SVOD 2009

Silicon Valley Open Doors

The Fifth Annual High Tech Investment Conference

"SVOD Expo was very useful. A CRM solutions company
has found us looking for the product like Clienteq,
so we've got the first channel partner now."
Dimitri Lisitski
Founder, Clienteq (SVOD2008 finalist)

Silicon Valley Open Doors (SVOD) is a general name for the technology investment conference which takes place annually in Silicon Valley (California, USA).

The goals of the conference are to demonstrate investment and business development opportunities available in Russia, Ukraine, and other CIS countries to US/European investors and corporate leaders; to assist Russian companies, technology parks, incubators, research institutes, as well as individual entrepreneurs in the creation of successful high technology products and their expansion into international markets; and to help Russian and CIS investors identify partners among US/European venture capital firms.

The inaugural SVOD-2005 occurred on November 14-16, 2005 at Stanford University. The conference, attracted over 250 attendees from innovative technology companies from the Former Soviet Union; major Silicon Valley VC firms (i.e., Sequoia Capital, New Enterprise Associates, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Asset Management Company, Bessemer Venture Partners, Alloy Ventures); top US technology companies (i.e., Amgen, Adobe, Cisco, Oracle Corporation, Genentech, PayPal, Sun Microsystems, and Google) and leading technology and business media.

The second conference, SVOD-2006, occurred on November 16-17, 2006 at Computer History Museum (Mountain View, CA). The conference had over 300 participants from innovative technology companies from the Former Soviet Union and Israel; prominent Silicon Valley VC firms; leading technology and business media; and top US technology companies. The event was organized by the American Business Association of Russian Professionals (AmBAR) in equal partnership with Russian Private Equity and Venture Capital Association (RVCA) and Ukrainian Center for Innovation Development (CID).

The third conference, SVOD-2007, took place at Computer History Museum (Mountain View, CA) on November 8-9, 2007.

The fourth conference, SVOD-2008, took place at Computer History Museum (Mountain View, CA) on November 20-21, 2008. During the two-day event more than 45 venture capitalists from such acclaimed firms as Alloy Ventures, Asset Management Company, ATV Capital, Benchmark Capital, Bessemer Venture Partners, Canaan Partners, Opus Capital, Draper Investment Company, North Bridge Venture Partners, Storm Ventures, Sofinnova Ventures, and Scale Venture Partners among many others, as well as angel investors, were judging the pre-selected 21 (out of the 60 initially submitted) presentations of the high-tech companies.

The fifth conference, SVOD-2009, will take place at the same Computer History Museum (Mountain View, CA) on December 09-10, 2009. There will be next speakers like Guy Kawasaki, Sergei Beloussov, CEO of Parallels, Vish Makhajani, COO of Zynga, Kittu Kolluri, GP NEA and many others -- this is a not to be missed event for the Russian-speaking entrepreneurs and the Venture Capital community on both sides of the ocean. This year’s theme will drive a very exciting Agenda exploring re-invention as it affects the startup process on multiple levels - technologies, business models, financing, monetizing and team building.