The event
Thursday, March 31 2022
Recording of the live event
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The topic
In this era of unicorns and mega fundraising rounds, there is a quiet revolution happening in startup fundraising. The traditional path - from angel investors to venture capital and IPO - has been the holy grail for high-tech founders for decades. That playbook is starting to gather a little dust.
Reality, however, is much harsher.
By some estimates, less than 5% of companies that get initial funding ever make it to an IPO. Those stats imply that almost all startups will never access IPO capital.
But there's growing hope that a broader array of startups can actually get funded and grow. Why? because the traditional path is being challenged by all kinds of new investment approaches. What are these approaches? Which startups can take advantage of these new approaches? Will they replace the traditional angel-vc-ipo path?
In a vibrant Q&A format, our esteemed panel of experts — a venture capitalist, an angel investor, a revenue-based investor and an "alternative" funding advocate — will wrestle with these new opportunities and their associated pitfalls.
Our panel
Gwen is co-founder of the Silicon Valley chapter of Golden Seeds, the female leader focused angel network, where she focuses most of her angel investing. She also serves as Board Chair of the Angel Resource Institute, through which she delivers educational programs and leads research in the field. She is also a global advisor to the Astia Angel community. She seeks opportunities to work with ecosystem leaders around the world, from Scotland to Vietnam, and loves finding new ways to structure investments and encourage growth. She is a constant supporter of entrepreneurs in their efforts to deliver new products to market, find beachhead customers, and deliver returns to their investors. more...
Esteban is a Fundraising Manager at Wefunder - a leader and pioneer in driving equity crowdfunding. Esteban Alvarado's goal in life is to help innovation grow across the globe and to help founders connect with capital. He believes that startups are a preview into the future and wants to take part in shaping the future. He loves the scrappiness, the creativity, and the difficulties that come with creating new businesses. Esteban is also a co-founder of Project Unicorn.
Feel free to reach out to Esteban if you want to talk about early-stage startups, venture capital, or crypto!
Lilia is a tech industry executive, investor, and thought leader in B2B go-to-market. She is currently Venture Partner at West Coast Equity Partners, a growth equity firm that supports the development of technology companies that are transforming markets, lives, and the world.
Lilia literally wrote the book on customer relevance, 42 Rules for Growing Enterprise Revenue, and is a frequent speaker on maximizing corporate value. She holds a BS in engineering from UC Berkeley and was an Honors Cooperative Fellow and earned an MS in Management Science at Stanford University. Lilia was born in Odessa, Ukraine and lives in Silicon Valley with her husband from Moscow, Russia, and their two daughters. more...
It would be hard to find a more-qualified individual to talk about revenue-base equity financing. Lighter Capital was one of the first companies to offer this type of financing and the CEO of Lighter Capital is none other than Melissa Widner. She's connected globally to sources of capital from Europe to New York to Australia. But, perhaps more importantly, she's walked in the shoes of entrepreneurs and understands, first-hand, the challenges of growing a business.
Since 2012, Lighter Capital has been a pioneer in fueling growth-stage companies. Melissa's broad experience prior to taking the reins at Lighter makes her a perfect candidate to talk about the role of revenue-based financing! more...
The moderator
Les's breadth of experiences, an unquenchable thirst to learn and his “native language” (numbers and metrics) empower him with the ability to add value to almost any startup. For the past decade, Les has deployed these tools in support of entrepreneurship by • co-founding BRIIA • advising/mentoring AI/ML-powered startups and entrepreneurs • angel investing • working to develop the next generation of entrepreneurs at high schools and colleges. He even spent some time nurturing the San Francisco 49ers into the digital age.
About BRIIA
