The 12th Annual Venture Atlanta Conference will join entrepreneurs, investors, and business leaders in the exploration of the most prominent technologies and companies in the Southeast.
[ATLANTA, GA - April 25, 2019] - Venture Atlanta, the largest venture capital conference in the Southeast, announced today that registration for its annual conference is now open. In addition, the organization revealed Box CEO, Cofounder, and Chairman, Aaron Levie, as a keynote speaker for the event, which will take place at 200 Peachtree on October 16-17, 2019.
Levie, who leads Box, a cloud content management company valued at $3.75 billion, will join Vanessa Larco, 2019 Venture Atlanta board member, partner at NEA, and former Director of Product Management at Box, in a fireside chat that will focus on Levie’s journey and experience in tech innovation and building companies from the ground up. Levie, who took his company public in 2015 at a $1.7 billion valuation, has been dedicated to the enterprise software industry since 2005 and will speak about the importance of growing company culture, discuss how to impact the future of business operations, and also provide advice for startup leaders.
Alex Estevez, Venture Atlanta board chair and venture partner at Accel, said: “We welcome Aaron Levie as one of this year’s keynote speakers, and we’re confident that his incredible experience in starting and scaling a world-class enterprise software company will inspire entrepreneurs and investors throughout our region.”
Levie joins past Venture Atlanta speakers, including:
- Frank Bisignano - CEO, First Data (merged with Fiserv for $22B)
- Mark Cuban – owner, Dallas Mavericks, chairman and CEO of AXS TV and one of the “sharks” on ABC’s hit show, Shark Tank
- Scott Dorsey – CEO, ExactTarget (sold to Salesforce for $2.5B)
- Ernie Garcia – CEO, Carvana (startup to IPO to $3B+ market cap)
- John Marshall – CEO, AirWatch (sold to VMWare for $1.5B)
- Ross Mason - Founder, Mulesoft (sold to Salesforce at a value of $6.5B)
- Zach Nelson - former CEO, NetSuite (sold to Oracle for $9.3B)
- Jay Simons – president, Atlassian (startup to IPO to $12B+ market cap)
- Jeff Sprecher – chairman, NYSE / CEO, Intercontinental
The fireside chat with Levie and Larco will take place on the second day of Venture Atlanta’s two-day conference, presented by headline sponsors Cherry Bekaert and Nelson Mullins.
“Venture Atlanta is the conference to be at this year,” says Vanessa Larco, 2019 Venture Atlanta board member, and partner at NEA. “It’s where innovation is happening in our nation in real time. As a former employee of Box, I know there’s no business leader better equipped to represent the excitement and possibilities of venture technology than Aaron Levie. He’s nurtured an incredible company through all stages of development, and I look forward to sharing his inspiring and valuable story with this year’s attendees.”
For more information or to register, visit ventureatlanta.org.
About Venture Atlanta
Venture Atlanta, the Southeast’s premier venture conference, is where the region’s most promising tech companies meet the country’s top-tier investors. Now in its 12th year as the region’s largest investor showcase with over 1,000 attendees, Venture Atlanta connects the best and brightest entrepreneurs with local and national venture capitalists, bankers, angel investors, and others who can help them raise the capital they need to grow their businesses. The annual nonprofit event is a collaboration of three leading Georgia business organizations: Atlanta CEO Council, Metro Atlanta Chamber and the Technology Association of Georgia (TAG). For more information, visit www.ventureatlanta.org.
About Aaron Levie
Aaron Levie is chief executive officer, co-founder, and chairman at Box, which he launched in 2005 with CFO and Co-Founder Dylan Smith. He is the visionary behind the Box product and platform strategy, incorporating the best of secure content collaboration with an intuitive user experience suited to the way people work today. Aaron leads the company in its mission to transform the way people and businesses work so they can achieve their greatest ambitions. He has served on the Board of Directors since April 2005.
Aaron attended the University of Southern California from 2003 to 2005 before leaving to found Box.
About Vanessa Larco
Vanessa Larco joined NEA as a Partner in 2016 and focuses on Enterprise SaaS and Consumer Services investing. She is passionate about technology, services, and products that enable people to be more productive and efficient at work and home. Vanessa has led investments in EvidentID, Cleo, Greenlight Card, Feather, and Lily AI. She is also a board observer at Robinhood and OmniSci.
Prior to joining NEA, she was the Director of Product Management at Box (NYSE: BOX) where she worked on building the next generation of productivity apps across web and mobile. Her passion for design and analytics stems from her experience in the gaming industry, which includes leading the Speech Recognition Experience team at Xbox Kinect v1, and building a top grossing gaming studio at Disney Social.
Vanessa holds a BS in Computer Science from the Georgia Institute of Technology.
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If you would like more information, please call Executive Director Allyson Eman at (770) 298-4202 or email [email protected]
