Monthly Programs - October 13, 2009
Worcester Polytechnic Institute
Campus Center - Odeum Room
Doors open for networking: 5:30 p.m.
Meeting: 6:30 - 8:30 p.m.
Cost: Free for $125 members, full-time college students, and WPI faculty and staff; $30 non-members; $15 for $50 members (this membership price level no longer offered)
Pre-registration
Parking
Make the Most of Those First 100 Days
Eric Giler
Entrepreneurs make crucial decisions with long-term consequences during a company's first 100 days. The learning curve can be steep and treacherous. Sharing his own cautionary tale at the October 13 meeting will be WPI Venture Forum keynote speaker Eric Giler, CEO of WiTricity Corporation. Giler founded and served as the Chief Executive Officer and President of Brooktrout Inc., a provider of telecom software and hardware platforms, from 1984 until its acquisition by EAS Group, Inc. in October 2005. Under his leadership, Brooktrout grew to over $150 million in annual revenue, and had a successful IPO in 1992.
WiTricity Corp., based in Watertown, Mass., is developing wireless electricity capturing technology that will operate safely and efficiently over distances ranging from centimeters to several meters across a room — and will deliver power ranging from milliwatts to kilowatts. Its family of wireless electric power components will enable OEM's in a broad range of industries and applications to make their products truly "wireless."
Prior to WiTricity, he was the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Groove Mobile, a provider of mobile music commerce platforms, from April 2006 until its acquisition by Live Mobile, Inc. in March 2008. The author of eight patents, Giler serves on numerous boards and has chaired the Massachusetts Telecommunications Council.
Drew Hession-Kunz
Case presentation:
i-Nalysis, LLC
i-Nalysis is a one-year-old self-funded startup, entering an $800 million toxin testing market with an industrial test tool that will be available at a lower cost and smaller size than existing products. Targeting the market expected to grow as a new lead detection law goes into effect February 2010, the Concord, Mass.-based company has developed a handheld X-ray Fluorescence (XRF) device that uses pyroelectric crystals to analyze elements at a cost of $300 versus $3,000 for a current compact X-ray tube. i-Nalysis is currently one of 20 semifinalists -- out of 2000 submissions – in the Forbes Magazine business plan competition.
Many products are laced with toxic lead. A new Consumer Product Safety Commission regulation goes into effect February 2010, banning lead above 600 parts per million (PPM) in products intended for children 12 and under. This will affect tens of thousands of manufacturers worldwide. All toys, kids' clothing, costume jewelry, blankets, motor scooters, ski-doos, and myriad other products will need to be tested continually by XRF during manufacture and distribution to avoid up to $15 million in fines plus costly recalls. i-Nalysis is currently one of 20 semifinalists -- out of 2000 submissions – in the Forbes Magazine business plan competition.
Company founder and partner Drew Hession-Kunz will present the case. He has founded and been a senior executive at several high-tech start-ups and has raised private equity or venture capital for three of these firms. Most recently he was CFO, and later VP Business Development, of Innov-X, an $80 million Woburn, Mass. maker of portable and bench top X-ray Fluorescence tools. In six years there, he helped the company grow from $2million to $75million.
Hession-Kunz teaches Venture Capital and Entrepreneurship at the Carroll Graduate School of Business at Boston College, and is on the Advisory Board at Suffolk University Sawyer School of Business. He is a co-founder and judge at the Boston College.
Maintained by webmaster@wpi.eduLast modified: October 27, 2009 16:22:07