Summer Speaker Series: Blake Johnson and Scott Cohen

Startup UCLA presents a virtual speaker series event for the 2021 Summer Accelerator. Join Robert Jadon, Director of Summer Accelerator and co-founder of Startup UCLA, as he chats with Blake Johnson and Scott Cohen.

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Blake Johnson has successfully founded and cultivated a variety of businesses  in multiple industries which currently exceed $1 billion in valuations.

His most recent enterprise, Byte, a direct-to-consumer dental aligner company, has achieved significant success expanding to Australia, Canada, Europe and Mexico. In 2020, Byte converted their 150 Juell3D printers to make masks, face shields and ventilator parts for frontline healthcare providers. In January 2021, Dentsply Sirona announced that it acquired the clear dental aligner maker in an all-cash deal worth $1.04 billion. Forbes magazine confirmed Byte was the fastest company ever to reach a billion dollars in valuation that was not funded by venture capital or any outside investment. Blake Johnson built this unicorn in record time in what some have called one of the greatest direct-to-consumer success stories of the century.

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Scott Cohen is a serial entrepreneur and investor with a demonstrated track record of building successful tech companies from start-up to exit over the last two decades. Cohen has a passion for building great leadership teams to solve massive needs in large addressable markets.  Most recently, as Co-Founder of Byte, it became the leading direct to consumer brand for oral care/invisible aligners. Byte was acquired in January 2021 by the world’s largest dental product company, Dentsply Sirona, for over $1Billion in less than three years since inception. This is the first time a company has exited as a Unicorn in the United States without raising venture capital in under three years. In Los Angeles, Byte became the fourth start-up company to exit for over a Billion valuation.

Prior, Cohen was the Founder & CEO of 180fusion, a leading search engine marketing platform that was acquired by Deluxe Corporation and Executive Director of Currency, a Fintech Platform (acquired by Private Equity Firm). From 2000-2010, Scott spent a decade leading Silicon Valley software companies PSS Systems and Certus from start-up  to market leadership positions before being acquired by IBM and Cisco, respectively. Scott currently serves as an Advisor and Investor for several growth companies in the tech sector.

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Schedule of Event

5:00-6:00 pm – Virtual Fireside Chat

Join us!

Startup UCLA Team