Speaker:Dave Tucker

The Software Startup World Through the Eyes of a Venture Capitalist

The software startup world has exploded over the past decade. Startups can offer great innovation and opportunity and working for them can also come with significant risks. I love the world of startups and spent a great portion of my career building companies. After exiting my last startup I shifted my focus from building to investing and this talk offers an insight into how I view the software startup world today. This includes what I look for in a successful startup, how I advise them, and the opportunities I see for young entrepreneurs just starting their careers.

About Dave Tucker

Dave Tucker, Partner at Next Level Ventures, is a technology executive who has spent a career helping to build technology companies. In recent years he has shifted his focus from developing technology to investing in and advising those companies. He is the former Sr. VP of Technology at Workiva, a cloud based financial reporting company which he helped grow from fewer than ten people pre-revenue to a 1600+ person public company with over $400M in annual revenue. His career has spanned large enterprises including Hewlett-Packard and Siemens to small startups including T.R.A.D.E., Inc, Engineering Animation, and Workiva – serving in a variety of engineering, architecture, management, and executive positions.

About Next Level Ventures

Next Level Ventures is a venture capital investment firm based in Des Moines, Iowa. The firm prefers to invest in companies operating in the ag-tech, SaaS, artificial intelligence & machine learning, health tech, and fintech sectors. NLV currently manages four different investment funds and is in the process of raising a fifth.