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David Gerhardt is the founder of Capnet Ventures which provides a range of services to help entrepreneurs build their business. He has over 30 years of experience as a founder, principal, and advisor to companies, helping them develop and implement their business strategies and business plans, get customers, identify advisors and management, find strategic partners and raise capital. He maintains a network of seasoned business advisors including successful entrepreneurs, experienced executives, angel investors and institutional investors. He has worked with growth companies in a variety of industries including IT, business services, communications, retail, e-commerce, gaming, education, semiconductors, energy, materials technology, food and healthcare. He has been a Finalist for the Entrepreneur of the Year Award and was named one of the Heavy Hitters in Finance and Venture Capital by the Austin Business Journal.
David organized and served as CEO of The Capital Network (TCN), which created and ran some of the largest early stage Venture Capital and Angel Conferences in the US. The Capital Network brought together investors, early stage ventures and related service professionals with participating companies raising more than $300 million. Flagship events included the annual Texas Equity Capital Conference, the Southwest Equity Capital Summit and Southwest Bio Venture Conference and the Texas Angel Investors. He also organized and managed the MentorFoundry, which helped early stage entrepreneurs build their Boards and Advisory Boards and define and refine their strategies to position them for growth. As part of his responsibilities at TCN, he raised significant amounts of sponsorship and grant financing from a variety of corporate, foundation and government sources.
David most recently was founder and CEO of GT Maryland Inc., a provider of specialty materials to the residential and commercial construction industry. Previously, he was a co-founder and Managing Director of CN Group LLC (now Westlake Securities), a middle-market advisory firm and investment bank. Prior to his work at TCN, he was the Chief Information Officer of BEI, Inc, a financial services systems startup, where he was responsible for software systems development and deployment. BEI made the INC 500 ranking for fast growth during his time there.
David holds Computer Science and MBA degrees from the University of Texas. He was a founding board member of ACE-NET, the SBA’s original Angel Network. He helped organize the Venture Fellows Program, a course at UT-Austin, which taught students about the venture industry and placed them as interns with venture funds and venture backed companies. David is an active supporter of a many charitable, community and educational organizations and has served on a number of for-profit and non-profit Boards and Advisory Boards.
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