VCs Unleashed: Mock Pitches and Real Feedback // BUSINESS 231

Gil Beyda, Founder & Managing Partner, Genacast Ventures

Amish Jani, Co-Founder and Managing Director, FirstMark Capital

Ian Sigalow, Co-Founder and Partner, Greycroft Partners

Brad Svrluga, Co-Founder and General Partner, High Peaks Venture Partners 

Wednesday, October 12th from 6:30 - 8:30 pm

Have you ever wondered what a VC says about your pitch after you leave the room? Here’s your chance to find out what happens behind closed doors. Listen in on candid conversation between prominent VCs Amish Jani, Ian Sigalow, Gil Beyda, and Brad Svrluga as their associates pitch fictitious business ideas. After each pitch, the panel of VCs will provide pointed feedback.

Learn firsthand exactly what venture capitalists both love and loathe to hear in a pitch.

Amish Jani is a Founder and Managing Director of FirstMark Capital. He focuses on seed and early stage investments in software, cloud computing, digital media and Internet sectors. Prior to founding FirstMark Capital, Amish served as a Partner with Pequot Ventures. Amish is a co-founder and member of the organizing committee for the NYC Turing Fellows program and a mentor for the incubator program, TechStars NYC.

Ian Sigalow is a Partner with Greycroft LLC. Ian's investment focus includes advertising technology, Internet software, and mobile services. He currently serves or observes on the boards of Greycroft's investments in Buddy Media, Buzzd, Collective, CrowdFusion, Extreme Reach, OggiFinogi, Tynt, and Vizu. Ian previously invested in and advised several companies, including Airpath Wireless (acquired by Aptilo) and SensorLogic. Prior to joining Greycroft, Ian founded StrongData Corporation, a pioneer in digital encryption, and spent several years as a venture capitalist with Boston Millennia Partners, where he focused on early stage companies in the software and Internet sectors.

Gil Beyda is the founder and managing partner of Genacast Ventures . Gil launched his first company Mind Games in 1982 to develop games for the original Apple II. Gil then started a software consulting firm with Fortune 100 clients in the U.S., Asia and Europe. In 1995, Gil helped pioneer Internet advertising by founding Real Media, the first online ad network and ad server company. After Real Media was acquired in 2001, Gil pioneered the next wave of online advertising as CTO of TACODA, the first behavioral targeting, ad network. Following AOL’s acquisition of TACODA in 2007, Gil founded Genacast Ventures in partnership with Comcast Ventures.

Brad Svurlga is a co-founder and General Partner at High Peaks. He has been a venture investor since the bubble days of the late 1990s, starting his investing career with The Berkshires Capital Investors, the original fund in the Village Ventures Network. Prior to BCI, he was a strategy consultant with Monitor Group, leading projects out of the firm’s Cambridge, South Africa, and Brazil offices. Brad focuses his investing activities on web services and digital media. At High Peaks, he has led the firm’s successfully exited investments in Pump Audio (sold to Getty Images), Threadsmith (sold to Vistaprint), and Allworx (sold to PAETEC). At BCI, amongst the investments he was responsible for were HealthShare (sold to WebMD) and Profile Systems (sold to AT&T).

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