FORGE Fireside with Blake Johnson and Scott Cohen

​Join FORGE Founding Director, Brian Ellerman, next Thursday for a special fireside chat with Blake Johson and Scott Cohen!

For our second FORGE Fireside of the year, we are excited to invite special guests Blake Johnson and Scott Cohen, founders of the no venture capital Unicorn Byte that was recently sold for over $1 Billion. It was the first time a company has exited as a Unicorn in the United States without raising venture capital in under three years. Blake and Scott both graduated from UArizona, and have since founded and sold several companies. Learn more about each of them below.

​Blake Johnson

​Blake Johnson is a Los Angeles based entrepreneur who has successfully founded and sold a variety of businesses which currently exceed $1.1 billion in valuations. Both Currency Capital and IM Capital Access (companies in which he was the Chairman and Founder), were named on the Los Angeles Business Journal’s Best Places to Work, and several of his ventures have landed him on the Inc 500/5000 list of fastest growing privately held companies.

​In addition to his entrepreneurial undertakings, Johnson participates in philanthropic endeavors. He is a significant benefactor of Big Brothers Big Sisters, the Boy Scouts of America (achieving Eagle Scout status in his youth), the International Justice Mission, and MOCA Los Angeles. 

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​Scott Cohen

​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, Cohen co-founded Byte which 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 (NASDAQ: XRAY), for over $1 Billion in less than three years since inception. Prior to this, Cohen was the Founder & CEO of 180fusion, a leading search engine marketing platform that was acquired by Deluxe Corporation (NYSE: DLX) 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 was honored with the Ernst&Young Entrepreneur of the Year award in 2021 and currently serves as an Advisor and Investor to several growth companies in the tech sector. Scott is also active in the nonprofit community and sits on the Boards of Saint John’s Health Center Foundation, the Prostate Cancer Research Institute, the L.A. Chamber of Commerce, United Way, and Jewish Graduate Student Initiative. In addition, he has started a charitable arm in each of his operating companies to give back locally and nationally. Scott graduated from University of Arizona and resides in Pacific Palisades, CA with his wife and two children.

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When: Thursday, February 3rd, 9:00 AM (AZ/MST) 
Where: Online event, Zoom link will be sent upon registration

​​Learn more about Arizona FORGE at forge.arizona.edu

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