SVE Accelerator invites you to Mentoring Session IV & V.
Agenda:
Noon: Lunch and networking
12:30PM Introduction
12:35 – 1:35PM Session IV
Mentor: Richard Melmon, Managing Director, Bullpen Captital
“Get Real”
1:40PM – 2:40PM Session V.
Mentor: Anil Advani, Managing Partner, Inventus Law
1 Venture Financing, which details various terms of a venture financing.
2 Anatomy of a Venture Financing Term Sheet.
Event is free for all applicants:Accelerator program Application form
Richard Melmon, Managing Director
Richard co-founded NSVG in 2002, and has managed its investment in twelve seed stage companies since 2002, including Broadware (sold to Cisco), BigFix (sold to IBM), Zvents, TubeMogul, Aggregate Knowledge, Superfish, and Shortform.
He advised large Japanese high tech companies on using Silicon Valley methods to transform their firms. His clients included Sony, Matsushita, Fuji Xerox, Fujitsu, and Konica Minolta.
He has actively participated in the creation and management of a number of companies: Electronic Arts with Trip Hawkins in 1982, market cap today, $5 Billion; Melmon Tawa & Partners, a high tech advertising agency, in 1985, sold to Livingston and Co. in 1989; Objective Software in 1989, sold to Asymetrix in 1993; Vextec, in 2003, Zvents, in 2005, MyDigitalLife in 2006, Shortform in 2009.
Richard started his career as a physicist building klystron tubes for Varian Associates.
After graduating from Stanford Business School in 1973, he joined Intel, where, as a young marketing manager, he introduced the world’s first mass marketed digital watch (Microma), which convinced him the time was right for building and marketing a personal computer.
Unable to convince Intel’s management, he left to join Regis McKenna Inc. as General Manager, where from 1979 to 1981, he helped launch Apple Computer, 3Com, and Genentech, among others.
While at RMI, the venture capitalist Ben Rosen showed him a prototype of what would become the world’s first spreadsheet, VisiCalc. Convinced it would change the world, he took on the launching of the company, then called Personal Software. Soon, he joined the company, which he renamed VisiCorp, where he had the privilege of marketing the world’s number one personal computer software product.
In 1982, the prestige by association with VisiCalc allowed him to easily raise money to start Electronic Arts with Trip Hawkins.
Falling out with Trip led him to leave the company and start Melmon Tawa & Partners with Tom Tawa in 1985. This high tech ad agency launched numerous companies and products, including Xilinx (the first programmable gate array), Stratacom (the inventor of modern packet based technologies leading to the internet as we know it), and Adobe’s Adobe Illustrator. MT&P also had as clients Sun Microsystems, Atari, Frame Technology, and many of Silicon Valley’s high tech firms. The agency was sold in 1990 to a large west coast agency.
From his VisiCalc experiences, Richard had a vision of combining the spreadsheet metaphor with a formal relational database back-end. This led to his formation of Objective Software, the development and launch of the product Spreadbase, and the subsequent sale of the company to Asymetrix in 1993. The product was a precursor to the rise of the data warehouse, and the data analytics market.
He rejoined Regis McKenna as a Partner with The McKenna Group from 1995 to 1998, advising Japanese companies on the impact of the internet. His clients included all of the major Japanese high technology firms.
He found NSV, a precursor to NSVG, in 1998, to do early stage investing. His investments included Commerce One, BigFix, Inktomi, Broadware, and others.
Richard graduated with a B.A. in Physics from the University of California, Berkeley in 1969, and with an M.B.A. from Stanford University in 1973.
Mr. Advani’s practice focuses on the formation, financing and general corporate counseling of emerging companies and technology businesses. He also has an active practice representing India-focused emerging companies, investment banks, financial institutions and venture funds, both in the United States and in India.
He is the principal at Inventus Law, and was most recently of counsel and Head of the India practice at Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe. Before joining Orrick, Mr. Advani was General Counsel and Vice President of SemIndia, a pioneering effort to establish semiconductor manufacturing in India. As General Counsel for SemIndia, Mr. Advani was responsible for coordinating with the Government of India in formulating a comprehensive semiconductor policy for India as well as with the State of Andhra Pradesh in structuring Fab City on the outskirts of the city of Hyderabad.
Prior to joining SemIndia, Mr. Advani was a Senior Associate in the Silicon Valley offices of Cooley Godward where his practice focused on representation of emerging companies and the venture funds and banks that finance those companies. Mr. Advani began his legal career as an attorney in India where he practiced for a number of years at the High Court of Delhi.
In the last over ten years practicing law in Silicon Valley, Mr. Advani has represented more than 230 startup companies, and numerous founders, venture capital investors, angel investors, and venture lending and leasing sources on legal issues relating to formation, founder issues, consulting and advisory arrangements, capital structuring, angel financings, venture financings, debt financings, leasing, mergers and acquisitions, and India-related issues.
Mr. Advani has a Bachelor of Commerce (with honors) from Delhi University, Bachelor of Laws from the Faculty of Law, Delhi University, and a Master of Laws from Georgetown University Law Center, Washington, D.C.
Mr. Advani is licensed to practice law in California, New York and India.
Location:
2010 N First Street, Suite 450, San Jose, CA (map)
Silicon Valley Entrepreneurs & Startups 