When is the right time to raise money for your startup? Should you raise from angels or VCs? What kind of metrics will they look for?

Entrepreneurs Unpluggd is bringing together the big guns: leaders in the startup community who are raising, have raised, or have helped startup raise capital to grow. They’ll speak to their experiences and give advice to help you understand exactly what the process is like and whether you should even consider fundraising.

First, Sonali Lamba, from BrideSide.me, will talk about her experience raising money as an early stage startup from angels and VCs. Her company graduated from DreamIt Ventures last fall and she has been actively raising an A round since then. Uzi Shmilovici, CEO of Future Simple, has raised over $7 million from VCs across the US including Chicago and Silicon Valley. He’ll share his experience pitching to different types of investors at different times of a startup’s life. Finally, Troy Henikoff, cofounder and CEO of TechStars Chicago (formerly Excelerate Labs), will speak to his experiences building and fundraising for his own startups, as well as  his experience advising startups on fundraising issues through his role at Excelerate. Alums of the program have raised over $25 million in the program’s short 3 year life span.

roy Henikoff

Managing Director, TechStars Chicago

Uzi Shmilovici

Founder & CEO of Base

Uzi is the founder and CEO of Base CRM. Over the last 13 years, Uzi has built web products in the intersection of design, technology and business.

In 2003, he co-founded Netcraft - a web agency focused on user experience and web technologies. Netcraft became the leading web agency in Israel, setting new standards in design and development for the web.

In late 2009, Uzi moved to Chicago. He then founded Base and embarked on a new challenge to make business software users 10x more productive. Leveraging paradigm shifts in computing (mobility, advanced user interfaces and big data algorithms), the company builds the next generation of CRM.

Sonali Lamba

Co-Founder of Brideside.me

Sonali Lamba is a co-founder at Brideside.me -- reinventing the way brides with geographically dispersed bridal parties shop for bridesmaid dresses. Sonali and the Brideside team spent the fall 2012 at the DreamIt Ventures incubator in Philadelphia but are happy to call Chicago home and headquarters. Brideside was conceptualized, refined and launched at Northwestern's Kellogg School of Management where Sonali completed her MBA in June 2012. She entered business school wanting to launch a company within the wedding industry and spent her two years there learning more about the market and where the true opportunity existed. Before Kellogg, Sonali worked in investment consulting for Cambridge Associates in Boston. She graduated from Duke University.