Show #102 Listen (36:48) Download

Meet Krisztina Holly, she's the new Vice Provost and Executive Director for the USC Stevens Institute for Innovation. With the generous naming donation from Mark and Mary Stevens (as in Sequoia Capital), she has a new, blank canvas to create the perfect environment to foster innovation in all departments at USC. She has the practical experience of a serial entrepreneur, but this is a big role to fill; is she up for the job? Her experience as the founding executive director of MIT's Deshpande Center for Technological Innovation will probably go a long way in assuring her success here at USC.

In the ecosystem
USC is celebrating Innovation in Southern California on March 28th. Interact with researchers and learn more about the cutting edge advancements made in disciplines ranging from multimedia and biotechnology, to robotics and environmental breakthroughs.

Live and work in the Inland Empire? The next Tech Coast Angels Screening is 10am on April 26th. Come out and help us build an angel network. Details...

Tech Coast Angels hosts the next Fast Pitch on Monday May 14th. Application deadline: April 20th

The Numira close was completed last week and I am sending out the press release on the Series A round of funding.

This was an interesting due diligence process as Numira made an acquisiton of Visual Influence Corp., a spinoff of the University of Utah's Scientific Computing and Imaging Institute during the due diligence process. This required a new negoatiated term sheet and valuation. In the end, the Series A financing was for a total of $2.5M, with 25 TCA members contributing $571K and the Pasadena Angels contributing to the close with 10 members for $213K. The remaining portion of the financing came from vSpring Capital, a venture firm based in Salt Lake City.

Paul A. DeRidder, MD, MBA

Show #101 Listen (36:11) Download

Into his seventh year, CEO and Founder Steve Steit has grown with Green Dot Corporation. He pioneered pre-paid debit cards and after some early struggles his card is now sold in 50,000 retailers. Along the way he had to get licensed, regulated, build call centers, deal with fraud and reload the cards. Now he has competitors using his reloading technology. From debit cards he's moving to credit cards and check cashing; Steve makes a prediction on the podcast: in the next 12 months Green Dot will become the largest check cashing company in America! Perhaps today Green Dot is Tech Coast Angels' most successful investment.

He sold his first debit card in May 21st, 2001 and he remembers that date for more reasons than you might guess.
He has lots of advice for the budding entrepreneur.

Mentions: Casey Kasem, John Kensey, Sol Zechter, Raulee Marcus and Ken Aldrich

In the ecosystem
Tech Coast Angels hosts the next Fast Pitch on Monday May 14th. Application deadline: April 20th

USC is celebrating Innovation in Southern California on March 28th. Interact with researchers and learn more about the cutting edge advancements made in disciplines ranging from multimedia and biotechnology, to robotics and environmental breakthroughs. RSVP by March 21 (rsvp code: innovation).

Live and work in the Inland Empire? The next Tech Coast Angels Screening is 10am on April 26th. Come out and help us build an angel network. Details...

Show #100 Listen (48:28) Download

Steady growth after bootstrapping Broadcom with no venture capital, find out how he did it. Here's Henry Samueli, co-founder, CTO and Chairman of the Board; another in a series of founding entrepreneurs who have grown with their companies. How has he grown with the company? In many ways of course, but especially as chief visionary.

Henry is who Bruce Hallett turned to when he first thought of starting Miramar Venture Partners.

Henry has given back to the community, over $200 million through his foundation and naming gifts to both the UCIrvine Henry Samueli School of Engineering and the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science. He's a huge contributor to the southland; he's my 100th guest.

Entrepreneurs
Join me at the next TCVN schmooze-fest: Raising Money: Venture Capital Financing on Thursday March 22, 2007. I'm on the panel as "devil's advocate", come out and see what that means. It's bound to be a lot of laughs!

Tech Coast Angels hosts the next Fast Pitch on Monday May 14th. Application deadline: April 20th

Investors
USC is celebrating Innovation in Southern California on March 28th. Interact with researchers and learn more about the cutting edge advancements made in disciplines ranging from multimedia and biotechnology, to robotics and environmental breakthroughs. RSVP by March 21 (rsvp code: innovation).

Interested in Tech Coast Angels incursion into the Inland Empire? Mark the calendar: 10am on April 26th. Stay tuned for details.