Software Council of Southern California

You have gone through your savings, maximized your credit cards, mortgaged your house, exhausted your friends & family sources and you're not quite ready for the VC's.

Don't give up, the panelists at this event will let you in on other avenues of funding such as: SBA loans, grants, debt financing, bridge financing, and tools to help you determine your investor readiness.

Ed Sauve, Silicon Valley Bank
Ed Sauve is Senior Advisor in the Global Financial Services Group of Silicon Valley Bank and he has 20 plus years of banking experience including provision of credit and delivery of a wide variety of financial services to small business, middle market, institutional and multi-national companies.

International banking experience included assignments in London, Middle East, & Hong Kong. He opened Middle East Area Representative office for First Interstate Bank in the United Arab Emirates and led program to obtain license to open its bank office in Beijing, China.

Domestic experience includes management of regional corporate centers in Los Angeles and the South Bay for Wells Fargo/First Interstate as well as regional responsibility for marketing Silicon Valley Bank’s short-term money market capabilities in Southern California. Transaction experience in commercial lending, cash management, corporate finance, short-term money market investments, and international banking.

John Garcia, The Venture Alliance
Mr. Garcia is the Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Angel Strategies, LLC an international Angel Investor Capital Firm. As a serial entrepreneur and private and

Institutional investor of over 18 years, Mr. Garcia leads a team of experienced executives and investors in the funding of pre IPO companies in all sectors of industry. Mr., Garcia has held senior executive positions with Alcon Labs, Nestle, S.A., and Hitachi, and has been the senior managing partner to several venture capital funds both domestically and internationally. He holds a Masters of Science in Psychology from University of California, Santa Barbara. He currently serves as the Chairman of The Venture Alliance, a national network of funding sources aligned to create standards in the private equity markets.

Mr. Garcia is currently on the Board of Directors of the famed International Angel Investors Organization and is a board of Governor and an Executive Fellow to the Dean of the Argyros School of Business at Chapman University.. Additionally, he is also affiliated with two think tanks at the Stanford School of Business in Palo Alto, CA.

Jeff has an extensive background in venture debt financing through his years of experience at Sand Hill Capital and his current managing role at Agility Capital. Jeff has been responsible for over $40 million of innovative debt financing solutions to venture capital backed companies.

Jeff is active in the emerging growth business market through his activities throughout the Central Coast region. He is a founding board member of the Westlake Village/Santa Barbara Chapter of the Tech Coast Angels, a southern California-based angel investment capital group. Jeff was also a founding board member of the Venture Investment Partners (VIP) Program, a Santa Barbara-based angel investment capital group.

He is a member of the Board of Directors of the Central Coast MIT Enterprise Forum and the Chair of the Advisory Committee for the Technology Council for the Santa Barbara Region Chamber of Commerce. He is also an active member of the Central Coast Venture Forum Steering Committee and a panelist at many business plan competitions.

He is a graduate of UCSB and is most proud of his accomplishments as a loving husband and father of two young sons.

Lynn E. Foster Jr. - Emerging Technologies Director, Greenberg Traurig, LLP
Lynn E. Foster provides consulting services to clients on obtaining funding from Federal Research Grants, Venture Capital, and strategic investors. Lynn has the unique background of more than 10 years of experience with the federal grant process as a government manager at both the Federal and State level in addition to experience with the process as an entrepreneur. He also has experience in helping technology companies get funding from Venture Capitalists and other investors. Lynn has advised hundreds of companies on raising capital from government grants and venture capital and also helps them with strategic introductions, business consulting and facilitating strategic alliances.

Lynn authored the seminal Nanotechnology Yellow Pages Trade Study and directed the first Nanotechnology Commercialization Conference for the US Department of Commerce. He previously directed eight other Nanotechnology conferences and trade missions as well. He serves on three Nanotechnology Advisory Boards and lectures on Nanotechnology topics at various conferences and universities.