This event has ended.
1871 is partnering with Aon to discuss exciting new ways that business can access capital by leveraging intellectual property. When raising capital, business owners traditionally had two options. They can sell a piece of their business potentially diluting ownership and reducing control, or they can borrow based on revenue or hard assets. Of course, for emerging businesses, debt solutions of any type are often not a viable option. Owners are then forced into the single option of giving up an ownership stake of their business.
Recently, new tools have been developed that offer business owners an alternative to access less expensive debt capital – a potential boon to minority-owned startups who are often overlooked for funding by the VC community. In this panel, our speakers will discuss the VC landscape and the difficulties minority-owned business face when seeking funding. They will then move to the topic of intellectual property and provide an overview of the changing landscape of how these assets are viewed and how they can be factored into the larger funding process to help even the playing field.
Speaker Information:
Louise Bowman
Louise Bowman is a Director on the Intellectual Property Solutions team at Aon, responsible for analyzing and evaluating intellectual property assets, as well as providing consulting services. Prior to joining Aon, Louise was a Senior Attorney at Microsoft, where she focused on providing support for various patent and other intellectual property issues. Earlier in her career, Louise worked as a Software Developer at Microsoft and Novell.
Denmark West
Denmark West is the Chief Investment Officer of the Connectivity Ventures Fund and a Partner of Connectivity Capital Partners.
Betsy Ziegler
Betsy Ziegler is the CEO of 1871, where she works to ensure the organization inspires, equips, and supports founders to build great businesses. Previously, Betsy was the Chief Innovation Officer at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University and a principal in McKinsey & Company’s Chicago office, where she led the firm’s Life Insurance Operations and Technology practice and co-led its Financial Institutions Operations and Technology practice.
We look forward to seeing you there for an informative evening with fun cocktails and great networking!
