The Founder Showcase is a quarterly seed-stage startup pitch and networking event that gathers Silicon Valley leaders to hear talks from top CEOs and investors, and help launch a promising startup to greatness.
The 11th Founder Showcase is scheduled for Wednesday, July 25th at the Microsoft Mountain View Campus. Guests will be treated to an entertaining Pitch Competition featuring 8 promising seed-stage companies, as well as talks by Kevin Rose (Founder of Digg and Venture Partner at Google Ventures), Aaron Levie (Co-Founder & CEO of Box), and Hiten Shah (CEO of KISSmetrics). Appetizers and drinks will also be served in a networking hall full of other hot startups demoing their wares in the Demo Table Competition.
We are expecting over 350 startup founders, investors, and press in attendance, including over 100 investors. Confirmed investors attending include Charles River Ventures, Javelin Venture Partners, Trinity Ventures,Shasta Ventures, Alloy Ventures, Bee Partners, Blumberg Capital, BV Capital, CrunchFund, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Google Ventures, Jafco Ventures, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Matrix Partners, Maven Ventures, Mohr Davidow Ventures, Norwest Venture Partners, Opus Capital, Right Side Capital Management, Shasta Ventures, and over 50 angel investors.
For more information, visit the full website at www.FounderShowcase.com.
Keynote Speakers
Kevin Rose, Venture Partner at Google Ventures
Kevin is a Venture Partner at Google Ventures, focusing on early-stage and seed investments. Prior to joining Google Ventures, Kevin co-founded Milk, a mobile application development company in San Francisco. Previously Kevin was the founder of Digg, and co-founder of Revision3 and Pownce (now Six Apart). He has also been named on Bloomberg’s list of “Top 25 Angel Investors,” Time’s and BusinessWeek’s lists of “Top 25 Most Influential People on the Web,” and MIT’s list of “Top 35 Innovators under 35.”
Aaron Levie, Co-Founder & CEO of Box
Aaron Levie is the CEO and co-founder of Box, which he originally created as a college business project with the goal of helping people easily access their information from any location. Box was launched from Aaron's dorm room in 2005 with the help of CFO Dylan Smith. He is the visionary behind Box's product and platform strategy, which is focused on incorporating the best of traditional content management with the most effective elements of social business software. He has spoken about content and collaboration tools at events such as Fortune Brainstorm Tech, Web 2.0, Dreamforce, Accenture Global Summit, South by Southwest, and Svase.
Hiten Shah, CEO of KISSmetrics
Hiten started on the Internet by founding a Internet marketing consultancy, ACS. He then went on to create Crazy Egg, an analytics tool that visualizes the user experience on a website. Now with KISSmetrics he is building a data driven solution to help online businesses make better business decisions. Hiten is passionate about helping other entrepreneurs and startup people.
Judges
George Zachary, General Partner at Charles River Ventures
George Zachary joined CRV in 2004, bringing more than 17 years of operating and investing experience in computing and consumer technology. Zachary focuses on building services and software technology companies, and he's led CRV's investments in Twitter, Yammer, Millennial Media, Cloudshare, Geni, SocialMedia, Metaplace, and Scribd (co-led with Bill Tai).
Jed Katz, Managing Director at Javelin Venture Partners
One of the pioneers of Internet commerce, Jed has spent his 18-year career developing, advising and investing in early stage tech ventures. Jed also served on the Technology, Telecom & Media advisory group for President Barack Obama's campaign. Prior to Javelin, Jed was a Managing Director of DFJ Gotham Ventures, where he was selected in the "Silicon Alley 100."
James Cham, Principal at Trinity Ventures
James joined Trinity in 2010, with over 5 years of investing experience in consumer services, enterprise software and digital media companies as a VP at Bessemer Venture Partners. While at Bessemer, James was a board member at CrowdFlower and Open Candy, and observer at LifeLock, ReputationDefender, and BillShrink.
Rob Coneybeer, Managing Director at Shasta Ventures
Rob is a Co-founder and Managing Director of Shasta Ventures. Rob is particularly interested in Mobile & Wireless, Technology Applications, and Infrastructure. Prior to Shasta, he was a partner at New Enterprise Associates, where he led 15 investments. He also helped build the first EchoStar spacecraft at Martin Marietta.
Featured Journalists
Liz Gannes, Senior Editor at All Things Digital
Liz Gannes has been a Silicon Valley-based business technology reporter since 2004, where she started her career as a reporter at Red Herring. She was the second employee at the technology blog network GigaOM, where she covered the rise of the social Web. Follow her on Twitter at @LizGannes.
Michael Copeland, Senior Editor at Wired
Michael Copeland is a Senior Editor at WIRED focused on entrepreneurship, venture capital, and emerging products and technologies. Before WIRED, he was a Senior Writer at Fortune, Business 2.0, and Red Herring. Follow him on Twitter at @MVC.
Farhad Manjoo, Writer at Slate, Fast Company, NYT
Farhad is currently a technology columnist at Slate Magazine, and contributing writer to Fast Company, The New York Times, PandoDaily, and more. He is also the author of True Enough: Learning to Live in a Post-fact Society. Follow him on Twitter at @fmanjoo.