Join us for the Founders Space Silicon Valley Roundtable, where founders gather to share knowledge and work together to solve problems. Roundtables are geared to founders and C-level executives of growth-oriented companies for exploring critical issues and business opportunities with peers and subject matter experts.

Each Roundtable tackles a specific subject, such as negotiating a term sheet, creating a marketing plan, filing patents, raising venture capital, etc.  The session begins with industry experts, who provide an overview of the topic and detailed business advice.  Then we break up into smaller groups, where participants can ask questions and receive advice and feedback from the panelists, advisors, and other founders.

Topic: VC Funding vs. Strategic Acquisition: Opportunities & Pitfalls

Presenters: Todd Kimmel of Mayfield Fund, Pete Sinclair of Leapfrog Ventures, and John Giddings angel investor.

Todd Kimmel of Mayfield Fund, Pete Sinclair of Leapfrog Ventures, and angel investor John Giddings answer your questions.

Todd Kimmel is an experienced entrepreneur and investor in the cleantech sector. Todd joined Mayfield Fund from Advanced Technology Ventures, a bi-coastal venture capital firm, where he led cleantech investing in its West Coast office. Todd was also the co-founder and president of Coskata, a leading next-generation bio-fuels company, where he helped drive key product development, technology and financing milestones. Prior to venture capital, Todd was a co-founder and senior vice president at Innovance, a Canadian-based developer of optical networking solutions for telecommunications service providers and worked in investment banking with Wasserstein Perella & Co., Inc. in New York. Todd holds a BA  from Amherst College and was a history major.

Pete Sinclair’s background includes over 20 years of senior operating experience in high tech companies and more than 10 years in venture capital. He has been a serial CEO, successfully selling companies to Microsoft, Novell, and Adobe Systems, and has participated in two IPOs.  He started his career with Hewlett-Packard and joined Apple Computer when it was still a small private company.  Pete founded Leapfrog in 1999, and is rated as one of the Top 30 VCs by Business Insider. Pete has a BS in Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he graduated in the top 10% of his class in 3 years. He is also a graduate of Stanford Business School's Executive Program for Small Company Presidents and twice served as the Mayor of the Town of Woodside.  He is an avid aviation buff and is currently flying a high performance pressurized airplane that he built himself.

John Giddings is the co-founder of The Silicon Valley Angels (now Tech Angel Group), which focuses on high tech seed stage opportunities and Clean Tech issues. He also is Principal of Clean Tech Integration, a consulting practice specializing in technology, business plan and funding services for clean tech start-ups, due diligence projects for venture capitalists, and analysis on the clean tech industry for Wall Street. John recently joined the adjunct Faculty of Santa Clara University’s Graduate School of Engineering as a professor of entrepreneurship. He is on the Board of Directors for HBSTech, and the Industry Advisory Board for the Santa Clara University School of Engineering. He is also editor of The Solar Evangelist Blog, offering insight, commentary and advice for the new solar industry toward delivering on the promise of Gold from the Blue Sky. His home is in Los Gatos, California and this summer he climbed Mt. Fuji--for work. 

Questions?  Contact us at sv@foundersspace.com 

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