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Roger Rappoport

Partner, Snell & Wilmer LLP.

Roger Rappoport is a highly experienced advisor with a focus on emerging growth companies, offering guidance from their inception to exit strategies. With a background spanning over two decades in the startup ecosystem, Roger specializes in venture capital and angel investor financing, including convertible notes, SAFEs, and other debt financing instruments. His expertise also extends to areas such as mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, distribution agreements, manufacturing contracts, licensing transactions, executive compensation, and equity incentive plans establishment.

Roger has a proven track record of successfully guiding numerous companies from formation stages to achieving initial public offerings (IPOs) and further, leveraging proactive strategies to enhance shareholder value and navigate critical legal and business milestones. He caters to a diverse range of industries, including software (both B2B and B2C), artificial intelligence, hardware, robotics, mobility, communications, internet technologies, renewable energy, medical devices, biotechnology, and pharmaceuticals. His prior experience as an entrepreneur for a decade before transitioning to law equips him with a holistic understanding of the challenges faced by startups, making him a valuable advisor for innovative companies striving to reach their full potential.

Before his tenure at Snell & Wilmer, Roger held the position of Partner and was a leader of the Emerging Growth & Venture Capital practice group at Procopio, Cory, Hargreaves & Savitch, LLP in Silicon Valley. His specialties include a sharp focus on emerging growth companies and extensive expertise in general business, corporate, securities, and venture capital law. Roger is known for representing privately-held firms in software, information technology, telecommunications, and life sciences sectors across various transactions, from corporate formations to venture capital financing deals and mergers and acquisitions.

In terms of education, Roger studied Law at Harvard Law School and also pursued studies at the University of Cape Town. Throughout his career, he has been associated with several notable organizations, such as Snell & Wilmer, Digital Myths Studio, Access Silicon Valley, Leap Axlr8r, Launchbrite, Inc., Women's Startup Lab, EnovationNation, Inc., Classy, Inc., and Heller Ehrman (Silicon Valley).

Highlights

Aug 14 · linkedin

🌟 Recap of the Mexico - Silicon Valley Forum 🌟

I'm thrilled to share the highlights and insights from the Mexico - Silicon Valley Forum, an incredible event supported by Snell & Wilmer and hosted by Plug and Play Tech Center in Sunnyvale. This forum brought together visionary leaders, innovative entrepreneurs, and pioneering minds from Mexico and Silicon Valley to discuss the future of manufacturing, nearshoring, and hardware innovation.

Key Takeaways:

🔧 Manufacturing in Mexico: We delved into the evolving landscape and strategic advantages of manufacturing in Mexico. Competitive labor costs, strategic location, and advancements in infrastructure are making Mexico an attractive hub for manufacturing.

🤝 US-Mexico Collaboration: The forum emphasized the importance of strengthening partnerships between the US and Mexico, highlighting the mutual benefits of collaboration.

💡 Hardware Innovation with Silicon Valley: We explored the latest hardware innovations, including AI, and their impact on global markets. The synergy between Silicon Valley's tech expertise and Mexico's manufacturing capabilities is set to drive significant advancements.

📈 Nearshoring for Silicon Valley: We learned how nearshoring can enhance efficiency and reduce costs for Silicon Valley businesses. The strategic proximity of Mexico offers a compelling advantage for optimizing supply chains.

🚚 The New Logistics: Discussions on how Mexico's products are shipped into America underscored the need for innovative logistics solutions to support growing trade volumes.

Notable Speakers included: Saeed Amidi, CEO of Plug and Play Alejandra Bologna, Consul General of Mexico in San José Rogelio De los Santos Santos, Managing Partner, Dalus Capital Thomas Michael Hogg, CEO, IncMTY Sean Randolph, Bay Area Council Economic Institute David Cao, F50 Leyla Katukhina, SVP, Silicon Valley Bank Rebecca Fannin, Silicon Global Eric Tao, Prof, CSU MB Mario Juárez, CEO, Chihuahua Global EDC Eugenio Marín, CEO, FUMEC Ed Shaffer, Chief Commercial Officer, ITJ

This forum was an incredible opportunity to connect with trailblazers driving the future of technology and innovation. It provided a platform to expand horizons, build meaningful relationships, and uncover new business opportunities.

A huge thans to David Cao for making this event happen to Snell & Wilmer for sponsoring a scrumptious Mexican dinner, to Plug and Play Tech Center for hosting, to my COO Kyle Day and partner Manuel Rajunov for coming from Phoenix and Dallas, to INCmty Chihuahua Global EDC Bay Area Council councilwoman Teresa Cox, Jackie Hernandez Founding Member Plug and Play Samuel Hernández Stanford, Mexican Consulate General and to all who participated and supported this transformative event. Let’s continue to bridge these dynamic regions and drive innovation together!

#Innovation #Manufacturing #Nearshoring #HardwareInnovation #Mexico #SiliconValley #SnellandWilmer #BusinessOpportunities #TechForum

Jul 26 · linkedin

🚀  Another extraordinary night exploring the boundless realms of AI with an incredible, standing room only, community of engaged AI enthusiasts talking about developing AI Agents using LLMs!

 A heartfelt shout-out and immense gratitude to Shashank Bharadwaj and Mark Kuczmarski of South Bay GenAI for putting this event together, Jan Becker, incredible CEO of longstanding client from inception, Apex.AI for hosting us in their amazing, historic Palo Alto office, and last but not least, a special thanks to Snell & Wilmer for welcoming me into the fold and for sponsoring a delicious dinner.

The evening wouldn’t have been complete without my longstanding colleague, wingman and Snell & Wilmer partner (arguably the best Tech Transaction lawyer around), Eli Mansour, who helped coordinate the event. It wasn't just an evening of expanding horizons; it sparked connections with like-minded AI enthusiasts, igniting engaging conversations that extended well into the night!    Apoorv Vishnoi, Head of Training at Analytics Vidhya, a seasoned AI professional with 14+ years of experience, provided an engaging introduction to developing AI agents using LLMs. Apoorv covered:

📚 An Overview of LLMs and their significance

🌐 Use cases in various industries

🤖 Understanding LLM Agents

🔍 Interaction with data and users

🛠️ How to build your first LLM Agent

💡 A step-by-step demo: setting up, choosing pre-trained models, and integrating APIs

💬 Building a conversational agent

✅ Best practices and optimization

🔧 Fine-tuning, handling context, ensuring performance, and addressing security and ethics

📣 A resounding shout-out to our dynamic community of investors, startup entrepreneurs, and organizations—your passion propels our collective success!

🚀💼💡 Tagging some remarkable minds and organizations in our community who make these and other events unforgettable and contribute to our thriving community:

🌟🙌: Jordan Wahbeh Darwin Ling Brian💥 Sparkes Bay Angels Anita Manwani TiE Silicon Valley Piyush Malik Murtuza (Matt) Haryanawalla Silvia Veronese David H. Crean Sree Menon Vivek Vipul Sherri Douville Tatyana Kanzaveli Nick Larson Sanjit Singh Dang, PhD EktanKaren Roter Davis Sam Wong Karolyn Zeng Stephanie Perrault Tatiana 🌎 Simonchik Dan Mahoney Patrick Salyer Vijay Reddy Barry Eggers Rajesh Swaminathan Jishnu B. Greg Thorne Dan Galles Ben Fletcher Mark Fernandes

#AI #MachineLearning #GenAI #ArtificialIntelligence #AICommunity #AIEcosystem #CommunityEngagement #TechEnthusiasts #FutureTech #LearningAndDevelopment

Roger Rappoport
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Location

Palo Alto, California, United States