Business Mixer with Entrepreneurs from Portuguese Language Countries
Friday, April 27, 6:00pm-9:00pm
Location: Autodesk Gallery, One Market St., San Francisco

The entrepreneurs had an intense business agenda, including a visit to Intel, a meeting with entrepreneurs from Brazil and Portugal, at Orrick, and the business mixer at Autodesk Gallery.

The first event on March 21^st was held at the Consulate of Brazil in San Francisco and the second edition was last May 9^th, at the Silicon Valley Bank, in Santa Clara.

See details & photos below. We will announce the next event soon and hope you will join us in these very special Brazilian evenings.

Creative. Bold. Adaptable. Innovator.
These are some of the words used to describe Brazilians who ventured into entrepreneurship.
According to the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor, Brazil is one of the most entrepreneurial countries in the world.
Brazilians have created companies spanning multiple sectors such as energy, finance, agribusiness and information technology. In recent years, entrepreneurship clusters and business incubators have been booming across the country to support an increasing number of startups right up in the radar of local and international VCs and angel investors.

Brazilian Founders II, featuring Peixe Urbano

When: May 9^th, 2012, 6:00pm-9:00pm
Location: Silicon Valley Bank Kellogg Auditorium, 3005 Tasman Drive, Santa Clara, CA 95054

Guest Speakers:

Alex Tabor, Co-Founder and CTO of Peixe Urbano

Julio Vasconcellos, Co-Founder and CEO of Peixe Urbano

Moderator: Vicente Silveira, Director of Engineering, LinkedIn, Board Member, BayBrazil

Thanks to Alex and Julio for spending the evening with the BayBrazil crowd to share their amazing story. Thanks to our moderator Vicente Silveira and our audience for great questions and insights. And, thanks to dear volunteers and our host Silicon Valley Bank for opening the doors to BayBrazil.

Brazilian Founders I

When: Wed, March 21^st, 6:00pm-9:00pm
Location: Consulate of Brazil in San Francisco at 300 Montgomery St. suite 300

Guest Speakers:

Fabricio Bloisi, Co-Founder & CEO, Movile
Marcio Saito, Co-Founder, Ledface
Paulo Lerner, Founder & CEO, Rewinery
Ron Czerny, Founder & CEO, Playphone
Moderator: Fred Aslan, VP, Venrock, Board Member, BayBrazil

Thanks to our dear speakers and moderator for an evening of inspiration!
Thanks to our audience and the support of the Brazilian consulate in SF for hosting BayBrazil’s event! Muito obrigada!

Export Opportunities in Brazil for California Green Companies

When: Mon, Feb 13, 2012, 8:00 a.m.-12:00 p.m.
Where: San Jose Silicon Valley Chamber of Commerce, 101W. Santa Clara Street, San Jose, CA

AGENDA

8:00 a.m. – 8:30 a.m. Registration, Networking, and Continental Breakfast
8:30 a.m. – 8:45 a.m. Welcome remarks
The Honorable Chuck Reed, Mayor of the City of San Jose
Matthew Mahood, San Jose Silicon Valley Chamber of Commerce
The Honorable Eduardo Prisco Ramos, Consul General of Brazil in San Francisco
Joanne Vliet, Director, Silicon Valley Export Assistance Center

8:45 a.m. – 9:45 a.m Doing Business in Brazil – panel discussion
Speakers:
Natalie Kehle, Analyst , International, Infrastructure Department, Federation of Industries of the State of São Paulo (FIESP)
Shannon Fraser, Clean Tech Trade Specialist, Silicon Valley Export Assistance Center, U.S. Department of Commerce
KathleenMcInerney, Director, Brazil-U.S. Business Council
Moderator: Professor Michael Conniff, San Jose State University

9:45 a.m. – 10:00 a.m. Networking Break
10:00 a.m. –11:00 a.m. Local Resources and Success Stories – panel discussion
Speakers:
Calvin Lam, Commercial Banking Officer, GBC International Bank
Rob Guthrie, Business Initiatives Specialist, Office of Renewable Energy & Environmental Exports, Export-Import Bank
Jeff Lund, Vice President of Business Development, Echelon
Moderator: Margarise Correa, Founder of BayBrazil

11:00 a.m.-11:40 a.m. Keynote Presentation
Carlos Eduardo de Senna Figueiredo, Economist, National Confederation of Industry for Brazil (CNI)
11:40 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. Question and Answer
12:00 p.m. Closing Remarks

You know that 1 out of every 5 workers in Santa Clara County is employed in manufacturing. But did you know that, just in 2010, California exported $2.8 billion in manufactured goods to Brazil, now the 6^th largest economy in the world?

The San Jose Metropolitan Area, with one of the highest education level in the U.S is home to over 4,505 high technology companies employing over 182,300 people and uniquely qualified to export to Brazil.

Our panels of experts will help you learn how to take advantage of the opportunities in the Brazilian market and export your green technology to Brazil!

Resources:

Export-Import Bank Support for U.S. Exports to Brazil: http://www.exim.gov/brazil/index.cfm

Presentation of Carlos E. Senna Figueiredo, Economist, National Confederation of Industries of Brazil

BayBrazil & partner organizations GABA, Silicon French & TEC present:

Attracting the Acquirer – How to stage your company for purchase

When: Tue, Jan 24^th, 2012, 6:00pm – 9:00pm
Where: Silicon Valley Bank, Kellog Auditorium, 3003 Tasman Drive, Santa Clara, CA 95054

What are acquiring companies and private equity firms looking for?

Join us to find out how to fund your business to become a successful target, why your approach to financial and legal record keeping is important, and what to expect in the letter-of-intent in the current market.

Learn also how to make the most of an alliance with your investment banker and legal team.

Topics to be discussed:

• How to get your company on the acquirer’s radar screen
• How is your company valued?
• What pitfalls do companies encounter during due diligence?
• How to make the most of your alliance with your investment banking, legal, and financial gurus

Speakers: 
Tom Smith, Managing Director, Corporate Finance, Silicon Valley Bank
Dean ‘Kip’ Witter III, Vice President of the Brenner Group
Francois Laugier, Partner, RMKB
Mark R. Dukas, Managing Director of Eagle Partners LLC

Moderator: Jessica Holcombe, RMKB

2012 Global Projections
A panel discussion on the business & economic outlook of the U.S., EU & Emerging Markets

When: Dec 1^st, 6:00pm – 9:00pm
Where: WilmerHale, 950 Page Mill Road, Palo Alto, CA 94304
Details & Pre-registration: http://baybrazil2012global.eventbrite.com
Cost: $20 Members: $35 Non Members; $50 at the door

As we approach the end of 2011, economists around the world are on the alert for an imminent double-dip recession particularly in the U.S., the Eurozone countries and the UK.
Still, venture capital investment in the U.S. in Q2 increased 19% compared to the first quarter of 2011, representing the highest total increase in a single quarter since the second quarter of 2008, according to the National Venture Capital Association. In the third quarter, VCs invested $6.9 billion in American companies, up 30% compared to the same quarter in 2010.
Although dollars are still pouring into U.S. firms, consumer confidence plunged to the lowest level in more than two years as unemployment hits over 9% of Americans. As a result, entrepreneurs are facing faltering profits, increasing uncertainty about the short-term evolution of their business environment and a new set of challenges to navigate the ongoing crisis and to stay afloat.

Join us to discuss the international business climate and hear insights on what business leaders should expect in 2012.

• When can a rebound be expected?
• Which market segments will drive growth?
• Which technologies are more likely get funded? Which ones could be a bubble?

The complimentary cocktail will start at 6pm, followed by the panel discussion & Q&A.

Moderator: Mike Swift, Internet Reporter, San Jose Mercury News

Speakers:

Cynthia Ringo, Managing Partner, DBL Investors
David Blumberg, Managing Partner, Blumberg Capital
Kenny Pate, VP Product Management, eBay
Scott Hartley, Mobile & Consumer Internet team, Mohr Davidow Ventures
Steve Bengston, Director, PwC

BayBrazil & JHTC invited Brazilian entrepreneur Ron Czerny, founder & CEO of PlayPhone, to talk about one of the hottest areas for VC investment.

The “Next Big Thing” is here and it is Mobile Social Gaming – the ability to play games with other people using a mobile device like a smartphone or iPad. In less than 3 years, companies in this segment have grown to valuations of over $5 billion.

In his presentation, Ron shared his 18-year old journey as a successful entrepreneur in the games industry. A Brazilian-born visionary, Ron has played a key role in Latin America’s video game industry and is the driving force behind PlayPhone. His ability to reinvent himself has allowed him to establish PlayPhone’s dominance in the mobile social games industry and position the company to compete and thrive on global scale. Parabens, Ron!

Oct 11 Startup Expo

The expo introduced 12 entrepreneurs to an audience of investors and high tech professionals gathered in Silicon Valley.
BayBrazil supported JHTC by inviting three startups led by Brazilian entrepreneurs:

LedFace, (www.ledface.com) represented by Marcio Saito, co-founder  ((coloca hyperling em cima do nome de cada empresa))
Lemon (ww.lemon.com), represented by Isabel Pesce Mattos, co-founder
MoWaiter, (http://www.mowaiter.com/) represented by Joni Girardi and Daniel Togni, co-founders

Congratulations! Parabens!

 In the past, Brazil has been known as a difficult business environment. In the 70′s and 80′s multinational companies used to send executives South to prepare them for important assignments because “if you can survive in Brazil, you can survive anywhere”.

That is certainly changing. Brazil has opened its economy to the world and become a global player not only in the traditional raw material markets, but also in industries with more value-added. We have seen investments in manufacturing (e.g. Foxcomm transferring manufacturing of Apple products from China), emergence of companies like Embraer (regional jets), and a very exciting startup scene. An emerging middle class offers what other developing markets don’t: a huge internal market.

The upcoming Soccer World Cup (2014) and the Olympic Games (2016) promise to mark the ascendence of Brazil as a global power. Or does it?

How difficult is it to do business in Brazil?

A recent article in the Financial Times blog examines a study by the World Bank and argues that there is still work to do.

In the bank’s latest Doing Business report, Brazil has fallen six places and is now ranked 126th out of 183 countries. In other words, it’s considered the 58th most difficult place to do business in the world. That’s more difficult than Azerbaijan, Greece, Guyana and Argentina, to name but a few.

Read the article at FT.com

Does the ranking capture the recent changes in the Brazilian market in the past couple of years? Based on my experience, it is much easier to do business in Brazil today, but the table above doesn’t reflect that.

What do you think? Share some of your perpective and experience by leaving your comments below.

–

Marcio Saito is Brazilian, entrepreneur, living in the Silicon Valley since 1993. He writes about Social Media, Business, Entrepreneurship, Crowdsourcing. He can be found in Twitter @Marcio_Saito and his website MarcioSaito.com.

Presented by BayBrazil & partners GABA and SiliconFrench

When: Thu, Sep 15, 6:00pm-9:00pm
Where: SAP Labs, 3410 Hillview Ave, building 1, Palo Alto, CA 94304
Details & Pre-registration: http://baybrazilcloudcom.eventbrite.com

In an open, flexible cloud infrastructure the role of IT will undergo a huge transformation over the next few years. Will the IT Department become a trusted broker in the cloud, someone who brokers multiple cloud services for their user departments? But CIO’s are not the only ones struggling to make sense of the new functions and delivery mechanisms. Software vendors and IT service providers also have to reengineer their offerings. Join us as leading thinkers from the industry share examples of dramatic current business impact using cloud computing and debate the next areas likely to be disrupted.

Moderator: Kris Singh, President SRII Service Research and Innovation Institute

Speakers:
Paul Hofmann, SAP Labs
Winston Bumpus, VMware
Gregory Smith, T-Systems
Srini Tanikella, Smart Modular Technologies

How Raising Capital in 2011 is Different for Entrepreneurs

Presented by BayBrazil & partners GABA, IEFF, SiliconFrench, TEC and U.S. Polish Trade Council.
When: Monday, June 20, 2011, 6:00 pm – 9:00 pm
Where: SAP Labs, Building 1, 3410 Hillview Avenue, Palo Alto 94-34
Pre-Registration: http://baybrazilraisingcapital.eventbrite.com/
Cost: Members:$20, Non-members: $30, at the door: $40.

Financing startups in Silicon Valley has changed in recent years. Entrepreneurs today don’t have to rely on only VC funding anymore, nor do they necessarily have to turn to Angels. There are other ways for them to finance their ventures nowadays.
In our panel discussion we will look at:

• Are entrepreneurs today financing their startups mainly by bootstrapping or have they found different ways to get their companies going?
• How are VCs adapting to these changes? Have they rolled out new financing models or are VCs simply being replaced?
• Have Angels and Super-Angels taken their place in getting start ups off the ground?
• Is it easier getting financing in other countries now, or do startups still have to come to the US for that?

Moderator:
Kelly Porter,  Managing Director, Woodside Capital Partners, specializes in advising internet, digital media and entertainment companies engaged in media, web 2.0/3.0, advertising and entertainment. He has extensive experience in corporate finance, corporate strategy and venture finance as a CEO, venture capitalist and private investor, having participated-in or completed dozens of transactions, including financings, acquisitions and IPOs.

Panelists:
Daniel Robin, adjunct professor of strategy and management at Monterey Institute of International Studies (MIIS), Graduate School of International Policy and Management (GSIPM), finance executive and educator, investment professional and venture catalyst
Sebastian Storfner, CAIA, is Vice President at Corporate Finance Partners where he focuses on Mergers & Acquisitions and PE/ VC transactions for technology firms. Sebastian holds a Bachelor degree in Business and Economics from Birmingham City University, UK, as well as a Master degree in Finance from Florida International University
Bjoern Herrmann, founder of blackbox – a next generation seed accelerator for technology startups. He founded and led 4 companies in Education and HR prior to that in Germany, Bangladesh, Russia and the US. His personal mission statement is to maximize the capitalization of every human individual.
Dave Gravano has 19 years of financial services experience, including 12 years of domestic and international venture debt experience. Before joining WTI in 2008, Mr Gravano held senior positions at Silicon Valley Bank, Fortress Investment Group, and Meier Mitchell/GATX Ventures in the US as well as GATX’s London-based venture lending business, GATX/ETV.
Lisa Dolev, founder and CEO of Qylur Security Systems, Inc., which is developing the first automated multi-threat checkpoint system for mass public markets .

Sponsored by BayBrazil & Silicon Valley Bank

On October 13, 2011, the workshop presented the trends in sectors such as biotech, energy, e-commerce as well as case studies of companies that started operations in Brazil recently.

Pictures at: www.facebook.com/baybrazil

On May 25 BayBrazil launched a workshop series on the economic outlook & business opportunities in Brazil.

May 25, 3:00pm – 8:00pm at Silicon Valley Bank, 3005 Tasman Drive, Santa Clara, CA 95054

Location: Silicon Valley Bank, 3005 Tasman Drive HC200, Santa Clara, CA 95054

Agenda

Brazil, China, India and Russia are projected to become the largest economies by year 2050. Together these countries hold 40% of the world’s population with an increasing affluent middle-class that is driving the greatest social-economic transformation in history.
The four BRIC countries formed a federation and have been meeting regularly. Recently, they invited another nation to join the block: South Africa. Although its economy is substantially smaller, South Africa accounts for 40 percent of sub-Saharan Africa’s economy.

Agenda:

12:30pm: Introductions & Announcements

12:45pm-2:45pm Innovation and Entrepreneuriship in Emerging Markets

Innovation in the 21^st century has no borders and is taking place at a rapid-fire pace particularly in Brazil, China, India and Russia.
Regions that in the past were known as sources of cheap labor are now enjoying a new status as sources of high quality brainpower. Every year, India produces 60,000 people with higher degrees in engineering or computer science. In China that number jumps to 75,000. With that, new entrepreneur clusters have been formed around the world, changing the landscape for global competition, bringing both opportunities and new challenges for the U.S. industry.

Moderator: Mike Swift, San Jose Mercury News
Speakers:
Anna Dvornikova, CEO Entana Corp, Managing Director, TEC – The Entrepreneur’s CLub
Anu Shukla, serial entrepreneur, CEO & Founder, Koinz Media
Nirvikar Singh, Professor of Economics, UCSC, Director of the South Asian Studies Initiative
Pumela Salela, ICT Enabled Services, World Bank
Rodrigo Schmidt, Lead Software Engineer, Facebook

2:45pm-3:00pm Break

3:00pm – 4:45pm Cleantech in Emerging Markets

The global demand for energy is pushing for unprecedented investments in clean energy sources.
According the Pew Charitable Trusts, global clean energy finance and investment grew to $243 billion in 2010, a 30 percent increase from the previous year. Energy use is expected to increase 35 percent over the next 25 years, driven primarily by developing countries’ expanding electricity use and vehicle fleets.
Who are the key players in this dynamic and competitive industry?
Are emerging markets headed to a green revolution?
What are the trends in cleantech venture finance?

Moderator: Mike Swift, San Jose Mercury News
Speakers:
Dmitry Akhanov, President, RUSNANO USA
James T. Caldwell, President, E3 Regenesis Solutions, Inc, Director, UCGEC (US-China Green Energy Council)
Pumela Salela, ICT Enabled Services, World Bank

4-:45pm-5:30 Cocktail reception

Bios of Moderator & Speakers

Moderator:
Mike Swift has been a daily newspaper reporter for over 20 years, beginning his career with the Hartford Courant, where he was selected a Master Reporter in 2001 by the New England Association of Newspaper Editors. In 2005-06, Swift was a John S. Knight Fellow at Stanford University, following a course of study that included gender roles, spacecraft design and the role of development and environmental change in the spread of infectious disease. Swift joined the San Jose Mercury News in 2006, and currently covers Google, Facebook and general online trends, including search, online advertising, and social media. Over the course of his career, he has covered the business of major league sports, race and poverty, and politics. Before moving over to cover business news, Swift was the Mercury News’ lead demographics reporter; he also covered the Proposition 8 campaign on same-sex marriage in 2008. Swift has traveled to more than 30 countries by bicycle, and he and his wife Deborah Petersen bicycled 4,697 miles from Hartford to San Diego in 1996, co-writing a series of stories about the state of American community for The Courant.

Speakers:
Anna Dvornikova, CEO Entana Corp, Managing Director, TEC – The Entrepreneur’s CLub
Anna is an angel investor and Founder of Entana Corp. She serves on Advisory/Board of Directors of several technology startups, including eMazeU (acquired by Zoran), WikiMart, Manumatix, and OktoGo. She is the author of many articles on entrepreneurship, angel and venture financing. Anna is also a Managing Director of TEC (The Entrepreneurs’ Club, an international Russian-speaking network of several thousand high-tech entrepreneurs, executives and other professionals. TEC is headquartered in the Silicon Valley and holds regular meetings, seminars and events in Palo Alto, San Francisco, New York, Tel Aviv, and Moscow.
Previously, Anna served as the President of AmBAR where she organized a delegation of 20 prominent investors representing top Silicon Valley VC firms with more than $60 bln under management to Moscow in May 2010 to meet with Russian business, investment and government elite, including President Medvedev, to further ties between Silicon Valley and Russian high-tech community. She also was an organizer and a host of the Russian President in the Silicon Valley in June 2010.

Anu Shukla, a serial entrepreneur currently working on Koinz Media, her fourth venture. Prior to this, she was the Founder & CEO of Offerpal Media, a pioneer in the virtual currency markets providing monetization services to over 2000 social and casual games. Before Offerpal. Anu was the Founder & CEO of Mybuys Inc. and Founder & CEO of Rubric, Inc. Rubric was acquired in 2000 for $366 million. Prior to Rubric, Anu has held a variety of executive roles including the VP of Marketing and Product Strategy at Versata (VATA), and Vice President of Worldwide Marketing and Product Management at Compuware/Uniface Corporation (CPWR). Anu has served on the Board of Directors of the International Museum of Women (imow.org), Forum for Women Executives and Entrepreneurs (FWE&E) and the Advisory Board for the Leavey School of Business, Santa Clara University. She was named to the Computer Industry “Dream Team” by Business 2.0 magazine in 2004, awarded the YSU Distinguished Alumni award in 2005, and the Entrepreneur of the Year by the Washington D.C. based Dialogue on Diversity organization in 2005. In 2007 Anu was awarded an Honorary Doctorate degree from her alma mater Youngstown State University in recognition of her business achievements.

Dmitry Akhanov is the President of RUSNANO USA, Inc. Previously, Mr. Akhanov was the Head of the Russian Federal Energy Agency, implementing government policy and  managing Russian government  assets in oil & gas, coal and electricity.  As the Head of Strategy of RAO UES  Mr.  Akhanov took an active role in Russian electricity sector restructuring, managing multiple unbundlings and M&A’s, architecting new sector’s layout. He has an extensive experience in investor relations, strategy and corporate finance. (Click here for presentation).

James T. Caldwell, Ph.D., a Director of UCGEC, Chair of its Green Building Task Force, and Editor of the Conference Programs, is bilingual in Chinese and English. He is President of E3 Regenesis Solutions, Inc., where he specializes in building green energy alliances and energy systems integration for buildings and cities. He was Senior Marketing Representative for Tian Ma, at International Geosystems (H.K) Ltd. and a Tour Director in China for Lindblad Travel. He founded Pacific Rim Connections, Inc. (a multilingual prepress services company), He was the first Editor of the Unicode Standard (ISO10646),  served on the Unicode Technical Committee and later served as VP for Multilingual Computing at DAE Interactive Marketing (Ion Global, US). He worked in China for three years and in Hong Kong (one year) during the 1980s. He often travels to China on business and worked in Beijing again in 2007-8. He has taught university courses on the Politics of Energy and the Environment, Comparative Politics and World History at SUNY Binghamton and Iona College, NY. He was post-doctoral Fellow at the U.C. Berkeley Institute of East Asian Studies and Assistant Director of the Center for East Asian Studies at Stanford University.

Nirvikar Singh, is Professor of Economics at the University of California, Santa Cruz. He has served as Director of the Santa Cruz Center for International Economics, Co-Director of the Center for Global, International and Regional Studies, Director of the South Asian Studies Initiative, and Special Advisor to the Chancellor. He organized one of the first major US conferences on Indian economic reform. He received his PhD from the University of California, Berkeley, and his BSc and MSc from the London School of Economics, where he was awarded the Allyn Young Prize, Gonner Prize and Ely Devons Prize. His current research topics include information technology and development, electronic commerce, business strategy, economic growth and the Indian economy. He has authored over 100 research papers and co-authored three books: Joint Ventures, International Investment and Technology Transfer; The Political Economy of Federalism in India; andWaiting to Connect: India IT Revolution Bypasses the Domestic Industry. He has also served as an advisor for several startups and knowledge services firms in Silicon Valley and in India.

Pumela Salela, is BPO/ITeS Consultant for the World Bank, based at their headquarters in Washington D.C. She is a Board member of the Global Sourcing Council and the African Ambassador for Sustainable and Socially Responsible Outsourcing. Before the appointment she was a Director: BPO (Business Process Outsourcing) and ICT Enabled Services at the Department of Trade and Industry (the dti) in the Industrial Development Division, South Africa. Her responsibility was to draft strategies and policies that would create and enabling environment of the BPO and ICT sectors in South Africa. Prior her promotion to the Director position she was Deputy Director for Investment Promotion at Trade and Investment South Africa. She was responsible for attracting Foreign Investors into South Africa.
Pumela has made presentations in various business seminars and government events in the United States, the Middle East, Asia, Africa and Europe. Pumela has also been a lecturer and a BPO blog writer for the South African International Business Linkages (saibl) whose headquarters are in Washington DC. Having gone to study in England through the Nelson Mandela Scholarship, she is the Chairperson of the Nelson Mandela Scholarship Alumni Association and a Mentor to Graca Machel Scholars.(Innovation Presentation Cleantech Presentation)

Rodrigo Schmidt joined Facebook in 2008 and currently leads the team of engineers that develops Facebook’s chat and real time infrastructure. Before that, he was working on his own start-up in Switzerland to help Internet users communicate over their browsers. He holds a PhD in Distributed Computer Systems from EPFL, Switizerland, an M.S. degree in Computer Science from Unicamp, Brazil, and a B.S. degree in Computer Engineering from FURG, Brazil.