Founder Showcase Q3 – Tuesday 08/03/10

On Tuesday, August 3rd, ten companies elected by over 14,500 registered CEO Members of TheFunded.com will present to over 300 investors, founders, and members of the press in Silicon Valley. A panel of experts will critique the pitches, and voting from those in attendance will determine the Grand Prize Winner – who will receive $2,500 cash, pitching slots at the Silicon Valley chapters of the Keiretsu Forum ($6000 value), two tickets to the DEMO Fall 2010 Conference, $2000 of free legal services from Cooley, free services from oDesk, and more.

Showcase guests will be treated to food and drinks, as well as informative talks by two leading CEOs; Jason Calacanis of Mahalo.com, and Elon Musk of Tesla Motors and SpaceX. There is also a networking and Table area for startups, service providers, and investors to convene. Previous investors that have attended include Charles River Ventures, Morgenthaler Ventures, SoftTech VC, Leapfrog, Polaris, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, First Round, Blue Run, and various angels. Over $1MM has been raised by presenting companies that met investors at the Showcase.

Keynote Speakers

Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla Motors and SpaceX

Elon Musk is the Chairman, CEO, and Product Architect of Tesla Motors, driving the development of Tesla’s product strategy, product development and design efforts. Elon has been involved in key product decisions since the start of Tesla Motors, co-leading design of the Tesla Roadster, for which he won an Index and a Global Green award, the latter presented by Mikhail Gorbachev. Elon is also the CEO and CTO of Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) and Chairman of the board of Solar City. Previously, Elon co-founded Zip2 and PayPal, which was sold to eBay in 2002 for $1.3 billion.

Jason Calacanis, CEO of Mahalo.com

Jason McCabe Calacanis is the Founder and CEO of Mahalo.com, a human-powered search engine. Prior to Mahalo.com’s launch in May, 2007, he was an “Entrepreneur in Action” at Sequoia Capital, a position he held since December 2006. Jason co-founded and was the CEO of Weblogs, Inc., a network of popular weblogs that was sold to AOL in November 2005. Upon joining AOL, he was appointed senior vice president. In addition, he was named general manager of AOL’s Netscape. Prior to forming Weblogs Inc., Jason was the founder of Rising Tide Studios, which sold its flagship publication to Dow Jones.

Sarah Lacy, Award-Winning Journalist and Author

Sarah Lacy is an award winning journalist who has spent more than a decade writing about nearly everything in Silicon Valley, from the largest publicly traded companies to the tiniest startups. She is the editor-at-large for TechCrunch.com and author of the critically-acclaimed book, “Once You’re Lucky, Twice You’re Good: The Rebirth of Silicon Valley and the Rise of Web 2.0″ (Gotham Books, May 2008). Lacy is now working on her second book, which is about entrepreneurship in the developing world.

Agenda

Judges

George Zachary, General Partner, Charles River Ventures

George Zachary joined Charles River Ventures in 2004, bringing more than 17 years of operating and investing experience in computing and consumer technology. Zachary focuses on building services and software technology companies, and he’s led CRV’s investments in Twitter, Yammer, Millennial Media, Cloudshare, Geni, SocialMedia, Metaplace, and Scribd (co-led with Bill Tai).

Rebecca Lynn, Principal, Morgenthaler Ventures

Rebecca joined Morgenthaler’s Menlo Park office in 2007, and she focuses on early-stage investments in mobile, health 2.0, Internet services and financial services. She serves on the boards of Lending Club and Practice Fusion, and she is a second on the boards of OpinMind and Autonet.

Jed M. Katz, Managing Director, Javelin Venture Partners

One of the pioneers of Internet commerce, Jed has spent his 18-year career developing, advising and investing in early stage technology ventures. Jed also served on the Technology, Telecom & Media advisory group for President Barack Obama’s campaign. Prior to Javelin, Jed was a Managing Director of DFJ Gotham Ventures, an early-stage VC firm based in NY, where he was selected in the “Silicon Alley 100.”

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We hope to see you at The Founder Showcase!