Hear from seasoned venture capitalists on the companies, concepts and products that they are most likely to fund today. Don’t miss this opportunity to learn where these VC’s see startups trending and how you can hone your pitch today to be best positioned for funding tomorrow.

Moderator: David Gold, Access Venture Partners
Joe Zell, Grotech Ventures
Frank Mendocino, Access Venture Partners
Dave Odom, Asrenal Venture Partners

Read more about the VCs below:

Moderator: David Gold, Access Venture Partners
David Gold is a Managing Director at Access Venture Partners. He earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering with Special Honors from the University of Colorado and was a National Science Foundation Fellow while earning Masters Degrees in both Aerospace Engineering and Technology Policy from M.I.T.

After working as an engineer with NASA, David spent a short time working on Capitol Hill and then served in the Executive Office of the President of the United States where he was responsible for budget and policy oversight of the technology related programs in the Department of Commerce. Subsequently he worked as a manager for a network of manufacturing consulting centers that grew from 3 locations to over 70 in just three years.

Prior to joining Access Venture Partners, David was founder and CEO of ProSavvy, an eProcurement and online marketplace company which raised over $20M in capital during the .com era and then navigated through the .bomb growing the company to profitability and a merger.

David is a black belt in Kenpo Karate, an avid poker player, a struggling golfer, an amateur photographer and a committed father of three great boys!

Joe Zell, Grotech Ventures
Joseph R. Zell joined Grotech as a General Partner in 2002. At Grotech Ventures, Joe focuses on investment opportunities in IT infrastructure, cloud services, mobile, networking, and internet and digital media sectors. Joe currently serves or has served on several portfolio company boards including Aztek Networks (acquired by GenBand) BroadSoft (BSFT - IPO), buySAFE, Closely, Cloud Elements, Collective Intellect (acquired by Oracle), Commercial Tribe, Fieldglass (acquired by SAP), GutCheck, Hatteras Networks (acquired by Overture Networks), HiveLive (acquired by Rightnow Technologies/Oracle), Lagrange Systems, LogRhythm, SkyeTek, SpotRight, Rebit, USinternetworking (acquired by AT&T) and Ziptronix.

Prior to joining Grotech, Joe built an extensive, 20-year operating background in communications and data networking, including nine years with US West Communications (which is now CenturyLink), where he was instrumental in building US West's Data Networking Division from startup to $2.5 billion in revenue and was the president of the division for four years. After US West, he served as CEO of Convergent Communications. Earlier in his career he held a variety of management positions at WilTel, LDXNet, United Technologies Communications, MCI Communications and Xerox Corporation.

Joe graduated Magna Cum Laude from Missouri State University with a BS in Marketing. He also serves or has served on the advisory boards of Silicon FlatIrons, TiE Rockies, the Tech Venture Center, and StartupDenver.

Frank Mendocino, Access Venture Partners
Frank Mendicino III co-founded Access Venture Partners in 1999. Access is a seed and early stage, high technology venture capital fund. Frank has been a venture capitalist for 18 years successfully investing in, and helping to grow exciting businesses.

Through his work with early stage companies, Frank has built a large network of deal referral sources and value added resources for portfolio companies. Frank was a founding board member of The Contra Costa County Incubator in San Francisco. He is a former board member of the Rocky Mountain Venture Capital Association. Frank has a deep understanding of product development and sales and marketing processes which allows him to help entrepreneurial management teams accelerate the growth of the companies in which Access Venture Partners invests.

Prior to co-founding Access Venture Partners, Frank worked for Woodside Fund, a Silicon Valley venture fund, for 10 years where he helped build and exit a successful portfolio of 29 early stage companies.

Frank is on the Board of Directors of several private companies. He received his B.A. degree in Political Science from The University of California at Berkeley in 1989. Frank lives in Louisville, Colorado, and in his spare time, he enjoys playing golf and spending time with his family.

Dave Odom, Asrenal Venture Partners
David Odom is a Venture Partner with Arsenal Venture Partners (AVP) and is engaged in the identification and execution of investment opportunities consistent with AVP’s investment focus, with a strong focus on the power and energy, IT, and communications landscape. David also supports AVP partnerships and engagements with Federal agencies, which included the direction of strategic support of the Army’s Commercialization Pilot Program (CPP).

The CPP program continually assesses the portfolio of Army’s small business R&D programs, identifies the highest impact companies, and assists those companies with commercialization support and investment. David led the efforts for the identification and support of 100 companies, along with directing funding from the CPP commercialization fund. The program resulted in multiple portfolio company acquisitions, fielding of critical products, and achieving significant leverage rates of federal investment funding compared with traditional programs.

Previously, David carried out roles in research and development, product management and business development for both early stage ventures and Fortune 500 corporations. This work included multiple roles at Lockheed Martin where he was involved in the design and development of mission critical communication systems for the Space Shuttle and the Air Force’s global satellite network.