8th Annual Portfolio Day

We held our 8th Annual Portfolio Day yesterday, September 15th, and heard from 16 Band portfolio companies. A big thank you to our member Mario Rosati for hosting us at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati in Palo Alto. This year’s lineup included:

Aperia Technologies, Bell Biosystems, Bioxiness, Cargo Chief, Crop One Holdings (formerly AquaHarvest), DecisionNext, GATE, Materna, Navera (formerly Trustnode), NG1 Technologies, NGX Bio (formerly Uberseq), Peloton Technology, Practice Fusion, Savvy, TinyKicks, and TranscribeMe!

For our educational session Andy Scott from RPX Corporation (NASDAQ: RPXC) gave a great overview followed by lively Q&A on how to “Protect Your Portfolio Investment from Patent Litigation” and Suresh Pai, CEO of CogENT Therapeutics shared the highlights of the Entellus Medical, Inc. (NASDAQ:ENTL) acquisition of Band company CogENT (January 2014 Dinner). 

iBeat raises $1.5 million to build a heart monitor that people will actually want to wear

A San Francisco startup called iBeat has raised $1.5 million in seed funding to make a smartwatch that constantly monitors a wearer’s heart and, in the event of cardiac arrest, checks in on them, and notifies loved ones and emergency responders. Maveron, Subtraction Capital and Correlation Ventures led iBeat’s seed round. Other investors included Ali and Hadi Partovi, NFL offensive tackle Russell Okung, KKR founding partner Henry Kravis and Band of Angels. Read the full article on TechCruch.

Announcing Portfolio Day

Our 8th Annual Portfolio Day will be on Thursday, September 15th from 8:30 AM to 5:30 PM at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati (650 Page Mill Road, Palo Alto). Please let Sonja know which of our more than 200 portfolio companies you would like to hear from and we will invite them! 

What a great Summer Party!

What a great Summer Solstice party! It was wonderful to see 120 of us gather and celebrate each other, our significant others, and the beginning of the summer. A special treat was being able to congratulate David and Susie Burwen on their 48th wedding anniversary! The feedback from last month’s Solstice dinner was overwhelmingly positive and we look forward to hosting many more events at the beautiful setting of the Allied Arts Guild. 

Mentor Day Recap

The June 21st Mentor Day was outstanding. Out of the 147 company submissions, 50 startups were invited to meet one-on-one with 20 Band mentors for some honest feedback. Thanks to Ron Weissman for leading it, the volunteer mentors for giving their valuable time and advice, and our intern Kim for providing supporting logistics. This year’s Mentor Day was in partnership with the NASDAQ Entrepreneurial Center though the collaboration of our own Nicola and Sonja. As in the past, several of the startups seeking mentorship caught the mentors’ interest for investment. The most compelling companies are being invited to a special meeting on August 9th and Cocoon Cam will be presenting at the July Dinner.