These are certainly uncertain times. With a new President in Washington, financial turmoil on Wall St., Detroit teetering on the kindness of taxpayers, looming credit card crunch, and of course, the mortgage crisis, no one is untouched and no investment is sacred. Within the context of such historical structural upheaval, what will happen to venture capitalism? What will it mean to entrepreneurs?

In this first event of the year, we bring together a panel of distinguished venture capitalists, and ask them to examine the investment landscape and look into their crystal balls. Where will VCs put their money in 2009? What sectors are hot? What sectors are not? What has happened to valuations? What would be their advice for entrepreneurs?

As is now our tradition, we will begin with a presentation of the latest MoneyTree Survey* from PricewaterhouseCoopers. Join us for an informative and insightful evening as we kick off 2009 in uncharted waters.

* The MoneyTree Survey is a quarterly study of venture capital investment activity in the United States, conducted as a collaboration between PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC), Thomson Venture Economics and the National Venture Capital Association.

• Steve Bengston, Managing Director of Emerging Company Services (ECS), PricewaterhouseCoopers

• Prashant Shah, Managing Director, Hummer Winblad Venture Partners
• Ashmeet Sidana, General Partner, Foundation Capital
• John Steuart, Managing Director, Claremont Creek Ventures
• Gus Tai, General Partner, Trinity Ventures

• Event Logistics
• Speaker Biographies

Location
Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP
2475 Hanover Street, Palo Alto
(650) 233-4500

Directions and Map

Pricing

	Pre-register Online	Drop-in At the Door
CSPA Premium Members*	$15	$20
CSPA Basic Members+	$20	$25
Non-Members (Sign up as a Basic Member for Free)	$25	$30

^* Premium members: Sign up for Annual membership for only $45!
⁺ Basic Members: Sign up for free!

Students with a valid ID pay Premium Member prices

Food & Drinks
Appetizers and drinks will be served.

Journalists requesting media credentials:
CSPA requires proof of applicant's professional status, including a titled business card.

Steve is Director of Emerging Company Services (ECS) at PricewaterhouseCoopers. ECS acts as “mentor capitalists” for young, high potential companies. ECS works closely with the leading opinion leaders/influencers in the Bay Area, including venture capitalists, attorneys, bankers and other service providers.

Before joining PwC, Steve had 20 years of experience in a variety of marketing, business development and general management roles at several high tech companies in the Bay Area. Most recently, he was Pres/CEO of ynot.com, a leading international emarketing and greeting card company. Previously, he was VP Marketing & Business Development at Worldview Systems, an Internet travel pioneer. At Worldview, Steve helped launch and market Travelocity with Sabre Interactive.

Steve has a BA in Economics and MBA from Stanford University. He works closely or sits on the Advisory Board at the Churchill Club, SVASE, SDForum, Life Science Angels, and the Stanford/MIT Venture Lab, has taught classes on funding/running start ups at UC Berkeley, Santa Clara University, Hastings Law School, and Stanford, and is active in a variety of other organizations in the Bay Area targeting entrepreneurs and investors. He is a frequent moderator/panelist at both university and industry sponsored events.

Prashant Shah, Managing Director, joined Hummer Winblad in December 2000. He has been instrumental in many investments including Baynote, Bridgestream, Cenzic, InMage, Jareva Technologies, Krillion, Scalent, SyncVoice, Tizor and Voltage Security. He also observes a number of these boards. In addition, Prashant is an active Charter Member of TiE Silicon Valley (www.tiesv.org), where he is Chair of the Software SIG; and a member of the Board of Trustees for Astia (www.astia.org).

Prior to Hummer Winblad, Prashant spent many years defining and launching high tech products. His background spans all seven layers of the OSI stack with product management roles at enCommerce (acquired by Entrust), Cypress Semiconductor and AT&T. Prashant received a BS in Electrical Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and an MBA from the University of Chicago.

Ashmeet is a seasoned executive who comes to Foundation Capital with a combination of 15 years of experience in operating systems and enterprise software. His experience spans sales, marketing, product management, and engineering at start-up and large companies.

Most recently, he was at VMware (NYSE:VMW) where he was responsible for multiple products including Virtual SMP, P2V and their flagship product, ESX Server. At VMware, he helped grow ESX Server from early pilots to widespread worldwide deployment in mission critical systems by Fortune 500 companies. Prior to VMware, Ashmeet was CEO of Sidana Systems, a successful enterprise-software company that pioneered Docsan for publishing ultra-large (terabyte) documents. He bootstrapped Sidana Systems from inception through growth to its acquisition by Doclinx. Ashmeet began his professional career at Hewlett-Packard and later Silicon Graphics, holding various key technology roles. Ashmeet currently serves on the board of Altor Networks, AzurePower,, PanoLogic, Sanrad, Simply Hired, and Zetta.

Ashmeet loves adventure travel and in his spare time can be found planning his second trip to Mt. Everest. In addition to an MBA from the Wharton School, Ashmeet received an MSCS from Stanford University and a BSCS from the University of Southern California.

John has spent the last 20 years managing, building and investing in technology and life science companies. John focuses on the intersection of the information technology and life sciences markets including bioinformatics, molecular diagnostics, genomics, proteomics, software and instrumentation for med-tech industries.

John serves on the board of directors of Arcxis, PropertyBridge, and Tibion Bionic Technologies. He is an Industry Fellow at the Center for Entrepreneurship and Technology at the College of Engineering as well as a member of the Advisory Council to the Lester Center's Berkeley Entrepreneurs’ Forum at UC Berkeley. He recently joined the Advisory Board for Technology Ventures Corporation (TVC), an organization which fosters entrepreneurs and technologies coming out of the national labs such as Lawrence Berkeley, Sandia and Lawrence Livermore. Early in his career, he joined Alafi Capital, an Emeryville-based venture firm specializing in early-stage biomedical companies, where he served as an officer of the General Partner. At Alafi, John lead investments in more than a dozen successful start-ups, and served as the senior executive and board member of various firms such as Tanox, Software Ventures, Lipomatrix, and Megan Health.

In the mid-90s, together with colleague Nat Goldhaber, John helped start Cybergold, an Internet marketing and payments company, serving as the early COO and CFO through its IPO, merger with Mypoints and sale to United Airlines. John continued with the Mypoints unit of United serving as the Senior Vice President of Strategic Partnerships.

John lives in Berkeley with his wife and three children, a block away from the Triple Rock brewery.

Since joining Trinity in 1996, Gus has specialized in funding early stage companies pioneering new market categories. He particularly enjoys getting involved at the time of company formation, working with founders to help build the team and refine the business model.

Gus focuses on consumer services and consumer enabling technologies, and maintains an interest in enterprise software.

Prior to Trinity, Gus began his operational career in engineering management at Digital Equipment Corporation. He also worked at Bain & Company, consulting to technology firms on new product development and business strategy.

Gus is a Director of the MIT Club of Northern California and the Chinese Software Professionals Association. Focus: Consumer Services and Consumer Enabling Technologies

Education:
MIT Leaders for Manufacturing Fellow
M.B.A., MIT Sloan School of Management
M.S., Materials Science and Engineering, MIT
A.B., Applied Mathematics, Harvard University