The nightmare of raising capital, how it should be done!

Are you spending more time raising capital then building your startup? are you struggling trying to get an intro with the right investor? is your startup getting under-valued and torn between a good strategic investor with little capital or a passive investor with a lot of cash?

Many entrepreneurs struggle during their race to greatness between bootstrapping their startup or raising capital, and there is a fine line between raising money and scaling quickly, and making a series of bad decisions and initiatives that will drive your startup to the ground.

Come and join us on April 24th in a heated panel discussion between 2 mature VC’s and 2 tech entrepreneurs who went through bootstrapping to raising capital and have seen the worst of both worlds.

The discussion will include the steps you need to take to get the right intro with the right investor, when you should start raising capital and the challenges that an entrepreneur face throughout the process.

Meet the speakers:

VC’s :

Rahul Gandhi:

Rahul is a Principal at High Peaks based in the firm’s New York City office. Prior to joining High Peaks, he was a Senior Manager on AOL’s Corporate Development team where he helped evaluate, manage, and structure numerous high-profile acquisitions and investments for the company. Rahul’s previous experience also spans across investment banking for Banc of America Securities and venture capital for both Genacast Ventures and Comcast Interactive Capital.
At High Peaks, Rahul is responsible for sourcing and evaluating investment opportunities across a wide range of sectors and supporting existing portfolio companies. He is a graduate from the George Washington University with high honors and holds both an MS in Accounting from the University of Virginia and an MBA from Columbia Business School. Rahul is an active participant in the Columbia Venture Community (CVC) and serves on the board of the New York Venture Community (NYVC.

Angela Lee:
Founder of 37 Angels

37 Angels is a community of women investors who are passionate about investing in early stage companies (male and female-led). 37 Angels source high potential, cross-sector deals and coordinate due diligence for their Angels and Angels-In-Training to invest in.

Entrepreneurs:

Roy Baladi:
Co-founder of FreshGrad.com.

Roy is the proud founding member of nonprofits Project Esperanza, a middle school building project turned into a boarding school that sponsor of 4 high schools in the Dominican Republic, and (B)IM,a free touring theatre that performs unusual, magic spectacles in public places across Lebanon.

FreshGrad is Roy’s first for-profit company with a social mission to place college graduates in a career that empowers them. Prior to FreshGrad, he was a CDO structurer and derivatives strategist at Citi. Roy studied math, computer science, and finance at Virginia Tech. He was born in the US and grew up in Lebanon.

Brian Donohue:
Co-founder of Echolocation.

Brian Donohue graduated from Stevens Institute of Technology with a B.S. In Computer Science with High Honors. He started his career at a startup called Attila Technologies (http://attila-tech.com) where he implemented and oversaw feature development on the core product that were critical for the company's clients.

Brian eventually left Attila to pursue a passion project with would become echo. Echo, created by Echolocation (http://echolocation.com), is an iPhone application that enables communication between people at a particular location. When a user opens echo it automatically detects which city or neighborhood they are in, and provides them with the most recent updates from echo users in that location. Users can then seamlessly engage in a conversation using nothing but their current location. Echolocation is a TechLaunch (http://techlaunch.com) accelerator graduate, and recently closed a $200K round of seed funding.

Agenda:

6pm: checkin- drinks and pre-event networking
6:30 pm: Brief intro from the organizers and the group
6:40 pm: Introduce the guests and start the panel discussion
7:30 pm: Guest input and questions
7:50 pm: Event conclusion and thank you's
8:00 pm: After event networking
Beer special and food menu available as well as limited seating, so arrive early!
Admission online is $10 and $20 at the door.
You will get the chance to get a real insights on raising capital and network with other entrepreneurs and investors.