Practice Demo Day

Apply to practice your pitch to founder peers and investors. 

Only three teams will be selected to pitch to investors and industry experts so apply now! Get the feedback that could make the difference in securing funding for your next round.

Apply to Practice Your Pitch

Applications to pitch close Friday, May 12, 2023, at 11:59 PM PST.

All applicants must be ready to pitch in-person on Wednesday, May 24 at University Lab Partners in Irvine, CA.

 

Register to Watch Founders Pitch

You don't have to pitch to learn! Join us for an evening of networking and light refreshments as you watch and provide feedback to the pitching participants.

REGISTER NOW TO WATCH

 

 

Practice Pitch Judges

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Chinmay Kanuga, PMP

Head of Search and Evaluation
Allergan Aesthetics

Experienced leader with an ability to handle multiple projects with globally dispersed and diverse teams. Leading cross functional team for due diligences on targets for in-licensing and/or acquisitions. Professional with an outlook towards business development, corporate strategy and goals alignment between departments.

JC Ruffalo

J.C. Ruffalo

Venture Fund Partner
Cove Fund

J.C. Ruffalo is a Venture Fund Partner at The Cove Fund which is a Seed and Series A Venture Fund that provides startup funding for promising new Southern California ventures. Prior to joining the Cove Fund, he was the Director of the LaunchPad accelerator program at Octane OC. While at LaunchPad JC helped several thousand companies in Southern California raise over $2 billion dollars in capital infusion, and $2.6 billion in M&A, and produced over ten thousand high-paying technology jobs. Such companies include Hyperice, Bonti, EV Connect, AtaCor Medical, and Enevate. JC has been recognized as an active, young entrepreneur filled with high energy, passion, and new ideas co-founding three startups before joining Octane. J.C. believes that nurturing and maintaining strong relationships between entrepreneurs, innovators, and investors is key in successful venture partnerships. J.C. graduated from Chapman University Argyros School of Business in 2011 with a business administration degree in Entrepreneurship and Finance and a Minor in Economics.

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Maysam Pessian

Associate
Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati

Maysam Pessian is an Associate in the San Diego office of Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati. His practice focuses on patent prosecution and intellectual property counseling, serving clients in a wide range of technology fields, including the pharmaceuticals and biotechnology industries.

Len Profile

Len Brandt

Brandt Venture Development

My prior experience in new ventures is extensive. As a General Partner at Norwest Ventures I led the fund’s investment activity throughout the 1980’s in all areas of healthcare and life science.

In the 1990’s, I co-founded Mill City Ventures providing venture capital experience without venture capital control. Ventures included co-founding the dominant technology for harvesting saphenous veins and turning-around a blood-glucose monitoring company.

In 2000, I moved to Orange County founding CNS Response, providing big data algorithm analysis of EEG for medication guidance. I was primary inventor on several patents leveraging off the initial application. Until 2009, I organized all the financings including taking the company public through a reverse merger and associated PIPE in 2007.

In the last few years, I have again become active in venture development making significant time commitments to several young ventures seeking to do well by doing good. Included are ventures in Botox-like neurotoxins, female sexual dysfunction, hair loss, dry-eye, pediatric cardiology and mixed-signal semiconductors.

Event Sponsors

InsperityLogo_HR-Difference-Tag_CMYK (1)-1
 

Our tagline, HR that Makes a Difference™, defines what we do. It emphasizes that human resources is a key driver of growth and contributes to a business’s bottom line. This is what sets Insperity apart.

Insperity has a long history of improving the success equation of small and midsize businesses across the country – because when businesses succeed, communities prosper.

And in today’s changing business environment, it’s our privilege to take care of an organization’s most valuable asset: its people.

Snell and Wilmer SW_RGB_LogoTag_MonoBlack[5]
 

Founded in 1938, Snell & Wilmer is a full-service business law firm with more than 450 lawyers practicing in 16 locations throughout the United States and in Mexico, including three offices in California. The firm represents clients ranging from large, publicly traded corporations to small businesses, individuals and entrepreneurs. Snell & Wilmer’s life science and medical technology lawyers currently represent a diverse client base from the bioscience, pharmaceutical (both prescription and OTC), medical device and healthcare industries, ranging from large publicly traded organizations to early and mid-stage start-up companies. Clients include manufacturers, distributors, inventors, researchers, venture capitalists, angel investors, engineers, product designers and vendors, in their intellectual property, transactional, litigation and various other legal matters.

Event Details

Community Event

Wednesday, May 24, 2023

04:00 PM - 05:30 PM

University Lab Partners

5270 California Ave., Suite 300, Irvine, CA 92617

Register Now

Upcoming Event

April 9, 2024
12:00 PM - 01:00 PM

HR for Life Science Startups Series 1/4: Hiring & Recruiting

Register Now

Apply for residency today

Do you have a great company in the bioscience or medtech industry? Do you need wet-lab and/or fabrication space to develop and test your product?

Apply

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