Early Stage Funding Sources
Panelists' Biographies
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Terry Feeley
Director, New Ventures, Rite-Solutions
Rite-Solutions, an employee-owned engineering community focused on intuitive digital solutions for the government and commercial sectors, currently employes170 people with offices in Rhode Island, Connecticut, California and New Hampshire. Terry’s responsibilities include developing new business with government agencies such as the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) through the SBIR and Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) contract elements. He is also engaged in building strong strategic relationships with commercial enterprises. Prior to Rite-Solutions, Terry was Executive Vice President for Corporate Strategy at Triton Systems. Triton’s core business is 100 percent government R&D and commercializes technologies through spin-offs. His responsibilities included developing new business with government sponsors and transitioning the development stage technologies to the marketplace through spin-offs, joint ventures and licensing.
Richard Horan
Senior Managing Director, Slater Technology Fund
Slater Technology Fund provides seed stage capital to companies committed to basing and building technology-based businesses in Rhode Island. Rich joined Slater in 2002 as Executive Director of Slater Center for Biomedical Technologies and, when in March 2005 Slater Biomed merged with four other Slater programs, he was appointed Senior Managing Director of the Slater Technology Fund. Rich joined the venture capital business after several years in investment banking. In 1986 he joined the VC firm Johnston Associates of Princeton, New Jersey, one of the original seed stage investors in the field of biotechnology and life sciences. In 1998, Rich founded Sachem Ventures, an independent seed stage venture development firm that focused in the life science and healthcare markets. He has served as CEO of several of his portfolio companies, including Immunicon Corporation, Praelux Corporation and Medical Metrix Systems.
Robert Manning
President and Owner, Gray’s Point Investments
Gray’s Point Investments, a private investment and consulting company, develops and has investments in commercial office properties and is an active private equity investor.
Gray’s Point has private equity investments in nine companies and performs strategic advisory assignments for selected clients, including RIEDC, Bryant University and Item New Product Development. Prior to establishing Gray’s Point, Rob spent 25 years with Citibank and Citigroup where, most recently, he was Managing Director and Head of Corporate Finance for Citigroup Japan. In this role he built and managed market leading franchises in securitization, CMBS, leveraged leasing, project finance, structured trade finance, syndicated lending, real estate corporate finance and capital structuring. Rob is a member of the steering committee of the Cherrystone Angel Group, a 50-member angel investing consortium based in Providence.
Christine Smith
Executive Director, RI Science & Technology Advisory Council
At the Rhode Island Economic Development Corporation Chrstine is responsible for launching statewide economic development initiatives designed to catalyze a 21st century innovation economy in Rhode Island. In this role, she serves as Executive Director of the RI Science & Technology Council (STAC). STAC is a coalition of leaders in the field of science and technology representing business, medicine, higher education and government. STAC was formed in 2006 by the Governor and General Assembly and is charged with recommending to state leadership strategic investments that generate high paying jobs by maximizing the economic impact of research, technology and innovation. STAC policies and programs: 1) support the state's research and development activity and promote collaboration across institutions; 2) encourage entrepreneurship and new company creation through the transfer of new technologies and discoveries into the marketplace; and 3) create an environment that enables innovation to flourish. STAC programs include the Collaborative Research Grant awards, the URI Commission on Research and Innovation, and the Innovation Tax Credit.
David Speser
Chairman of the Board and Founder, Foresight Science & Technology
Foresight Science & Technology specializes in commercialization, technology transfer and intellectual property management, helping companies, universities, foundations and governments take ideas and turn them into profitable, useful and socially beneficial products, services and processes. Foresight also helps companies and governments find the technologies they need to stay ahead, doing over 500 projects each year in every area of science, engineering and technology and in each industry sector and market of the global economy. In his role at Foresight, David works on behalf of corporate customers in venture capital and other deal-making negotiations. His successes include licensing smart card technology to Visa and other major corporations, negotiating Phase III deals for SBIR firms such as Polytronixs and UTD, and funding university/industry centers such as Health Care Devices and Instrumentation Institute of the State University of New York at Buffalo. David was also project manager for the National SBIR Conferences for 18 years.
