Dear Friends!

Mark your calendars and start your engines! The Fourth Annual Silicon Valley Open Doors (SVOD) will be taking place on November 13-14, 2008. This year's theme is: Adventures in the US/Russian Ventures -- Capital, People and Technology

This year, our doors will be open even wider, as our conference has broadened its audience to include the growing venture capital industry in Russia, as well as the US companies exploring the FSU markets.

We are looking forward to seeing you in California!

The SVOD Background

The SVOD conference is the only non-profit event of its kind, bringing dozens of selected high-tech companies and venture capital firms from Russia, Ukraine and other FSU countries together with the US sources of capital and Silicon Valley entrepreneurial community. It provides an unparalleled opportunity for the entrepreneurs to present their business plans to the leading venture capitalists, learn successful venture fund-raising practices, and create partnership ties with the Silicon Valley ecosystem.

Last year, SVOD attracted over 350 participants from a broad range of startups, prominent Silicon Valley venture capital firms, premier technology and business media, as well as the top US technology marquee companies like Google, Cisco, Oracle, Microsoft, Adobe and Sun Microsystems.

As Russia, Ukraine and other FSU begin to grow their own venture capital industry, the SVOD mission has evolved. Last year, The Russian Venture Company has become our general partner and amplified the SVOD's charter to promote investment opportunities in the FSU countries, as well as partnerships with the US venture firms.

The SVOD 2008 will build on this theme and continue working towards creating a unique partnership platform for bridging multiple US and Russian constituencies on both sides of the ocean whose interests involve venture capital, ideas, startups, innovative technologies, entrepreneurship and the new markets.

The SVOD Program

Our program includes companies' exhibits, panels, interactive discussions and in-depth seminars conducted by the venture capitalists, Stanford University professors, US lawyers, and other experts in the areas of finance, business development, marketing and general management. Our topics range from basic funding to intellectual property protection, structuring deals, high-tech trends and team formation.

One of the highlights of the SVOD conference is a competition for the best business plan. This much anticipated and exciting event features presentations by a selected group of the Russian speaking entrepreneurs to a prominent Panel of Judges consisting of leading venture capitalists, such as Alloy Ventures, Asset Management Company, Doll Capital Management, EDF Ventures, 3i, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Institutional Venture Partners, Opus Capital, Trinity Ventures. The winner in the business plan competition receives a traditional AmBAR Golden Lock Award.

And, as our participants keep reminding us every year, it is the networking, the contacts, the friendships and the feeling of community that keeps them coming to SVOD year after year.

The SVOD Organizers

The SVOD Conference is organized by the American Business Association of Russian Professionals (AmBAR). AmBAR is a non-profit network of entrepreneurs, technology experts and business professionals with ties to Russia, Ukraine and other FSU countries (www.ambarclub.org). Founded in 2002 by Russian-speaking expatriates affiliated with leading technology and venture capital firms in Silicon Valley, AmBAR now has more than 2,000 members. AmBAR is headquartered in Palo Alto, California.

The SVOD/AmBAR Previous Speakers

Among AmBAR and SVOD speakers there were John P. Morgridge, Chairman Emeritus, Cisco Systems; Franklin 'Pitch' Johnson, Founding Partner, Asset Management Company; Esther Dyson, Founder, EDVenture Holdings and author of Release 2.0; Sergei Brin, Co-Founder, Google; Charles A. Holloway, Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers Professor of Management, Graduate School of Business, Stanford University; Albert Cha, Managing Partner, Vivo Ventures; Timothy C. Draper, Managing Partner, Draper Fisher Jurvetson; Dan Avida, General Partner, Opus Capital; Tom Byers, Professor Faculty Director of Stanford Technology Ventures Program; Shlomo Caine, Managing Director, Strategic Investments at Intel Capital; Philippe Cases, Partner, Partech International; Ira Ehrenpreis, General Partner, Technology Partners; Vladimir Jacimovic, Partner, New Enterprise Associates; Kip Knight, Vice-President of Marketing, eBay; Edward Kozel, Board member of Yahoo! Inc., Reuters PLC and Network Appliances; Mark Kvamme, Partner, Sequoia Capital; Maxim Levchin, Co-Founder, PayPal and Founder of Slide; Peter Loukianoff, Partner, Alloy Ventures; Rajeev Motwani, Founder, Dot Edu Ventures, Professor of Computer Science Department, Stanford University; Will Price, Managing Director, Hummer Winblad Venture Partners; Serge Plotkin, Co-Founder of Decru, Venture Partner of Opus Capital, Associate Professor of Computer Science Department, Stanford University; Jake Seid, General Partner, Lightspeed Venuture Partners; Beth Seidenberg, Partner, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers; Bill Tai, Partner, Charles River Ventures; Rob Theis, General Partner, Doll Capital Management; Jerry Weissman, the world's number one corporate presentations coach; Jeffrey Yu, Managing Director, The Angels' Forum; George Zachary, Partner, Charles River Ventures.