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Preparing for an Acquisition

HAE's Investor Series invites a variety of investors for an interactive forum to share what their perspectives on what investors are looking for, funding trends, strategies, insights as well as answer your questions.

Session focus: Late stage capital

Investor Series is a live Q&A. Attendees are invited to submit their questions ahead of time.

Space is limited.

This HAE investor Series Event is open to the Friends of HAE as well as HAE Members.

When it comes to successfully growing and getting your business acquired, Lou Shipley is one of the very best. In just 4 years, he increased his company’s valuation by 300% and set up an acquisition by public software company Synopsys for $565M. After pouring years of your life into your company, being able to maneuver an acquisition that works for you is extremely personal and important. Join us for an exclusive conversation with Lou Shipley to learn more about how to prepare for this next stage of your entrepreneurial journey. 

This session will cover the entire strategy and timeline of the acquisition process, including

  • knowing the right time to sell

  • identifying a good acquisition target

  • negotiating the deal

  • maintaining your company’s integrity as the founder

For more information on his professional engagements, visit https://www.loushipley.com/about-main

Featured investor

Lou Shipley is a multi time successful tech CEO, an inspiring teacher, a sought after board member, a trusted mentor, and a popular tech-market commentator, writer, and speaker.

Lou began his career in the startup world and worked as an entrepreneur-in-residence at Highland Capital Partners before taking on the role of President and CEO of Reflectent Software. After its acquisition by Citrix Systems, Lou served as VP and GM of both the Citrix Management Systems Group and the Citrix Virtualization and Cloud Products Group. He departe Citrix  to serve as President and CEO of VMTurbo (now Turbonomic).  Under Lou’s leadership, VMTurbo grew from 25 customers and 30 employees to 420 customers and 100 employees in two years. 

In 2013, Lou joined Black Duck Software, where he is credited for transforming it from a struggling open source compliance-focused company into the global leader in open source security and management solutions. In four years, he quadrupled the company’s growth in size of employees, transformed the company culture, and increased the company’s value by more than 300%. In 2017, Black Duck was acquired by Synopsys for $565 million. 

Today, Lou serves as an executive-in-residence at General Catalyst, sits on the Board of Directors of Wasabi, CustomerGauge, SentryOne, Fairmarkit and Teamworks, and is a lecturer at MIT Sloan School of Management and the Harvard Business School, where he instructs, mentors, coaches the next generation of entrepreneurs.

RVSP HAE Members/General Admission

For more information email info@harvardae.org

Membership is $49 a year. To join, go to www.Harvardae.org/join

Please note that registration for this event closes 1 hour prior to the start of the session.