Best Startup
At Best Startup US we track over 1,000,000 US startups and over 3 million people who hold key positions in these companies. We use this directory of startups to highlight top employees, founders and board members we think deserve more appreciation than they are currently getting.
This list showcases the top California based Managing Director operating in the Venture Capital space. If you think a Managing Director is missing from this list, feel free to contact our editor on editor@beststartup.us.
The individuals on this list have been included because of exceptional performance in one of the following categories:
- Innovation – Operating as a key part in an extremely innovative business or startup.
- Growth – Operating as a key figure in the growth and upscale of a market leading business or startup.
- Management – Showing exceptional management skills.
- Societal impact – Putting their business on the map for their positive societal or environmental impact.
Our Data – We source our data from OSINT (open source intelligence) and public directories such as Crunchbase, SemRush and many more. The data from these sources should be treated with a degree of caution and verified yourself.
Kristina Burow
Managing Director of ARCH Venture Partners
Kristina Burow is a Managing Director with ARCH Venture Partners. Kristina Burow is focused on the creation and development of biotechnology, pharmaceutical and agbiotechnology companies.
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About ARCH Venture Partners: ARCH is an early-stage venture firm that focuses on life science discoveries to prevent, detect, and cure disease.
Rahul Kishore
Senior Managing Director of Coatue
Rahul Kishore is a Senior Managing Director at Coatue Management, which he joined in 2015. He leads the firm’s investing efforts in fintech across both public and private investment funds. Prior to Coatue he was a consultant at Boston Consulting Group in New York, where he advised media and technology companies on growth strategy and mergers and acquisitions. Mr. Kishore holds a degree in computer science and economics from Cornell University.
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About Coatue: Coatue invests in public and private equity markets focusing on the technology, media, and telecommunications industries.
Thomas Laffont
Senior Managing Director and Co-Founder of Coatue
Thomas Laffont is the Co-Founder and Senior Managing Director at Coatue Management. He is currently the Member, Board of Directors at Tipping Point Community. Mr. Laffont is a former Agent & Agent Trainee at Creative Artists Agency. Thomas graduated from Yale University with a bachelor of science in Computer Science and Economics.
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About Coatue: Coatue invests in public and private equity markets focusing on the technology, media, and telecommunications industries.
Praveen Akkiraju
Managing Director of Insight Partners
Praveen Akkiraju is Chief Executive Officer of VCE. Akkiraju and his team are working to deliver next generation converged infrastructure to transform the economics, agility and profitability of Enterprises and Service Providers as they transition to cloud-enabled business models. VCE is a joint venture between Cisco and EMC with investments from VMware and Intel. A 19-year veteran at Cisco, Akkiraju has successfully led businesses across the enterprise and service provider market segments. In his most recent role, he was responsible for setting the direction for Cisco’s next generation enterprise architecture and integrating security and application awareness capabilities with the network and cloud. His previous roles included vice president and general manager of service provider infrastructure businesses, where he was instrumental in defining the product direction and strategy for Cisco’s Core, Mobile & Broadband Edge business. Akkiraju holds a master’s degree in electrical engineering from Louisiana State University and is an alumnus of the Harvard Business School. He also serves on the Senior Advisory Council at the non-profit Industry Initiatives for Science & Math Education (IISME).
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About Insight Partners, SoftBank Vision Fund, VCE: Insight Partners is a private equity firm that invests in growth-stage technology and software companies.
George Mathew
Managing Director of Insight Partners
George Mathew is a Managing Director at Insight Partners focused on earlier venture stage investments in AI, ML, Analytics, and Data companies as they are establishing Product/Market Fit. He brings 20+ years of experience developing high-growth technology startups including most recently being CEO of Kespry. Prior to Kespry, George was President & COO of Alteryx where he scaled up the company through its IPO (AYX). Previously he held senior leadership positions at SAP and salesforce.com. He has driven company strategy, led product management and development, and built sales and marketing teams. George holds a Bachelor of Science in Neurobiology from Cornell University and a Masters in Business Administration from Duke University, where he was a Fuqua Scholar.
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About Insight Partners: Insight Partners is a private equity firm that invests in growth-stage technology and software companies.
Adam Berger
Managing Director of Insight Partners
Adam Berger is the managing director/operating partner at Insight Partners.He is also the executive chairman of Episerver.
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About Episerver, Insight Partners: Insight Partners is a private equity firm that invests in growth-stage technology and software companies.
Ganesh Bell
Managing Director of Insight Partners
A lifelong student of enterprise software industry and digital transformation Accomplished builder, operating executive and leader of change. Thought leader, market creator, product innovator, inspiring keynote speaker & evangelist. Battle tested success record across early stage startups, largest multinational corporations, hypergrowth to IPO and M&A. Rare ability to balance GTM & product-oriented CEO responsibilities. Breadth & depth across enterprise software markets (platforms, apps, BI, next gen data), industrial tech & digital business. Passionate builder of high performing culture & teams.
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About Insight Partners: Insight Partners is a private equity firm that invests in growth-stage technology and software companies.
Whitney Bouck
Managing Director of Insight Partners
Whitney Bouck joined HelloSign as COO in 2016, where she is responsible for growing and scaling the company in partnership with the CEO, CTO and the executive team. HelloSign was acquired by Dropbox in 2019, and Whitney continues to serve as COO of the business inside Dropbox. She is on the board of Paycor and BlueOcean, was previously on the board of Ekata (acquired by Mastercard in 2021), is advisor to ARC and Anvilogic, and invester in LogDNA as well as early stage VC funds. Before joining HelloSign, she ran the global marketing organization at Box and built Box’s Enterprise business from the ground up, helping pivot the company from being an SMB-oriented product. Whitney also spent 15 years with Documentum and then EMC (via acquisition) and held a variety of leadership positions, including CMO of the Information Intelligence division at EMC. Previously, Whitney held a variety of technology and leadership roles at both Sybase and Oracle. She was recognized in 2017 as one of the top 40 Women in Revenue, in 2015 as one of the World’s 100 Most Innovative CMOs, previously recognized with the Silicon Valley Women of Influence award in 2009 and received the Top 40 Under 40 award in 2003.
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About HelloSign, Insight Partners: Insight Partners is a private equity firm that invests in growth-stage technology and software companies.
Drew Harman
Managing Director of Insight Partners
Drew has more than 25 years of software startup experience as a strategy, product management and marketing executive. Since 2001, he been an investor and advisor to early-stage technology ventures, including Mainframe 2, Eucalyptus, Framehawk, AppCentral and Readyforce. Drew was also an early investor in insurance software provider Guidewire (NYSE:GWRE) and revenue management vendor Model N (NYSE:MODN). Previously, Drew was with Ariba, where as VP of Product Management he managed a team of 35 product managers across five product lines with annual revenues of $500m. Later, as VP of Corporate Strategy, he defined product strategy and drove M&A activity. He was formerly VP of Marketing for TradingDynamics, which was acquired by Ariba in November 1999. Earlier in his career, Drew held marketing & technical positions at Neuron Data, News Corporation, Zanza Software and Cambridge Technology Group. Drew holds a BA from Harvard College and an MBA from INSEAD in Fontainebleau, France.
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About Insight Partners: Insight Partners is a private equity firm that invests in growth-stage technology and software companies.
Stu Phillips
Managing Director of Insight Partners
Stu Phillips is a managing director at Insight Venture Partners. He joined in 2016 with a successful 20 year technology investing track record and almost 20 years’ experience in corporate operating roles. At Insight he serves on the board of directors, or works with DataSift and Ensighten. Prior to Insight, Stu was a general partner at Bay Partners where he was a board member or observer with Bay’s investments in Deis (formerly Engine Yard), Envia Systems, MiMoni, Mulesoft, Vaxart, and AMEC. Prior to their exits, he also managed investments in Covestor (acquired by Interactive Brokers), Eventful (acquired by CBS Local Media), Lending Club (NYSE:LC), Oncomed (NASDAQ: OMED), Zenprise (acquired by Citrix) and Paraccel (acquired by Actina). Earlier in his career, Stu was a founding partner at Ridgelift Ventures and also served as a general partner at US Venture Partners, where he led investments in communications, software and services companies. These included Cacheflow, @Road, Procket Networks, Flyswat, Merlin Networks and Force10 Networks. Before becoming a technology investor, Stu was VP of Central Engineering at Cisco, responsible for the strategy and development of Cisco’s IOS. He previously held leadership positions at Tandem Computers, Logica, and ICL. Stu is a Commercial Pilot and an avid participant in RadioSport (the contesting side of Ham Radio). Stu lives with his wife, Barbara, in Woodside, CA, where the hardest decision is whether to turn left or right when they cycle on the many routes in the area. Stu earned a BS Electronic from Cardiff University in Wales, graduating summa cum laude.
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About Bay Partners, Insight Partners: Insight Partners is a private equity firm that invests in growth-stage technology and software companies.
Nikhil Sachdev
Managing Director of Insight Partners
Nikhil is the Managing Director of Insight Partners and a Board Observer at MURAL. He is also a Board Member of Apprentice.io.
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About Insight Partners: Insight Partners is a private equity firm that invests in growth-stage technology and software companies.
Jeff Chung
Managing Director of AME Cloud Ventures
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About AME Cloud Ventures: AME Cloud Ventures invests in seed to later-stage tech companies that build infrastructure and value chains around data.
Usman Rabbani
Managing Director & Director, KKR Capstone of Kohlberg Kravis Roberts
Usman Rabbani (Menlo Park) joined KKR Capstone in 2015. Mr. Rabbani leads technology related value creation efforts across the private equity portfolio and works with the Technology industry team on evaluating new investments. Previously, he was a partner at McKinsey & Company focused on the high tech sector and the enterprise IT function. Before that, he spent 10 years in software engineering and operational roles as Founder and CTO of a cloud video surveillance platform, as an enterprise IT architect at Pfizer, as a tech team lead at Scient, and as a software developer at Massachusetts General Hospital. Mr. Rabbani earned an M.B.A. at The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, an M.S. in Computer Science at Harvard University, and a B.A. in Computer Science and Psychology at Yale University.
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About Kohlberg Kravis Roberts: Kohlberg Kravis Roberts is a global alternative asset manager focusing on private equity, fixed income, and capital markets.
Felix Gernburd
Managing Director of Kohlberg Kravis Roberts
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About Kohlberg Kravis Roberts: Kohlberg Kravis Roberts is a global alternative asset manager focusing on private equity, fixed income, and capital markets.
Vincent Letteri
Managing Director, TMT Growth Equity of Kohlberg Kravis Roberts
Vincent E. Letteri (Menlo Park) is a member of the TMT team, focusing on growth equity. Mr. Letteri originally joined KKR Capstone in 2007 before becoming a part of KKR’s TMT team in 2015. While at KKR Capstone he worked across a number of KKR portfolio companies including US Foods, Oriental Brewery, MMI, Yageo, and First Data. Mr. Letteri transferred to the Hong Kong office from 2009 to 2011 to assist in developing KKR Capstone’s Asia operations and to work with portfolio companies in the region. He also co-led KKR’s Green Portfolio Program from 2009 to 2012. Prior to KKR Capstone, Mr. Letteri worked for Nike, Inc., and McKinsey & Company in Boston, where he focused on private equity, retail, and consumer goods companies. He holds a B.A. with honors from Harvard University and an M.B.A. from Stanford University.
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About Kohlberg Kravis Roberts: Kohlberg Kravis Roberts is a global alternative asset manager focusing on private equity, fixed income, and capital markets.
John Hockin
Managing Director, Private Equity of Kohlberg Kravis Roberts
John C. Hockin (Menlo Park) joined KKR in 2015 to work within the private equity group and focus on its public equity investment effort. He joins from Golden Gate Capital where he was Co-Head of Public Equities from 2010-2015. Prior to Golden Gate, he spent fifteen years at J.H. Whitney & Co. where he devoted the first ten years to the private equity side of the business and the last five years to managing the Whitney Green River hedge fund. He started his career in the investment banking group at Morgan Stanley in New York. In college, he successfully launched and sold a baseball hat company called J&J Lids. He holds a B.A. in Economics (cum laude) from Yale University and an M.B.A. from Stanford University Graduate School of Business (Arjay Miller Scholar).
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About Kohlberg Kravis Roberts: Kohlberg Kravis Roberts is a global alternative asset manager focusing on private equity, fixed income, and capital markets.
Jeff Van Horn
Managing Director, Credit of Kohlberg Kravis Roberts
Jeffrey B. Van Horn (San Francisco) joined KKR in 2004. Mr. Van Horn is a Managing Director and the Chief Financial Officer of KKR’s Credit business. Previously, he was the Co-Head of the KKR Global Tax Team and the KKR Global Public Markets Tax Director. Mr. Van Horn is also the Chief Operating Officer, Executive Vice President and Director of Tax of KKR Financial Holdings LLC. He previously served as the Chief Financial Officer of KKR Financial Holdings LLC from May 2006 to November 2010. Before joining KKR, Mr. Van Horn worked in various finance positions, including senior vice president of Investments and Chief Financial Officer of AvalonBay Communities, Inc. and its predecessor, Bay Apartment Communities, Inc., respectively. Prior to that, he was a tax partner with Arthur Andersen LLP serving clients in the real estate, leasing, private equity, and REIT industries. Mr. Van Horn was also a member of Arthur Andersen’s firmwide Partnership and REIT Tax Specialty Teams. He graduated summa cum laude with a B.A. in Business Administration from California State University, Stanislaus. Mr. Van Horn is also a California licensed Certified Public Accountant.
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About Kohlberg Kravis Roberts: Kohlberg Kravis Roberts is a global alternative asset manager focusing on private equity, fixed income, and capital markets.
Scott Cullerton
Managing Director of Kohlberg Kravis Roberts
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About Kohlberg Kravis Roberts: Kohlberg Kravis Roberts is a global alternative asset manager focusing on private equity, fixed income, and capital markets.
Ali Rowghani
Partner and Managing Director of Y Combinator Continuity Fund
Ali Rowghani is the CEO of YC Continuity. Previously, he served as the Chief Operating Officer of Twitter, Inc. from 2012 to 2014, where he was in charge of Twitter’s product, design, business development, developer platform, and media teams. He was hired as Twitter’s first Chief Financial Officer and served in that role from 2010 to 2012. For the 9 years prior to his time at Twitter, Ali served in several roles at Pixar Animation Studios, Inc., including as Chief Financial Officer and as Senior Vice President of Strategic Planning. Ali holds a BA and MBA, both from Stanford University. Ali is on the Board at Checkr, Lob and Restoration Hardware (NYSE: RH), and is a Board observer at LendUp.
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About Y Combinator Continuity Fund: Y Combinator Continuity is an investment fund dedicated to supporting founders as they scale their companies.
Ravi Mhatre
Founder and Managing Director of Lightspeed Venture Partners
Ravi is a Partner of Lightspeed and focuses on investments in enterprise IT, mobility, and Internet and cloud-based services and applications. Ravi has 17 years of venture capital experience and before entering venture capital he ran a product management group at Silicon Graphics and also worked in management consulting at Booz Allen and as a software engineer for BDIS, a Silicon Valley biotech instruments manufacturer. His current investments include Nutanix, Appdynamics, Natera, Mulesoft, Sailpoint, Edgespring, TheFind and Kixeye. He has also served as a board member or board observer for numerous successful venture-backed companies including net.Genesis (NTGX), Verio (VRIO), Riverbed (RVBD), Lifeminders (LFMN), Kosmix (acquired by Walmart), TutorVista (acquired by Pearson), Virsa (acquired by SAP), Waveset (acquired by Oracle), Rapsphere (acquired by Appsense), Masergy (acquired by Abry) and Webspective (acquired by Inktomi), and has been recognized on the Forbes Midas List of top venture capital investors. Ravi has also served on the Board of Directors of TiE (The Indus Entrepreneurs Forum) in Silicon Valley, as a VC advisory board member to DeVenCI, the Department of Defense’s start-up technology acquisition forum, and as a judge for the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year competition. Ravi holds a BS in Electrical Engineering and a BA in Economics from Stanford University and an MBA from Stanford Graduate School of Business.
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About Clever, Influitive, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Natera, Nutanix, Qubole: Lightspeed Venture Partners is a venture capital firm that engages in consumer, enterprise, technology, and cleantech markets.
Joe Hurd
Global Managing Director, Corporate Development of SOSV
Joe Hurd runs marketing, business development and corporate engagement efforts for HAX and IndieBio in San Francisco, working with key companies, investors, academics and startups to benefit SOSV’s portfolio. He also helps with SOSV’s San Francisco-based operations. Joe is also a Non-Executive Director of Goco Group plc, a London-listed financial services, utilities and home services comparison company. He is a Venture Partner with Good Growth Capital (female-led investment fund) and an advisor to numerous startups, including Pactio (paid social local journalism), RydeOn (in-cab media platform), and DynoVC (autonomous vehicle technology fund). A seasoned executive, Joe built his career leading strategic business development and sales teams at Facebook, Gannett, AOL/TimeWarner, Friendster and VideoEgg. Earlier, Joe served as a senior political appointee in the U.S. Commerce Department during President Obama’s first term (2009-2012), advising Secretaries of Commerce Locke and Bryson on international trade policy. Committed to public service, Joe is the Chairman of the Board at Bullis Charter School and a Director of the American Swiss Foundation. He is a current member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the Trilateral Commission, the American Bar Association, and the National Association of Corporate Directors. Joe grew up in Wellesley Hills, MA and graduated from Harvard Law School, Columbia University, and Harvard College. He currently lives in Los Altos, CA with his wife, daughter and two sons.
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About SOSV: SOSV is a global VC firm with $1B AUM and 1,000+ investments, that operates HAX, IndieBio, Chinaccelerator, MOX, and dlab.
Jishnu Bhattacharjee
Managing Director of Nexus Venture Partners
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About Nexus Venture Partners: Nexus Venture Partners is a venture capital firm established by ex-entrepreneurs in enterprise technology and consumer internet.
Abhishek Sharma
Managing Director of Nexus Venture Partners
Abhishek is passionate about partnering with mission-driven founders and helping them build transformational companies. He is excited about futuristic opportunities in enterprise software. His investments include Sibros, TileDB, AskNicely, Apollo, FingerprintJS, Daloopa, Imagen.ai, Mezi (acquired by American Express), and Clover Health (NASDAQ: CLOV). Abhishek was an entrepreneur and business builder prior to joining Nexus. He co-founded HelloIntern.com, a marketplace for internships. Most recently, he worked at eBay on partnerships with marketing technology startups. Previously, Abhishek worked at the management consulting firm Booz & Company, where he advised wide-ranging companies in the US, India, and the Middle-East. Abhishek holds Masters and Bachelors in Engineering from IIT Bombay and an MBA from Harvard Business School, where he was co-president of Harvard India Student Group (HISG) and co-chair of the Harvard India Conference.
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About Clover Health, Imagen Technologies, Nexus Venture Partners, Parsley Health, Quolum: Nexus Venture Partners is a venture capital firm established by ex-entrepreneurs in enterprise technology and consumer internet.
Jason A. Kreuziger
Managing Director of Goldman Sachs
Jason Kreuziger is a member of the Growth Equity Investing Group within the Merchant Banking Division (MBD) at Goldman Sachs. He is responsible for leading the private equity investments of high-growth businesses in the Software, Business Services and Healthcare sectors in North America. Jason joined Goldman Sachs first in 2008 as a member of the Technology, Media and Telecommunications Investment Banking Group, and returned to Goldman Sachs in 2014. He now serves as a Managing Director in the Growth Equity Investment Group. Prior to re-joining the firm, Jason was a member of the private equity investment team at Summit Partners where he focused on investments in the communications technology and software sectors. Before that, he worked as an investment banker at the Royal Bank of Canada and as a management consultant at ZS Associates. Jason is a CFA charterholder, and holds both Series 7 and Series 79 securities licenses. Jason earned an MBA from Harvard Business School in 2008, and a BBA with honors degree in (i) Finance, Investment and Banking, and (ii) Information Systems from the University of Wisconsin – Madison in 2002. Outside of work, Jason is an outdoors enthusiast, enjoying distance running, triathlons, hiking, cycling, snowboarding, skiing, and sailing. He also enjoys international travel and collecting local currency from countries he visits.
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About Goldman Sachs: Goldman Sachs is a multinational financial services firm providing securities, investment banking, and management services.
Joe Porter
Managing Director – Tech Investment Banking of Goldman Sachs
Joe Porter is a Managing Director – Tech Investment Banking at Goldman Sach. He was a managing director in the Technology, Media and Telecom (TMT) Group and the Merger & Acquisitions Group within the Investment Banking Division (IBD). Before moving to San Francisco and his current role, he worked in the Executive Office in New York City from 2012 to 2013 with the firm’s executive leadership to develop and execute strategic and client initiatives. Earlier in his career, Joe was a member of the Global Consumer Retail Group in IBD from 2007-2012 and a member of the PSI Group from 2005-2007. He joined Goldman Sachs as an analyst in 2005 and was named Managing Director in 2017 Joe earned a BS in Accounting from Brigham Young University in 2005.
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About Goldman Sachs: Goldman Sachs is a multinational financial services firm providing securities, investment banking, and management services.
Mark Midle
Managing Director of Goldman Sachs
Mark Midle joined Limelight’s Board of Directors in June 2015. Midle is a Vice President in Goldman, Sachs & Co.’s Merchant Banking Division, where he oversees investments in growth stage, technology-driven companies. Before joining Goldman Sachs, Midle spent over a decade investing in technology and technology-enabled services companies while at firms including Bain Capital and The Blackstone Group. Previously, Midle was a consultant at McKinsey & Co., and he began his career in Morgan Stanley & Co.’s Investment Banking Division. Midle has a B.A. from the University of North Carolina and an M.B.A. from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.
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About Goldman Sachs: Goldman Sachs is a multinational financial services firm providing securities, investment banking, and management services.
Ryan Limaye
Managing Director, Co-head Global Technology Investment Banking of Goldman Sachs
Ryan Limaye is a Managing Director, Co-head Global Technology Investment Banking at Goldman Sachs.
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About Goldman Sachs: Goldman Sachs is a multinational financial services firm providing securities, investment banking, and management services.
John Goldstein
Managing Director of Goldman Sachs
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About Goldman Sachs, Imprint Capital: Goldman Sachs is a multinational financial services firm providing securities, investment banking, and management services.
Samir Kaul
Founding Partner and Managing Director of Khosla Ventures
Samir is a founding partner and managing director at Khosla Ventures, where he focuses on health, sustainability, food, and advanced technology investments. Samir led the firm’s investments in Cadre, Guardant Health (NASDAQ: GH), Impossible Foods, Mojo Vision, NanoH2O (acquired by LG Chem), Nutanix (NASDAQ: NTNX), Oscar, Quantumscape, and Ultima, among others. Prior to co-founding Khosla Ventures, Samir spent five years at Flagship Ventures where he started and invested in early-stage biotechnology companies. While there, he was involved in co-founding Helicos BioSciences (IPO), a leader in developing single-molecule sequencing instruments to revolutionize personalized medicine, along with Stan Lapidus and Steve Quake of Stanford. Samir was also founding CEO of Codon Devices, where he raised their Series A financing, built the technical and advisory teams, and booked significant revenues in the company’s first year of operations. His other investments include Epitome (acquired by Millipore), LS9 (acquired by REG), and Morphotek (acquired by Eisai). Previously, Samir led the Arabidopsis Genome Initiative at Craig Venter’s Institute for Genomic Research. Under his direction, the project was completed early and cost-efficiently, culminating in a historic publication in the scientific journal Nature in December 2000. Samir is active in philanthropy and has been a longstanding member of the leadership committee of the Tipping Point Community. He is also a board member of UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital and on the Board of Trustees for the US Ski and Snowboard Association. In his spare time, Samir enjoys golf, skiing, tennis, meditation, reading, and traveling. He is an avid sports fan with undying loyalty to the Michigan Wolverines, Washington Redskins, and Boston Red Sox.
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About Ausra, Calera, Cogenra Solar, Khosla Ventures, Khosla Ventures, NanoH20, PRAJ Industries, Segetis, Stion, Transonic Combustion: Khosla Ventures is a venture capital firm that focuses on environmentally friendly tech, internet, computing, mobile, and silicon tech.
David Weiden
Founding Partner & Managing Director of Khosla Ventures
David is a Founding Partner and Managing Director at Khosla Ventures, where he focuses on Internet software and services. A number of his investments have led to significant exits, including AppNexus (acquired by AT&T), Climate Corporation (acquired by Monsanto), Okta (NASDAQ: OKTA), RingCentral (NYSE: RNG) and Upstart (NASDAQ: UPST). David has also been recognized by Fortune and Forbes as one of the top technology investors. Prior to Khosla Ventures, David spent five years at Tellme Networks as VP of marketing and business development. Using the quantitative decision making framework, RIFLE, the company drove revenue to over $100 million, and was ultimately acquired by Microsoft for more than $700 million. Previously, he led AOL’s communications, community and instant messaging product divisions as they surpassed 50 million users worldwide. In 1995, after being told by his employer Morgan Stanley that email would never be used for business, David jumped at the chance to join Netscape, where he learned many lessons in product management. David’s career began in door to door sales, where one sales pitch led to his new career in technology via McCaw Cellular, now AT&T. David holds a bachelor’s degree magna cum laude with highest honors in organizational behavior and economics from Harvard University.
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About Khosla Ventures: Khosla Ventures is a venture capital firm that focuses on environmentally friendly tech, internet, computing, mobile, and silicon tech.
Sven Strohband
Partner & Managing Director of Khosla Ventures
Sven is a Partner and Managing Director at Khosla Ventures, and led the firm’s investments in Berkshire Grey, GitLab, and Rocket Lab, among others. An engineer at heart, Sven is passionate about technologies that forge new industries and enable novel user experiences. Sven spent six years at Mohr Davidow Ventures where he led technical diligence for the infrastructure IT and sustainability practices. He also worked with the firm’s companies, recruiting technical talent, running product-market fit experiments and crafting fundraising strategies. Previously, Sven was a project manager for the Electronics Research Lab of Volkswagen, where he led technical projects for Volkswagen brands ranging from LED front lighting, electro chromic glass, and driver assistance systems and robotics. Sven also served as lead engineer and project lead for the Stanford racing team’s autonomous car, Stanley, which went on to win the 2005 DARPA Grand Challenge. Now on display at the Smithsonian Museum, Stanley became the foundation for the Google self-driving car project. He also co-founded AI company Metamind and served as CEO. Metamind is now part of Salesforce and a key component of Salesforce Einstein. Sven sits on the boards of numerous companies, including Berkshire Grey, Fulfil, Openwater, Rocket Lab, Velo3D, Vicarious, Voyage, and Uhnder. He holds a bachelor’s of science degree in mechanical engineering from Purdue University, as well as a Ph.D. in mechanics and computation from Stanford. In his spare time, Sven enjoys teaching his kids to code, flying autonomous drones and cycling.
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About Khosla Ventures: Khosla Ventures is a venture capital firm that focuses on environmentally friendly tech, internet, computing, mobile, and silicon tech.
Peter Buckland
Partner, Managing Director, & COO of Khosla Ventures
Peter is a Partner, Managing Director and COO at Khosla Ventures. Peter has spent the last 20+ years advising founders and entrepreneurs through the full lifecycle of their companies. Prior to joining Khosla Ventures, Peter was a Partner at WilmerHale LLP, where he led the firm’s emerging growth technology practice and was responsible for building their West Coast corporate practice. During his time there, he grew the practice by 3X, completed hundreds of financing transactions and, mostly importantly, developed deep and long term relationships with amazing entrepreneurs and their teams. Peter holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of California, Santa Barbara and a J.D., magna cum laude, from the University of San Francisco. In his spare time, Peter enjoys spending time with his wife and three daughters, skiing, sailing, mountain biking and reading.
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About Khosla Ventures: Khosla Ventures is a venture capital firm that focuses on environmentally friendly tech, internet, computing, mobile, and silicon tech.
Harris Barton
Founder & Managing Director of H. Barton Asset Management
Harris Barton As the founder and managing director of H. Barton Asset Management, Harris Barton actively manages a $30 million fund that specializes in providing investment capital to up-and-coming VC-backed technology startups. Prior to H. Barton Asset Management, Mr. Barton was a founding partner of HRJ Capital, an investment firm specializing in private equity funds. Mr. Barton became a private equity investor during his football career, where as an All-Pro offensive lineman for the San Francisco 49ers he earned three Super Bowl wins. Today, he brings the same passion, dedication and teamwork to both his financial and philanthropic endeavors. In 2004, Mr. Barton founded Champion Charities with his friend and former NFL teammate Ronnie Lott. Dedicated to eradicating brain cancer and helping those afflicted with the disease, the charity has raised more than $7 million for research and patient care. Embracing his mantra of “always give back,” Mr. Barton also focuses his energy on helping and inspiring disadvantaged youth through motivational speeches, volunteer programs and fundraising events. Mr. Barton holds a BA in Finance from the University of North Carolina.
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About H. Barton Asset Management, H. Barton Co-Invest Fund: H. Barton Asset Management is a VC firm specializing in start-ups and early stage investments.
Daniel Friedland
Co-Founder and Managing Director of Goldcrest Capital
Daniel Friedland is the Co-Founder and Managing Director of Goldcrest Capital.
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About Goldcrest Capital: Goldcrest is a venture capital fund that invests in private technology companies.
Anthony Schiller
Co-Founder and Co-Managing Director of Green Bay Ventures
Led venture investments in Dropbox, Lyft, Spotify, DocuSign, MuleSoft and Xiaomi. Early investor with Kramlich in the world’s largest private nuclear fusion company, Tri Alpha Energy.
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About Green Bay Ventures: Green Bay Ventures (GBV) is a San Francisco based venture capital firm backed by some of the world’s most prominent families.
Richard Kramlich
Co-Founder and Co-Managing Director of Green Bay Ventures
Dick Kramlich began his venture career in 1969 as a General Partner with Arthur Rock and Co. after nine years in general management as Manager of Financial Planning at the Kroger Co. and Investment Management as Executive Vice President at Gardner & Preston Moss Company in Boston. Since co-founding NEA in 1978, he has been involved in eight companies that have grown from start-up or near start-up stage to companies with market value in excess of $1 billion, including Juniper Networks, Ascend Communications (acquired by Lucent), ImmuneX (acquired by Amgen), Macromedia (acquired by Adobe), and Dallas Semiconductor (acquired by Maxim Integrated products). Dick was the first investor to invest in the Ethernet at 3Com with Bob Metcalfe and an early investor with John Simpson in balloon angioplasty at Advanced Cardiovascular Systems (acquired by Eli Lilly) as well as Forethought (acquired by Microsoft), the company that originated PowerPoint. Dick continues to work with start-ups such as Financial Engines, Force10 Networks, MaxiScale, Tabula, Visual Edge, Xoom, and Zhone. He recently joined the board of CITIC Pharmaceuticals in China and is also a director of Silicon Valley Bank. Dick has received four Lifetime Achievement Awards including awards from the National Venture Capital Association (he served as Chairman and President from 1992-93), the University of California- Haas School of Business, the Silicon Valley Deloitte Technology Fast 50 Program, and the Red Herring Magazine Award. He received an MBA from Harvard University and a BS in History from Northwestern University. Dick and his wife, Pamela, received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the San Francisco Art Institute in 2006. They are noted collectors of Media Art and founded the New Art Trust to foster best practices in the field in 1997. They have four adult offspring and five grandchildren; they enjoy hiking, traveling, tennis and swimming and are currently residing in Shanghai, China where Dick is assisting NEA’s China practice.
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About Green Bay Ventures: Green Bay Ventures (GBV) is a San Francisco based venture capital firm backed by some of the world’s most prominent families.
Miriam Rivera
CEO, Co-Founder & Managing Director of Ulu Ventures
Miriam co-founded Ulu Ventures, where she is the Managing Partner. Ulu is an early stage angel fund focused on IT investments and has made 30 investments in the last three years. She is also the co-founder and co-president of Stanford Angels & Entrepreneurs.
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About Stanford Angels and Entrepreneurs, Ulu Ventures: Ulu Ventures provides early-stage investments to enterprise cloud and smart data companies.
Clint Korver
Co-Founder & Managing Director of Ulu Ventures
Clint is a co-founding partner at Ulu Ventures where his investment interests include technology-enabled services, educational technology, and companies that turn data into actionable information. Along with Miriam, Clint is the co-founder and co-president of Stanford Angels & Entrepreneurs a Stanford University alumni organization helping to build and connect Stanford’s entrepreneurial community. Prior to becoming a full-time investor, he co-founded and led four companies including Outcome Software, where he raised $10 million in venture capital to build web-based decision tools for large enterprises and was granted multiple patents in web-based decision analytics. He also co-founded Decision Quality International which trained over 1000 Fortune 500 executives in the principles of decision quality, licensed decision training programs to over 10,000 end users, and consulted to six of the largest financial institutions in the US. He also co-founded and led the consumer internet company, DecisionStreet and the analytics consulting firm, The Decision Company. Clint has a passion for teaching and regularly guest lectures at Stanford on entrepreneurship, decision-making, and ethics. He has taught courses in ethical decision-making at both Stanford and Grinnell College, and co-authored Ethics for the Real World (Harvard Business Press 2008) with Stanford professor Ron Howard. Clint is a Kauffman Fellow and Venture Partner at Crescendo Ventures and an advisory board member at the Decision Education Foundation. He holds a PhD and MS degree from Stanford University in Management Science and Engineering with an emphasis in decision analysis and a BA with honors in mathematics from Grinnell College where he currently serves as Vice Chair of the Board of Trustees.
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About Ulu Ventures: Ulu Ventures provides early-stage investments to enterprise cloud and smart data companies.
Philipp Stauffer
Co-Founder and Managing Director of Fyrfly Venture Partners
Philipp Stauffer is a co-founder and managing director at Fyrfly Venture Partners.
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About Containn, Fyrfly Venture Partners, Gmelius, rready: Fyrfly Venture Partners is a venture capital firm with a focus on data and intelligence.
Andrew Nakahata
Managing Director and Regional Head of Public Finance West Region of UBS
Andy Nakahata is a Managing Director and Regional Head of Public Finance, West Region for UBS Financial Services Inc. Andy has 25 years of public finance experience across several firms and roles in the municipal bond industry. Andy has assisted clients in executing a range of financing products and structures – fixed rate bonds, floating rate bonds, current interest and capital appreciation bonds, floating rate bonds, TRANs, BANs and commercial paper. Andy has worked across a wide variety of credits as his clients have included state and local governments, higher education institutions, healthcare institutions, public utilities and 501(c)3 organizations. Andy serves on the Board of Directors of Asian Americans in Public Finance and the Marin Country Day School. He holds a master’s degree in public and private management (MPPM) from the Yale School of Management and a B.A. degree from Wesleyan University.
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About UBS: UBS is a global financial services company that engages in the provision of financial management solutions.
Managing Director of Mayfield Fund
Navin Chaddha is the Board Of Directors of HashiCorp.
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About Balbix, HashiCorp, Mayfield Fund, Nuvia, Poshmark, SecuritAi, WorkSpan: Mayfield is a global VC firm focusing on inception and early-stage investing in enterprise, consumer, and engineering biology companies.
Fred Cohen
Co-Founder & Sr. Managing Director of Vida Ventures
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About Vida Ventures: Vida Ventures is a next-generation life sciences investment firm .
Daniel Docter
Managing Director of Dell Technologies Capital
Daniel Docter is Managing Director at Dell Technologies Capital, where he leads investments for Pivotal, Virtustream, and the Dell-EMC Enterprise Hybrid and Cloud Native Solutions Group. Daniel’s responsibilities include sourcing, leading and managing investments in AI and ML/DL, big/fast data and data analytics, cloud management and orchestration, CI/CD, and serverless architecture. Prior to joining Dell Technologies, Daniel was Director at Intel Capital where he led investment initiatives in Cloud (Open Data Center), Software Defined Networking, Data Center Services, and High Performance Computing. His investments covered services, infrastructure, management software, compute and storage systems, and ICs and include Switch SuperNap, Tier 3 (acquired by CenturyLink), Passave (acquired by PMCS), E2O Communications (acquired by JDSU), Cyoptics (acquired by Avago), Stratalight Communications (acquired by Opnext), Cortina Systems (acquired by InPhi), Overture Networks (acquired by Adva), Fulcrum Microsystems (acquired by Intel), Adaptivity (acquired by EMC), Virident (acquired by Western Digital), and Aspeed (IPO on Taiwan Stock Exchange). Dan also played a key role in several Intel acquisitions, including Fulcrum, New Focus tunable laser group, Stratos LW transceiver group) and the sale of the Optical Products Group to Emcore. Before Intel Capital, Daniel was with Merrill Lynch as an adviser for technology company clients involved in IPOs and M&A transactions. Before Merrill Lynch, Daniel spent 11 years at AT&T Bell Labs and Hughes Research Labs working on optical and RF communications applications. He has more than 50 journal publications and 10 patents. Daniel holds a PhD from the University of Bradford, United Kingdom and a BS in electrical engineering from the University of Minnesota. He is based in Palo Alto, California. Daniel represents Dell Technologies Capital on the board of directors of the following companies: BlueData, MongoDB, Cloud66, Packet Host, GraphCore, Redis Labs, Iguazio Systems, and Striim.
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About Dell Technologies Capital: Dell Technologies Capital is a VC arm of Dell Technologies that invests in enterprise and cloud infrastructure.
Deepak Jeevankumar
Managing Director of Dell Technologies Capital
Deepak JeevanKumar is Managing Director at Dell Technologies Capital, where he has investments in cybersecurity. Deepak’s responsibilities include sourcing, leading and managing investments across a wide-spectrum of security technologies and solutions. Prior to joining Dell Technologies, Deepak spent nearly 7 years at General Catalyst where he helped build the firm‘s west-coast presence and was closely involved in Push Computing (acquired by MobileIron), Altiscale (acquired by SAP), Illumio, Menlo Security, Anomali (FKA ThreatStream), Minio and RiskRecon investments. Deepak is a supercomputer designer turned venture capitalist, with 15 years of technology and investment experience. He gained his engineering expertise at Sun Microsystems where he started as a sales engineer and ended-up as a lead supercomputing architect. He was also an intern at the Yale Investments Office. He holds a B. Eng. from the National University of Singapore, an S.M. from the Singapore-MIT Alliance and an MBA from Yale School of Management. Deepak is based in Palo Alto, California.
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About Dell Technologies Capital: Dell Technologies Capital is a VC arm of Dell Technologies that invests in enterprise and cloud infrastructure.
Raman Khanna
Managing Director of Dell Technologies Capital
Raman Khanna is The Managing Director, Dell Technologies Capital.
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About Dell Technologies Capital, Onset: Dell Technologies Capital is a VC arm of Dell Technologies that invests in enterprise and cloud infrastructure.
Tyler Jewell
Managing Director of Dell Technologies Capital
Tyler is Managing Director at Dell Technologies Capital. He previously founded Codenvy and was a partner with Toba Capital managing investments in middleware and application development. He sits on the board of WSO2, Sauce Labs, ShiftMobility and eXo Platform. He has investments in ZeroTurnaround, InfoQ, SourceGraph, and AppHarbor and is an advisor for SD Elements. He is the author of three books on Java, including OReilly’s Java Web Services.
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About Dell Technologies Capital: Dell Technologies Capital is a VC arm of Dell Technologies that invests in enterprise and cloud infrastructure.
Don Butler
Managing Director of Thomvest Ventures
Don’s 20 year career spans a variety of roles with emerging growth technology companies. He currently serves on the Board of Directors for Apsalar, Avalanche, Axcient, Kabbage, Milyoni, Netbase, Vungle, and YottaMark. Don’s past investments have included FlashSoft (acquired by SanDisk), GuardianEdge (acquired by Symantec), and Okena (acquired by Cisco). Before joining Thomvest, Don led the Asian business development efforts for several start-up companies in the software and networking industries as part of his work with Asia Pacific Ventures. Previously, Don was an Analyst with Lehman Brothers, where he worked with clients in the software and semiconductor industries. Don received a B.A. in Chinese from UCLA and M.A.s in both East Asian Studies and Political Science from Stanford.
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About Thomvest Ventures: Thomvest Ventures provides companies with cross-stage venture capital fund.
Kittu Kolluri
Co-founder and Managing Director of Neotribe Ventures
Kittu Kolluri is the Co-Founder and Managing Director at Neotribe Ventures.
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About Neotribe Ventures: Neotribe Ventures is an early stage-venture capital firm which invests in breakthrough technologies that stretch the imagination.
Aditya Singh
Co-Founder and Managing Director of Neotribe Ventures
Adit is a hands-on early stage company builder having helped build three startups with an operating career spanning 15 years before entering venture capital. From 2013 to 2017, he led the b2b/enterprise practice at Foundation Capital as a Partner investing across the stack from enterprise applications, cloud infrastructure, analytics and cybersecurity. Adit graduated from University of Illinois (BS/MS in Computer Engineering) and from the University of Chicago (MBA). He started his career as an engineer at Growth Networks (a NEA/Lightspeed company) which was acquired by Cisco for $355m. At Cisco, he led the datacenter infrastructure team as a senior technical leader and delivered several products (converged servers, switches and edge routers) for data center infrastructure. He co-founded a networking appliance company, Bitsplay Systems that streamed video from data centers, out of the EIR program at Foundation Capital. In 2008, he joined Enphase Energy (networked solar microinverters), a Series A startup as their first product manager through IPO on the NASDAQ in 2012. When Enphase went public, Adit was Senior Director of Product Management and responsible for the main microinverter business. He is extremely connected in the the deeply technical circles of silicon valley and has the reputation of building companies from the bottom up by working hand in hand with founders.
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About Bloomreach, Cockroach Labs, Neotribe Ventures, Phantom: Neotribe Ventures is an early stage-venture capital firm which invests in breakthrough technologies that stretch the imagination.
Tom Dare
Co-Founder & Managing Director of Science
Tom has over 20 years of experience building and managing Internet companies through startup, growth, funding, and exit stages. Tom is the co-founder and managing director of Science, Science Ventures Fund II, and Science Partners, a Santa Monica based incubator, accelerator, and funder of early stage companies. Science manages an active roster of pre-Seed and funded companies, and has multiple incubated company exits including Dollar Shave Club (sold to Unilever), Hello Society (sold to NY Times Co), and Famebit (sold to Google). Prior to Science, Tom served as the VP of Business Intelligence for Myspace, responsible for user engagement and monetization analytics for +100 million monthly users, and participated in the business unit divestiture. Prior to joining MySpace, Tom was the co-founder, CFO, and COO of Tsavo Media (exit to CyberPlex, Toronto:CX.TO) an online publishing network of over 400 owned and operated sites. Tom spent four years with Spark Networks (AMEX:LOV), an online personals and social networking provider, in charge of strategic development. Prior to Spark, Tom was part of the founding management team at Move (NASDAQ:MOVE), an online real estate listing service serving consumers and brokers. Tom’s career in online media started with The Los Angeles Times (Tribune Company) where he developed online classified businesses and partnerships within the newspaper industry. Tom received his Bachelor of Science from Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan, and an MBA from Pepperdine University in Malibu, California.
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About Science: Science partners with founders to develop and fund disruptive tech-based companies.
Greg Gilman
Co-Founder & Managing Director of Science
Greg Gilman has over 15 years experience as an executive, entrepreneur, investor and attorney. Immediately prior to co-founding Science, he was the Chief Executive Officer and co-founder of RxVantage, the leading online practice platform connecting pharmaceutical and medical vendors with healthcare professionals. Prior to RxVantage, Greg was a Professor of Law and Director of the Center for Entrepreneurship and Technology Law at Pepperdine University School of Law, where he designed and taught courses in Intellectual Property Law and Licensing. Prior to joining the full-time faculty, he practiced law at Gilman/McFadden LLP in Los Angeles, CA, where he was head of the Entertainment, Intellectual Property, and Business Transactions practices. Greg has represented a number of recording artists, producers, independent record labels, songwriters, screenwriters, and directors, including Billboard, Grammy, Cleo and Tony award winners. He served as corporate counsel for Userplane, and represented the founders of the company during the acquisition by AOL. Additionally, he has represented numerous leading technology businesses, both nationally and internationally, and has consulted for businesses across all stages of development – from startup to public- among them World Poker Tour Enterprises (WPTE). Greg has also served as advisor or director of numerous venture-backed companies, including Hello Society, DocStoc, Music180, Tsavo, and FunBits Interactive. He currently serves on the board of directors of a myriad of companies including Ellie Fashion Group, Playhaven, ReFame and Delicious. He is licensed to practice before all California state courts, as well as the United States Federal District Court for the Central and Southern Districts of California. He was admitted to practice before the Supreme Court of the United States in 2004. Greg earned his JD from the University of Southern California Law School, where he was a member of the prestigious Southern California Law Review, and earned his BA from Tufts University.
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About Science: Science partners with founders to develop and fund disruptive tech-based companies.
Peter Pham
Co-Founder & Managing Director of Science
Peter Pham is the co-founder and Managing Director of Science an incubator where they co-build these companies with founders in Santa Monica, CA as well as a $76M fund. They were behind Dollar Shave Club ($1B exit to Unilever), DogVacay (merged w/ Rover) & currently 3 of the top 100 apps in iOS app store (Wishbone, Yarn, Arena). The companies they’ve built has had over $700M in follow on financing with additional acquisitions from NY Times & Google. As an operator, Peter was on the founding team of Photobucket which become the largest photo sharing site in 2007, exiting to Myspace for $300M. Repeating that success he did it again as co-founder & CEO of BillShrink which was acquired by Mastercard for $60M. He has been an angel investor in companies like Kabam (Acquired $1/B) Ustream (Acquired $130M) , Ring (Acquired >$1B) & Nextdoor and more recently invested thru Science in companies like Medium, Wealthfront, & Bird.
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About Science, Science Blockchain: Science partners with founders to develop and fund disruptive tech-based companies.
Michael Jones
Co-Founder, CEO & Managing Director of Science
Mike Jones is an internet executive, investor, and strategic advisor. A long-time entrepreneur, Mike founded his first successful company in college and since then has founded, built, and sold numerous online and mobile businesses. As the co-founder and CEO of Los Angeles-based Science, Inc., Mike brings together the best talent, resources, and financing through a centralized platform to build and invest in technology businesses. In 2016 alone, three of Science’s portfolio companies saw big exits — HelloSociety was acquired by The New York Times, Dollar Shave Club was acquired by Unilever, and FameBit was acquired by Google. His experience and expertise in both large and small companies focuses on strategy, growth, and operational efficiency, resulting in over $2.6B in successful investor outcomes. Prior to Science, Mike Jones served as the CEO of Myspace. In this role, Mike oversaw global business strategy and operations for Myspace, Myspace Music, and Myspace Mobile, which included board and strategic roles with joint venture partners in Myspace China and Myspace Japan / Softbank. During his tenure, he was responsible for the relaunch of Myspace, one of the most high-profile turn-around challenges in the industry
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About Science: Science partners with founders to develop and fund disruptive tech-based companies.
James Hicks
Managing Director of Science
James is the Managing Director, Science Incubation. He has pulled 12 plus years of experience working with startups and growth sector businesses serving as co-founder and managing over 10 businessess across e-commerce, marketplaces and mobile in the last four years that have raised over $60m from top-ties VCs. James is a former investment banker who managed over 30 IPOs for technology, consumer and health care companies.
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About Science: Science partners with founders to develop and fund disruptive tech-based companies.
Mark Mullen
Co-Founder & Managing Director of Bonfire Ventures
Mark Mullen has added 20 years of investment banking experience and relationships in investing and raising capital. He launched his second fund in early 2012, Double M Partners LP. The fund currently has 14 investments as of December 31, 2012. The fund focuses on early stage investments in Southern Cal.
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About Bonfire Ventures, Double M Partners: Bonfire Ventures leads Seed rounds for talented founders building the next generation of software giants.
Brett Queener
Partner & Managing Director of Bonfire Ventures
Brett is a Partner at Bonfire Ventures. His entire career has been focused on growing software companies — fast. From 2013-2016, Brett served as COO at SmartRecruiters, where he partnered with the founder to work through the ‘hard things about hard things” and converted a pre-revenue company into the fastest growing and highest rated enterprise player in the recruiting technology space. Prior to SmartRecruiters, Brett spent a decade at Salesforce.com where he served in a variety of senior leadership roles in Sales, R&D, and Operations focused on driving the company growth and expansion across market segments and product categories. Select titles held at Salesforce included VP of Field Operations, SVP Operations, SVP Products, EVP/GM of Data Cloud, and EVP/GM of Marketing Cloud. Prior to Salesforce.com, Brett held senior marketing and business development at Siebel Systems (acquired by Oracle). Brett is an active seed investor and advisor to numerous software entrepreneurs and serves on the board of SmartRecruiters, Pendo, Lytics, Invoca, ClearedIn, SpekIt, and Aforza. Other angel investments include MOAT (acquired by Oracle for $850mm), Guru, Outreach, Postie and Trackstreet. Brett has a BA from Dartmouth College and an MBA from Harvard University.
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About Bonfire Ventures: Bonfire Ventures leads Seed rounds for talented founders building the next generation of software giants.
Jim Andelman
Co-Founder & Managing Director of Bonfire Ventures
Jim is co-founder and Managing Director of Bonfire Ventures and Rincon Venture Partners. In this capacity, he is responsible for driving the firms’ investment activities, as well as the firm’s operations. Jim is in his sixteenth year as a VC. Previously, Jim led software investing at Broadview Capital Partners, a $250 million expansion-stage venture capital firm based in the Bay Area. Before BCP, Jim was a member of the Technology Investment Banking Group at Alex. Brown & Sons (and its successor, Deutsche Bank Securities). There, he concentrated on equity private placements and initial public offerings for software companies. Jim began his career with Symmetrix, a boutique management consulting firm founded by a Bain & Co. founder, which helped to create strategic advantage through the application of technology. At Symmetrix, Jim specialized in strategy formulation and economic modeling. Jim received his MBA with highest distinction (first in his class) from the Amos Tuck School at Dartmouth College, and his BS in Economics (magna cum laude) from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. Jim serves on the Boards of Directors of Campus Explorer, Conversion Logic, Keen IO, Mobcrush, Rentlytics, Rainforest QA, Steelhouse, TaxJar and Tradesy. He previously served on the Boards of Cadforce (acquired by Neilsoft), Packet Island (acquired by BroadSoft), Burstly (acquired by Apple), DataPop (acquired by Criteo), and Shift (acquired by Brand Networks). In addition, he serves on the Boards of Directors of Friends of Yosemite Search and Rescue and the Los Angeles Venture Association, on the Advisory Board of the Douglas Family Preserve.
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About Bonfire Ventures, Rincon Venture Partners: Bonfire Ventures leads Seed rounds for talented founders building the next generation of software giants.
William McGlashan
Managing Director of TPG Growth
Bill is a founding Partner of TPG Growth, the growth equity and smaller buyout investment platform of TPG, the global private investment firm. With more than $2 billion under management, TPG Growth targets investments in technology, life sciences, renewables and consumer companies utilizing growth equity, public equity and leveraged buyout structures. Prior to joining TPG in 2004, Bill was the Chairman and CEO of Critical Path (NASDAQ: CPTH). He joined Critical Path in April of 2001 to undertake a major financial and operational restructuring of the company. Previously, he co-founded and served as Chief Executive Officer of Vectis Group, a venture corporation that capitalized and built companies in emerging markets, in partnership with leading U.S. technology businesses. Bill also co-founded and served as President of Pharmanex Inc., a leading phyto-pharmaceutical and dietary supplement company with annual sales of approximately $500 million in 20 countries and significant operations in the People’s Republic of China. The company was sold to NSE (NYSE: NUS) in 1999. Prior to Pharmanex, he was a senior associate with Bain Capital and Information Partners. Bill earned a BA with honors from Yale University and an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business. He is a member of Young Presidents’ Organization in the San Francisco Barbary Coast chapter, and serves on the Advisory Council for the Yale School of Management as well as the Boards of XOJet, David’s Bridal, AgraQuest, SuccessFactors, Elevance, the Bay Area Discovery Museum and Backroads.
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About TPG Growth: TPG Growth specializes in growth equity and middle-market buyout opportunities.
Fred Paulenich
Partner, Managing Director -Human Capital Partner of TPG Growth
Mr. Paulenich is a Human Capital Partner based in San Francisco. He is responsible for actively leading a highly collaborative process with the investment and operating professionals and the portfolio companies to help evaluate, build and improve the key human capital elements required for profitable growth. Prior to TPG, he was Senior Vice President, Human Resources for Walmart’s high growth, $10B global eCommerce business. He was one of the original and key leaders involved in architecting this business unit which develops strategies, platforms and applications that combine the latest in online innovation with physical stores to create a unique, seamless shopping experience for customers. He also served as Senior Vice President, Human Resources for Levi Strauss & Co., a leading global apparel company with over $4B in sales in more than 110 countries. He was an integral part of the leadership team credited with restoring the company’s financial strength, restructuring its competitiveness across all business dimensions and revitalizing the brand around the world. He began his career at PepsiCo where he held a series of increasingly senior human resources positions over 15 years, culminating in his assignment as Vice President, Human Resources for Pepsi-Cola North America. In that role, he led a complete redefinition and integration of the go-to-market process and organizational structure post the spin off and IPO of the company-owned bottling operations.
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About TPG Growth: TPG Growth specializes in growth equity and middle-market buyout opportunities.
John Helm
Partner and Managing Director of RET Ventures
John Helm is the founder and a current Partner at the proptech-focused VC firm RET Ventures. Prior to founding RET Ventures in 2017, John was a Venture Partner with DN Capital in Munich, Germany. Before that, John ran and successfully exited two venture-backed real estate tech startups, was CFO of Marcus & Millichap, and a consultant at McKinsey & Company. He graduated Phi Beta Kappa with a B.A. in Economics from the University of Wisconsin, and holds an MBA from Harvard Business School. You can find John on his skis or mountain biking around Park City or—his favorite thing—spending time with his wife, son, and daughter.
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About RET Ventures: RET Ventures is an industry backed early-stage VC helping build the real estate industry’s cutting edge technology providers.
Christopher Yip
Partner and Managing Director of RET Ventures
Christopher Yip currently serves as Partner at the proptech-focused VC firm RET Ventures. Prior to RET, Christopher spent twelve years at the global private equity firm TPG, where he led growth investments in tech-enabled companies and partnered closely with CEOs and entrepreneurs. He began his career as a consultant with McKinsey & Company. Christopher has an MBA from the Stanford GSB, where he was an Arjay Miller Scholar, as well as an AB in Economics and an SM in Computer Science from Harvard University. You can find Christopher flying between Park City and San Francisco, trailing the RET team on the snow, or driving anything with four wheels.
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About RET Ventures: RET Ventures is an industry backed early-stage VC helping build the real estate industry’s cutting edge technology providers.
Ambar Bhattacharyya
Managing Director of Maverick Ventures
Ambar Bhattacharyya currently works as the Managing Director for Maverick Capital. He previously worked at Collective Medical as the Series A Investor and Board Observer.
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About Artemis Health, Centivo, Cityblock Health, Hims & Hers, Maverick Ventures: Maverick Ventures is a registered investment advisor managing private investment funds for qualified investors.
Prateesh Maheshwari
Managing Director of Maverick Ventures
Prateesh Maheshwari serves as a Managing Director at Maverick Capital.
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About Maverick Ventures: Maverick Ventures is a registered investment advisor managing private investment funds for qualified investors.
Dipender Saluja
Managing Director of Capricorn Investment Group
Dipender Saluja is Partner and Managing Director at Capricorn Investment Group. Dipender oversees investments in energy technology, clean tech, and IT. Prior to Capricorn, Dipender was Chief of Staff at Cadence, a global market leader in electronic design, where he built and managed businesses that worked closely with the leading electronics companies around the world. Dipender is also President and CEO of Automatiks Inc, a Capricorn portfolio company developing electronic connectivity platforms for electric & hybrid vehicles, storage and smart grids. He is an electrical & computer engineer by training, and attended UND, the University of Minnesota, and Stanford.
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About Capricorn Investment Group: Capricorn Investment Group invests in the public equity, fixed income, private equity, and real assets markets.
Mitchell Kertzman
Managing Director of Hummer Winblad Venture Partners
Mitchell Kertzman is a Managing Director at Hummer Winblad Venture Partners. He has over 30 years of experience as a CEO of public and private software companies. Most recently, Mitchell was Chairman and CEO of Liberate Technologies, a provider of platform software for the delivery of digital services by cable television companies. Before joining Liberate, he was chairman of the board and CEO of Sybase, Inc. Mitchell was founder and CEO of Powersoft, which merged with Sybase in February 1995. A former programmer, Mitchell founded Powersoft in 1974 as Computer Solutions. He renamed the company and became a member of the Hummer Winblad family in 1991 when Hummer Winblad invested in the company, which became the leading provider of client-server development tools with its flagship product, PowerBuilder. The merger with Sybase in 1995 was, at the time, the most valuable in the history of the software industry. Mitchell served as President of the Massachusetts Software Council from 1994 to 1996 and was 1990 chairman of the American Electronics Association. He is founder and former chairman of the Massachusetts Institute for a New Commonwealth (MassINC), a think tank focused on issues related to the standard of living and quality of life of America’s middle class. He served on the New York State Commission on Industrial Competitiveness and chaired its task force on industrial policy. Mitchell was awarded an honorary doctorate of humane letters from the University of Massachusetts, Lowell. He currently sits on the Boards of AspireIQ, Blissfully, 6connect and Symbium.
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About 6connect, Blissfully, Hummer Winblad Venture Partners, MassINC: Hummer Winblad Venture Partners is a venture capital firm that invests in early-stage enterprise software companies.
Sunil Kurkure
Managing Director of Intel Capital
Sunil is a Managing Director at Intel Capital driving early-venture and growth-equity investments in the Software and Security Sector across cloud infrastructure, big data, security and next-generation enterprise applications. He is actively involved with Intel Capital portfolio companies Kaltura, Eclypsium, Synack, SecurityScorecard, Vectra Networks, Fortanix, Lightbend, Preempt Security, Catalytic, Capsul8 and ZeroFox. Prior to joining Intel Capital, Sunil worked as an enterprise-focused venture capitalist at Mirador Capital, Greenspring Associates and Charter Ventures; and product strategy in the Client Computing Group at Intel. Sunil has held board or advisory roles at Ellie Mae (NYSE: ELLI), Deem, Sumo Logic, Snowflake Computing, Xensource (NASDAQ: CTXS), Clear Standards (NYSE: SAP), Splunk (NASDAQ: SPLK), DATAllegro (NASDAQ: MSFT), Solidcore (NASDAQ: INTC), TeleNav (NASDAQ: TNAV), Winery Exchange, and SysteamUS. Previously, Sunil spent several years at Goldman Sachs and Credit Suisse in M&A and equity financing, working with leading technology companies including Cisco, Yahoo, HP, Oracle, and Applied Materials among others. Sunil holds a BS in Business Administration from the Haas School of Business, UC Berkeley. Sunil is actively involved in several youth sports organizations including AYSO and NJB, and previously served as a regional board member of BUILD, an organization that uses entrepreneurship to help children in under-resourced communities.
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About Intel Capital: Intel Capital invests in innovative startups targeting cloud and AI infrastructure, cybersecurity, and other disruptive technologies.
Nick Washburn
Senior Managing Director, Intel Capital of Intel Capital
Nick Washburn is a Senior Managing Director of Intel Capital located in Santa Clara, CA. He joined Intel Capital in 2014. Nick is a voting member of Intel Capital’s investment committee and co-manages Intel Capital’s cloud investment domain. He focuses on early-stage investments in cloud-native infrastructure, applications, developer tools and data platforms. Nick currently serves as a director or observer on the board of Amenity Analytics, Augtera Networks, Tetrate, Verica and two additional early-stage investments not yet announced. He also works closely on Intel Capital’s investments in Anyscale and Upbound. In addition, he currently serves as a director on the board of the National Venture Capital Association. Nick is a member of the Kauffman Fellows, Class 25, and he previously served as a Managing Counsel and a Senior Attorney for Intel Capital. He is an avid lover of all things outdoors, including skiing, mountain biking and rock climbing.
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About Intel Capital, Kauffman Fellows: Intel Capital invests in innovative startups targeting cloud and AI infrastructure, cybersecurity, and other disruptive technologies.
Mark Lydon
Managing Director of Intel Capital
Mark Lydon is a Managing Director at Intel Capital and leads investments in the IOT, Edge Computing and Autonomy sectors. Mark joined Intel Capital in 2000 and brings over 30 years of experience in venture capital investing, business development, engineering and operations spanning both high tech startups and Fortune 100 companies. Prior to Intel Capital, Mark held a variety of management positions in engineering, business development, sales and marketing at Dialogic Corporation, helping the company grow from a startup to a worldwide leader in telecommunications technology. Mark began his career as an engineer at IBM, where he contributed to the development of the industry’s first integration of computer systems and telecom private branch exchanges. Mark invested in and managed exits for a number of companies including XEVO (acquired by Lear), Fibocom (IPO on SHE), Vocera Communications (IPO on NYSE), Rapid Bridge (acquired by Qualcomm), Skyhook Wireless (acquired by Liberty Media), Bocom (acquired by BGTC), Continuous Computing Corporation (acquired by Radisys Corporation), China ITS (IPO on HKSE), IPTego (acquired by Acme Packets), Crossbeam (acquired by Blue Coat Systems) and Telera (acquired by Alcatel). Mark has a BS in Electrical Engineering from California Polytechnic University.
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About Intel Capital: Intel Capital invests in innovative startups targeting cloud and AI infrastructure, cybersecurity, and other disruptive technologies.
Trina Van Pelt
Vice President, Senior Managing Director of Intel Capital
Trina Van Pelt is Vice President & Senior Managing Director of Intel Capital; Vice Chair of its Investment Committee; and Chair of its diversity & inclusion investing initiative. She focuses on investments in artificial intelligence, autonomous things, mobility management, sports technology, and data centric business models. Trina currently serves on multiple, early to growth stage, portfolio company boards (Cognitive Scale, GoodData, Mighty Networks, Moovit, Paxata). In February 2019, she was named to the Power 200 list of the world’s most influential data economy leaders. She is a sought out advisor to Intel’s executive team on transformational growth strategies for Intel’s data centric businesses. Van Pelt has more than 23 years of experience in technology investments, M&A, strategic planning and business development. She has led more than 85 technology acquisitions and investments worth >$50B over the course of her career, spanning the computing, communications, software, IoT and mobile industry segments. She has built, developed, led, inspired and managed large teams of investors and strategic business development professionals negotiating equity and complex buy-and sell-side transactions and partnerships. Before joining Intel in 2004, Van Pelt was a director of corporate development at CNET Networks and an investment associate at TA Associates. She began her career in investment banking at Lehman Brothers and Ernst & Young’s financial advisory services group. She holds a bachelor’s degree in business administration from the University of Michigan and earned a master’s degree in management from the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University.
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About Intel Capital: Intel Capital invests in innovative startups targeting cloud and AI infrastructure, cybersecurity, and other disruptive technologies.
Arun Chetty
Managing Director of Intel Capital
Arun Chetty has been with Intel Capital since 2004 and focuses on investments in the wireless ecosystem covering the latest in 5G and wireless connectivity technologies, in Edge Compute/Intelligence, Sensors, HMI, Enterprise AI and conversational AI platforms, Gaming/Esports, and AR/VR in consumer and enterprise. Arun has led investments in Bluestacks, Avaamo, NextInput, Mindmeld, OnScale, Axonne, Telink Semiconductor, Espressif, Delta ID, AdHawk Microsystems, Babble Labs, VeriSilicon, Aicent, mFoundry, Insyde Software, LANDesk, and many others during his tenure with Intel Capital. Some of his successful exits include VeriSilicon (IPO), Telink (M&A), Espressif (IPO), Babble Labs (M&A), Mindmeld (M&A), Delta ID (M&A), Aicent (M&A), LANDesk (M&A), LGC Wireless (M&A), Circle Lending (M&A), and many others. Prior to Intel Capital, Arun spent several years as M&A Director at Intel, leading and executing over 15 M&A deals, and as a Controller in Intel’s Finance organization. Arun also worked as an engineer in R&D groups at GE, DuPont, and Brookhaven National Labs after his B.S.E. from Princeton and M.S. from MIT. Arun received an MBA from the University of Michigan.
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About Intel Capital: Intel Capital invests in innovative startups targeting cloud and AI infrastructure, cybersecurity, and other disruptive technologies.
Sean Doyle
Managing Director of Intel Capital
Sean is a Director in Intel Capital focused on manufacturing, semiconductor and supply chain investments for Intel’s core business and on new emerging silicon-related “adjacency” opportunities. From 1997 to 2001 he was a Sr. Treasury Manager responsible for financial due diligence and structuring of over 50 investments across a variety of sectors including media, content, enterprise computing and software. During this time period Sean also provided financial oversight of Intel 64 Fund operations and supported merger and acquisition transactions. In 2001 Sean joined Intel Capital as Sector Director, Technology and Manufacturing, to lead a team of investment managers supporting Intel’s global technology development and manufacturing operations. Notable investments by Sean’s team included ALIS, Clearshape, Epichem, Epion, Lotes, TriChem Labs and Xtreme Technologies. Sean’s transactional experience at Intel Capital ranges from seed stage venture financings to public company debt and equity investments with business development agreements worldwide. He has served as a lead investment manager on some of Intel Capital’s largest or most notable investments worldwide including ASM International, ASM Lithography, Elpida Memory, Ion Microfabrication Systems, Nikon Corporation, Pacific Biosciences, Photronics and Micron Corporation. Sean serves as board observer at several Intel Capital portfolio companies. Prior to Intel Capital, Sean worked in corporate finance for the investment bank Laidlaw Equities and was a marketing manager at Oracle Corporation. Sean holds a BA from UC Berkeley and an MBA from UCLA.
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About Intel Capital: Intel Capital invests in innovative startups targeting cloud and AI infrastructure, cybersecurity, and other disruptive technologies.
Andrew Fligel
Senior Managing Director of Intel Capital
Andy is a Senior Managing Director and a voting member of Intel Capital’s investment committee. Andy focuses on investments in enterprise software, cloud and datacenter technologies driving digital transformation. He currently serves as a Board Member of ScienceLogic and Maana and acts as a Board Observer of Mirantis and Immuta. Andy’s prior investments include Virtustream (acquired by EMC), LogMeIn (NASDAQ: LOGM), Elastic (NYSE: ESTC), Spot.io (acquired by NetApp), CloudGenix (acquired by Palo Alto Networks), CoreOS (acquired by Red Hat), Prelert (acquired by Elastic), Joyent (acquired by Samsung), DynamicOps (acquired by VMware), JBoss (acquired by Red Hat), Managed Objects (acquired by Novell) among others. Prior to Intel Capital, Andy worked in the investment banking group at Robinson-Humphrey. Andy has an MBA from the Kellogg Graduate School of Management and a B.S. in Commerce and a minor in mathematics from the University of Virginia, where he was an Echols Scholar.
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About Intel Capital: Intel Capital invests in innovative startups targeting cloud and AI infrastructure, cybersecurity, and other disruptive technologies.
Dave Johnson
Managing Director of Intel Capital
Dave joined Intel Capital in 2003, following 10 years in Intel’s Finance and Treasury organization where he held financial management positions supporting Intel’s microprocessor and manufacturing groups and was a founding member of Intel’s Treasury M&A group where he completed over a dozen acquisitions. Joining Intel Capital’s investment team in 2003, Dave invested in WiMAX, LTE, Connectivity, RF, wireless services / spectrum companies before joining the Edge Intelligence, 5G and Autonomous Systems group in 2015 where he is a Managing Director. Dave’s current investment focus areas include industrial systems, computer vision, robotics and autonomy, 5G and network infrastructure. Dave serves as a board member for Foghorn and K4Connect, and board observer for Keyssa. He is on the investment team for Matroid, Landing.ai, Cloudleaf and Cellwize. Dave was named #2 on Global Corporate Venturing’s Emerging Leader list for 2020. Before joining Intel, Dave held management positions with Procter and Gamble and Chevron Corporation. Dave has an MBA from Cornell University and a BA from Vanderbilt University.
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About Intel Capital: Intel Capital invests in innovative startups targeting cloud and AI infrastructure, cybersecurity, and other disruptive technologies.
Tammi Smorynski
Managing Director of Intel Capital
Tammi is a Managing Director in Intel Capital and since 2005 has been focused on emerging technologies, see General Interest. Tammi is a board member of Embodied, Savioke, and Silkroad and holds various board observer seats including Cubeworks, CY Vision, and OnDot. From 2000-2005, Tammi was a Treasury Manager supporting Intel Capital and responsible for financial due diligence and structuring of over 70 investments across a variety of sectors including wireless, sensors/RFID and software. Prior to Intel Capital, Tammi was with J.P. Morgan & Co., focused on leveraged buyout transactions and mergers and acquisitions. Prior to that, she was an Audit Officer at J.P. Morgan & Co. covering a diverse set of investment banking operations from derivatives trading to global custody. She passed the CPA Exam in 1991. Tammi earned an MBA from the Anderson School at UCLA and a bachelor’s degree in Accounting/International Management from Georgetown University.
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About Intel Capital: Intel Capital invests in innovative startups targeting cloud and AI infrastructure, cybersecurity, and other disruptive technologies.
Shahi Ghanem
Managing Director of WI Harper Group
Shahi Ghanem is a technology industry veteran, serial entrepreneur, and venture capital investor and advisor. Prior to joining BitTorrent, Shahi served as the president and CEO of STL, a digital media company that helps Fortune 500 companies manage, distribute and measure digital assets. He has also held similar roles at EmpowHER, a Health Media Company dedicated to female health and wellness, and Brickfish, an Internet advertising and social media company that delivers social media campaigns and metrics to clients in the fashion, sports, electronics and consumer products industries. Most notably, Shahi previously served as president of DivX, Inc., one of the world’s leading developers of video compression, digital rights management and media language technologies. During his tenure he helped grow the company from a pre-revenue startup into a profitable, multi-national, public company. Shahi was educated at Cal State Long Beach and the University of California at Irvine, where he majored in both economics and pre-med.
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About WI Harper Group: WI Harper Group is a venture capital firm that focuses on early and expansion investments in Mainland China, Taiwan and Silicon Valley.
Jimmy Lu
Managing Director of WI Harper Group
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About WI Harper Group: WI Harper Group is a venture capital firm that focuses on early and expansion investments in Mainland China, Taiwan and Silicon Valley.
Charles Wu
Managing Director of WI Harper Group
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About WI Harper Group: WI Harper Group is a venture capital firm that focuses on early and expansion investments in Mainland China, Taiwan and Silicon Valley.
Bruce Hallett
Managing Director of Miramar Ventures
Bruce Hallett is a co-founder of Miramar Venture Partners and brings his enthusiasm for innovation, product strategy and team building to Miramar’s portfolio of tech start-up companies. With over two decades of collaborations with technology entrepreneurs, Bruce leads Miramar investments in mobile Internet solutions and software. Currently, he serves on the board of directors of Brand Affinity Technologies and WellTok. He also served on the boards of Aktino (acquired by Positron), Berkana Wireless (acquired by Qualcomm), OptionEase (acquired by Solium) and RealPractice (acquired by ReachLocal). Prior to founding Miramar, Bruce was Managing Partner of the Brobeck, Phleger & Harrison Orange County office, where he orchestrated initial public offerings, venture financings and liquidity events for many high profile technology companies in Southern California, including Broadcom, Buy.com, Exult and Applied Semantics (acquired by Google in 2003). Bruce was one of seven partners on Brobeck’s firm-wide executive committee until he started Miramar in 2001. Bruce received his BA magna cum laude from UC Irvine and his JD from UCLA. From 2007-2010, he was Chair of the Chief Executive Roundtable at UC Irvine, a group of business leaders committed to building mutually beneficial, strategic partnerships between the university and the community. Bruce also serves on the Board of Directors of OCTANe and the School of Biological Sciences Dean’s Leadership Council at UCI. From 2010-2012, Bruce served as UC Alumni Regent on the Board of Regents of the University of California.
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About Miramar Ventures: Miramar Ventures, launched in 2002, is focused on seed and early stage venture capital investing in the mobile sector.
Bob Holmen
Managing Director of Miramar Ventures
Bob is a co-founder of Miramar Venture Partners. Bob has spent his career building technology companies in diverse roles, from hardware and software engineering, to senior management, to venture investor. Bob leads Miramar investments in advanced technology projects focused on his Southern California roots. Currently, Bob serves on the Boards of the following Miramar portfolio companies: Brickfish, FastSoft, Matrix Sensors, Predixion and SolarFlare Communications (observer). He also served on the board of SiliconSystems until it was acquired by Western Digital in March 2009. Bob received his B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University in 1985, serving as an officer of the national engineering honor society at Stanford. He received his J.D. from UC Berkeley in 1989. Bob serves on the Board of Directors of the San Diego Venture Group.
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About Miramar Ventures: Miramar Ventures, launched in 2002, is focused on seed and early stage venture capital investing in the mobile sector.
Heiner Sussner
Managing Director of Miramar Ventures
Heiner Sussner is managing director at Miramar Venture Partners, where he focuses on storage and cloud-related investments. In addition to AccelOps, he is a director of Fastsoft, IMT, Jeda Networks and Matrix Sensors, and previously served on the board of Azuro (acquired by Cadence), Protego Networks (acquired by Cisco) and SiliconSystems (acquired by Western Digital). Before joining Miramar, he was a senior managing director of H&Q Asia Pacific, where he was responsible for technology investments in Asia and Silicon Valley and served on the boards of several technology start-ups, including Headway Technology (acquired by TDK in 2000). Heiner started his professional career at the Max Planck Institute for Solid State Physics in Stuttgart and joined IBM Research in San Jose, Calif., in 1980, working on advanced recording technology. In 1986, he became director of storage systems and technology for IBM Research and in 1992 joined IBM Europe in Paris, where he became co-founder and director of IBM Europe’s corporate venture group. Heiner is a graduate of the Technical University of Munich and received his Ph.D. in physics in 1976 for his work at the Centre Nationale de Recherche Scientifique in Grenoble, France, and the University of Konstanz, Germany. He is author of numerous scientific publications, holds several patents and was awarded the 1994 IEEE Medal for Engineering Excellence.
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About Miramar Ventures: Miramar Ventures, launched in 2002, is focused on seed and early stage venture capital investing in the mobile sector.
Adam Nelson
Managing Director of FirstMark
Adam is a Partner at Social Capital where he focuses on early stage venture investing in enterprise SaaS and marketplaces. He brings experience in building and executing go-to-market strategies in both SMB and Enterprise, most recently at Dropbox. Prior to that, Adam was a Private Equity investor at Lindsay Goldberg, an investment firm in New York.
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About FirstMark: FirstMark Capital is an early-stage venture capital firm that partners with exceptional entrepreneurs.
Santiago Corredoira-Jack
US Managing Director of Speedinvest
Santiago is a seasoned European entrepreneur in Silicon Valley, where he co-founded 10darts, a communications platform as-a-sevice (CPaaS), and Onpublico, a citizen journalism community leader in local news in the US hispanic market. His experience in startups and network in the Valley made the Spanish Government choose him to set up their startups incubator in San Francisco. Prior to that, Santiago joined the most successful Spanish startup created in the 2000’s, Lanetro – Zed, taking it from scratch to a pre-IPO status within 9 years. Santiago was one of the four C-class team members that took it from a non-revenue status to generating $500m in yearly revenue, managing 150m users worldwide and having operations in 14 countries. In this company, he set up and launched several new business divisions, including the Global Business Development and the Strategic Partnerships and Alliances, managed the operations in the UK, the largest market, and headed the legal department. Santiago graduated from law school in Madrid and holds 2 masters degrees from the University of London (LLM) and the IESE Business School (Global Executive MBA). He has enjoyed pitching top-notch Sand Hill Road VCs (including Sequoia, Greylock and Andreessen Horowitz) and has also suffered the vertigo of not having enough cash for the payroll 2 weeks before it is due. A strategic thinker and thoroughly data-driven, Santiago is resilient, very curious, an outstanding communicator, skilled negotiator and trusted advisor. He has been collaborating with Students Rising Above for the last 5 years, where he mentors high school seniors with challenging social conditions and outstanding personal and academic potential. Coming from a large family with 7 siblings, the usual startup chaos makes him feel truly at home and comprehensively challenged.
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About Onpublico, Speedinvest: Speedinvest is a venture capital fund investing in pre-seed, seed, and early-stage tech startups.
Rob Ward
Co-Founder & Managing Director of Meritech Capital Partners
Rob co-founded Meritech in 1999. His current areas of investment interest include Big Data, cloud computing, Saas, security and online consumer services. Rob led Meritech’s successful investments in Acclarent (JNJ), BigFix (IBM), Cornerstone OnDemand (CSOD), Counterpane (BT), Fortinet (FTNT), Greenplum (EMC), Imperva (IMPV), Netezza (IBM), NetSuite (N), PopCap Games (ERTS), Quigo (AOL), Reliant (SLTM) and Zipcar (ZIP). Prior to Meritech, Rob was a principal in the Private Equity Group at Montgomery Securities, and worked in the New York and San Francisco Corporate Finance Departments at Smith Barney.
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About Eastside College Preparatory School, Meritech Capital Partners: Meritech Capital provides late-stage venture capital to technology companies.
Elizabeth Weil
Founder & Managing Director of Scribble Ventures
After a long career across all stages of venture capital, Elizabeth founded Scribble Ventures so she could work more directly with early-stage founders and build a company in a way that makes her proud. She understands that energy and optimism can be the most important capital of all, and brings a boundless, infectious enthusiasm to every founder and company. She’s a super-connector and a matchmaker, and specializes in helping companies with hiring and round construction. She’s a collaborative partner to brainstorm with, a worthy call when things are tough, and an automatic pick-me-up even when you didn’t know you needed one. Prior to founding Scribble Ventures, Elizabeth spent four years as a Managing Director at 137 Ventures, focused on late-stage secondary opportunities. She was a Partner at Andreessen Horowitz as the firm was scaling, and an executive at Twitter as it grew from 50 to 2,500 people. She has also worked as an investor at IVP, Menlo Ventures, and Radar Partners. Through this time she’s made over 100 technology investments across all stages, including Slack, SpaceX, Coinbase, Thrive Cash, Tala, Gusto, Fast, Figma, Digits, Envoy, Grab Taxi, Rival, NimbleRX, Daily.co, MOJO, Actuate, Hipcamp, Run The World, and Calm. Elizabeth graduated from Stanford University with a BA in Economics and a Masters in Engineering. Few people know she holds the national championship for her Rube Goldberg device. In her free time, she is a competitive ultramarathon runner, triathlete, mom of three, as well as a letterpress printer. There are no cars in her garage; just a 5,000 lb 1923 Chandler & Price letterpress!
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About Scribble Ventures: Scribble Ventures is an early-stage investment fund that focuses on Pre-Seed through Series A.
Nan Li
Managing Director of Obvious Ventures
Investor, Board Observer, Advisor at Zymergen, Dexterity, Recursion & Octave. Managing Director at Obvious Ventures.
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About Obvious Ventures, Octave, Stanford University: Obvious Ventures is a venture capital firm that invests in the early and growth stages.
Vishal Vasishth
Co-Founder and Managing Director of Obvious Ventures
Vishal is the Managing Director of Obvious Ventures. Board Observer at Tomorrow Health, Galileo & Corvus Insurance.
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About Devoted Health, Good Eggs, Myro, Obvious Ventures, The Aspen Institute: Obvious Ventures is a venture capital firm that invests in the early and growth stages.
James Joaquin
Co-Founder and Managing Director of Obvious Ventures
James has over twenty-five years of experience building and leading technology companies from early stage company ideation to global market leadership. He helped create entirely new categories such as online photography, web-based calendaring and the Personal Digital Assistant. James is the former CEO of Ofoto, Xoom, and Xmarks. James is the co-founder of Obvious Ventures, investing in #worldpositive startups that combine profit and purpose.
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About Breezeworks, Obvious Ventures: Obvious Ventures is a venture capital firm that invests in the early and growth stages.
Andrew Beebe
Managing Director of Obvious Ventures
Managing Director at Obvious Ventures. Board Observer at AMPLY Power, Inc, RenoRun & Lyric.
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About Elemental Excelerator, Obvious Ventures: Obvious Ventures is a venture capital firm that invests in the early and growth stages.
Brian Nicholson
Managing Director of Sonoma Brands
Brian joined Sonoma Brands in 2018 as a Principal, bringing eight years of experience as a growth investor in leading eCommerce, Digital Media and Direct-to-Consumer businesses. At Sonoma Brands, Brian is focused on sourcing, executing and leading growth-stage investments in emerging consumer brands. Prior to joining Sonoma Brian spent over 5 years at Stripes Group, a leading growth equity firm in New York City, where he directly sourced and led growth investments in companies including Refinery29, Reformation, The Black Tux and Pond5. With these investments, Brian served as a Board Director or Observer and supported management in areas such as teambuilding, business development and strategic planning. Additionally, Brian has helped lead growth investments in disruptive consumer brands like Daily Harvest and ClassPass. Previously, Brian founded a direct-to-consumer apparel brand and spent several years in the Technology Investment Banking Group at JMP Securities in San Francisco. Brian received a B.A. (Honors) from Brown University.
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About Sonoma Brands: Sonoma Brands Capital is a private equity firm focused on the growth sectors of the consumer economy.
Benjamin Black
Co-Founder and Managing Director of Akkadian Ventures
Benjamin Black is the Co-founder & Chief Investment Officer of Akkadian Ventures, LLC. An eleven-year veteran of the private equity space, Ben co-founded Akkadian with Peter Smith, to specialize in offering early liquidity to entrepreneurs, early employees, and investors in successful private companies. In 2011, Ben co-founded, with Chris Tarr, the Momentum Index (www.momentumindex.com) which tracks the top performing private venture-backed companies. With the understanding that it often takes more than ten years for entrepreneurs to achieve liquidity, Akkadian Ventures created unique deal structures for entrepreneurs and employees to generate liquidity and diversify their risk by selling or leveraging private stock. Focusing exclusively on purchasing small stakes in successful growing companies, Akkadian helps innovators manage risk and reap financial reward during that hard climb to the top. Among many, Ben has managed notable investments in RocketFuel, Splunk, DocuSign, Lithium Technologies, Cloudmark, Ooyala, Citizenhawk, The Villa, Automattic and Telephia. Ben co-founded New Cycle Capital with Josh Becker to bring socially responsible investing to sectors like clean energy and social finance with angel investments in Renewable Funding and Opower. He spent nearly four years at Seattle venture capital firm Maveron, focusing on consumer businesses such as Allconnect (Inc. 500 winner). Prior to Maveron, he spent 3 years at private equity firm Rosewood Capital where he focused on branded consumer products and services, including Under Armour. As an entrepreneur, Ben was part of the founding team at Harris Interactive, which was a pioneer in Internet-based market research. During Ben’s tenure, the company completed a successful IPO and generated $200M in revenue. Ben received his undergraduate degree at Cornell University and his JD at the Cornell School of Law. He is the author of a book on American Politics titled ‘The Politics of American Discontent’ which can be bought on Amazon for $0.12.
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About Akkadian Ventures: Akkadian Ventures is a direct secondary investment firm that offers liquidity to early employees and investors of venture-backed businesses.
Mike Gridley
Managing Director of Akkadian Ventures
Mike is a Managing Director and Partner of Akkadian Ventures. Previously, he was a member of the founding team of Industry Ventures, where he served as a Managing Director since 2004. Mike led Industry’s investments in Facebook (FB), Twitter, Pandora (P), LifeLock (LOCK), Jajah (Acquired by Telefonica), Cloudmark, Lowercase Capital (Twitter, Uber, Instagram), Walden Venture Capital (Pandora, Glam, SoundHound) and Madrona (Isilon), among others. He also helped grow Industry Ventures from less then $10 million AUM to over $1 billion AUM. Prior to Industry, Mike worked at BV Capital (formerly Bertelsmann Ventures) in San Francisco, a $275 million international venture capital fund. At BV, he sourced, structured, and managed direct venture investments. Earlier in his career, Mike worked in Business Development at Personify, a CRM analytics software company. Mike holds a BA from University of California, Berkeley, where he was a Regents and Alumni Scholar, and an MS from the London School of Economics.
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About Akkadian Ventures: Akkadian Ventures is a direct secondary investment firm that offers liquidity to early employees and investors of venture-backed businesses.
Mike Dinsdale
Managing Director of Akkadian Ventures
Mike Dinsdale joined DocuSign as chief financial officer in May 2010. Mike’s broad experience is highlighted by a proven track record of driving organizations to hyper growth. Most recently, he served as CFO of Lithium, a Software-as-a-Service platform and application suite provider. At Lithium, Mike raised millions in equity financing over three rounds and was also responsible for two strategic acquisitions. During his tenure Lithium’s valuation increased, positioning the company as the clear leader in social CRM. Prior to Lithium, Mike was employee #10 of Velocity11, a life sciences technology company, where he was instrumental in setting business strategy and aggressively driving revenue growth to $50M. Mike further fueled the growth of Velocity11 by dramatically increasing revenue, securing funding and playing a key role during the firm’s acquisition by Agilent Technologies in 2007. Mike holds a B.E.Sc in mechanical engineering from the University of Western Ontario, an MBA from McMaster University and the designation of Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA).
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About Akkadian Ventures, Plum Partners, TMD Ventures: Akkadian Ventures is a direct secondary investment firm that offers liquidity to early employees and investors of venture-backed businesses.
Ben Spero
Managing Director of Spectrum Equity
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About Spectrum Equity: Spectrum Equity, a private equity firm, provides capital and strategic support to internet, software, and information services companies.
John Connolly
Managing Director of Spectrum Equity
John joined Spectrum in October 2009. Prior to joining Spectrum, he was an Investment Banking Associate with Credit Suisse in their Media and Telecommunications Group. While at Credit Suisse, John focused on a variety of transactions, including mergers and acquisitions and debt and equity financings.
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About Spectrum Equity: Spectrum Equity, a private equity firm, provides capital and strategic support to internet, software, and information services companies.
Stephen M. LeSieur
Managing Director of Spectrum Equity
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About GoodRx, Payer Compass, Spectrum Equity, Spectrum Equity, Teachers Pay Teachers: Spectrum Equity, a private equity firm, provides capital and strategic support to internet, software, and information services companies.
Victor Parker
Managing Director of Spectrum Equity
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About Agilis Systems, DispatchTrack, Prezi, Spectrum Equity, StoryCorps, Teachers Pay Teachers, Visual Lease, World Wildlife Fund: Spectrum Equity, a private equity firm, provides capital and strategic support to internet, software, and information services companies.
Jed Katz
Managing Director of Javelin Venture Partners
Jed Katz is the Managing Director at Javelin Venture Partners.
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About Javelin Venture Partners: Javelin Venture Partners invests in and partners closely with early-stage, software-enabled technology companies.
Noah Doyle
Managing Director of Javelin Venture Partners
Noah Doyle is the Managing Director at Javelin Venture Partners.
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About Javelin Venture Partners, LAM Aviation, PowerCloud Systems: Javelin Venture Partners invests in and partners closely with early-stage, software-enabled technology companies.
Alex Gurevich
Managing Director of Javelin Venture Partners
Alex is an early stage technology investor and Managing Director at Javelin Venture Partners. He led Javelin’s investments in Thumbtack, MasterClass, Clutter, Mythical Games, Stensul, Rinse, HitRecord, Estimote, Wheels, Telerivet, and Vendigo. Prior to joining Javelin, Alex was a Principal at DFJ Aurora, where he helped establish one of the first venture capital funds focused on high tech investments in Eastern Europe. Prior to DFJ, Alex was the first employee at ooma, a venture-backed company in the consumer electronics, VoIP (voice over IP) space, where he led the company’s initial product roll out, customer acquisition, and retail distribution strategy in product management and business development roles. Alex was also co-founder of Say-Hey-Hey.com, one of the web’s first free video dating sites, where he was in charge of all product development, fundraising, and business development efforts. Alex is also an angel investor in Citizen and a mentor at the Stanford Technology Ventures Program. Alex holds an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business, where he was co-President of the Venture Capital Club, a leader of a Global Study Trip, and a Board Fellow. He also holds a B.S. in Management Science and Engineering, a B.A. in International Relations, and an M.S. in Management Science and Engineering from Stanford University. During his time at Stanford, Alex was a Mayfield Fellow and led major technology centered research projects at General Motors and IBM for Stanford’s Center for Work, Technology, and Organization.
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About Clutter, FEM, Javelin Venture Partners, Telerivet, Weddington Way, WorkPatterns: Javelin Venture Partners invests in and partners closely with early-stage, software-enabled technology companies.
Jason Warner
Managing Director of Redpoint
Jason Warner is the MD at Redpoint. Jason cares deeply about the future of technology, developer experience, and growing companies. He is a people-oriented product technologist, who is passionate about building both the technical and human systems needed for scale and growth. Prior to joining GitHub, Jason was Vice President of Engineering at Heroku, the world’s leading PaaS and one of the largest cloud computing providers in the world. Before Heroku, Jason worked to make Linux accessible to everyone by leading product engineering for Ubuntu Desktop and Ubuntu Phone at Canonical. Jason is also an active speaker, writer, and advisor on cloud computing, technology and leadership. His activities include formally and informally advising startup and established executives, as well as active coaching and mentoring future product and technology leaders. Jason graduated from Pennsylvania State University with a BS in Computer Science, and Rensselaer University with an MS in Computer Science. He lives with his family in Victoria, British Columbia, where he writes, sketches and enjoys the water as much as possible.
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About Redpoint: Redpoint Ventures partners with visionary founders to create new markets or redefine existing ones at the seed, early, and growth stages.
Tomasz Tunguz
Managing Director of Redpoint
Tomasz Tunguz is a venture capitalist at [Redpoint Ventures](http://www.crunchbase.com/organization/redpoint-ventures). He is also a board member of Looker, ERPLY, Electric imp, inc., AxialMarket, Quantifind, Expensify, and more. Prior to joining Redpoint, Tomasz was the product manager for Google’s social media monetization team, including the Google-MySpace partnership. In addition, he managed the launches of AdSense into six new markets in Europe and Asia. Before Google, Tomasz developed systems for the Department of Homeland Security at Appian Corporation. Tomasz also co-founded Perquimans Systems, a provider of bilingual, tri-currency automated time billing and document management systems for top tier law firms in Chile. Tomasz holds a B.A. in mechanical engineering, a B.E. in system identification and control systems and Master of Engineering Management from Dartmouth College.
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About Redpoint: Redpoint Ventures partners with visionary founders to create new markets or redefine existing ones at the seed, early, and growth stages.
