Content and Pictures by Julie Blaustein

The Gals of Women 2.0 Shivani Sopory, Angie Chang, Wen-Wen Lam, Shaherose Charania, and Annie Chang

Women 2.0’s goal is to help foster the next generation of women entrepreneurs. They brilliantly executed their goal when they brainstormed and brought to fruition the Women2.0 Napkin Business Challenge. They opened it up to entrepreneurs of both genders with the caveat that a women under 35 would be included in the group. A screening of business plans arrived from as far as India and were narrowed down to 5 finalists who were invited to pitch to a standing room audience of over 150 at CNET on April 25th.

Shaherose Charania working the Judges and the audience

The contestants shared their power points and fielded some tough questions and were judged not only by the audience who voted with their cell phones using Mozes, but by a live panel of Silicon Valley venture capitalist legends including Carol Sands of The Angels Forum, David Stern of Clearstone Venture Partners, Lara Druyan of Allegis Capital, Marianne Wu of Mohr Davidow Ventures, Marleen McDaniel of Women.com, Shannon McClenaghan of Jimmyjane, Sharon Vosmek of Astia (formerly WTC), Tami Zhu of AOL, New Ventures, and Venky Ganesan of Globespan Venture Partners.

Vish Mishra of Clearstone Partners and his daughter

Carol Sands of the Angels Forum inquired frequently, “How are you going to show me the money?” Another question brought up often was, “How is this deal different from what was done round one during the .com era?” The teams held their own and wowed the audience with their quick thinking rebuttals.

A tie between the two teams granted them prizes of $1500 each, pitch coaching from Guidewire Group, and meetings with Tim Draper of Draper Fisher Jurvetson and Michael Moritz of Sequoia Capital.The winning teams were Laser-Seal who are seeking a faster, cleaner wound closures in the operating room with laser technology and O’Light (O for Organic!) which aims to create fashionable, OLED lighting concepts.

Laser-Seal Winners Avishai Shoham, Dr. Milana Trounce, Kristen Gaior, and Avvishai Shoham

O’Light Winners Dr. Robert Zhe Zhang and Yiru Sun

The other panelists included:

FindYourScene – A community website where people can find “their crowd” and post, discover, and rate social events.

QTstar – Video monetization and intermediary ad service company to be located in China and the United States

(YOU)STYLEME – Online fashion community where men and women with particular style needs can connect with other style-savvy consumers in a fun and engaging way.

Michael Blaustein of DCM, Julie Blaustein of Photobucket and Joel Sacks of CNet

Nikhi Bobb and Michael Blaustein Supporting the Girls

Enjoying the yummy cupcakes from Sibby’s Cupcakery

David Stern of Venture Partners leaving with his thank you gift

Champaign to Celebrate the Success of Women 2.0

It was a fun, upbet event with a lot of enthusiasm and networking resulting throughout the evening. The gals of Women 2.0 did not miss a beat putting on a fantastic show from great food, especially those yummy and fun looking cupcakes, lots of drinks and champaign to top off the event. They were gracious hosts and made all feel very welcome. Two screens, two judges (vc’s, audience cell phone) and lotofsupport by fantastic sponsors including Google, Spock, AOL The Angel’s Forum and many more made it a top notch, classy event.

We look forward to other successful, bub.blicio.us events from the girls! In fact they will be hosting a women only BBQ mixer that will be held May 30th. at 6 pm at Annie and Angie’s house in Palo Alto. Email women2.0@gmail.com for an invite and more information.

Congratulations to the Women of Web 2.0.

For more pictures go to Julie’s Album

web2.0 women2.0 web+2.0 women+2.0 web women cnet venture+capital vc

Tagged as: prototyping