Learn the legal basics for starting a company: valuations, equity, working with a cofounder and finding investors from this 4-part series.

How Investors View Valuations

Wednesday, June 16, 2021, 3-4pm.

Come take advantage of the opportunity to hear about how valuations for startups are negotiated. We will learn how investors see the world and the factors they take into account when placing a bet on your company.

Equity and Dilution Basics

Wednesday, June 23, 2021, 3-4pm

Ever wonder about the difference between a convertible note and a SAFE? Here’s your chance to learn from a veteran venture lawyer about all of the options that founders have for financing their businesses with equity. Participants will also get a walk-through on how dilution works and why it’s ultimately nothing to fear.

Marriage and Divorce for Co-Founders

Wednesday, June 30, 2021, 3-4pm

Thinking about partnering up with colleagues to start your first business? Learn about time-tested strategies for getting the co-founder relationship off to a healthy start.

Networking with Investors – From Getting a Business Card to Getting the Check

Wednesday, July 7, 2021, 3-4pm

Mystified about how startups raise funds? Listen to an experienced venture lawyer walk participants through the process of finding and meeting angel investors and venture capitalists.

This event will be hosted on Zoom and information of the meeting will be emailed via Eventbrite.

About the speaker:

Matt Crowley

Matthew Crowley is a venture lawyer, with a practice focused on assisting entrepreneurs in creating new businesses and achieving their goals for growth. Crowley regularly represents startups, with startup clients representing at least 70% of his practice.

Crowley began his career in San Francisco at the height of the dotcom boom, practicing law with corporate finance groups including Pillsbury Madison & Sutro (now Pillsbury Winthrop) and Morrison & Foerster. After eight years of private practice, Crowley moved into senior management with Evoke Software in 2001, serving as vice president and general counsel. In 2004, Crowley joined the management team at Technicolor Home Entertainment Services in Camarillo, California, a division with revenues of $2 billion annually. In 2006, Crowley established Crowley Corporate Legal Strategy to offer corporate legal services to entrepreneurs looking to start or grow their businesses.

Crowley is the former President of the Los Angeles Venture Association (LAVA),an adjunct professor at Loyola Law School, and a regular speaker at Biotech Connection LA (BCLA).

Biotech Connection Los Angeles (BCLA) is a project of the 501(c)(3) non-profit Community Partners. We are an organization run by academics and biotech professionals from all over Los Angeles and our mission is to inspire, educate and connect emerging scientists and entrepreneurs to grow and diversify biotech in LA. Los Angeles is home to renowned universities and research institutes producing top talents and exciting innovations. We are passionate about making our city a major biotech hub!

If you are interested in fostering early-stage entrepreneurship, retaining local talent, or just want to know more about what we do, subscribe to our newsletter, come to our events or donate to our cause. Let’s build a vibrant LA biotech community together.

BCLA Core Sponsors:

Established in 2000 as one of the Governor Gray Davis California Institutes for Science and Innovation, the California NanoSystems Institute (CNSI) is a hub of interdisciplinary research, translation, and education where scientists from diverse fields find common purpose in addressing grand challenges of the 21st century. With locations at the University of California’s Los Angeles and Santa Barbara campuses, the CNSI leverages public and private investment to drive collaborative nanoscience research across disciplines, translates discoveries into knowledge-driven commercial enterprises, and educates the next generation of scientists and engineers.

https://cnsi.ucla.edu

Building upon the university’s Michelson Center for Convergent Bioscience Initiative, the Bridge Institute unites eminent professors across the entire university, including the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences, the USC Viterbi School of Engineering and the Keck School of Medicine of USC, as well as animators and cinematographers in the USC School of Cinematic Arts and the USC Institute for Creative Technologies, and technology transfer experts in the USC Stevens Center for Innovation. We are artists, engineers, scientists and physicians bridging the molecules of life to improve the human condition. Imagine a world where scientific data is released from the confines of its originating discipline, allowing us to better understand, integrate and advance knowledge. Our values are Teamwork, Imagination, Innovation, Learning, Teaching, and Convergence.

https://dornsife.usc.edu/bridge-institute

BioscienceLA’s mission is to ensure that Los Angeles has a collaborative, well-coalesced ecosystem that encompasses all aspects of the Southern California life sciences cluster – biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, medical devices, medical diagnostics, bioinformatics, healthcare IT, medtech, digital health, and more.

BioscienceLA is not designed to duplicate existing activities or organizations but to help harmonize the efforts of all regional stakeholders -- academic institutions, research hospitals, investors, startups, mature companies, trade associations, public and quasi-public agencies, and others -- to advance Los Angeles’ capacity and pace of innovation.

https://biosciencela.org/

Location: Online event

Organizer: Biotech Connection LA

Los Angeles is not only home to renowned universities and research institutes, but also harbors a vibrant biotech and life sciences industry. Biotech Connection Los Angeles (BCLA) is an organization run by students, postdocs and young professionals from all over Los Angeles. Our mission is to facilitate the connection between academics across disciplines with each other and the biotech industry to move innovation forward and expand their impact on healthcare. As of January 2017, BCLA is a project of Community Partners, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization.