David S. Rose
Described as "the Father of Angel Investing in New York" by Crain's New York Business and a "world conquering entrepreneur" by BusinessWeek, David S. Rose is a serial entrepreneur and Inc 500 CEO who is Chairman of New York Angels, one of the most active and fastest-growing angel investment groups in the country.
In 2001, after careers in real estate development, Internet technology and the US government, David founded Rose Tech Ventures, which has provided capital and management expertise to over four dozen promising early stage companies. Today, he is one of the country's most active technology angel investors.
Dubbed by BusinessWeek "The Pitch Coach" for his ability to help entrepreneurs perfect their fundraising skills, he is a frequent speaker at business schools including Harvard, Yale, Columbia and NYU. As a regular lecturer for New York's Industrial Technology Assistance Corporation he has taught the Venture Financing and Deal Negotiation section of the FasTrak Tech courses since 1997.
David is Chairman and CEO of Angelsoft, which operates the international standard collaboration platform for early stage equity investing; Chairman of Ambient Devices, the premier bit-trickling wireless network; and a member of the boards of KoolSpan, Inc., CE Interactive, Panjiva, and Magnify Networks. He also serves as an active early stage investor in companies including BioScale, eJamming, Goodmail, LinkStorm, Zero-G, Now Public, Mashery, Storm Risk Solutions, Design2Launch, and over three dozen other early stage ventures.
A native New Yorker, David has a BA from Yale and an MBA in Finance from Columbia Business School. He is a graduate of the New York City public school system and Horace Mann High School. He is profiled in Marquis Who's Who in America, Who's Who in the World and Who's Who in Business and Industry.
Pitch Coaching & Presentation Training
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As an entrepreneur himself, David has raised millions of dollars in venture and institutional capital for his own technology companies. Today, as an active venture capitalist and angel investor, he personally hears hundreds of fundraising pitches a year. In the early days of New York Angels, the investment consortium David founded, the group realized that its members were often passing on investments in otherwise good companies, simply because the entrepreneurs' presentations were not effectively telling their story. As a result, New York Angels instituted madatory "pitch training", which is required of all presentating companies before they are invited to appear before the full angel group.
These sessions, offered by David on a pro bono basis, quickly developed a reputation as the financial industry's "best presentation training that money can't buy", and have been profiled in BusinessWeek SmallBiz, Presentations magazine, and many other publications. Today, while David refers most requests for coaching to one of a number of respected presentation trainers around the country with whose work he is familiar, he personally undertakes a few limited engagements for major VC and corporate clients, and will consider invitations for significant keynote opportunities and workshops.
"David Rose is The Pitch Coach. He has seen thousands of presentations. He can fix yours."
BusinessWeek
"David Rose is a master at turning presentations from "before" to "after." I wish more of the start-ups I hear making presentations used his services!"
Esther Dyson
Editor at Large, CNET Networks
Founding Chairman, ICANN (the Internet domain name overseer)
"There is palpable improvement in presentation technique exhibited by young ventures after David Rose gets through with them."
Gideon Gartner
Founder, Gartner Group
Founder, Giga Information Group
"Bad presentations kill great young companies. David has a knack for turning and tuning presentations and presenters to show them in the best light."
Scott Kurnit
Founder, About.com
Active angel investor
"A presentation training session with David S. Rose might well be the difference between a million dollar investment and 'don't call us, we'll call you.'"
Mike Zisman
Managing Director, Internet Capital Group
Former CEO, Lotus Development Corporation
"One of our companies had been through some prior presentation boot camps, but David Rose convinced them to make some major changes in their pitch. Since then they have gone on to attract significant investment interest, and along the way picked up many awards for their presentations. David's input was definitely instrumental to this success!"
Stephanie Hanbury-Brown
Founder, Golden Seeds Angels
Former Head of E-Commerce, JP Morgan
"The pitches that I've seen at New York Angels are much more to the point and understandable because of David's coaching. At the early screening sessions, I have to work hard to know what they're saying. Once he's finished with them, they know they're trying to sell stock, not their product. This makes it better from an investor's point of view...and the company's."
Howard L. Morgan
Vice Chairman, New York Angels
Partner, First Round Capital
David can be reached through his assistant, Molly Gunther, at molly@rosetechven.com, (212) 228-8770.