Thomas R. Baruch
Founder and Managing Director, CMEA Ventures

Tom Baruch founded CMEA Ventures to pursue a lifelong fascination with how investment discipline and strategy can nurture investment success in the application of exponential new technologies, such as Moore's Law and genomics, to building breakthrough companies that will transform markets. Tom honed his early-stage investment skills beginning at the Battelle Development Corporation in the late 1960's and then at Exxon Corporation in the 1970's and early '80's. At Exxon, he managed investments and created several early-stage technology companies applying materials science and semiconductor-industry technologies such as Supertex (SUPX). Tom formed CMEA Ventures with New Enterprise Associates (NEA) in 1989 after previously having founded and served as CEO of Microwave Technology, Inc., a supplier of GaAs integrated circuits and value-added sub-systems. Tom was one of the original investors in Aclara Biosciences (which merged with Monogram Biosciences - NASDAQ: MRGM), Flextronics (FLEX), Netro (NTRO), Silicon Spice (acquired by BRCM), and Symyx Technologies (SMMX). He currently serves on the boards of Alien Technology, Entropic Communications, Foveon, NewPath Ventures, Raven Biosciences, RF Magic and Symwave. Tom currently heads up the firm's energy & materials investments to include fuel cells, solar power generation and management, biofuels, and rechargeable batteries, among others. He continues to engage in his passion for early-stage investments by serving as Chairman of the Board of materials and energy companies including: Codexis, Inc., Intermolecular, Superprotonic and Wildcat Discovery Technologies. He currently also serves on the board of Solyndra. Mr. Baruch holds an engineering degree from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and a Juris Doctor degree from Capital University. He is a registered patent attorney and is also a member of the Board of Trustees of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and the Board of Trustees of the Berkeley Institute for Synthetic Biology (BISB).

Purnesh Seegopaul
Partner, Pangaea Ventures

Purnesh is a pioneer in nanotechnology and has worked with advanced materials, electronics and nanotechnology companies for over 25 years. Prior to joining Pangaea, Purnesh ran the North American research group of Umicore s.a., a global advanced materials company, and was the Vice President of Technology and Business Development of Umicore USA Inc. From 1992 to 1999, he was the senior officer at Nanodyne, Inc. responsible for technology, operations and scale-up. Nanodyne was backed by two venture capital firms and was sold to Umicore s.a. in 1999. From 1986 to 1992, Purnesh held director level positions in engineering and quality management with Materials Research Corporation. He has collaborated in research activities with universities in the areas of advanced materials, electrochemistry and nanotechnology, has extensively written and spoken on a variety of related topics and holds 9 US patents. He is currently on the editorial advisory board of the Marcel-Dekker Encyclopedia of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology.

Purnesh has a Ph.D. degree in Chemistry from the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia and completed his post-doctoral fellowship at the University of Delaware.

Peter Liu
Chairman, WI Harper Group

With over 20 years of experience in venture capital, Mr. Peter Liu is widely regarded as a pioneer of venture capitalists in Asia. Born in Beijing and raised in Taipei, Peter was educated at the University of California, Berkeley. Prior to founding WI Harper Group, Peter was a general partner of Walden International Asia where he established joint venture partnerships with several Asian governments and leading enterprises and helped raise US$400 million, including its China Walden Fund. He has rich experience in investing in and advising high-tech companies throughout the United States and Asia, and has a track record of securing significant capital appreciation for investors.

In 1985, Peter co-founded Walden International, currently a firm with US$1.7 billion under management. Peter has personally invested in over 100 high tech companies in Greater China and has a proven track record of creating value for LPs. His investments include DivX, Creative Technology, CommerceOne, Intraware, S3, ISSI and many other publicly listed companies.

Peter holds several directorships including Committee of 100, The 1990 Institute and the San Francisco and Shanghai Sister City Committee. He is also a founder of Monte Jade Association and an Honorary Board Member of Hua Yuan Science and Technology Association. Additionally, Peter co-founded the Taipei Venture Capital Association in Taiwan and also serves as a director of the Korea Restructuring Fund. He is also the recipient of Asia Pacific Leadership Award presented by the University of San Francisco Center for the Pacific Rim.

Xindi Wu, Ph.D.
President and Chief Executive Officer, CNano Technology Limited

Dr. Wu is the founding President and Chief Executive Officer of CNano Technology Limited. He has more than 18 year experience in corporate management of strategy, P& L management, product management and marketing, global operation, channel and alliance development, and research & development. Before joining Exodus Communication/Cable & Wireless/SAVVIS and Yahoo, where he managed $400 M of P&L, global operation, and business development/corporate strategy, Dr. Wu was a management consultant at McKinsey & Company in its Silicon Valley office. Prior to McKinsey, he played a pivotal role in building up Symyx Technologies Inc. (SMMX) from 3 employees to over 100 within 2 years. Symyx recruited Dr. Wu from Los Alamos National Laboratory where he served as J. Robert Oppenheimer Fellow and led a 14-member technical team for advanced materials development. He was one of the pioneers in developing pulsed laser ablation technology for thin film deposition. Dr. Wu served as a Board of Director of Intermatix, focusing on advanced materials development, from 2000-2004. He also co-founded OptoTrace Technologies Inc., a venture backed startup in the trace chemical business. Dr. Wu received his Ph. D in Physics from Rutgers University/Bellcore, and B.S. in Physics from Fudan University. He has 20 issued US and worldwide patents and over 240 technical publications.

Richard Q. Li, Ph. D.
CTO and GM of China Operation, CNano Technology Limited

Dr. Li co-founded CNano, and has more than 24 years corporate management and product development experiences in US, European and Asian industries. He served as a board of director and executive VP at Taiwan Communication Technology. He was formerly the Corporate Fellow at American Superconductor Corporation (AMSC) in MA, US. There, he led the invention of new technologies and the scale-up of world's first and largest high temperature superconductor wire manufacturing plant that was an over $100 Million investment. Prior to joining AMSC, he was employed as senior scientist and program manager at Nordic Cable and Wire (NKT) A/S, Denmark. Before moving to Europe, he was a research scientist at Beijing Central Iron and Steel Research Institute where he spent six year efforts in advanced materials development for Chinese metallurgy, mining, rare earth, chemical and petroleum industries. Dr. Li co-led efforts in a successful A-round financing of $20 Million into a photovoltaic startup - Taiwan NeoSolar Power. He has also provided consultancy to multiple US and Asian funds in financing and formation of several start-up companies in plasma display, biochip, Li-ion battery. Dr. Li received his Ph. D in Solid State Physics from Copenhagen University, Denmark, and M.S. and B.S. in Materials Science from Beijing University of Science and Technology, China. Dr. Li conceived innovations underpinning more than 30 US and worldwide patents and over 60 technical publications.