Venture Capital and how to find, approach and work with VC firms

Panel Speaker

A Midwesterner by birth, William H. (Bill) Payne moved to Southern California upon earning his engineering degrees at the University of Illinois in the mid-60s. After working in engineering positions for two Fortune 1000 companies, he founded an electronic materials company in 1971, which was sold to DuPont in 1982. Since the early '80s, Bill has made angel investment in 24 early stage companies and served on the Boards of about a dozen. In addition to his angel investing, since 1995 he has been an Entrepreneur-in-Residence with the Kauffman Foundation's Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership. His most recent project at Kauffman has been the development and delivery of a full-day seminar on angel investing.

Mr. Payne has over 12 years of Board experience for private companies and not-for-profit organizations. In addition to his current involvement with ten early-stage companies, Mr. Payne has recently served on the Board of the San Diego Tech Coast Angels and has been very active in the Chairmen's RoundTable (a San Diego mentoring organization), the San Diego Social Venture Partners (a venture philanthropy) and the Aztec Venture Network (an angel fund).

Bill and his lovely wife Ann recently moved to Henderson, NV (10 miles south of Las Vegas), where she enjoys frequent tennis competition and he struggles to keep his golf handicap below 20.

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