A panel of experts discusses how startup founders can navigate a challenging fundraising environment.

All startup ventures begin with high expectations, but things don’t always go to plan, especially during challenging economic environments.

So how do you navigate venture capital term sheets that may contain down-round valuations, pay-to-play, management carveouts, or the dreaded full-ratchet?

Our panel of experienced founders, investors, and attorneys will discuss all this and more. 

Louis Lehot
Louis Lehot is a partner and business lawyer with Foley & Lardner LLP, based in the firm’s Silicon Valley offices, where he is a member of the Private Equity & Venture Capital, M&A and Transactions Practices as well as the Technology, Health Care, Life Sciences and Energy Industry Teams. Louis focuses his practice on advising entrepreneurs and their management teams, investors and financial advisors at all stages of growth, from garage to global. Louis especially enjoys being able to help his clients achieve hyper-growth, go public and to successfully obtain optimal liquidity events. Learn more.

Danielle D’Agostaro
Danielle D’Agostaro is the Principal Partner at WVV, a $100M Venture Capital joint venture between Advocate Aurora Health, Foxconn, Johnson Controls, and Northwestern Mutual. Prior to WVV, Danielle spent the last 7 years building the Alchemist Accelerator into the leading enterprise accelerator in the country where she was Managing Partner and COO. In that role, not only did she run the daily operations of the company, but she also invested in and worked with over 400 companies such as LaunchDarkly, Rigetti Quantum Computing, and Cobalt.io.  

Bret Waters
Bret Waters has been in Silicon Valley his entire life as an entrepreneur, executive, and investor. Today he teaches entrepreneurship at Stanford, runs the 4thly Startup Accelerator, and coaches startup CEO’s at Miller Center for Social Entrepreneurship. He’s successfully raised capital multiple times in his career, and the entrepreneurs he has worked with have raised hundreds of millions of dollars in capital. He received his MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.