The Funding Gap – Interview with Dennis Pape

In this episode, David and I interview Dennis Pape at Catalyst Spaces at their location in downtown Orlando.  Dennis gives us his insights into startup funding and the entrepreneurial ecosystem here in Orlando.  He is the founder of VentureScaleUp and the Managing Director of Catalyst Spaces. My primary expertise is in advising and directing new venture business, technology, and product development. I have strong technical, communication, organizational, and business skills with technical expertise in optics, photonics, optical networks, acoustics, electronics, communications, and medical devices. I have authored or coauthored numerous business plans and investor presentations that have resulted in over $200M in institutional venture capital funding. I have hands-on experience as both a CEO and CTO during a new ventures’ formative stage. I was a key player in a number of corporate technology spin-outs while I was at Milcom Technologies, a venture capital-backed corporate technology commercialization firm in Orlando, Florida.

Here is more information about Dennis
Prior to joining Milcom, I founded and was President of Photonic Systems Incorporated (PSI) in Melbourne, Florida. This firm specialized in the development of optical information processing technology products for both government and commercial customers. I secured venture capital funding for the firm and was responsible for the firm’s technical leadership position in its field, which resulted in the award of over $7 Million of government research and development contracts which he managed. Before founding PSI, I worked as a Group Leader at Harris Corporation and as a Member of the Technical Staff at Texas Instruments. I am a member of the Scientific Advisory Council of UTEK Corporation. I was previously an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at the University of Central Florida Technology Incubator. I am a member of AUTM, IEEE, SPIE, and OSA. I ams the coeditor of a book, the author of 3 book chapters and some 50 publications, and was the organizer of numerous national and international conferences in the field of optical information processing.
I earned an A.B. in Physics from Cornell University and a Ph.D. in Physics from Duke University.

Specialties: My firm, AlphaLaunch, is a leading consulting group providing technology startup launch services. We are technology entrepreneurs with business experience. We are focused on providing your startup or early-stage technology business with the tools it needs to get noticed and funded

Links:

Website:  https://catalystspaces.com/

LinkedIn:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/dennispape/