CoInvent Startup Summit 2014 New York - Dec 16, 2014
Do’s & Don’ts when Applying to a Startup Accelerator
PANEL
Mark Wachen - Managing Director @ DreamIt Ventures
J. Skyler Fernandes - Managing Director @ Simon Venture Group
Alex Iskold - Managing Director @ Techstars
MODERATOR
Charlie Kemper - Co-Founder & Managing Director @ Entrepreneurs Roundtable Accelerator
=
BIOS
Mark Wachen
Managing Director - DreamIt Ventures
Mark Wachen is the Managing Director for DreamIt Ventures’ NewYork program. He is the Managing Director and Founder of Upstage Ventures, a firm that advises and invests in consumer Internet and interactive marketing companies and board member of Optify and OrderGroove. Mark is the founder of Optimost, the company that pioneered multivariable testing and optimization on the Internet; and he served as CEO for the company up until its acquisition by Interwoven in November 2007 for $52 million.
Before his entrepreneurial successes, Mark worked for seven years at Sony overseeing a variety of Internet initiatives. He was the CEO of Indimi, a company majority-owned by Sony. While there, he spearheaded the acquisitions of InfoBeat, AdTools, and DailyRating.
He was Vice President of Online Ventures for Sony Music, where he directed online initiatives, including Sony Music’s investments in Spinner (acquired by AOL for $300 million), and the launch of the Sony Music Online Website in 1994. Mark has worked with and invested in a variety of other companies, including: ChaiLabs (acquired by Facebook), SeatGeek, YouNow, Thumb, GameChanger, STELLAService, RJMetrics, and CatchAFire. Mark has an MBA from Harvard Business School and graduated summa cum laude from Dartmouth College.
=
Alex Iskold
Managing Director - Techstars
Alex Iskold is the Managing Director of Techstars in New York City.
Previously Alex was Founder/CEO of GetGlue (acquired by i.tv), founder/CEO of Information Laboratory (acquired by IBM), and Chief Architect DataSynapse (acquired by TIBCO).
Alex created GetGlue, the leading social TV network, backed by Union Square Ventures, RRE Ventures, TimeWarner Investments and Rho Ventures. GetGlue has been named breakout startup of 2011 by Mashable and Top 10 Video Innovator by FastCompany. In 2012 Hollywood reporter named Alex among top 50 digital power players.
Alex’s first startup, Information Laboratory, created a tool that helped software architects find problems in their code. IBM acquired the company in 2003, and much of Alex’s work made its way into widely used IBM Rational Developer and Architect products. In addition to being serial entrepreneur, Alex also contributed hundreds of articles to ReadWriteWeb, and taught an award-winning undergraduate software engineering class at NYU.
An engineer by training, Alex has deep passion and appreciation for startups, digital products and elegant code. He likes running, yoga, complex systems, Murakami books and red wine. Not necessarily in that order and not necessarily all together. He actively blogs about startups and venture capital at http://alexiskold.net.
=
Charlie Kemper
Co-Founder & Managing Director - Entrepreneurs Roundtable Accelerator
Charlie is a Managing Partner at Revel Partners, where he’s led investments in Tracx and MediaBrix, and a Founding Partner at Entrepreneurs Roundtable Accelerator, a leading seed stage accelerator platform with over 70 portfolio companies.
Before helping launch Revel and ERA, Charlie was a Principal with Steelpoint Capital Partners, a media & technology growth equity firm he joined in 2005. While at Steelpoint, he led or participated in numerous successful investments in the media & communications fields including AdSpace Networks, Atempo, Boingo Wirless (IPO), Jitterbug, PacStar Communications, PrivaSys, Promptu, SeaMobile, Topica, WMI Media Solutions, and WorkShare.
Previously, Charlie worked with Darby Overseas Investments, where he helped launch plan an early-stage venture fund focused on Latin America. Earlier in his career, Charlie was a Co-Founder & Managing Director of a Chicago-based digital media agency, KMF, focused on intranet design and e-commerce system integration. Charlie is also a Founding Officer & Chair of the New York City Venture Connection, a networking organization comprised of the leading venture capital firms in the Greater New York area.
=
VENUE SPONSOR
Anchin Block & Anchin LLP
http://www.anchin.com/
VIDEO SPONSOR
Internet Society New York Chapter
http://isoc-ny.org/
CoInvent is a US-based event/content platform for startups and entrepreneurs, with an array of events from monthly happy hour mixers to annual startup conferences.
http://coinvent.co/
05
