Tuesday, October 21st

12:30 PM - 1:45 PM

Track IV: Poolside Tent II

Investment, Funding Strategies and Deal Flow: Digital Media Venture, Investment and Funding: New Business Models in Entertainment, Media and Technology - From Funds to Crowdfunding

Mike Lee, General Partner, Rogers Venture Partners

Jay MacDonald, CEO and Co-Founder, Digital Capital Advisors

Richard Wolpert, Managing Director, Amplify.la

Erik Rannala, Co-Founder & Managing Partner, MuckerLab

David O. Higley, Managing Partner, Bond Lane Merchant Bank

Kelemen Papp, Executive Director, Mooreland Partners

Tim Hanlon, Founder and CEO, The Vertere Group, LLC, Moderator

 partnerships and establish meaningful customer contracts. We look to take active roles within each portfolio company and are committed to working towards a common vision of revolutionizing the status quo.

Jay C. MacDonald, CEO/Managing Partner, Digital Capital Partners LLC, eValue AG: Entrepreneur, active investor & skilled digital media M&A professional, Jay C. MacDonald's career includes 20+ years of leading high growth and rapidly changing media companies and investment banks. Mr. MacDonald is the currently the CEO/Co-Founder of Digital Capital Partners, LLC, a new york based investment bank that specializes in digital media with an emphasis on cross border M&A and Capital raises. Highlights of his banking successes include representing Microsoft Corp. in the divestiture of a lead generation asset; selling a German based Ad Serving company to DoubleClick; a US based Ad Network to a UK based media company and a US based Interactive agency to a Dutch listed company in Amsterdam. Mr. MacDonald is also currently the Managing Partner of the eValue Group, an early stage Venture Capital firm that invests in digital media companies in the US and Europe. Additionally, he owns MAG-TECH Capital Partners, LLC, a US based media consulting firm. Previously, Mr. MacDonald was a partner with DeSilva & Phillips, where he founded and led the digital media & technology group; the Founder/CEO of WorkingWomanNetwork; Co-Founder/CEO of World Congress, Inc. as well as the former publisher of Inc. Magazine.

Richard Wolpert, Managing Director, Amplify.la & Advisor, Accel Partners: A pioneer in the fields of technology, consumer digital media and entertainment for more than 25 years. Extensive experience as an executive, entrepreneur and as an investor. Responsible for many “firsts” throughout his career including: conceiving of and teaching the first Macintosh Programming Class at Stanford University (CS 193C), the first multi-user address book for the Macintosh (TouchBase), the first kids internet subscription service (Disney's Daily Blast), the first Tivo-like product for the Internet Radio (BitBop Tuner), the first legitimate music subscription service for the Internet (MusicNet), and the first legitimate online movie subscription service (Starz! On Demand). Successfully negotiated ground breaking deals with several of the major media companies whose content became the basis for many of these products. As an investor, managed personal investment fund, Chance Technologies (1995 to Present), served as an advisor to Accel Partners (2006 to Present), served as a partner at the Yucaipa Companies (1998 to 2000), and served as the Managing Director or the Mail Room Fund (2008 to 2010). Invested in more than 30 companies, a large percentage of which have had successful exits or continue on as successful companies, including: AdECN, AMG, AndroMedia, AudioMill, Data Sage, GameFly, GameSpy, Kongregate, Mob.ly, People Support, Smilebox, Sometrics, Three Rings, Scopely, PlayDek, and Universal Audio.

Prior to forming MuckerLab, Erik was most recently at Harrison Metal Capital where he and partner Michael Dearing led one of the earliest seed-stage focused  “Micro VC” firms in Silicon Valley.  Since 2008, Harrison Metal has invested in over 40 companies, including Aardvark (GOOG), DocVerse (GOOG), Heroku (CRM), Manymoon (CRM), MixerLab (Twitter) and ZipZapPlay (ERTS). Before Harrison Metal, Erik served as global vice president of product management and strategy at TripAdvisor, the largest travel community site on the Web. In that role, he led product strategy and development for TripAdvisor sites in the US, UK, France, Italy, Germany and Spain, as well distributed applications and syndicated content on partner sites like Facebook. Prior to TripAdvisor, Erik spent over four years at eBay, where he held a variety of positions, including leadership of eBay’s premium features business, which grew during his tenure from $124 million in revenue in 2002 to $410 million in 2005, significantly outpacing overall eBay revenue and listings growth. Previously, Erik held leadership roles at MVP.com and at Accenture. He was also an early member of Accenture’s first practice group dedicated to Internet strategy and development in the mid-1990’s. Erik earlier served at the Domestic Policy Council in the White House, where he worked on issues such as equal employment opportunity and Native American affairs. Erik holds a BS from the University of Delaware and an MBA from Duke University.

David O. Higley, Managing Partner, Bond Lane Partners LLC: Resigned as Managing Director and Global Head of Digital Media at UBS Investment Bank to form Bond Lane Partners, a registered merchant bank serving the Digital Media sector. In addition to providing the services found at traditional investment banks (i.e., M&A, capital raising, strategic advisory), Bond Lane is an active investor within Digital Media. Currently we have seven investments in our portfolio - and growing! Bond Lane Partners is a merchant bank serving the digital media sector. Its founder, David Higley, formed and built the digital media group at UBS Investment bank where he was a managing director and Global Head of Digital Media until he formed Bond Lane Partners. In addition to providing the services found at traditional investment banks (i.e., M&A, capital raising, strategic advisory), Bond Lane acts as a principal investor with six investments in its portfolio (and growing).

Kelemen Papp currently serves as an Executive Director at Mooreland Partners, a tech-focused investment bank.  Kelemen has 10 years of investment banking experience in tech, where he has advised clients in the mobile and digital media sectors across a range of transactions, including M&A, Private Placements, Divestitures, etc.  Prior to Mooreland, Kelemen was a Vice President at Rutberg & Company, a boutique investment bank focused exclusively on the mobile sector.  Prior to joining Rutberg, Kelemen spent several years working in product development for companies in the FinTech sector.  He helped launch both Curian Capital, a managed accounts platform for custom portfolios, and FOLIOfn, an Internet-based trading platform that enables dollar-based investing.  Kelemen also helped facilitate the spinout of the NASDAQ by assisting FINRA in the development of the Alternative Display Facility (ADF), an SRO display-only market center.  Kelemen holds an MBA from the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley and a BBA in Information Technology from The College of William & Mary.

Tim Hanlon is widely regarded as one of America’s most influential thought leaders in the concentric fields of emerging media, marketing and digital technology. He is the Founder and CEO of The Vertere Group, LLC, a boutique investment advisory and strategic consulting firm focused on helping today’s most forward-leaning brands, content producers, entrepreneurs, and investors benefit from rapidly changing technological advances in marketing, media and consumer communications. Tim was previously Founder and Managing Director of Velociter, the innovation-centric partnership and strategic investment arm of Interpublic Group’s corporate media agency division Mediabrands – where he was chiefly responsible for driving entrepreneurial innovation through proprietary relationships with more than a dozen innovative venture-backed media/marketing startup firms, including: BLiNQ Media (acquired by Gannett, 2012); Circle Street (Valassis, 2012); Machinima, Mixpo, Retailigence, Sharethrough, Friend2Friend, and Spongecell. Before Velociter, Tim was Executive Vice President/Managing Director of Publicis Groupe’s VivaKi Ventures – the strategic partnership and investment arm of VivaKi (comprising Starcom MediaVest Group, Zenith Optimedia Group, Digitas, Razorfish, and Denuo), which he founded in 2008, after launching predecessor Ventures practices for Denuo (2006) and Publicis Groupe Media/PGM (2005).  In those roles, Tim served in formal advisory and directorial positions with over four dozen media-related startups, while managing successful exits with nearly two dozen firms. Prior to founding the Denuo Ventures and PGM Ventures practices, Tim was Senior Vice President/Director, Emerging Contacts for Starcom MediaVest Group.  He was chiefly responsible for all US client activity and agency initiatives in the field of emerging media technologies, including the firm’s ground-breaking TV 2.0 Practice, centered around evolutionary television platforms such as interactive/ enhanced television, on-demand video, digital video recording, interactive program guide navigation, addressable advertising, and digital broadcasting/multi-casting. Tim has over 20 years of classic, digital and “emerging” media and marketing experience including senior management positions at marketing promotions agency Frankel (Chicago), regional advertising agency Creative Alliance (Louisville), digital content pioneer Starwave (Bellevue, WA), and credit card issuer MBNA America (Wilmington, DE).

Day Two - SuperSession Day