Startup Funding: Speakers
Startup Funding, May 2012
Streamlining Venture Capitalists and Business Angels
Faro, 21-22 May 2012
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Robert M. Unetich
Robert is a 1968 graduate of Carnegie Mellon with a degree in Electrical Engineering. He grew up near Pittsburgh and he remembers deciding to be an engineer (at the age of 11) after the launch of Sputnik in the fall of 1957. He was an RF circuit design engineer for a number of years before becoming a VP of Engineering for a small firm in 1976 and a Registered Professional Engineer in the same year. Next he became an Engineering Manager for Harris Corporation and later for a division of RCA in Meadowlands, PA, near Pittsburgh, an assignment that brought him back to his hometown.
In 1982, he co-founded Information Transmission Systems Corporation (ITS) and, as President, grew it until its acquisition in 1996 by ADC Telecommunications, Inc. He retired in 1997 and became an Adjunct Professor at Carnegie Mellon in that year, teaching Entrepreneurship and Engineering Economics. In 1999 he co-founded Applied Electro-Optics with two CMU professors. This firm was acquired in 2001 by Accelight Networks.
He was the winner of the regional SBA Entrepreneur of the Year Award in the 1980s and the Ernst &Young regional Entrepreneur of the Year award in the 1990s. He has been directly involved as a founder or lead investor in eleven startup companies.
He holds two US patents and has several patents pending. Robert has published numerous technical papers and in 2011 he presented a paper at an ASEE (American Society of Engineering Educators) conference on the desirability of including engineering economics concepts in the undergraduate education of every engineer.
In 2005, he reacquired the firm he sold in 1996 and he once again sold this firm, then called Axcera LLC, in 2007. He presently owns and operates a consulting firm known as GigaHertz LLC (www.gigahertzllc.com) , an electronics and management consulting company located near Pittsburgh. GigaHertz LLC is actively involved in several technologies including medical electronics and intrusion detection and electronic interactive artwork. His work with The Pittsburgh Cultural Trust recently won an award for combining artwork with technology in a regional competition.
Bob is an active member of several Pittsburgh based venture capital firms, including Pittsburgh Equity Partners, and he is an active angel investor.
Although his appointment as an adjunct professor has ended, he continues to perform lecturing assignments with engineering students at Carnegie Mellon and the University of Pittsburgh on business, innovation and entrepreneurship. He and his wife of 40 plus years reside in the South Hills of Pittsburgh and they have two sons and four grandchildren in Chicago. Both of his sons have started their own technology-based companies in Chicago.
João Lopes Martins
Coming from Law area, it weren’t the first computers that actually impressed him. Actually the turning point came to light with internet’s arrival and “the smell” of it’s potential to change and transform nearly everything.
With one single step he bridged from awareness into acknowledgment working and studying every piece of information he could grab that could earn him a wider understanding of the internet, how it worked and new ways of taking advantage of it.
As soon as he realised his co-workers’ desire to start something anew, he joined them on the project that would later become muchBeta. The final idea they become was simple: to build Software as a Service (SaaS), offering corporate solutions for a “monthly dollar” with the potential of proving them to thousands or even millions of users.
Today they have 3 SaaS solutions, muchBeta works with some of the largest national enterprises in collaborative platforms and other web projects developed by them and they even get the time to test new models, processes and ways of ‘making’, emphasizing the self evident truth that they weren’t born to be a regular company.
Diamantino Lopes
Diamantino holds a PhD in Environment, a MBA, MSC in Entrepreneurship and technological Innovation and he is a Chemical Engineer graduate.
Invited speaker, author, professor and researcher. He is a business consultant in innovation strategy and R&D project management and also an independent expert supporting EC and portuguese instituions in R&D funding programmes. He was selected for a TT internship in Carnegie Mellon University.
Formerly he held several management positions in private a foundation and in several private companies and he was also the legal representative for the Technology Transfer Centre at Bremerhaven.
He is founder and CEO of Metablue, a medical devices start-up company, finalist of MIT Portugal Venture Competition.
Luke Murray
Luke Murray is responsible for the Business Development, strategy and vision of ActualSun. Luke has 10 years international experience in clean technology and energy industry; Luke has done research and advised national and regional European governments. He co-founded 2 startups including a carbon offsetting firm and a solar project developer. Luke holds an MSc in Environmental Technologies and Energy Policy from Imperial College London & a BSc from University College London.
Sofia Pessanha
Sofia Pessanha, lead the Product Development activities at ActualSun. She has 10 years experience in marketing and business development. Sofia worked for 3 years at TIMWE assisting teams across in 3 continents in knowledge transfer, product development and innovation. She co-founded Beta-i, an association promoting Entrepreneurship and Innovation in Portugal.
Sofia holds a BA in Business Management from Universidade Nova de Lisboa.
João Correia de Matos
João Correia de Matos has been an executive Board Member of InovCapital since September, 2005.
InovCapital is a leading venture capital corporation, and the major shareholder is the Portuguese Ministry of the Economy and Employment. InovCapital is geared towards supporting SMEs and entrepreneurs. Its mission is to contribute to the growth of the Portuguese Economy through the promotion of entrepreneurship and proactive participation in companies’ share capital. InovCapital also focuses its investments into early-stage - seed and start-up projects - and in expansion projects from the manufacturing sectors of the economy.
InovCapital manages 17 venture capital funds («Fundos de Capital de Risco») with different investment objectives, and according to latest data provided by the Portuguese regulator (CMVM) ranks fifth in global market share (CMVM, Venture Capital Report 2010).
Before joining InovCapital, João Correia de Matos had been involved for more than 20 years in the capital markets, first in “Bolsa da Valores do Porto (Oporto Stock Exchange)” where he was the responsible for the legal department and later for the trading department, afterwards he acted as Member of the Board of Directors of “Comissão do Mercado de Valores Mobiliários”, the Portuguese securities market commission, later serving as Chairman and Vice-Chairman of “Interbolsa”, the Portuguese central securities depository. While at Interbolsa, João Correia de Matos was also nominated as Auditor and Vice-Chairman of ECSDA (European Central Securities Depositories Association). João Correia de Matos has a law degree from UCP (Portuguese catholic university).
