Fundraising for Startups

About the Speaker

Dr. Naveed Sherwani is a well-known semiconductor industry veteran with 35 years of entrepreneurial, engineering, and management experience. He has formed and built several companies including Intel Microelectronics Services, Open-Silicon, Brite Semiconductor, Anasage, HighSilicon, HighBitCoin, PeerNova, StarFive, LeapFive, ChinaFive, SemiFive, Lampro Mellon, Global Semiconductor Group, GS Microelectronics, and RapidSilicon. Throughout his career he has successfully raised over $500M in funding from leading venture capitalists and created over $3B in value. Dr. Sherwani earned both a PhD and master’s degree in Computer Engineering at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, and a BE degree at NED University in Karachi, Pakistan. Dr. Sherwani has also authored several books and over 100 articles on various aspects of VLSI physical design automation and ASICs.

About the Moderator

Mr. Muhammad Shahzad is President of OPEN SoCal and currently the Chief Financial Officer at Relativity Space, where he has raised more than $1.1 billion in financings. He brings more than 15 years of finance and capital markets experience, an extensive background in financial planning, operations, management, and strategy, as well as a deep knowledge of the technology industry. Prior to Relativity Space, he most recently served as Chief Financial Officer of The Honest Company. Prior to The Honest Company, he was a Vice President in the Technology, Media & Telecom Investment Banking Division at Goldman, Sachs & Co. Previously, he founded his own mobile advertising startup and also worked at Accenture and Deutsche Bank. He is involved in various for-profit and nonprofit boards, including as Board Member at March of Dimes and Chair of the Board at Developments in Literacy. Mr. Shahzad holds an MBA from UCLA Anderson School of Management and a BSc in Economics cum laude from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.