Most company founders don’t start as experienced fundraisers. So, how does a first-time founder raise the money they need to grow? Join us as three local founders share the story of their recent fundraising journey. Attendees will hear, in the entrepreneur panel’s own words, about getting started, common mistakes & pitfalls, and the keys steps that lead to gaining your first outside investors.
Register for this Breakfast Briefing presented by the Chester County Economic Development Council and i2n.
Panel
Julie Bula, CFO, Sweft
Julie Bula is the CFO and Co-Founder of Sweft, a SaaS Product Workflow Management (PWM) platform that helps retailers of all sizes quickly and profitably scale their online businesses by automating processes and reducing their reliance on Excel spreadsheets. Julie has over 20 years of management experience in eCommerce, retail and wholesale operations and finance primarily for the Free People and Anthropologie brands. Prior to joining Anthropologie, Julie managed accounting for all of the direct-to-consumer businesses at Urban Outfitters, Inc and worked for PricewaterhouseCoopers. She graduated from Franklin and Marshall College with a degree in Business Administration – Accounting. Julie enjoys living outside of Philadelphia with her two sons and husband.
Adam C. Salamon, CEO & Co-founder, Pression LLC
Adam Salamon is the co-founder and CEO of Pression LLC. An entrepreneur at heart, Adam has spent his life thinking of ways to do simple things better to make a real impact in people’s lives. He formed Pression in 2016 to further that goal. Pression is developing a non-invasive treatment for heart disease and intends to enter the market initially focused on Coronary Artery Disease. Adam originally developed the technology at Lockheed Martin for enhancing endurance within the US military.
Adam was previously Deputy Corporate Chief Scientist of Lockheed Martin. He oversaw the programmatics for research efforts spanning the USA, Canada, UK, South Korea, Japan, New Zealand, Australia, Denmark, Belgium, and Turkey. He focused on high-risk, high-reward research at international universities and businesses with a focus on creating new business entities who could create sustaining impact in customer nations.
Adam began his career as a robotics and autonomy researcher at the Advanced Technology Laboratories at Lockheed Martin. His research focus was in the area of unmanned and autonomous vehicles operating in complex teaming environments. Most notably, he was the lead of the autonomy team for the Marlin underwater vehicle, an autonomous system designed to inspect offshore oil and gas platforms. In 2012, he joined Corporate Engineering, Technology and Operations as the Technical Lead for the Corporate University Research Program and then transitioned to Deputy Corporate Chief Scientist. Mr. Salamon has a Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering (2006) and a Master of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering (2014), both from Drexel University.
Susan Springsteen, President, H2O Connected
Susan Springsteen cofounded nth Solutions LLC, a vertically integrated product development, business incubation, and manufacturing company that advances innovation from concept to commercialization with “Made in America” products that save lives, save money, and preserve natural resources. She leads the Company’s QOZ initiatives and is part of a team transforming a vacant historic Lukens Steel office building located in Coatesville into nth Innovation Center. Now a Keystone Innovative Zone, this project will serve as nth Solutions’ new headquarters and support the growing entrepreneur community in the region.
Susan is also President and CEO of H2O Connected, LLC, an early revenue company whose multi-patented product line can detect every type of water loss problem that can occur in the 350+ million North American tank-based toilets. H2O Connected was recently spun off from nth Solutions LLC as an independent company in March 2019, making it the first QOZ Business in Chester County.
A graduate of Wheaton College, Susan spent over 25 years in wealth management and corporate finance. She provided daily stock market and business commentary for KYW NewsRadio 1060 for over a decade.
Susan is also President of the Chester County Library Trust and Vice Chairperson of the Chester County Industrial Development Authority.
Moderator
Christopher F. Wright, Shareholder at McCausland Keen + Buckman & i2n Board Member
For more than 30 years, Christopher Wright has been contributing to the growth of technology companies and helping educational and research institutions to achieve their research, licensing and alliance objectives.
With prior experience as the General Counsel for a publicly-traded software company and on the General Counsel’s staff at the University of Pennsylvania for Penn’s Center for Technology Transfer, he is able to provide transactional and intellectual property advice grounded in a genuine understanding of his clients’ legal and operational opportunities and challenges. These clients include entrepreneurs and equity investors as well as growth companies and educational and research institutions.
Clients note Chris’ ability to contribute at every stage of the technology commercialization process, including collaborative research initiatives, new company spin-offs, growth and financing of new ventures, licensing and joint venture arrangements, as well as mergers, acquisitions and other exit opportunities.