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Sep 20

Meet Indy VC of High Alpha /Founder of Salesforce-acquired Startup

Hosted by Silicon Dragon Ventures

Event Details

Tuesday, September 20, 2022
4:00 PM - 5:00 PM

Event Description

Silicon Global Online Presents

Ask A VC Anything! (Silicon Heartland series)

September 20, 4-5pm ET

Scott Dorsey: Managing Partner, High Alpha Venture Studio

After selling his startup ExactTarget in 2013 for $2.5 billion to Salesforce, Scott formed High Alpha with former colleagues to venture invest in business software services. Since then, High Alpha has raised 3 funds totaling $216 million and has backed nearly 80 startups, with co-investment from Softbank, Tiger Global, GGV, Menlo Ventures and Bessemer Venture. The VC firm's backers include the Foundry Group.

High Alpha's investment and incubation approach has cemented Indianapolis as a hub for emerging software companies and a regional base for Salesforce. SaaS startups have accelerated at its newish venture studio offices in Indy's revitalized Bottleworks District, revolving around a 1930s Coca-Cola bottling plant turned into an entertainment hub, a boutique hotel, and a food hall.

Dorsey, who moved to Indianapolis after earning his MBA from Northwestern University and a brief stint with Chicago-based internet incubator Divine InterVentures, shared that “the Indy startup scene is a mix of ideas and capital in a compelling way. We have examples of success stories but we need more heroes and more nudges to get a full potential level. We are starting to see some coastal VCs, but it has to be a hot enough company to get inbound investment.”

Bio: Rebecca A. Fannin

Rebecca is a CNBC contributor, author of four books, and a media entrepreneur who has covered global innovation for more than 20 years. She was one of the first American journalists to write about China’s entrepreneurial boom, interviewing Jack Ma of Alibaba and Robin Li of Baidu, among others. Inspired by the entrepreneurs she met, she formed her own media and events group Silicon Dragon Ventures in 2010. Rebecca’s forward-looking and resource-rich books Silicon Dragon, Startup Asia, Tech Titans of China and her latest, Silicon Heartland, launched her as a commentator and public speaker. A guest on BBC, Bloomberg, Fox News, and NPR, and a quoted expert in the New York Times, she also has spoken at the Brookings Institution, Asia Society, and many universities including Harvard, Yale, and Oxford.

Attendees receive a 30% discount to pre-order Rebecca's new book, direct from her publisher. Click Silicon Heartland offer here and enter promo code Heartland.

About Silicon Dragon on Zoom

Silicon Dragon presents its online series. We kicked off the series in April 2020 with Bill Tai, a first investor in Zoom, and have since featured nearly 60 guests on the show. We regularly feature a VC or Tech Titan in a Q&A session. This series helps startups, strategists and investors connect and provides valuable insights into what makes them tick. Whether you're raising capital, perfecting your business model, scaling up, going for unicorn status, an IPO or M&A deal, or figuring out your Give Back strategy, don't miss this series. Register and join us online.

Admission

$12

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