Back for a 3rd Season, join us at the live recording of our popular Silicon Valley Bank Shark Frenzy , hosted by Startup Aggieland, a program of the Center for New Ventures and Entrepreneurship at Mays Business School! Our version of the popular ABC-TV Shark Tank show, we set the stage for a similar exprience featuring some of the nation's biggest investors and investment bankers, serial entrepreneurs and innovators.
This free, fun event attracts some of the biggest names in investing and banking from the West to East coasts and around the Lone Star State. Meet our student and non-student startups, ready to brave the shark pit -- 12 early stage ventures, high and low tech, plus four clients that funded seed rounds. The Mayors of College Station and Bryan will join us to present their first annual Mayors' Cup for the startup that best represents BCS!
Network with two dozen investors and bankers, traveling from Ventura, La Jolla, Santa Clara, San Francisco, NYC and Austin. Meet our highly successful Aggie Entrepreneurs-in-Residence! Ask Pedro del Campo, head of Techstars Global Partnerships, what it's like to pitch Techstars' Brad Feld and David Cohen. Connect with SBCs from Blackstone LaunchPad at Texas A&M.
Enjoy a casual reception and get your complimentary swag from Silicon Valley Bank (while supplies last) or exhibit at our Startup Showcase (reservation required). Visit the free Startup Showcase & Career Fair, hosted from 5 pm - 6 pm by Texas A&M's s award-winning student-led Chapter of the Collegiate Entrepreneurs Organization (C-E-O). Free parking in Lot 43.
Powered by the Center for New Ventures and Entrepreneurship (CNVE) at Mays Business School, Startup Aggieland has become a nationally-recognized, interdisciplinary collaboration created out of eight experiential-learning Management courses taught from 2012-2015 by Startup Aggieland Assistant Director and Professor Don Lewis, now serving as Executive Director of Blackstone LaunchPad at Texas A&M. The courses were prompted by a 2011 White Paper, jointly authored by CNVE Executive Director Richard Lester and Professor Rodney Hill.
CNVE Director Blake Petty, NSF Innovation Corps SW Node Director Chuck Hinton, and Professors Lester and Lewis, lead CNVE, which includes Startup Aggieland and a chapter of the Collegiate Entrepreneurs Organization (ranked 2nd in the US). These programs and other student/former student programs support CNVE's academic and alumni initiatives. The Princeton Review gave CNVE and Texas A&M a Top 25 ranking for undergraduate (20) and graduate (21) entrepreneurship in 2016.
L-R: Michael Descheneaux; Chris Valletta; Chris Westfall
MEET OUR ENTREPRENEURS-IN-RESIDENCE, MENTORS, INVESTORS & CNVE ADVISORY COUNCIL MEMBERS
Startup Aggieland EIRs have track records of successful exits in the hundreds of millions of dollars at well-known startups in California and Texas. Startup Aggieland is mentor-driven, offering access to 125-plus respected investors, subject matter experts and experienced mentors. We also provide access to student peer mentors, who help current students to navigate the various resources available through CNVE. Many of these students are venture fellows through Blackstone LaunchPad.
Meet some of our celebrity "sharks" and other investors during our Startup Showcase & Career Fair from 5 pm - 6pm, held during our open reception before Shark Frenzy at 6 pm - 9 pm. Sponsors and sharks will be invited to attend our private party from 9 pm - 11 pm, hosted by Aggie Angel Network. Cash prizes and trophies will be presented after pitches end at 8:30 pm, including a presentation of the Mayor's Cup for best pitch.
ABOUT STARTUP AGGIELAND
Startup Aggieland, launched in January 2013 by 12 students and four faculty members (plus one administrator), began as an experiential learning lab for students who owned companies or wanted to launch startups. Today, Startup Aggieland accepts early-stage ventures by faculty and former students, in addition to our student clientele. Of 162 ventures assisted, 63 have reported raising $33 Million collectively, filing for 21 patents and creating 84 jobs. Startup Aggieland is open to students of all majors and clients from a broad range of industries, including our Lifestyle companies that are generating revenue.
lLaunched as a joint effort by Texas A&M University's colleges of Architecture, Engineering, Liberal Arts and Mays Business School, as well as the Office of Vice President of Research, our Accelerator has grown to include a 44-bed Dormcubator for entrepreneurial freshman. Our students regularly win at national pitch competitions, including the Rice Business Plan Challenge and the Baylor New Ventures Competition; the National Elevator Pitch Competition; and Food+City Challenge.
Mark Bowles is a serial entrepreneur, award-winning inventor (30+ patents), skier, surfer and scientist, with 25+ years of exeperience in the semiconductor, wireless, consumer/retail, healthcare and environmental industries. Mark founded and funded seven tech startups. He has raised 17 rounds of venture capital and financing, totaling nearly $250 million. Mark founded ecoATM, acquired by Outerwall in 2013 for $350 million. Among other successful exits, he cofounded Power Computing (acquired by Apple in 1996 for $130 million); and cofounded BlueSteel Networks (acquired in 2000 by Broadcom for $110 million).
As Senior Director of Corporate Development for Patagonia. Phil Graves manages a $20 Million fund at Tin Shed Ventures that invests in startups which generate environmental and social good, pulls eco-innovations into Patagonia’s supply chain, and brings a startup mentality to the company. Phil reports to Patagonia’s CEO and plays a significant role in strategy, innovation, and new business ventures. A skier and surfer, Phil came to Patagonia with ten years of experience in corporate finance, investment, valuation, private equity, and M&A.
Michael Descheneaux is CFO of SVB Financial Group and president-elect of Silicon Valley Bank. He is responsible for all finance and accounting functions of the company. A cyclist and kiteboarder, MIke is a certified public accountant with extensive accounting, finance, corporate governance and international business experience, developed as an auditor and consultant in the financial services and telecommunications sectors. Prior to joining SVB, Mike was head of Arthur Andersen’s Financial Services Practice for Central and Eastern Europe.
Clinton Bybee is a co-founder and Managing Director of ARCH Venture Partners. He concentrates primarily on advanced materials, electronics, semiconductors, photonics and infrastructure businesses. Clint has helped organize and finance numerous companies, including MicroOptical Devices (acquired by EMCORE-EMKR), Siluria Technologies, Innovalight (acquired by DuPont-DD), Intelligent Reasoning Systems (acquired by Photon Dynamics) and CoolEdge Lighting. He is a board member of Impinj, Siluria Technologies, CoolEdge Lighting, and Voxel8. Clint is a camper and an advisory board member of Yellowstone Park Foundaton.
Nathan Day offers a wide variety of experience, ranging from testing hardware and software for NASA’s Cassini Saturn mission to co-founding SoftLayer Technologies, a cloud hosting company that was sold to IBM for $2 Billion. Nathan has extensive experience developing products and overseeing software projects. Currently Nathan mentors startups for Techstars, serves as 2016-2017 Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Startup Aggieland and consulting in the cloud computing industry. He also is an amateur astronomer in his spare time.
Lili Gil Valletta is CEO of XL Alliance. She co-created Dreamers Ventures, an investment accelerator for Latino/Latina inventors and entrepreneurs. This one-of-a-kind alliance includes best-selling author and "TV's Billion Dollar Man" Bob Circosta, a pioneer of the multi-billion dollar live television shopping industry. Lili and Bob have partnered with entertainment and lifestyle retailer HSN for a new pipeline program called Project American Dreams. This 2017 televised competition captures the entrepreneurial spirit of Latinos in the U.S.
Chris Valletta is an award-winning entrepreneur, author, TV personality and former NFL Player who also played Texas A&M Football. With a passion for using athletic-performance principles to achieve business success, Chris has developed an established track record of launching and scaling several multi-million dollar ventures. He is the Co-Founder of MISSION Athletecare, helping to grow the NYC company from $0 to $100 million in revenue in just six years. Chris also appeared on Season 4 of The Apprentice with Donald Trump.
Bob Metcalfe has been a partner of Polaris Venture Partners since 2001 and will continue to advise the Massachusetts-based firm as a partner emeritus. During the 1990s, Metcalfe founded and published InfoWorld magazine. During the 1980s, Metcalfe founded IPOed, and grew the billion-dollar computer networking company, 3Com Corp., which merged with Hewlett-Packard in 2010.
We’re capturing more data than ever before, thanks to Blackstone LaunchPad at TAMU, and we're using it to help startup founders find the right resources, right connections and right talent to round out their teams. Explore C-E-O's expo. See what internships are available with local startups. Bring a resume/business cards.
Find out what happens when 12 student and non-student startups get into the tank and pitch six well-known "sharks" from the Silicon Valley and Silicon Hills. Find yourself sitting next to one of several other VCs and angel investors in the audience. Got an idea or invention? You never know who you're going to meet at Shark Frenzy!
Sponsors are invited to attend a private, intimate after-party with Startup Aggieland Entrepreneurs-in-Residence and sharks. Admission to the after-party is restricted. To sponsor, email: startupaggieland@tamu.edu
