Westbury Banker Jon Rubin Speaking at the XPONENTIAL Drone/Robotics Show in May
Westport, CT -- Jon Rubin, a Partner at Westbury, will be appearing at three of the sessions for XPONENTIAL, the preeminent American conference devoted to air-based, marine and terrestrial unmanned systems, which is being held this year in New Orleans. XPONENTIAL expects over 8,000 attendees and 400 members of the press and media. And approximately 700 exhibitors will display their capabilities on over 350,000 square feet (32,500 square meters) of exhibit space.
On Monday, May 2, the first day of the conference, Mr. Rubin will moderate a panel, Let’s Make a Deal: Venture Capital and M&A Perspectives from Unmanned Systems Dealmakers. The topics of discussion will include how the industry capital transactions have evolved over the last year, the current state of the industry, and predictions for what industry segments will attract the most interest in the coming year. The discussion will provide the audience with an understanding of the dynamics driving investors and acquirers. These dynamics will include characteristics of attractive target companies as well as “dos and don’ts” in the capital raising and M&A processes. The panelists are Gareth Keane, Investment Manager at Qualcomm Ventures; Andrew Lustig, a transaction attorney and Partner at Cooley LLP; Andrew Palowitch, CEO of Point Conception, an autonomous operations service company with offerings to international commercial and government customers, former CEO of Tenax Aerospace and former CTO of Exelis Geospatial Systems; and Phil Walker, CEO of Transcend Robotics, an early stage company providing ground-based robotic mobility technologies.
On Tuesday, May 3, in the session, “Show Me the Money: Unmanned Systems and the Capital Markets,” Mr. Rubin will present Westbury’s latest research on the industry’s deals, highlighting deal volume, valuations and the hottest segments attracting venture capital. Based on data rather than anecdotes, this session will show how the hundreds of millions of dollars of capital are actually being put to use.
On Wednesday, May 4, Mr. Rubin will be a judge in XPONENTIAL’s “Startup Showdown,” held on the conference’s General Session stage. In this “shark tank”-like session, Mr. Rubin and his fellow panelists, Jonathan Downey, CEO of Airware, Garethy Keane of Qualcomm Ventures, and Muzzammi Zaveri of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers will listen to the pitches of the three finalists, selected from almost 90 entrants. The winner will receive a $15,000 cash prize, as well as one-on-one consulting time with the judges and will attend AUVSI's Startup Connection on July 18 in San Francisco.
