Venture Madness Conference

Event Details

**SOLD OUT!**

The Venture Madness Conference by Invest Southwest, in partnership with the Arizona Commerce Authority, is scheduled for April 3-4, 2024 at The Clayton House in Scottsdale, Arizona. The Venture Madness Conference is Arizona's longest-standing venture capital and pitch conference where the region's most promising ventures live-pitch their way to accredited investors at this live event. Companies selected to present from each track receive prize money.

For more information visit venturemadness.com

Cancellations after Wednesday, March 6, 2024 will be charged a $50 registration cancellation fee.

TO LEARN MORE, VIEW OUR FAQs

Where can I get an overnight room?

Marriott Old Town Scottsdale

W Scottsdale

Hotel Valley Ho

The Scott Resort

What is the best parking option?

Free parking is available at the Civic Center Library Public Parking Garage located at 3737 N. Drinkwater Blvd., Scottsdale, AZ 85251.

Click here to view additional parking options.

Need a ride?

Courtesy of Venture Madness by Invest Southwest, HUM is offering attendees $5 off two rides. Download the HUM Rideshare app in the App Store/Google Play and see the "Offers Tab" for your Venture Madness promo.

What is the refund policy?

Cancellations after Wednesday, March 6, 2024 will be charged a $50 registration cancellation fee.

What is the dress code?

The dress code is business attire and/or business casual.

Where can I view the schedule of events and connect with other attendees?

Click on the "Agenda" tab to view the schedule of events.

Connect with other conference attendees and get the latest updates by downloading the "My Glue Up" app.

Where can I contact the organizer with any questions?

Questions? Email contactus@venturemadness.com

Venture Madness would like to thank its annual partners!

To see a full list of our partners, click here.

Agenda

April 3, 2024
April 4, 2024

April 3, 2024

Venture Madness Conference (General Session)

5:00 PM - 7:00 PM

Welcome Reception + Expo

Check in is located outside of The Rafters.
This event is a networking event and expo to connect with conference attendees and exhibitors. Guests will hear a few remarks from Venture Madness Chair, Sydnie Keddington.

Sydnie Keddington (Senior Associate at Kickstart Fund)

Sandra Watson (CEO of Arizona Commerce Authority)

Exhibitor Track

9:00 AM - 2:00 PM

Exhibitor Set Up

Exhibitor set-up for paid exhibitors only (includes presenting companies, featured exhibitors and gold & diamond partners.).

5:00 PM - 7:00 PM

Expo Tables Open

Exhibitor Tables Open during general session expo

Speakers

Salman Ahmed

Mosaic

Alex Bertha

Principal at Signal Peak Ventures

Lieb Bolel

Grayhawk Capital

Benjamin Brockwell

Partner at AZ Venture Development Corporation

Dan Burns

Managing Partner at Monsoon Venture Fund

Zane Busteed

Director of Mercato Parners

Les Craig

General Partner at Next Frontier Capital

Bob DeLean

Executive Directors of Arizona Tech Investors (ATI)

Susannah (Suz) Duke

Pelion Venture Partners

Jack Florio

Jack Florio, Founder and Managing Director of Life Science Investment Banking and Strategic Advisory

Liv Gheciu

Partner at Frazier Group

Janelle Gollard

Partner at Pangea Ventures

Clay Gordon

Stout Street Capital

Louise Hardman

Director, InvestU of ASU Enterprise Partners

Alex Houghlin

Access Venture Partners

Cindy Jordan

CEO & Founder of Pyx Health

Sydnie Keddington

Senior Associate at Kickstart Fund

Jeff Kerr

Partner at PHX Ventures

Bret Larsen

CEO of Chief

Paula Lengerke Diaz

Desert Angels

Mark Moeremans

The Journey Venture Studio

Kieran O'Brien

CEO & Founder of Shopgenie

Phillip Pipkins

Auteur

Tanner Potter

Kickstart Fund

Ashok Santhanam

Venture Partner at AZ-VC

Gregg Scoresby

Phoenix Ventures

Hamid Shojaee

Savvy Trader

Diana Vowels

Venture Madness Board Member

Sandra Watson

CEO of Arizona Commerce Authority

Chris Yoo

GP at xcellerant ventures

Jami Youmans

HealthEco

Salman Ahmad is the co-founder and CEO of Mosaic, a construction technology company that provides institutional grade general contracting services to residential developers. He holds a PhD from MIT and a Masters from Stanford, both in Computer Science. Salman has founded and advised numerous start ups and also worked with Microsoft in developing data center solutions in the early days of the cloud. Previously, his academic research focused on programming languages, software systems and human-computer interaction. His dissertation centered around a series of new programming languages he created including Dog, a language for human computation, and Silo, a language for building distributed and scalable systems. Before that, Salman worked on machine learning systems for improving web design. Salman is the author of 20 technical publications and patents.

Alex Bertha is a Principal at Signal Peak Ventures, based in Salt Lake City, Utah, where he has been investing for nearly 7 years. Prior to his role at Signal Peak, Alex worked as a real estate analyst and directed marketing efforts for a large real estate capital group in Salt Lake. His experience also includes time spent in New York, working for leading branding and advertising firms, which fueled his passion for design and branding. Alex has been an active angel investor for over a decade. He graduated from Brigham Young University.

Born and raised in San Diego, Alex now calls Utah home. When he's not exploring the mountains on his bike or catching first tracks on his skis, you can find him tinkering and building things. Above all, Alex cherishes spending time with his wife and three little girls.

Benjamin Brockwell is a Partner and founding member of AZ-VC, launching a $110M Arizona-centric venture fund in 2022. His prior experience includes consulting and contracting engagements with corporate accelerators, private equity groups, and B2B sales. Benjamin’s entrepreneurial journey started during undergrad, where he built an investment resale business.

Benjamin currently sits on the boards of Uplinq and Right-Hand Cybersecurity. He is a Partner with SVP Arizona and serves as a mentor for Venture Madness. In 2021, he was appointed to the Arizona State Senate Blockchain and Cryptocurrency Study Committee.

He received his MBA from Arizona State University W.P. Carey School of Business and was elected as the Global President of the Graduate Business Forum (GBF) to represent the top 70 business schools in the world.

Dan Burns is a Partner at Monsoon Venture Fund, an Arizona-based firm focused on harnessing the time, talent and capital of the state. Monsoon is sector-agnostic and invests in early-stage (pre-seed and seed) ventures across multiple industries. Dan also serves as a General Partner of the Sonoran Founders Fund, the Executive Chairman of EXOS, sits on several additional boards, and is in the process of launching a sports technology accelerator program at Arizona State University. At EXOS, Dan served for over a decade as the CEO, where under his leadership the company successfully pivoted from solely an elite athlete service-based human performance provider branded Athletes' Performance to one that integrates technology with methodology and coaching to drive personalized employee program engagement and measurable health outcomes for large employers. During his tenure, EXOS grew from under $10m to over $170m in revenue and he led the company to a successful exit. At ASU, Dan also serves as an Associate Faculty and Advisory Board Member at the school's Allan "Bud" Selig Master of Sports Law and Business Program. Dan earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Amherst College, graduating magna cum laude, and an MBA from Harvard Business School. He lives in Scottsdale with his wife and two children.

Les joined Next Frontier Capital as a General Partner in 2017 and has led 13 portfolio investments. Previously, Les served as the Executive Director of the Blackstone Launchpad and the Montana State University Innovation Campus, where he led the development of a research park in Bozeman, MT focused on technology and research commercialization. In 2011, Les cofounded RedOwl Analytics, a venture-backed cyber security software product company. RedOwl was acquired by Forcepoint (Raytheon) in August of 2017. Previously, Les served as a Technical Operations Officer at the Central Intelligence Agency and he was also a member of the professional staff of the National Security Technology Department at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab. While on active duty, Les served as a US Army Officer on multiple special operations task forces, as well as an Aide-de-camp to a senior intelligence professional on General Stanley McChrystal’s staff at the Joint Special Operations Command. Les earned a BS in Applied Mathematics and Computer Science from the United States Military Academy at West Point (2003). He completed course work at CIA University with a focus in telecommunications and wireless transmission protocols. Les spends his free time enjoying Montana’s outdoors with his wife, and as an avid fan of youth sports and activities with his three children.

Jack Florio is a life sciences executive with over 50 years of global experiences in major pharmaceutical, biotechnology, medical device, and digital health companies. His experiences span early-stage company formation through growth and capital formation, operations, and exits. This gives him a unique view of strategy, tactics, and capital formation across the life cycle of a range of companies broadly in the life sciences. Jack is currently a Managing Director at IPL Capital Advisory on the Finalis Platform with a focus on Life Science and Healthcare Strategic Advisory and Investment Banking. He is also a Partner at Deallus, a strategic intelligence consultancy operating across the global life sciences sector providing strategic guidance in a highly dynamic marketplace for a large number of the top pharmaceutical companies as well as some growing biotech companies. Additionally, Jack has been an active angel investor since 2001 with Tech Coast Angels, recently renamed the NuFund Venture Group. In this role, he has personally made direct investments in dozens of companies and been involved in due diligence reviews in hundreds of companies. He is also a member and investor with MEDA Angels.

With a proven track record of success in the venture capital landscape, Liv holds a prominent role as one of four Partners at Frazier Group. Drawing upon extensive industry knowledge and a keen eye for emerging trends, Liv plays a pivotal role in the identification and cultivation of high-potential startups positioned for exponential growth.

Bringing a wealth of experience to Frazier Group, Liv has dedicated over a decade to the design and commercialization of cutting-edge medical devices in collaboration with industry leaders such as Becton Dickinson and Edwards Lifesciences.

Liv's venture capital journey is anchored by a robust educational foundation, holding a Mechanical Engineering Degree from the University of Utah. He remains deeply committed to nurturing the growth of the startup ecosystem and empowering the next generation of industry leaders.

A passion for improving the delivery of healthcare through innovation is what drives Janelle. With over 14 years of healthcare experience, she has a background in private investments, scaling ventures and management consulting.

As partner at Pangaea, with a focus on healthcare and agriculture investment, Janelle brings her expertise in entrepreneurial endeavours (including launching a population health technology platform; becoming a joint venture with Microsoft and GE), her extensive network in private capital, public and private healthcare sectors. Janelle spent most of her career at GE Healthcare collaborating with global teams across Europe and US.

Janelle holds an MBA from the University of British Columbia in Entrepreneurship and Innovation and a Bachelor of Commerce from McGill University.

Alex is a Principal at Access Venture Partners, supporting deal sourcing and diligence, as well as working with portfolio companies on strategic projects. Previously, Alex was Project Director at Michael Porter's Institute for Strategy and Competitiveness at Harvard Business School where she led a team focused on strategy research and advisory for governments and large corporations. Alex moved to Colorado in 2020 to pursue an MBA in entrepreneurship, during which time she was an Investment Associate with the Deming Center Venture Fund, worked with the Techstars Boulder program team, and joined a Techstars portfolio company, Terraseed, as Interim COO.

Alex attended Wellesley College in Massachusetts where she studied Political Science and Economics. She received an MBA with honors from the University of Colorado Leeds School of Business. Alex lives in Denver with her wife and son. In her free time, she enjoys playing any team sport and getting out on her mountain bike.

After robust personal and professional successes in college athletics, law enforcement, presidential campaign fundraising, and executive marketing strategy, Cindy’s entrepreneurial life took flight pioneering a breakthrough/novel solution in health technology with her first venture, Medical Referral Source (MRS), an innovative, proprietary tool for transforming healthcare operations and patient care experiences. Cindy took the national stage growing this high-value, disruptive enterprise and in 2013, the Advisory Board Company acquired MRS, now known as Crimson Medical Referrals, for $12.5 million.
Cindy’s next ground-breaking venture was borne out of deep, personal motivation by a family member's struggle with a mental health crisis. With keen insight and awareness of the troubling gaps in healthcare she founded Pyx Health in 2017 and launched another breakthrough solution affecting profound change in the pervasive loneliness and social isolation epidemic. The Pyx Health platform is a new, inclusive paradigm of health and wellness that is improving health outcomes for the most vulnerable populations.
Pyx Health was named one of Inc. 5000’s Fastest Growing Companies 2 years in a row, climbing to the top 15% in 2023, and Cindy was awarded a 19th annual Stevie® Awards for Women in Business, Most Innovative Woman Category. Cindy holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science and Government from George Mason University.

Sydnie has served as a Venture Madness Board Member since 2020, and is the 2023-2024 Board Chair. In 2019 she joined Kickstart, a pre-seed/seed fund focused on the Mountain West region, and Utah’s most active VC firm. She has since led 8 investments and served as a Board Director/Observer for 10 companies spanning across Enterprise and SMB SaaS, Healthtech, Medical Devices, e-commerce, EdTech, Gaming, AI/ML, and Music Tech.

After 5 incredible years with the firm, she recently joined a portfolio company, Music.AI (formerly known as Moises) where she is building out the go-to-market motion for their B2B product as their second Sales/Business Development hire. She has closely supported the company alongside Gavin Christensen (Kickstart Founder and Managing Partner) since leading their seed round in 2021. She also wrote / recorded Moises's first (and her first) platform demo song, which has now been played by millions of users. She has loved her involvement in the Arizona ecosystem and looks forward to remaining deeply engaged in the tech scene, now on the startup side.

Bret Larsen is the CEO and Founder of Chief, the AI Operations Platform that helps growth stage, B2B SaaS businesses predictably drive growth, and decrease costs by enabling them to build, deploy, and manage AI trained on their business data.

Prior to Chief, Bret founded, and scaled eVisit where he currently serves as Chairman of the board. As CEO, he scaled eVisit to over 300 enterprise customers, was named market leader by Forrester, Gartner, and KLAS, and raised over $78M in venture and growth capital from Goldman Sachs, Kickstart Seed Fund, AZFF, UGF, and others.

He also led Marketing at CampusLogic (acq. by Ellucian), and StatDoctors (acq. by Teladoc). He is a 2x Ernst and Young, Entrepreneur of The Year Finalist, a Titan 100 CEO, and a Top 50 CEO in Healthcare Technology. The organizations he’s built have repeatably been ranked on the Inc. 5000, Deloitte Fast 500, and are recognized market leaders by leading analysts such as Forrester, Gartner, and KLAS.

Phillip J. Pipkins is the founder of Auteur VC which is an early stage venture firm. He has over a decade of venture financing and banking experience in his career as Vice President at Silicon Valley Bank. He specializes in early stage investing, lending and deal sourcing having grown his portfolio to include the fastest growing startups and investors in the southwest. Upon leaving SVB, Phillip started up Prospeq, a debt fund with his partner which has seen early success. He sits on the advisory board of ASU’s TEM school, Cheqly, and Vencapital which is a VC accelerator focusing on underrepresented fund managers. Phillip graduated from ASU in 2012 and is based in Phoenix, AZ.

Outside of work Phillip enjoys spending time with his wife (Kati) and greyhound (Enzo). He is an avid basketball fan and foodie.

Ashok Santhanam is a Venture Partner at AZ-VC. He has over 30 years’ experience leading software product and service businesses as an entrepreneur and executive. He has founded three companies – two venture backed and one bootstrapped – and exited two after achieving valuations in the hundreds of millions. He was also President & CEO of Bristlecone, a leading privately held global system integrator in supply chain management, and Chief Revenue Officer at Epiphany, a public marketing analytics leader that achieved a dollar peak market capitalization of over a billion before its acquisition. Most recently Ashok was CEO at Brandcast, a VC-backed SaaS company which was acquired by TIME. He holds a BSME from the Indian Institute of Technology and an MBA with Distinction from Harvard Business School.

Gregg Scoresby is the Founder and Managing Partner of PHX Ventures, which aspires to be the most active early-stage software investor in Arizona. Prior to PHX Ventures, Gregg founded CampusLogic, which became one of the fastest growing software companies in Arizona.

CampusLogic transformed the student financial aid experience in higher education and raised nearly $200 million from leading venture capital and private equity investors. Before being acquired in April 2022 by Ellucian, a portfolio company of Blackstone and Vista Equity, CampusLogic’s award-winning products were used by over 4 million students at 800 colleges and universities.

In 2015, Gregg and CampusLogic were winners of Venture Madness. Gregg is also on the Board of Directors of StartupAZ and several high-growth software companies in Arizona.

Sandra Watson is an economic development professional with over 30years of leadership experience in business attraction and expansion, innovation, entrepreneurship, economic policy and workforce development. She and her teams have worked with more than 1,177 companies that have committed to creating more than 267,000 quality jobs and investing more than $113 billion in capital in the state. Currently, Ms. Watson is the President & CEO of the Arizona Commerce Authority (ACA), a public-private partnership that leads statewide economic development. The unique structure of the ACA brings together leaders from private industry, academia and all three branches of state government. She also oversees the Workforce Arizona Council and Arizona Office of Economic Opportunity, a data-driven team focused on economic and labor market analysis. Ms. Watson is a member of the U.S. Investment Advisory Council, advising the U.S. Secretary of Commerce on policies to attract foreign direct investment. She is also a founding member and the Chair of the State Economic Development Executives Network Board of Directors, a founding partner on the Institute for Automated Mobility Board of Directors and serves on the boards of the National State Science and Technology Institute and the Make-A-Wish Arizona Foundation.

Chris has over 25 years of experience in advancing cutting-edge biomedical technologies in the healthcare & life sciences industry. Chris is a General Partner and Managing Director of Xcellerant Ventures, the newest venture fund in Arizona focused on startups in HealthTech, MedTech, and TechBio. As the GP leading deal flow, Chris has developed an expansive network of relationships with academic and business ecosystems to identify superior new ventures. Chris most recently operated Yoo & Co Accelerators, the premier business accelerator in Arizona for healthcare & life sciences startups. Chris is an active angel investor and, as a serial entrepreneur, has created value in new companies that accelerate the adoption of smarter, technology-based systems such as cognitive computing, big data analytics, and systems engineering. Some of his prior ventures include Systems Oncology, an oncology biotechnology company, Systems Imagination, a pioneer in advanced cognitive computing for drug discovery, and MedTrust Online, the world’s first and largest online community of cancer doctors. He has also developed some of the earliest solutions and strategies in personalized medicine for companies such as Cisco, Applied Biosystems, Oracle, and IBM. Chris participates on the boards of several companies where he enjoys working arm-in-arm with the next generation of entrepreneurs and innovators. Chris is faculty at Arizona State University teaching courses in molecular diagnostics, bioengineering, and in entrepreneurship, and works with startups from ASU through his mentorship efforts within ASU Entrepreneurship & Innovation. He completed a postdoctoral fellowship at UC Berkeley, his Ph.D. in Cell and Molecular Biology from Yale University School of Medicine, and a B.A. in History and Biology from the University of Pennsylvania.

Jami is an executive, entrepreneur, and venture capitalist with over 15 years of healthcare
experience investing in and operating companies from inception through growth stages. Her
foundational experiences as a hospital administrator with Trinity Health and BJC Healthcare
have uniquely positioned her to navigate and spearhead transformative leadership in the
complex healthcare ecosystem, setting new standards of excellence and innovation.

Jami is currently serving as the President and CEO of HealthEco, a trusted advisory and
investment firm, where she strategically collaborates with healthcare organizations to foster and
scale pioneering ventures throughout the industry. Since founding HealthEco in 2019, Jami has
grown the company through the creation of a robust healthcare ecosystem, diverse venture
network, venture studio, commercialization accelerator, and investment platform. These
achievements have magnified HealthEco’s influence across both established providers and
emerging startups, establishing the company’s market-leading position as a business model
transformation partner dedicated to improving patient outcomes.

Jami is also the Chief Operating Officer and member of the board for HealthEco portfolio
company, Atalan. Launched in partnership with an expanding network of the nation’s leading
health systems, Atalan is a tech-enabled clinical partnership creating access to the best in
laboratory medicine.

As an investor, Jami has led the syndication of over $40M in strategic capital across three
portfolio companies, and generated over $250M in equivalent net patient revenues for health
systems. She is active in the venture capital networks serving on the boards of the Mid-America
Healthcare Investor Network and the Rocky Mountain Venture Capital Association.

Jami has a Master of Health Administration from St. Louis University, and a Bachelor of Science
in Cell and Molecular Biology and a minor in Chemistry from Missouri State University.

Venture Madness

Contact us

Event Details

Agenda

April 3, 2024

April 4, 2024

April 3, 2024

Venture Madness Conference (General Session)

Exhibitor Track

April 4, 2024

Venture Madness Conference (General Session)

Exhibitor Track

Speakers

Salman Ahmed

Alex Bertha

Lieb Bolel

Benjamin Brockwell

Dan Burns

Zane Busteed

Les Craig

Bob DeLean

Susannah (Suz) Duke

Jack Florio

Liv Gheciu

Janelle Gollard

Clay Gordon

Louise Hardman

Alex Houghlin

Cindy Jordan

Sydnie Keddington

Jeff Kerr

Bret Larsen

Paula Lengerke Diaz

Mark Moeremans

Kieran O'Brien

Phillip Pipkins

Tanner Potter

Ashok Santhanam

Gregg Scoresby

Hamid Shojaee

Diana Vowels

Sandra Watson

Chris Yoo

Jami Youmans

Documents

Sponsors and Partners

Organizer

Diamond Partner

Gold Partner

Silver Partners

Bronze Partner

Investor Partners

Coworking Partner

Community Partners

Rideshare Partner

Exhibitors

Presenting Company Exhibitors

Beyond Silicon

Bold Street

Boxxtech

Cerebrum

Clientship

MealManage LLC

Microvascular Technologies,Inc.

Paramium Technologies

Paxauris

Preamble