TicketsNow, and YeePay. Former investments include Chilisoft (acquired by Sun Microsystems), Digital Impact (acquired by Acxiom), Direct Hit Technologies (acquired by Ask Jeeves), Enviz (acquired by Keynote Systems), FeedBurner (Acquired by Google), Fogdog Sports (acquired by GSI Commerce), Hypernex (acquired by Nova Measuring Instruments), NetMind (acquired by Puma Technology), and Xfire (acquired by MTV/Viacom). Prior to joining the firm, Mr. Packard co-founded Angara Database Systems, a main memory relational database company, which was acquired by Personify. Prior to co-founding Angara, he was an Associate at Institutional Venture Partners, investing in early-stage technology companies. Before IVP, Mr. Packard was a Senior Principal Engineer in the Advanced Product Development Group at Baxter International. Mr. Packard is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Stanford University and holds a BS and MS in Mechanical Engineering: Smart Product Design. He received his MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business where he was an Arjay Miller Scholar.

J. Sanford (Sandy) Miller
General Partner
Institutional Venture Partners
www.ivp.com

Sandy Miller joined IVP in April 2006. He focuses on later-stage investments in private and public information technology companies. Sandy has more than 25 years of venture capital and investment banking experience and has served on over 20 public, private and philanthropic boards. He has led investments in Handango, Merchant e-Solutions, LiveOps, Placeware, SkyStream Networks, Swissray, US Internetworking and Vonage (VG). Sandy is Chairman of Handango and a director of Swissray and Vonage (VG). Prior to IVP, Sandy was a Senior Partner with 3i, a leading global venture capital firm. He established and managed 3i’s later-stage technology investing business in the United States. Sandy was recognized by Forbes magazine as one of the leading venture investors in the U.S. by inclusion in the 2007 Midas List.

Earlier in his career, Sandy was a leading technology investment banker, representing clients such as Yahoo, Solectron and IDEC. Sandy co-founded Thomas Weisel Partners (TWPG), where he was a member of the Executive Committee, Chief Administrative and Strategic Officer, and Co-Director of Investment Banking. He was also a Senior Partner at Montgomery Securities and led the technology and healthcare groups. Prior to Montgomery, Sandy was a Managing Director and opened technology investment banking offices in San Francisco for Merrill Lynch and Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette. Sandy was also a Manager of strategy consulting at Bain & Company and a securities lawyer at Pillsbury Winthrop.

Sandy is a College Trustee at the University of Virginia and serves on the Board of Visitors of Stanford Law School and the Management Board of the Stanford Graduate School of Business and the Cantor Center (Stanford University Art Museum). Previously, he was a Trustee of the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, the American Conservatory Theatre and Grace Episcopal Cathedral.
Sandy earned a B.A. from the University of Virginia (Phi Beta Kappa) and a J.D. and M.B.A. from Stanford University.

Ajit Nazre
General Partner
Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers
www.kpcb.com

Aniruddha Arvind “Ajit” joined Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers in 2003. His areas of investment include enterprise software and services, material science pertinent to energy, environment and life sciences.

Before joining KPCB, “Ajit” was with SAP for 5 years. At SAP, he worked for Dr. Hasso Plattner, CEO, Chairman and cofounder, SAP. “Ajit” played a key role in formulating and executing SAP’s internet strategy (mySAP.com). He co-founded SAPMarkets, a fully owned company of SAP, focused on Marketplace applications and technology. As the Managing Director of SAPMarkets Americas, “Ajit” grew the business to $100 million in six quarters. In 2002, he laid the foundation for SAP Inspire – SAP’s New Venture Unit.

Prior to SAP, “Ajit” worked for six years in the medical device industry, first at Zimmer, Inc., a division of Bristol Myers and Squibb and then at Mathys AG (Synthes) in Switzerland. During this time he managed the development several new product lines and received 7 U.S. and four European patents.

“Ajit” has an undergraduate degree in Mechanical Engineering from the College of Engineering Poona (COEP), India. He holds a M.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Michigan Tech, a Ph.D. in Biomechanics from the Technical University of Hanover, Germany, and an MBA from the Harvard Business School.