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 Massachusetts based Partner operating in the Venture Capital space. If you think a Partner 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.
Parul Singh
Partner of Initialized Capital
Parul Singh is a product-driven founder and investor with a background in engineering, product strategy, and analytics. Parul spent the past five years on the investing team at Founder Collective, a tech-focused, early-stage seed fund where she covered Boston and NYC, evaluated over 3,000 companies, and spearheaded the firm’s investments in Embark Veterinary, Broadlume, Running Tide, HumanFirst, Flume Health, and HealthNote. Prior to investing, she spent close to a decade as an engineer and product manager at the NYTimes.com, Inc. and Fast Company, and she was the founder of a learning analytics company. At Initialized, Parul will focus her investing efforts on software companies, with a special interest in the areas of healthtech, SaaS, and analytics. Parul has an undergraduate degree from Harvard College and an MBA from MIT.
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About Initialized Capital: Initialized Capital is an early-stage VC firm focused on helping software engineers and designers with their first seed checks.
Chris Price
Partner of Oak HC/FT
Partner @ Oak HC/FT | Co-Founder @ WithMe Health | Investor & Entrepreneur I am a product focused investor and business builder that is passionate about making our healthcare system better. As such, I seek to invest in teams that are focused on driving meaningful improvements in quality, cost and patient experience. During my 15+ year investing and operating career, I’ve tried a lot of different things resulting in some great successes and humbling failures. My investing experience has spanned all stages and every level of the capital structure. As an operator, I have helped build businesses ranging from early-stage start-ups to private equity backed assets with multi-billions in revenue. All of this has resulted in exits representing over $4.5 billion in aggregate value. Within healthcare, I am currently interested in pharma services for complex therapies, risk bearing care management and delivery models within specific specialties, network optimization solutions, clinical and operational workflow optimization, opportunities to disrupt the pharmaceutical value chain and solutions that enable employers to obtain significantly better results for their healthcare dollars. I put people first, constantly challenge convention, enjoy learning, think design is important and always look forward to the future.
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About Oak HC/FT: Oak HC/FT is a venture and growth equity investment firm that focuses on healthcare information services and financial service technology.
Nancy G. Brown
General Partner of Oak HC/FT
Nancy G. Brown, Vice President of Strategy and Business Development for McKesson Technology Solutions, has more than 25 years of experience in clinical research and automating clinical information systems, combining management, consulting and information technology skills. At McKesson, she is responsible for helping the company develop, acquire and apply new capabilities that position it to lead the industry and accelerate its Better Health 2020™ strategy, helping healthcare networks reduce costs, coordinate care, assume more risk and manage complex payment models.
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About Boston Children’s Hospital, Oak HC/FT, Oak HC/FT: Oak HC/FT is a venture and growth equity investment firm that focuses on healthcare information services and financial service technology.
Nancy Brown
General Partner of Oak HC/FT
Nancy Brown (HC), a General Partner at Oak HC/FT, joined the firm in 2014 and focuses on growth equity and early-stage venture opportunities in Healthcare. Nancy currently serves on the Board of Axial Healthcare, Cricket Health, Maven, and Unite US. She is also a Board Observer at Limeade. Prior to joining Oak HC/FT, Nancy was Vice President of Strategy and Business Development for McKesson Technology Solutions. Previously, Nancy was Chief Growth Officer at MedVentive, which was acquired by McKesson in 2012. Before joining MedVentive, she served as Senior Vice President of Corporate Development as well as Senior Vice President of Clinical Service of athenahealth. Prior to joining athenahealth in 2004, she was a Senior Vice President at McKesson Corporation, focused on marketing and strategic planning. She joined McKesson in 1999 when it acquired a company she co-founded, Abaton.com, a provider of internet-based clinical solutions for the ambulatory market. Earlier, she spent eight years at Harvard Community Health Plan where she held several senior management roles. Nancy is also on the New England Capital Association Board of Directors and is a mentor for MassChallenge. Nancy received a Bachelor of Science at the University of New Hampshire and an MBA from Northeastern University.
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About Oak HC/FT: Oak HC/FT is a venture and growth equity investment firm that focuses on healthcare information services and financial service technology.
Pierre Socha
Partner of Amadeus Capital Partners
Pierre is an investment manager at ACP where he focuses on the medtech and healthcareIT sectors. He brings operational experience to our portfolios, having grown and turned around several life science businesses (in biopharma, molecular diagnostics, population genetics and medical foods) and cleantech companies (green fuels, feeds and fibres) in Asia, Europe and the Americas. Over a decade with Avesthagen Ltd, he guided the group’s global strategy and European activities, raised US $120 million and led two dozen transactions including acquisitions, joint-ventures and exits. Pierre started his career as an auditor with KPMG in France. He subsequently worked as a financial engineer at Natixis and as a research fellow in environmental econometrics where he focused on water management, health microeconometrics, oceanic resources management and spatial and urban econometrics. Pierre is French and holds an MSc in Environmental Economics (Hons) from Universite de Provence, France and a BSc in Finance & Econometrics (Math Spe.) from Universite Louis Pasteur, France. He also attended executive programs at Harvard, MIT and Stanford. Pierre speaks French, English and conversational German.
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About Amadeus Capital Partners, V7: Amadeus Capital Partners caters to the technology sector with seed, early, and later stage venture, and private equity investments.
Andrea Traversone
Managing Partner of Amadeus Capital Partners
Andrea is a partner at Amadeus Capital Partners Limited, focusing on the wireless telecommunications sector. Since joining Amadeus in 1998, Andrea has worked on several transactions, and he is currently on the board of Riskclick, which supplies business process management software to the insurance industry; AePONA, which is a provider of open standards service creation platforms for the telecommunications industry; Seven Networks, which allows mobile phone users real-time access to email applications and Nujira. Andrea started his career as a financial auditor at a chain of resort hotels in Costa Rica, rising to become head of operations, finance and development. He holds an MBA from Cambridge University and a BSc in Economics from the London School of Economics. Italian by birth, Andrea is fluent in French and Spanish, as well as English and Italian.
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About Amadeus Capital Partners: Amadeus Capital Partners caters to the technology sector with seed, early, and later stage venture, and private equity investments.
Onsi Sawiris
Co-Founder and Managing Partner of HOF Capital
Onsi Sawiris is a Co-Founder and Managing Partner at HOF Capital, where he focuses on cloud-based technologies, fintech and enterprise SaaS. Onsi currently sits on the boards of Drop Technologies (Canada), ItaliaOnline (BIT:IOL) (Italy), Riverbank (EU), OPTii Solutions (US), Mach Music (US), Energal (Egypt), and is a Board Observer at Orascom TMT Investments (Luxembourg, Egypt, UK). His focus is on supporting these companies with digital transformation strategies, and finding synergies with HOF’s portfolio. Prior to HOF Capital, Onsi worked in TMT-focused M&A at Arma Partners, a specialist technology investment bank. Onsi also co-founded Energal, a hyperlocal sustainable energy company tackling distribution inefficiencies in emerging markets. Onsi holds a BSc in Mechanical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He is fluent in English, German and Arabic with a working proficiency in French.
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About HOF Capital: HOF Capital is a global multistage VC firm with $1 billion in AUM that partners with ambitious entrepreneurs from idea to IPO.
Arsham Memarzadeh
Partner of Lightspeed Venture Partners
Born the son of an Iranian immigrant and entrepreneur, Arsham developed an early appreciation for the resilience and ingenuity required to win, even when all the cards are stacked against you. “Building a company requires countless instances of running through, breaking down, and climbing over walls,” said Arsham. “Entrepreneurs are a rare breed and in a league of their own. Working alongside them, enabling their success, is what makes my day-to-day rewarding.” Arsham joined Lightspeed’s growth practice in 2019 to invest in product-driven software companies. He has a passion for evolving distribution models and believes the best companies find GTM leverage out of the product itself. “Consumerization of the enterprise has just as much to do with evolving sales motions as it does with building better products,” said Arsham. “Historically, company-building has been bifurcated into product development and product distribution. The next generation of great software companies will combine those worlds.” Before moving West, Arsham spent five years in Boston at the expansion stage venture firm, OpenView, where he invested in companies like Deputy, Highspot, and GitPrime, among others. He’s backed companies across three continents, in unlikely geographies and led by unassuming entrepreneurs, so it’s no surprise that Lightspeed’s global platform was part of what drew him to the firm. “I love finding great companies that might not follow popular narratives or be the golden child of Silicon Valley,” said Arsham. “I wholeheartedly believe innovation extends beyond the confines of the Bay Area.” Prior to investing, Arsham was a growth consultant, advising SaaS companies and helping analyze market and customer data to define product and GTM strategies. Arsham studied Industrial and Labor Relations at Cornell University and is an active member of the school’s Entrepreneurship Advisory Council. When he’s not working, you can usually find him exploring all things outdoors or doing his best to not burn down the kitchen while cooking.
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About Lightspeed Venture Partners: Lightspeed Venture Partners is a venture capital firm that engages in consumer, enterprise, technology, and cleantech markets.
David García
CEO | Founding Managing Partner of Borderless Capital
Former Entrepreneur, Investor and current Founder & Managing Partner at Algo Capital.
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About Algorand, Borderless Capital, Crypto Assets Fund, Ripio: Borderless Capital is a Blockchain-focused venture capital group.
Rob May
Venture Partner of PJC
Rob May is a General Partner at PJC with expertise in the areas of AI, hardware, B2B, and SaaS. Prior to joining PJC, Rob was the co-founder and CEO at Talla, an AI and automation platform, transforming the way businesses deliver customer support. He was also the co-founder and CEO of Backupify, the world’s first cloud to cloud backup provider which was acquired for over $100m. As an angel investor, he made over 70 early-stage AI investments. Rob writes the world’s most popular newsletter on Artificial Intelligence – InsideAI.
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About BotChain, Half Court VC, PJC, Talla: PJC is an early-stage venture capital firm with a focus on enterprise, consumer, and artificial intelligence.
David Martirano
Co-Founder & Managing Partner of PJC
David Martirano is the Managing Partner of PJC. David has extensive experience investing broadly in B2B SaaS, Consumer and Tech Enabled Service companies. In 2001, David partnered with Governor Gina Raimondo, and together they founded Point Judith Capital in Rhode Island. Point Judith Capital subsequently relocated to Boston in 2011 and later rebranded to PJC. Prior to PJC, David Co-founded Rex Capital Ventures, which was a venture division of a family office that invested in early stage technology companies around the world. Before embarking on his 20-year venture capital experience, he worked on Wall street and was a member of the Investment Banking Group at Cowen & Company. David sits on the Board of Trustees at the University of Rhode Island and the Investment Committee of Lifespan and has been actively involved with Year Up Rhode Island.
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About PJC: PJC is an early-stage venture capital firm with a focus on enterprise, consumer, and artificial intelligence.
Matthew Hayes
General Partner of PJC
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About PJC: PJC is an early-stage venture capital firm with a focus on enterprise, consumer, and artificial intelligence.
Shawn Broderick
General Partner of SOSV
Shawn Broderick has more than twenty years of experience creating value in software companies as individual contributor, entrepreneur, intrapraneur, manager, investor, and leader. Shawn has extensive experience in business development, sales, and partnering, with repeated success in developing products from concept to customer. Shawn brings an exceptional track record of sourcing, hiring, and retaining stellar employees to SOSV. He prides himself on identifying both diamonds-in-the-rough as well as young talent – and grooming and extracting the best from both. Being adept at managing business teams, technical teams, and creative teams, it’s no surprise that Shawn has broad experience raising institutional and angel funds for businesses and in sourcing LPs for investment vehicles.
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About AYLIEN, dlab, Food-X, SOSV: SOSV is a global VC firm with $1B AUM and 1,000+ investments, that operates HAX, IndieBio, Chinaccelerator, MOX, and dlab.
Reuben Kobulnik
Operating Partner of Valar Ventures
Operating Partner at Valar Ventures.
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About Valar Ventures: Valar Ventures is a venture capital firm that invests in technology companies.
Steven J. Kafka
Managing Partner of Section 32
Steven J. Kafka (PhD) is the Chief Business Officer at Foundation Medicine Inc. Steven Kafka joined Foundation Medicine in January 2013, bringing over 15 years of business and strategy experience in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries, with a focus on targeted therapies in oncology. Steven Kafka was previously Chief Operating Officer and Chief Financial Officer at Aileron Therapeutics, where he led the company’s operations, finance, and human resources functions, and helped to secure a major collaboration with Roche worth up to $1.1 billion. Before this, Steven Kafka was vice president of finance at Infinity Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: INFI) where he led finance, investor and public relations and business operations. While at Infinity, he worked on a number of innovative collaborations with leading pharmaceutical companies, including the company’s strategic alliance with Purdue Pharmaceuticals. Earlier in his career, Steven Kafka was Senior Director of Finance at Millennium Pharmaceuticals, where he was a key member of the product team in driving strategic planning and alliance management efforts with partner Johnson & Johnson for VELCADE®, a novel targeted cancer therapeutic. Steven Kafka earned his Ph.D. from Harvard University. His B.A. with Distinction and Honors from Stanford University.
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About Section 32: Section 32 is a venture capital fund that invests at the cutting edge of technology, healthcare, and life sciences.
Jason Pontin
Partner of DCVC
Jason Pontin FRSA is the editor in chief and publisher of M.I.T.’s Technology Review. He was hired as the editor of Technology Review in July 2004, and in August 2005 was named publisher. From 1996 to 2002, Pontin was the editor of Red Herring, a business and technology publication that was popular during the dot-com boom. From 2002 to 2004, he was the editor of The Acumen Journal, a now-defunct magazine about the life sciences that he founded. Pontin has written for a number of national and international magazines and newspapers, including The New York Times, The Economist, The Financial Times, The Believer Magazine, and Wired. He is also a frequent guest on broadcast, public, and cable television news. Finally, he is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (FRSA).
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About DCVC, MIT’s Technology Review Magazine: DCVC backs entrepreneurs using Deep Tech to solve problems and multiply the benefits of capitalism for everyone while reducing its cost.
Krishna Yeshwant
Managing Partner of GV
Dr. Krishna Yeshwant is a physician, programmer, and entrepreneur who has been working with GV since its inception. He first joined Google as part of the New Business Development team. Prior to Google he helped start an electronic data interchange company that was acquired by Hewlett-Packard and a network security company that was acquired by Symantec. He also co-authored the business plan for Diagnostics For All, which won both the Harvard Business School and MIT $100k business plan competitions. Previously, Krishna published several book chapters and journal articles in the field of computer-guided surgery, completed research in tissue engineering, and developed and licensed multiple surgical devices. He has worked with the technology transfer offices of MIT, Harvard, and Massachusetts General Hospital. Krishna has a B.S. in computer science from Stanford University. He also earned an M.D. from Harvard Medical School, an MBA from Harvard Business School, and completed his residency at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, MA where he continues to practice.
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About GV, Partners HealthCare, Wingu: GV provides venture capital funding to bold new companies.
Ben Robbins
Venture Partner of GV
Ben is a dual degree student at Harvard Medical School and Harvard Business School. He co-founded a company to monitor drug adherence at a community health center in Boston and a non-profit to operate a school for AIDS orphans in Tanzania. Ben received his Bachelor of Arts with honors from Dartmouth College and has been recognized multiple times for his social impact work including the Harvard Medical School Dean’s community service award, Harvard Medical School Agents of Change seed grant, Harvard Medical School Master Scholar scholarship, and Harvard Business School Social Enterprise fellowship.
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About CareBridge, Cerevance, GV, Headway: GV provides venture capital funding to bold new companies.
David Schenkein
General Partner of GV
Dr. Schenkein joined Agios in August 2009 as the Chief Executive Officer and a member of our Board of Directors and has been a hematologist and medical oncologist for more than 20 years. He currently serves as an adjunct attending physician in hematology at Tufts Medical Center and is a member of the board of directors for the Biotechnology Industry Organization, the world’s largest biotechnology trade association, a position he has held since 2012. Prior to joining Agios, from March 2006 to July 2009, Dr. Schenkein was the senior vice president, clinical hematology/oncology, at Genentech, Inc., a pharmaceutical company, where he was responsible for numerous successful oncology drug approvals and leading the medical and scientific strategies for their BioOncology portfolio. While at Genentech, he served as an adjunct clinical professor of medical oncology at Stanford University School of Medicine. Prior to joining Genentech, he served as the senior vice president of clinical research at Millennium Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (a wholly-owned subsidiary of Takeda Pharmaceuticals Company Limited), overseeing the clinical development and worldwide approval of Velcade®, a first-in-class cancer therapy now approved to treat multiple myeloma and non-Hodgkins lymphoma. He currently serves on the board of directors of Foundation Medicine, Inc., bluebird bio, Inc., and Blueprint Medicines Inc. Dr. Schenkein holds a B.A. in chemistry from Wesleyan University and an M.D. from the State University of New York Upstate Medical School.
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About GV, Tufts Medical Center: GV provides venture capital funding to bold new companies.
Brendan Bulik-Sullivan
Partner of GV
Brendan Bulik-Sullivan is a partner at GV where he focuses on life sciences investments. Prior to GV, Brendan’s career focused on applied statistics and machine learning research in genetics and biotechnology. He designed machine learning models for personalized immuno-oncology therapeutics at Gritstone Oncology and developed methods for statistical genetics research at the Broad Institute. Brendan’s work has been published in high-profile journals including Nature, Science, Nature Biotechnology and Nature Genetics.
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About GV: GV provides venture capital funding to bold new companies.
Christina Kelleher
Administrative Business Partner of GV
Christina joined GV in September 2011. Prior to joining the team, she was office manager and executive assistant to the founder/chief creative officer at TOTH+Co, a boutique advertising agency in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Previously, she worked as an event planner at a catering company in Charlestown, Massachusetts, organizing both corporate and social events. She also has experience in the field of public relations, most notably working at Context Marketing in Sausalito, California for the California Milk Advisory Board “Real California Cheese” and “Happy Cows” campaigns. Christina graduated from Syracuse University with a Bachelor of Science in advertising and a Bachelor of Arts in psychology.
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About GV: GV provides venture capital funding to bold new companies.
Jeremiah Daly
Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Elephant
Jeremiah is Co-Founder and Partner at Elephant, a venture capital firm focused on the enterprise software, consumer internet and mobile markets. Previously, he was a Principal at Highland Capital Partners, where he focused on investments in growth stage internet, software, payments and mobile businesses. Prior to joining Highland, Jeremiah was a Principal at Accel Partners in London. While at Accel Jeremiah led the investment in Ostrovok.ru (Russian-focused online travel agency) and was involved with investments in Atlassian (software for streamlining product development), Showroomprive (online private sales club), SimpliVity (IT infrastructure technology for the virtualized data center and cloud) and Supercell (mobile and social games). Earlier, Jeremiah was an investor at Summit Partners and Gold Hill Capital and a banker at Silicon Valley Bank. Jeremiah lives in Boston and has a strong interest in amateur sports. He was the captain of the Dartmouth golf team where he was a two-time Academic All-Ivy performer and also enjoys skiing, squash, tennis, soccer and supporting Boston sports teams.
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About Elephant, KnowBe4, Malwarebytes: Elephant is a venture capital firm focused on the enterprise software, consumer internet, and mobile markets.
Christopher De Souza
Partner of Elephant
Chris is currently an Investor at Elephant, where he is responsible for sourcing and executing new investments in software and technology. He joined Elephant in 2016 after more than two years as an Associate at Bain Capital. Prior to joining Bain, he was an Analyst at Volition Capital. Chris earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics from Dartmouth College.
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About Elephant: Elephant is a venture capital firm focused on the enterprise software, consumer internet, and mobile markets.
Gus Coldebella
Partner of True Ventures
Gus Coldebella is the Partner at True Ventures.
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About True Ventures: True Ventures is a venture capital firm that invests in early-stage technology startups.
Gus Coldebella
Partner of True Ventures
Gus Coldebella is the Partner at True Ventures.
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About True Ventures: True Ventures is a venture capital firm that invests in early-stage technology startups.
Yumin Choi
Partner of Bain Capital Ventures
Yumin Choi is a Vice President of HLM Venture Partners. Yumin is currently a Director of Vets First Choice and is a board observer at Institute for Health Metrics (IHM), Nordic Consulting, and TYRX. He is a director to The Capital Network, a non-profit focused on educating entrepreneurs around topics of fundraising and finance, He previously was chair of the New England Venture Network (NEVN), the largest young Venture Capital organization in New England. Yumin is co-chair of the Boston Symphony Orchestra Venture Capital and Private Equity committee and is on Boston University’s Coulter Foundation Oversight Committee. Prior to HLM, Yumin was with Angel Healthcare Investors, a health care focused early stage investment group, ZweigWhite’s Financial Advisory Services and Mergers & Acquisitions Group and was co-founder and CEO of CY Digital. He is also a mentor in health care focused startup accelerators, Blueprint Health and Healthbox, and is an active angel investor. Yumin received a BS from Babson College.
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About Angel Healthcare Investors, Bain Capital Ventures: Bain Capital Ventures invests in seed to growth-stage startups that uses tech to disrupt existing markets or create entirely new ones.
Michael Krupka
Partner of Bain Capital Ventures
Michael Krupka is a Managing Director at Bain Capital Ventures. Prior to Bain Capital Ventures, Michael Krupka was a Managing Director with the Private Equity Group of Bain Capital, during which time he focused his investing activities on technology and technology-driven companies, including software, hardware, database, and telecommunication services. Earlier at Bain Capital, Michael Krupka was a Principal of Information Partners, a fund focused on early-stage information technology investing. He has also served in several operating roles as President of a $110 M revenue software company and CFO of a $70 M revenue services company. Prior to joining Bain Capital in 1991, Michael Krupka was a consultant with Bain & Company. In addition to his firm and portfolio responsibilities, Michael Krupka also serves on the Boards of the Boys and Girls Club of Boston and MetroLacrosse. Michael Krupka has a BA in Chemistry from Dartmouth College.
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About Bain Capital Ventures: Bain Capital Ventures invests in seed to growth-stage startups that uses tech to disrupt existing markets or create entirely new ones.
Scott Friend
Partner of Bain Capital Ventures
Scott joined Bain Capital Ventures in 2006 after selling the company he co-founded, ProfitLogic, to Oracle. ProfitLogic was the leader in the world of retail analytics and price optimization solutions. Through the experience of building ProfitLogic from its initial three founders to a 300 person global software and solutions business serving the retail industry, Scott had the opportunity to get to know many of the most influential executives in the retail and apparel brand world. Not surprisingly, Scott’s areas of investment interest since joining BCV have revolved around the retail ecosystem, both online and offline as well as the convergence of the two, and he finds himself splitting time between New York City and Boston. Prior to Bain Capital Ventures, Scott was Chairman of the Executive Advisory Board and VP of Marketing & Science for Oracle Retail.Prior to its acquisition by Oracle in 2005, Scott was the President and co-founder of ProfitLogic which was a Bain Capital portfolio company.In 2005, Scott was named a winner of the Ernst & Young “Entrepreneur of the Year Award” in New England. Scott was also honored in 2004 as one of Chain Store Age’s “40 Under 40” most influential executives in the retail industry, and in 2006 received the Extended Retail Industry “Lifetime Achievement Award.” Prior to ProfitLogic, Scott held positions at Learning Sciences Corporation, an early pioneer in the e-learning space, The Parthenon Group, a management consulting firm, and IBM, where Scott’s customers were major retailers. Scott received an MBA, with distinction, from Harvard Business School and a BA, magna cum laude, in Electrical Engineering and Economics from Brown University. At Brown, Scott was captain of the Men’s Varsity Tennis Team and he continues, despite the futility of his efforts, to be a big supporter of Brown Athletics. Scott is a Cubs fan, so you know he roots for the underdog and never gives up hope! He also may be the only Venture Capitalist you’ll meet who knows who Herve Leger is, has visited Zac Posen’s design studio, has been to the runway shows during NY Fashion Week and has met Heidi Klum and Tim Gunn on Project Runway.
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About Bain Capital Ventures: Bain Capital Ventures invests in seed to growth-stage startups that uses tech to disrupt existing markets or create entirely new ones.
Paul Zurlo
Partner & COO of Bain Capital Ventures
Paul joined Bain Capital Ventures in 2007. Prior to Bain Capital Ventures, Paul was COO of Mercer Outsourcing, a $750M division of Mercer focused on benefit plan administration. Prior to that, he was the president of GoldK (acquired) and CFO of MCK Communications, a Summit Partners portfolio company that he helped take public. At Summit Partners, he made numerous other investments, including: SeaChange Int’l (NASDAQ: SEAC); DSET (NASDAQ: DSET), and Omtool (NASDAQ: OMTL). Paul started his career as a consultant with Bain & Company.
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About Bain Capital Ventures: Bain Capital Ventures invests in seed to growth-stage startups that uses tech to disrupt existing markets or create entirely new ones.
Axel Bichara
Partner and Founder of Bolt
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About Bolt: Bolt is a pre-seed venture firm investing where the digital and physical world intersect.
Matt Thoms
Partner of Bolt
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About Bolt: Bolt is a pre-seed venture firm investing where the digital and physical world intersect.
Nick Grossman
Partner of Union Square Ventures
Nick Grossman is a technologist and entrepreneur interested in the intersection of the web and urban, social and civic systems. For the past 10 years, he has developed software and media products, advocacy efforts, and internet-based businesses that help cities and the internet work better together. Grossman is currently the General Manager of Policy and Outreach at Union Square Ventures, where he works on public policy and regulatory issues facing peer networks on the web, and leads advocacy initiatives that support web-based innovation. He is also an advisor at Code for America and a visiting scholar at the Center for Civic Media at the MIT Media Lab. Previously, Grossman led an incubator for technology and media initiatives at OpenPlans by producing advocacy media properties focused on urban policy, building web applications to spark engagement in local civic issues, and building open source and open data businesses that serve the public sector. Nick Grossman has a BA in Urban Studies from Stanford University.
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About Connected I/O, Union Square Ventures: Union Square Ventures is a venture capital firm focused on early-stage, growth-capital, late stage, and startup financing.
Benjamin Malka
Partner of Cota Capital
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About Cota Capital, Vestwell: Cota Capital is an SEC-registered multi-stage investment firm focused on private and public enterprise technology companies.
Jeff Immelt
Venture Partner of New Enterprise Associates
Immelt has held several global leadership positions since coming to GE in 1982, including roles in GE’s Plastics, Appliances, and Healthcare businesses. In 1989 he became an officer of GE and joined the GE Capital Board in 1997. Immelt has been named one of the World’s Best CEOs three times by Barron’s, and since he began serving as chief executive officer, GE has been named America’s Most Admired Company in a poll conducted by Fortunemagazine and one of The World’s Most Respected Companies in polls by Barron’s and the Financial Times. Immelt was the chair of President Obama’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness. He is a member of The American Academy of Arts & Sciences. Immelt earned a B.A. degree in applied mathematics from Dartmouth College in 1978 and an M.B.A. from Harvard University in 1982. He and his wife have one daughter.
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About GE Appliances, GE Healthcare, GE Plastics, New Enterprise Associates, Stanford Graduate School of Business: New Enterprise Associates is a global venture capital firm investing in technology and healthcare.
Matthew McAviney
Partner of New Enterprise Associates
Matt is a Senior Associate at F-Prime Capital and focuses primarily on the biopharmaceutical and medical technology sectors. Prior to joining F-Prime in 2013, Matt was a healthcare consultant at Oliver Wyman, a biotech equity analyst at Robert W. Baird, and a healthcare investment banker at J.P. Morgan. He began his career researching lipid metabolism at the NIH. Matt holds a M.D. from the University of Illinois and a M.B.A. from the University of Chicago. He received his B.A. in biology with honors from the University of Chicago.
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About New Enterprise Associates: New Enterprise Associates is a global venture capital firm investing in technology and healthcare.
Mike Tyrrell
General Partner of Venrock
General Partner at Venrock Associates.
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About Venrock: Venrock is a venture capital firm investing in technology and healthcare companies.
Felda Hardymon
Partner of Bessemer Venture Partners
Felda Hardymon, a partner in Bessemer’s Cambridge, Mass. office, joined the firm in 1981. He focuses on investments in the software, communications and storage sectors. He serves on the boards of Vertica (acquired by HP), Streambase, Goal.com (acquired by Perform), Endeca and SVB Financial Group (aka Silicon Valley Bank). Past investments include superconducting materials company American Superconductor (NASDAQ: AMSC); telecommunications providers Cascade Communications (acquired by Ascend) and Sirocco (acquired by Cascade); Celcore, a maker of switches for wireless-telephone networks (acquired by DSC); African telecommunications provider Celtel (acquired by MTC, now called Zain); Parametric Technology, a provider of product cycle-management software; sporting-goods chain Sports Authority; office-supply company Staples; and Axis Networks (acquired by ACE) a 4G, wireless-remote radio head supplier. Since 1998, Felda also has taught and done research at Harvard Business School where he holds the appointment of MBA Class of 1975 Professor of Management Practice. He is currently on leave from Harvard and is a visiting professor of finance at The London School of Economics. Prior to joining Bessemer, Felda worked at BDSI, the original venture subsidiary of General Electric, where he was an investor in Ungermann-Bass, Stratus Computer and Western Digital. Prior to that, he taught mathematics and served as director of systems and research at Duke University. Felda has a B.S. from Rose Polytechnic, an M.A. and Ph.D from Duke and an MBA from Harvard.
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About Bessemer Venture Partners: Bessemer Venture Partners is a venture capital firm that funds consumer, enterprise, and healthcare startups.
Andrew Hedin
Partner of Bessemer Venture Partners
Andrew Hedin is a Board of Director at Kymera Therapeutics. He’s also the Vice President in Bessemer’s Cambridge office, where he focuses on investments in healthcare. Prior to joining Bessemer in 2015, Andrew worked at F-Prime Capital, Fidelity’s healthcare-focused venture capital fund. While there, he invested broadly across healthcare in early stage healthcare tech, healthcare services, biotech and medtech startups. Andrew has also worked with Health Essentials, a healthcare services company focused on providing post-acute and coordinated care to the frail elderly. Andrew began his career at Leerink Partners, a boutique healthcare-focused firm where he focused on growth strategies for pharmaceutical, biotech and medical device companies. Andrew holds an MBA with honors from The Wharton School, where he majored in Health Care Management and Finance, as well as a B.A. in Biological Basis of Behavior from the University of Pennsylvania, where he conducted research in both the neuroscience and psychology departments. Andrew also serves on the steering committee of the New England Venture Network, the largest group of young venture capitalists in the New England area.
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About Bessemer Venture Partners: Bessemer Venture Partners is a venture capital firm that funds consumer, enterprise, and healthcare startups.
Chris Gabrieli
Partner – Cambridge, Massachusetts Emeritus of Bessemer Venture Partners
Chris Gabrieli, a partner in Bessemer’s Cambridge, Mass. office, joined the firm in 1986 to launch its healthcare practice. In 25 years of investing with Bessemer, he has invested broadly in healthcare and other industries. He currently focuses on biotechnology, healthcare services and education. Chris is closely involved in Bessemer’s investments in cancer-therapeutics firm AVEO Pharmaceuticals and biopharmaceutical firms Acceleron Pharma, Proteon, Oxagen and Transave. He serves on the board of digital textbook pioneer Flat World Knowledge. Among his past portfolio companies are biopharmaceutical company Affymax ( NASDAQ: AFFY); electronic health-record solutions company Allscripts (NASDAQ:MDRX); Isis Pharmaceuticals, a company that is the leading innovator in RNA-targeting pharmaceuticals; PerSeptive BioSystems, a maker of instruments for protein synthesis (acquired by Perkin-Elmer); Sirtris Pharmaceuticals, a developer of small-molecule drugs (NASDAQ: SIRT, acquired by GlaxoSmithKline); TravCorps, a pioneering healthcare-staffing company acquired by Cross Country Healthcare (CCRN); and VistaCare (NASDAQ:VSTA), a provider of hospice-care services. Prior to his career at Bessemer, Chris founded and served as CEO of GMIS, a healthcare-software company he co-founded and helped build, take public and sell to the leading industry consolidator, McKesson (NYSE: MCK). Bessemer was an investor in GMIS. Chris graduated from Harvard University with a B.A. in history and science and completed two years of the Columbia College of Physicians & Surgeons M.D. program. He is also a leader in education innovation and is founder and chairman of the National Center on Time & Learning and a lecturer at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.
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About Bessemer Venture Partners: Bessemer Venture Partners is a venture capital firm that funds consumer, enterprise, and healthcare startups.
Stephen Kraus
Partner of Bessemer Venture Partners
Stephen Kraus, a partner in the Cambridge, Mass. office, has worked with Bessemer since 2004 and focuses on the healthcare sector. Currently, he focuses his new deal activity on early and growth stage opportunities in healthcare IT and healthcare services. He currently sits on the boards of Liazon, Health Essentials, DocuTAP, Ovascience, Verastem, Allena Pharmaceuticals and Alcresta and is actively involved in BVP’s investments in Acceleron and Proteon. Steve has been actively involved in Bessemer’s investments in Sirtris Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: SIRT, acquired by GlaxoSmithKline); Affymax (NASDAQ: AFFY); Aveo (NASDAQ: AVEO); Alnara, acquired by Eli Lilly; Transave (NASDAQ: INSM); Stromedix, acquired by Biogen Idec, Verastem (NASDAQ: VSTM), and Restore Medical (NASDAQ: REST), acquired by Medtronic. Prior to joining Bessemer, Steve was a director at the Ironwood Equity Fund, a growth-stage, private-equity firm, and a management consultant at Bain & Co. In 2002, he served as speechwriter and operations director for the Democratic nominee for governor of Massachusetts Steve graduated summa cum laude with a B.A. from Yale University and earned his MBA from Harvard, where he was a Baker Scholar. He serves on the boards of the New England Venture Capital Association (NEVCA), the Achievement Network, and Interise. Steve was recently recognized by Forbes Magazine as one of the top life science investors if 2013. Steve regularly blogs with BVP’s Ambar Bhattacharyya at HCVC’s(two healthcare investors’ musings on work and life).
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About Bessemer Venture Partners: Bessemer Venture Partners is a venture capital firm that funds consumer, enterprise, and healthcare startups.
Kent Bennett
Partner of Bessemer Venture Partners
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About Bessemer Venture Partners: Bessemer Venture Partners is a venture capital firm that funds consumer, enterprise, and healthcare startups.
TJ Rose
Partner of ABRY Partners
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About ABRY Partners: ABRY Partners is an equity firm focused on investments in media.
Royce Yudkoff
Managing Partner of ABRY Partners
Managing Partner at ABRY Partners.
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About ABRY Partners: ABRY Partners is an equity firm focused on investments in media.
Nicholas Scola
Partner of ABRY Partners
Partner at ABRY Partners.
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About ABRY Partners: ABRY Partners is an equity firm focused on investments in media.
Brent Stone
Partner of ABRY Partners
Board member Brent Stone has been involved in a variety of media, information and business services investments and financings as a partner at ABRY Partners. His areas of focus have included insurance services, education, motion picture production and entertainment.
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About ABRY Partners: ABRY Partners is an equity firm focused on investments in media.
Dan MacKeigan
Founding Partner of Spring Lake Equity Partners
Dan is a founding partner of Spring Lake Equity Partners. Prior to founding Spring Lake, Dan served as a Partner in Tudor Investment Corporation’s private equity group, the predecessor to Spring Lake, since 2000. He has focused on investments in the wireless, mobile and internet sectors. Dan also currently serves on the board of RBM Technologies, Vantage, Vantrix, and ArcSoft. Prior investments where Dan served as a director or was actively involved include Wimba, N2 Broadband, Shoebuy, and Wavelink. Prior to Spring Lake Equity Partners, Dan spent three years as a Vice President and Senior Public Equity Research Analyst with Friedman, Billings, Ramsey, a Northern Virginia-based investment bank, focusing on public and private companies in the internet, media, and technology industries. As a public equity analyst, Dan conducted research on several emerging companies, including America Online, eBay, DoubleClick and Network Solutions. Dan was also a financial consultant for Zurich Investments. Dan holds a Bachelor of Science in Biology from Trinity College in Hartford.
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About Spring Lake Equity Partners: Spring Lake Equity Partners is a Boston-based private equity firm. We invest equity capital primarily in later-stage, technology-oriented
Matthew Christensen
Founder, Managing Partner of Rose Park Advisors
Matthew Christensen is the CEO, Portfolio Manager, and co-founder (together with Clayton Christensen of Harvard Business School) of Rose Park Advisors, a Boston-based investment firm focused on investing in innovative companies. Matt is an expert in identifying and applying disruptive innovation frameworks and assessing whether management can capitalize on or defend against a disruptive strategy. Matt was formerly a Senior Associate at Innosight, leading engagements in the biotechnology, enterprise software, grocery, and financial services industries, among others. Mr. Christensen was also head of Innosight’s small business and workshops initiatives. Before Innosight, Mr. Christensen worked at the Boston Consulting Group, working on projects in various industries, including specialty chemicals, telecom, technology and industrial goods. Prior to receiving an MBA from Harvard Business School, Mr. Christensen graduated from Duke University with a BSc in economics and a BSE in civil engineering with an emphasis in structural engineering. While at Duke, he won a national championship in 2001, playing basketball for Coach Mike Krzyzewski. In 2002, he won the Coaches’ Award, given to the player best embodying the spirit of Duke Basketball, as well as the Dr. Deryl Hart Award (Top Scholar-Athlete). Christensen served as a missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Frankfurt, Germany.
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About Rose Park Advisors: Rose Park Advisors is an investment firm focused on identifying investment opportunities by applying the framework of disruptive innovation.
Trevor Baglin
Venture Partner of Medicxi Ventures
Trevor is a Venture Partner in the investment team with main focus on growth stage clinical opportunities. Prior to joining Medicxi, he was a Consultant Haematologist at Cambridge University Hospitals for 27 years. His main research interests were in personalised risk profiling and the molecular basis of blood coagulation, which ultimately led to his interest in drug discovery and development. He was a Founder and Director of Xo1, Apcintex and SuperX. Trevor served as President of the British Society for Haematology, President of the British Society for Haemostasis and Thrombosis and Chairman of the British Committee for Standards in Haematology. He was a Founder of the European Congress for Thrombosis and Haemostasis. Between 2001 and 2008 he led the introduction of Clinical Governance into Cambridge University Hospitals and latterly was a Divisional Director. Trevor led an internationally recognised clinical research team investigating the gene-environment interaction leading to thrombosis. He has published more than 200 scientific papers. He qualified in medicine from the University of Manchester and obtained his PhD from the University of Birmingham. He is a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians and the Royal College of Pathologists.
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About ApcinteX, Medicxi Ventures, Medicxi Ventures, SuperX: Medicxi is a life sciences-focused investment firm.
Aaron Fleishman
Partner of Tola Capital
Mr. Fleishman is a Partner at Tola Capital where he invests in early stage B2B software companies. Prior to venture, Mr. Fleishman was a strategist and entrepreneur, with experience as a Strategy Manager at Microsoft and as an eCommerce startup CEO and Founder. Having been on both sides of the investment table, Mr. Fleishman leverages this dual perspective along with his financial, strategic, and operational expertise to identify compelling technology companies and investments. Prior to starting his own company, Mr. Fleishman worked as a Corporate Strategy and M&A Manager at Microsoft. His responsibilities included strategic planning, product strategy, market analysis, deal evaluation, due diligence, and post-deal integration. Mr. Fleishman evaluated acquisition targets ranging from $2M – $50B valuations, including product strategy and synergy analysis that resulted in the eventual $26B acquisition of LinkedIn. He also worked with executives at Microsoft to devise the company’s strategy in enterprise SaaS, cloud, and search. As the CEO and Founder of his own eCommerce startup, Mr. Fleishman conceived of a new business model for the $7B high-end apparel market and built a revenue-generating business in nine months. He built the user experience and back-end systems, managed marketing efforts, forged partnerships with multi-million dollar designer labels, and directed the long-term strategy and vision of the company. Mr. Fleishman worked at a hedge fund in New York earlier in his career and he is a graduate of The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania with a BSc in Finance and Entrepreneurship and a BA in International Studies.
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About Tola Capital: Tola Capital is a venture capital firm that invests globally in enterprise software companies across multiple stages.
Amir Nashat
Managing Partner of Polaris Partners
Amir Nashat is a Managing Partner in Polaris’ Boston office. Amir joined Polaris in 2002 and focuses on investments in healthcare. Amir currently represents Polaris as a Member of the Board of Directors at AgBiome, aTyr Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: LIFE), BIND Therapeutics (NASDAQ: BIND), Fate Therapeutics (NASDAQ: FATE), Metacrine, Promedior Pharmaceuticals, Scholar Rock, Selecta Biosciences, and Syros Pharmaceuticals. Additionally, Amir has served as a Member of the Board of Directors at Adnexus Therapeutics (Bristol Myers Squibb), Athenix Corporation (Bayer), Avila Therapeutics (Celgene), Living Proof, Pervasis Therapeutics (Shire Pharmaceuticals), Receptos (Celgene) and Sun Catalytix (Lockheed Martin). At Living Proof and Sun Catalytix, Amir served as the company’s initial Chief Executive Officer. Amir serves on the Partners Innovation Fund and is a Catalyst of the Deshpande Center for Technological Innovation at MIT. Amir previously served on the Board of the New England Venture Capital Association. Amir has been named to the Forbes Midas List of “Top 100 Venture Capitalists.” Prior to joining Polaris, Amir completed his Ph.D. as a Hertz Fellow in Chemical Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with a minor in Biology under the guidance of Dr. Robert Langer. Amir also earned both his M.S. degree and B.S. degree in Materials Science and Mechanical Engineering at the University of California, Berkeley.
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About Polaris Partners, Polaris Partners: Polaris Partners invests in healthcare and technology companies across all stages from founding to profitable growth.
David Barrett
Managing Partner of Polaris Partners
20 yr operating exec & entrepreneur. Mentor, coach & partner to innovators, entrepreneurs & technology start-ups. 14 yr early & growth-stage investor focusing on SaaS, data/analytics, cloud infrastructure and healthcare technologies.
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About Polaris Partners, Polaris Partners: Polaris Partners invests in healthcare and technology companies across all stages from founding to profitable growth.
Terrance McGuire
Founding Partner of Polaris Partners
Mcguire has served as a member of Acceleron’s board of directors since 2005.McGuire co-founded Polaris Partners in 1996 and is currently one of their general partners.Prior to starting Polaris Partners,.McGuire spent seven years at Burr, Egan, Deleage & Co., investing in early stage medical and information technology companies.He currently serves on the board of directors of Adimab/Arsanis, Aero Designs/Wiki Cells, Arsenal Medical/480 Biomedical, Iora Health, Ironwood Pharmaceuticals, Life Line Screening, MicroCHIPS, NextCode, Pulmatrix, SustainX, and Trevena. He has served on the board of directors of numerous other companies, including Remon Medical Technologies, GlycoFi, Akamai Technologies, Aspect Medical Systems, Cubist Pharmaceuticals, Transform Pharma, and deCODE genetics.McGuire is the former chairman of the National Venture Capital Association, chairman of the board of the Thayer School of Engineering at Dartmouth College, and a member of the boards of The David H. Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and The Arthur Rock Center for Entrepreneurship at Harvard Business School. McGuire received a BS in physics and economics from Hobart College, an MS in engineering from The Thayer School at Dartmouth College, and an MBA from Harvard Business School.
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About Advanced Inhalation Research, Inspire Pharmaceuticals, MicroCHIPS, Polaris Partners: Polaris Partners invests in healthcare and technology companies across all stages from founding to profitable growth.
Pat Kinsel
Partner of Polaris Partners
Pat Kinsel is a Venture Partner at Polaris Partners. He joined the firm in August 2013. Pat specializes in designing and building innovative technologies and consumer products. He has built products in the mobile, search, social, local, productivity, and collaboration spaces. Pat joined Polaris from Spindle, a company he co-founded and led as CEO from December 2010 until it was acquired by Twitter in June 2013. Spindle developed patent pending search technology to surface the most timely and interesting updates from services like Twitter and Facebook. Spindle’s technology advanced search by understanding the implicit context made available by mobile devices to compose a far richer query than a keyword alone ever could. Prior to Spindle, Pat spent several years at Microsoft leading teams within Microsoft FUSE Labs and Microsoft Startup Labs. Pat was responsible for incubating new concepts and bringing them to market. In this role, he led development of Docs.com. Launched by Mark Zuckerberg at F8 in 2010, Docs.com was a collaboration between Microsoft and Facebook to bring Microsoft Office Online to the Facebook audience. Before Docs.com, Pat built several social discovery applications and helped launch Bing’s social search efforts, ultimately bringing Bing Social Search to market in October 2009. At Microsoft, Pat was a co-inventor of several pending patents in the areas of social search and collaboration.
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About Harvard Innovation Labs, Notarize, Polaris Partners: Polaris Partners invests in healthcare and technology companies across all stages from founding to profitable growth.
Jon Flint
Founding Partner of Polaris Partners
Jon originated Living Proof’s vision of assembling a team of medical and biotech scientists to develop advanced technology for consumer hair and skin products.Jon served as CEO of Living Proof from November 2010 through December 2011.He is also the co-founder and a managing general partner of Polaris Venture Partners, a $3 billion venture capital fund with offices in Boston, New York City, and San Francisco.Jon’s current board seats include Athletes’ Performance and JibJab Media. Experience: Prior to founding Polaris, Jon was a partner with Burr, Egan, Deleage & Co., which he joined in 1984. Before joining BEDCO, he was an associate at the Boston law firm of Testa, Hurwitz and Thibeault, where he represented venture capital firms and high technology companies.Prior to Testa, Hurwitz and Thibeault, Jon gained substantial investigative experience during his service on the Impeachment Inquiry Staff of the U.S. Judiciary Committee and on the Watergate Special Prosecution Force. Boards and Education: Jon currently represents Polaris on the boards of Allurent, Athletes’ Performance, JibJab Media, Inc., Living Proof, Inc., and Modelinia, Inc.Jon’s prior investments include Allaire, American SuperConductor, Avici Systems, Centra, Conductus, Exchange.com, Mariner Health Care, Powersoft, and SolidWorks.Jon holds a JD from the University of Virginia Law School and a BA with high honors from Hobart College.
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About Icelandic Provisions, Polaris Founders Capital, Polaris Partners: Polaris Partners invests in healthcare and technology companies across all stages from founding to profitable growth.
Darren Carroll
Partner of Polaris Partners
Mr. Darren Carroll leads the New Ventures Division of Eli Lilly and Company which includes both Lilly Ventures and Lilly Asian Ventures where he is the Senior Managing Director. Prior to assuming his current role, Mr. Carroll was the founding chief executive officer of InnoCentive, Inc., the first e-business venture created by Lilly. Among other positions Mr. Carroll has held at Lilly, he was the U.S. attorney for Prozac®.
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About Polaris Partners: Polaris Partners invests in healthcare and technology companies across all stages from founding to profitable growth.
Dan Lombard
Partner of Polaris Partners
Dan joined Polaris as a Principal in 2015. He focuses primarily on growth equity investments and buyout opportunities in software and technology-enabled services. Prior to joining Polaris, Dan was a Vice President with H.I.G. Growth Partners, a private equity firm focused on recapitalizations of growth-oriented, lower middle market businesses. While at H.I.G., Dan was responsible for sourcing, executing and monitoring investments in software, internet, and business services. He also served on the boards of several companies. Previously, Dan served as an associate at Symmetric Capital, where he sourced and executed investments in software, healthcare and business services. He also was an investment banking analyst at Bank of America in San Francisco, where he worked with growth-oriented technology and healthcare companies on private capital raises and recapitalizations. Dan received his MBA from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth, where he was recognized as an Edward Tuck Scholar, and a BA from Yale University.
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About Polaris Partners: Polaris Partners invests in healthcare and technology companies across all stages from founding to profitable growth.
Richard D’Amore
General Partner of North Bridge Venture Partners & Growth Equity
Rich D’Amore has almost three decades of experience in the venture business. Rich D’Amore has been with North Bridge since the company’s inception in 1994. Before co-founding North Bridge, he spent fourteen years at Hambro International Equity Partners, establishing the firm’s Boston office. His investments have been split between early stage projects and special situations. Before joining Hambro in 1982, he worked as a consultant at Bain and Company and was a Certified Public Accountant with Arthur Young and Company. Rich received a BS from Northeastern, summa cum laude, in 1975. He also has an MBA from Harvard University Graduate School of Business Administration where he was a Baker Scholar. A dedicated supporter of higher education, he is on the Board of Trustees at Northeastern University, where he promotes innovation and research that can drive economic growth.
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About North Bridge Venture Partners & Growth Equity: North Bridge provides seed-to-growth stage funding for businesses in several sectors such as software, communications and infrastructure.
Ed Anderson
Founder & Managing Partner of North Bridge Venture Partners & Growth Equity
For the past 25 years, Ed Anderson has provided financing and advised entrepreneurs who are focused on building game-changing companies. Ed’s involvement almost always starts with a modest seed investment. Over the past three decades, Ed has had the good fortune to be involved as a seed or first round investor and director in some of the communications industry’s most successful start-ups including: Arris Networks (Cascade), Arrowpoint Communications (public), Broadband Access Systems (ADC Telecom), Camiant Networks (Tekelec), Cascade Communications (public), NetCore Systems (Tellabs), New Oak Communications (Bay Networks), Redstone Communications (Siemens), Sonus Networks (public), Spring Tide Networks (Lucent), Starent Networks (public), Sycamore Networks (public), SQA (public), Wellfleet Communications (public) and Winphoria Networks (Motorola). Ed is a graduate of the University of Denver and Columbia University Graduate School of Business. He has numerous philanthropic interests outside of North Bridge.
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About North Bridge Venture Partners & Growth Equity: North Bridge provides seed-to-growth stage funding for businesses in several sectors such as software, communications and infrastructure.
Jeff McCarthy
General Partner of North Bridge Venture Partners & Growth Equity
Jeff McCarthy, General Partner, has a successful entrepreneurial track record in communications. As an investor he focuses mainly on materials. When Jeff joined North Bridge Venture Partners in 1998, he was well known to the company’s founding partners through his leadership roles at two early, successful companies within the North Bridge portfolio Cadia Networks and New Oak Communications and at Wellfleet Communications, an investment of the North Bridge founder. He was CEO of New Oak Communications, a leading provider of VPN switches, when the company was acquired by Bay Networks (a Nortel line of business). Subsequently, North Bridge acquired Jeff.
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About G20 Ventures, North Bridge Venture Partners & Growth Equity, North Bridge Venture Partners & Growth Equity: North Bridge provides seed-to-growth stage funding for businesses in several sectors such as software, communications and infrastructure.
Bill Burgess
Operating Partner of North Bridge Venture Partners & Growth Equity
Bill has 25 years of experience in venture capital and corporate finance. Prior to joining ABS Ventures in 2001, he was Managing Director and Global Head of Deutsche Bank Venture Partners. He has also served as Vice Chairman of Global Corporate Finance at Deutsche Bank, and Global Co-Head of Industry Groups Investment Banking and Head of Technology Investment Banking at Alex. Brown and Sons. Bill serves as Chairman of the Board of Trustees for the New England Aquarium and Trustee and Treasurer of St. Mark’s School. He received his BA from Dartmouth College and MBA from Harvard Business School.
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About ABS Ventures, North Bridge Venture Partners & Growth Equity, Simply Made Apps: North Bridge provides seed-to-growth stage funding for businesses in several sectors such as software, communications and infrastructure.
Avak Kahvejian
General Partner of Flagship Pioneering
Avak Kahvejian joined Flagship Ventures in 2011 as a Partner in VentureLabsTM, bringing nearly 7 years of operational experience in the biomedical tools space. Prior to Flagship, Avak was at Helicos BioSciences, a Flagship VentureLabsTM company which developed and commercialized the world’s first single molecule sequencing technology. At Helicos since 2004, Avak held various business development, product management, marketing and sales roles. Most recently, as Vice President, Business Development for Helicos, he focused on establishing strategic partnerships in the areas of high-throughput sequencing and molecular diagnostics, leveraging the technology’s unique capabilities. Avak earned his PhD from McGill University in the laboratory of Dr. Nahum Sonenberg, where his research focused on modulators of mRNA translation and their regulation. During his studies at McGill, Avak was awarded a Canadian Institutes of Health Research operating grant as a co-investigator to Dr. Sonenberg, and was selected for the Dean’s Honour List upon graduation. At Flagship, Avak is developing new internally-generated ventures as part of VentureLabsTM and he is responsible for marketing and development firm-wide. Cygnal is a best-in-class team of biomedical experts and leaders collaborating to revolutionize how the world treats diseases.
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About Flagship Pioneering, Laronde: Flagship Pioneering is a venture capital firm that invests in life sciences and healthcare companies.
Edwin Kania
Managing Partner & Co-Founder; Chairman Emeritus of Flagship Pioneering
Edwin Kania is a Managing Partner and Co-Founder of Flagship Ventures and served as Chairman of the Board of Directors at Flagship Ventures between 2001 – 2014. Edwin has 33 years of experience in the venture capital industry. Prior to co-founding Flagship Ventures in 2000, Edwin spent 14 years as General Partner of OneLiberty Ventures and of its predecessor firm, Morgan, Holland Ventures. From 1983 – 1984 Edwin served as an Investment Officer at First Capital Corporation of Boston, the venture capital subsidiary of Bank of Boston and previously, as Research Associate at Harvard Business School and as General Manager at J. Cunningham, Inc. Edwin is a frequent speaker on venture capital and entrepreneurship. Edwin earned his undergraduate degree in Physics from Dartmouth College and his MBA from Harvard Business School. While at Dartmouth, Edwin was an All-American Track and Field athlete and a national and collegiate record holder. Throughout his professional career, Edwin has operated both as an investor and as an active partner to entrepreneurs in company building. Edwin’s direct investment experience covers over 100 companies. In addition, Edwin has been intimately involved in the launch and development of more than a dozen companies as the founding, lead or co-lead investor, and on occasion has assumed operating roles in support of management. Several of these companies are now publicly traded while others have been acquired by significant publicly-traded companies. The total value of the companies in which Ed has participated as founding or lead investor is currently several billion dollars. Among the companies for which Ed has served as an active Director are Acceleron Pharma (NASDAQ: XLRN), Adolor (NASDAQ: ADLR), Alere Corp. (purchased by Inverness Medical), Anesta Corp. (NASDAQ: NSTA, purchased by Cephalon), Aspect Medical (NASDAQ: ASPM, purchased by Covidien), AudioLogic (purchased by Cirrus Logic), ChemGenics Pharmaceuticals (purchased by Millennium), Cytyc Corp. (NASDAQ: CYTC), EXACT Sciences (NASDAQ: EXAS), Interactive Supercomputing (acquired by Microsoft), Ontogeny (merged into Curis, NASDAQ: CRIS), PerSeptive Biosystems (NASDAQ: PBIO, purchased by Applera), Somatogen (NASDAQ: SMTG, purchased by Baxter), and VisEn Medical (acquired by PerkinElmer). He was also a founding investor in IDEXX Laboratories (NASDAQ: IDXX) and in TripAdvisor (purchased by InterActive Corp). Currently, Edwin is a Director of Flagship portfolio companies EcoSense Lighting, Oasys Water, Selecta Biosciences, TARIS Biomedical, Tarveda Therapeutics, TransMedics and Visterra, as well as on the Board of DataCore Software. Edwin also serves on the Board of Common Impact, a non-profit organization that connects skilled professionals from global corporations to local, high potential non-profits. Edwin has been a long-time Member of the Board of Directors of MassBio, a not-for-profit organization representing theMassachusetts biopharmaceutical industry and serves as a Member of Harvard Partners’ Innovation Advisory Board and The Johns Hopkins Medicine Alliance for Science and Technology Development.
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About Flagship Pioneering: Flagship Pioneering is a venture capital firm that invests in life sciences and healthcare companies.
Geoffrey von Maltzahn
General Partner of Flagship Pioneering
Geoffrey von Maltzahn is Co-Founder, Chief Executive Officer, and Director of Tessera Therapeutics, as well as a General Partner at Flagship Pioneering, where he focuses on inventing technologies and starting companies to address global challenges in medicine and environmental sustainability. He is also a co-founder of Sana Biotechnology, Indigo Agriculture, Kaleido Biosciences (NASDAQ:KLDO), Seres Therapeutics (NASDAQ:MCRB), Axcella Health (NASDAQ:AXLA), Generate Biomedicines, and others. Geoffrey currently serves as Chief Executive Officer and Director of Generate Biomedicines, Chief Innovation Officer and Director of Indigo, and Director of Kaleido Biosciences and Sana Biotechnology. He recently served as Chief Executive Officer of Cobalt Biomedicine, which he led from inception to merger with Sana Biotechnology, and as Kaleido’s Chief Executive Officer, where he led the company from inception to launching multiple clinical studies. Geoffrey also served as Chief Executive Officer of Indigo, where he led the development of the company’s technology platform and the discovery of the company’s first commercial products. Previously, Geoffrey was the Chief Technology Officer of Seres Therapeutics, where he led the discovery of SER-109 and built out the company’s discovery platform. Geoffrey has been recognized with numerous patent grants, awards, and publications. He is listed as an inventor on over 200 patent applications and patents, and he has co-authored more than 20 peer-reviewed articles. Geoffrey has received a number of awards and honors, including Bloomberg 50’s Ones to Watch; Business Insider’s 30 Biotech Leaders Under 40; Endpoints 20 Biopharma Leaders Under 40; Boston Chamber of Commerce Ten Outstanding Young Leaders; the prestigious Lemelson-MIT Student Prize, awarded to the most innovative students at MIT; the National Inventors Hall of Fame Graduate Student Prize; the Biomedical Engineering Society Graduate Research Award; and the Harvard-MIT Martha Gray Prize. Geoffrey and his inventions have been profiled by Forbes, The Economist, CNN, Scientific American, Bloomberg Businessweek, Popular Science, MIT Technology Review, and other media. Geoffrey was awarded a PhD in biomedical engineering and medical physics from MIT under the mentorship of Sangeeta N. Bhatia, MD, PhD; an MS in bioengineering from the University of California, San Diego; and an SB in chemical engineering from MIT.
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About Axcella, Flagship Pioneering, Indigo, Sienna Biopharmaceuticals, Tessera Therapeutics: Flagship Pioneering is a venture capital firm that invests in life sciences and healthcare companies.
Lovisa Afzelius
Origination Partner of Flagship Pioneering
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About Flagship Pioneering: Flagship Pioneering is a venture capital firm that invests in life sciences and healthcare companies.
Douglas Cole
Managing Partner of Flagship Pioneering
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About Flagship Pioneering: Flagship Pioneering is a venture capital firm that invests in life sciences and healthcare companies.
Harry Wilcox
General Partner of Flagship Pioneering
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About Flagship Pioneering: Flagship Pioneering is a venture capital firm that invests in life sciences and healthcare companies.
Hari Pujar
Operating Partner of Flagship Pioneering
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About Flagship Pioneering: Flagship Pioneering is a venture capital firm that invests in life sciences and healthcare companies.
Stephen Berenson
Managing Partner of Flagship Pioneering
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About Flagship Pioneering, Seres Therapeutics: Flagship Pioneering is a venture capital firm that invests in life sciences and healthcare companies.
Theodose Melas-Kyriazi
Executive Partner of Flagship Pioneering
Theodose Melas-Kyriazi has served as a member of our board of directors since February 2017.Melas-Kyriazi has also served as Chief Financial Officer of Levitronix Technologies LLC, a biotechnology company, since 2006. From 2003 to 2016, Melas-Kyriazi served as a director at Valeant Pharmaceuticals International, Inc. He spent nearly two decades at Thermo Electron Corporation (now Thermo Fisher Scientific) in a variety of roles, including six years as Chief Financial Officer. Melas-Kyriazi has been a director of a number of private and public biopharmaceutical companies. Melas-Kyriazi received his M.B.A. from Harvard Business School.
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About Flagship Pioneering: Flagship Pioneering is a venture capital firm that invests in life sciences and healthcare companies.
Leda Trivinos
In-House Partner of Flagship Pioneering
Leda joined Flagship in 2015 as Partner, Intellectual Property. In this role, she helps formulate and manage the intellectual property strategy for VentureLabs innovations and provides counsel across the portfolio. Leda was most recently chief patent counsel for Momenta Pharmaceuticals Inc., a leader in the analysis and design of complex pharmaceutical products, where she led the company’s patent strategy to protect its technology and products, and to clear the way for successful product launches through patent enforcement and litigation. Prior to joining Momenta, she was Assistant General Counsel for intellectual property at Biogen Idec. She started her law career as an associate at Fish & Richardson PC, a global law firm specializing in intellectual property. Prior to earning her law degree from the University of California Berkeley School of Law, Leda was awarded a Ph.D. in cell and molecular biology from Northwestern University Medical School. Her research focused on motor proteins that drive intracellular transport. She also completed a post-doctoral research appointment at the lab of Suzanne R. Pfeffer Ph.D. at Stanford University’s Biochemistry Department, focusing on Rab proteins involved in membrane traffic in human cells. Leda was selected by SuperLawyers as a Massachusetts Rising Star in 2005 and 2006 and was recognized in 2015 in the first edition of Corporate IP Stars by Managing Intellectual Property magazine.
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About Flagship Pioneering: Flagship Pioneering is a venture capital firm that invests in life sciences and healthcare companies.
Stacie Rader
Partner, Chief People Officer of Flagship Pioneering
Prior to joining BG Medicine, Ms. Rader was Vice President at Flagship Ventures and Vice President, Human Resources, of NewcoGen since 1999. During her tenure with Flagship, she has consulted with numerous portfolio entities on HR operational issues. Ms. Rader has particular expertise in team building, staffing, and organizational development as well as compensation and benefits design and implementation. Prior to Flagship Ventures, she was Corporate Director of Worldwide Employment and Staffing for Applera Corporation (now Applied Biosystems) following the merger of Perkin Elmer and PerSeptive Biosystems in 1998. Ms. Rader was responsible for all human resources functions at PerSeptive from 1992 to 1998. During this period, she oversaw the hiring of 600 global employees and the implementation of core HR processes and programs as well as equity and compensation structures to accommodate the company’s rapid growth. She was also a key member of corporate due diligence teams for a number of PerSeptive acquisitions and was instrumental in the integration and assimilation process for the PE-PerSeptive merger and held an interim Vice President, Human Resources, role at Celera Genomics. Ms. Rader holds a B.S. from Babson College.
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About Flagship Pioneering: Flagship Pioneering is a venture capital firm that invests in life sciences and healthcare companies.
Chip Hazard
General Partner of Flybridge
Full-time VC who thinks infrastructure software and AI is hip, part-time family Uber driver, photographer, and dogcatcher. Co-Founder and Investment Partner at XFactor Ventures.
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About Datalogue, Einblick, Flybridge, Scitara, StackHawk, XFactor Ventures: Flybridge is a seed-stage venture capital firm investing with entrepreneurs to leverage the power of the community.
Jeff Bussgang
General Partner and Co-Founder of Flybridge
Jeff Bussgang is the General Partner and Co-Founder of Flybridge Capital Partners. He has a master’s degree in Business and Entrepreneurship at Harvard Business School.
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About BloXroute Labs, Bowery Farming, Cartera Commerce, FalconX, Flybridge, Global EIR, Hack.Diversity, Harvard Business School, Hedron, Infracommerce, Plastiq, The Graduate Syndicate, Upromise: Flybridge is a seed-stage venture capital firm investing with entrepreneurs to leverage the power of the community.
Anna Palmer
General Partner of Flybridge
Anna is an entrepreneur with over four years in the start-up space. She holds a B.A. from Eureka College in Communications, Political Science, and History, and a J.D. from Harvard Law School. She has founded two non-profit organizations, served on three non-profit boards, and currently is an active volunteer for BUILD, an entrepreneurship program for high school students.
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About Dough, Fashion Project, Flybridge, Wondermile, XFactor Ventures: Flybridge is a seed-stage venture capital firm investing with entrepreneurs to leverage the power of the community.
Paul Maeder
Chair and Partner, Founder of Highland Capital Partners
Paul focuses on startups in robotics and online education. He is a Founding Partner of Highland Capital Partners and has 32 years of experience in venture capital. He has served as a director of many public and private technology companies and is currently the Board Chair of 2U (Nasdaq: TWOU), is on the board of Imprivata (NYSE: IMPR), and manages Highland’s investments in Avidyne, Carbon Black, BlueTarp Financial, Jaunt VR, and Rethink Robotics. Paul has been recognized by the Forbes Midas List as one of the top venture capitalists in the industry and was the 2011-2012 Chair of the National Venture Capital Association during the creation and passage of the JOBS Act. He is also the 2008 recipient of the Mass Technology Leadership Council Commonwealth Award. Paul serves on the Board of Trustees of Princeton University and is Co-Chair of the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences Campaign Committee. He is also a former Board Chair of Buckingham Browne & Nichols School and of the Massachusetts Chapter of The Nature Conservancy. Paul earned BSE in Aerospace and Mechanical Sciences at Princeton University, an MS in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford University, and an MBA from the Harvard Business School.
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About Highland Capital Partners, Highland Transcend Partners: Highland Capital Partners is a venture capital firm that offers seed, early, and growth-stage funding solutions.
Dan Nova
General Partner of Highland Capital Partners
Dan joined Highland in 1996 as a General Partner to establish and build the firma’s internet investment practice. He also co-founded the Highland Consumer Fund, where he is Chair of the Investment Committee, and he is leading the firm’s expansion efforts into China. He continues to be an active investor focusing on technology and consumer investments with specific experience and interest in internet, digital marketing and media technologies. Dan led the firm’s investments and has served on the boards of a number of successful companies including:Ask Jeeves – IPO,BeFree – IPO,eToys – IPO,Fastclick – IPO, acquired by ValueClick, Gamesville – acquired by Lycos, Lycos – IPO ,MapQuest – IPO, acquired by AOL. N2 Broadband – acquired by TANDBERG Television, Navic Networks – acquired by Microsoft. New York Times Digital – acquired by New York Times, Co, Quote.com – acquired by Lycos. Raindance – IPO,RoweCom – IPO. His current portfolio includes CMI Marketing, Coremetrics, Gotuit, Qihoo, StyleFeeder, TriStar Investors, UUSee and Yoga Works. Dan has been recognized by the prestigious Forbes Midas List as one of the top venture capitalists in the industry. Prior to joining Highland in 1996, Dan was a Partner at CMG Ventures where he co-led the partnership’s investment activities in early-stage internet companies. While at CMG Ventures, Dan co-founded Lycos, Inc. in June of 1995, and played an integral role from its inception to its IPO in April of 1996 and finally through its sale to Terra Networks in 2000. Prior to joining CMG Ventures Dan was a Senior Associate at Summit Partners focused on later-stage technology and environmental investments. He also worked at Wang Laboratories from 1983 through 1989 in a variety of sales management and sales positions.
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About Coremetrics, Gotuit, Highland Capital Partners, Highland Transcend Partners, Qihoo 360 Technology, StyleFeeder, TriStar Investors, VIVA: Highland Capital Partners is a venture capital firm that offers seed, early, and growth-stage funding solutions.
Bob Davis
Partner of Highland Capital Partners
Bob is a General Partner at Highland focusing primarily on digital media and the internet and has been with our team since 2001. He currently represents Highland on the boards of Bullhorn, Going, Hangout Industries, NameMedia, Paragon Lake, Quattro Wireless and Turbine and previously served on the board of Fastclick (Acquired by VCLK) until its successful merger with ValueClick (Nasdaq: VCLK), Quigo (acquired by AOL) and Navic (acquired by MSFT). Bob is the best-selling author of “Speed is Life: Street Smart Lessons from the Front Lines of Business (Currency).” Background Prior to joining Highland, Bob served as the Chief Executive Officer of Terra Lycos (TRLY) formed in October 2000 with the $5.5 billion acquisition of Lycos by Terra Networks of Spain. Previously, Bob was the Founder of Lycos, Inc (LCOS) and served as its President and Chief Executive Officer since its inception in 1995 where he led Lycos from a start-up with $2 million in venture capital funding to become the most visited online destination in the world with over 100 million unique visitors. Under his leadership, Lycos jumped from the fastest IPO in Nasdaq history, a mere nine months from inception to offering, to a global media entity and an esteemed member of the Nasdaq 100. Bob has served on the boards of several public and private sector companies including John Hancock (JHFS), Ticketmaster (TCMS), Terra Lycos (TRLY), Lycos (LCOS) and Lycos Europe (LCY). He also serves as a Trustee for Children Hospital Trust Board, The Rivers School and also serves on the Board of Advisors for the Boston College Carroll School of Management and the Northeastern University School of Technological Entrepreneurship. Bob has advised former President Clinton on matters relating to internet commerce and regulation and has addressed Congress, The United Nations, The National Press Corps and the U.S. Council of Foreign Relations on similar matters.
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About Highland Capital Partners: Highland Capital Partners is a venture capital firm that offers seed, early, and growth-stage funding solutions.
Craig Driscoll
General Partner of Highland Capital Partners
Craig is a General Partner at Highland Capital Partners, which he joined in 2006. Craig serves on the boards of Xometry, WhyHotel and Remote Year. He’s actively involved with Catalant and SessionM. He is a former director of Trilogy Education Services (acquired by 2U in 2019) and INXPO (acquired by West Corporation in 2018). He has also been involved in Bullhorn (acquired by Vista Equity Partners in 2012) and Quattro Wireless (acquired by Apple in 2010). Previously, Craig worked at Korn/Ferry, JacobsRimell (acquired by Amdocs), Fidelity Ventures, The Yankee Group, and Beacon Power Corporation (IPO in 2000). He holds a B.E. from Vanderbilt University.
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About Catalant, Highland Capital Partners: Highland Capital Partners is a venture capital firm that offers seed, early, and growth-stage funding solutions.
Habib Haddad
Managing Partner of The E14 Fund
Habib is a tech entrepreneur and angel investor, recently turned VC. He is currently the CEO of Wamda.com and the managing partner of Wamda Capital. He founded Yamli.com the Arabic search and transliteration startup that licensed its technology to Yahoo. He also started a number of non-profits including YallaStartup, INLET and ReliefLebanon. In 2009, the World Economic Forum recognized Habib as a Young Global Leader and the ArabianBusiness named him one of the top 30 influential Arabs under 30 as well as of the most 500 powerful Arabs. He currently serves on the Global Agenda Council on innovation. He is an advisor to several US and Middle Eastern startups and non-profits. Habib is behind the original idea behind Yamli, and today drives Yamli’s vision of empowering the Arabic language and users on the web. His responsibilities span from product strategy and design to business development. The World Economic Forum recently recognized Habib as a Young Global Leader for 2009. Prior to Yamli, he worked as a senior engineer at ATI (later acquired by AMD); and before that he was part of the early engineering team at Mok3 (now Everyscape), a startup out of the MIT CSAIL lab. Habib co-founded INLET (International Network of Lebanese Entrepreneurs and Technologists), an organization geared towards promoting entrepreneurship and leadership for the Arab world in general and Lebanon in particular. He also founded Relief Lebanon, a grass roots effort aimed at supporting the relief operations in Lebanon during the July 2006 war. Relief Lebanon was featured by the “101 Stories to Tell” initiative by the UNDP in February 2009. Habib often speaks about early stage development and entrepreneurship, and has spoken at venues such as the Harvard Business School, Boston College and the American University of Beirut. He currently sits on the advisory board of Meedan, a non-profit startup that aims to enable cross-cultural dialogs online. Habib holds a Bachelor of Computer and Communication Engineering from the American University in Beirut and a Masters in Electrical Engineering from the University of Southern California.
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About Affectiva, Formlabs, MIT Media Lab, Ori, The E14 Fund, The World Economic Forum, Tulip Interfaces, Volta Labs: E14 Fund is an early stage venture fund focused on startups founded by the MIT community.
Jon Auerbach
General Partner of CRV
Jon Auerbach is a general partner at Charles River Ventures, where his focus is identifying and investing in innovative companies that are poised to become category leaders in mobile and advertising technology. Prior to joining CRV, Jon was a general partner at Highland Capital Partners. Jon has more than a decade of venture funding experience, and he has been an active investor in numerous successful start-ups, including Starent Networks, Quattro Wireless, Optasite, and CCTV. He is a frequent speaker on wireless trends and technologies worldwide. Jon is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania.
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About Collaborate.com, CRV: CRV is a venture capital firm that invests in early-stage investments in technology companies.
Rick Burnes
General Partner & Founder of CRV
Rick Burnes is the General Partner & Founder of Charles River Ventures.
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About CRV: CRV is a venture capital firm that invests in early-stage investments in technology companies.
Murat Bicer
General Partner of CRV
Murat Bicer is the General Partner of CRV.
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About CRV: CRV is a venture capital firm that invests in early-stage investments in technology companies.
Izhar Armony
General Partner of CRV
Izhar Armony is a Venture Capitalist at CRV. Since joining CRV in 1997, Izhar has built an impressive portfolio of startups and successful exits.Prior to joining CRV, Izhar was vice president of marketing at Onyx Interactive, a computer-based training company in Israel.Izhar holds an MBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, an M.A. in International Studies from the University of Pennsylvania, and studied Cognitive Psychology at Tel Aviv University. Izhar’s past portfolio investments include Aveksa (acquired by EMC in 2013), Vlingo (acquired by Nuance in 2012), Performable (acquired by Hubspot in 2011), iSkoot (acquired by Qualcomm in 2010), Conduit Labs (acquired by Zynga in 2010), Yantra (acquired by Sterling Commerce in 2005), iPhrase Technologies (acquired by IBM Corporation in 2005), ThinQ (acquired by Saba Software in 2005), Guardent (acquired by VeriSign in 2003), Oberon Software (acquired by OnDisplay in 2000), and iBasis (IPO in 1999).For fun, Izhar races off-road rally cars in long distance races in the Sahara and Atacama deserts.
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About CRV: CRV is a venture capital firm that invests in early-stage investments in technology companies.
Bruce Sachs
General Partner of CRV
Bruce Sachs joined CRV in the fall of 1999 with 20 years experience in the telecommunications, networking, Internet, and computing industries. Bruce is a director of several private and public companies, including DataGravity, Great Call, iControl Networks, Jibo, Nantero, SimpliVity, SpiderCloud Wireless and The LightCo. Previously, Bruce served on the boards of Acopia Networks (acquired by F5), BigBand Networks (IPO), BNI Video (acquired by Cisco) and Cedar Point Communications (acquired by Genband). Bruce led CRV investments in Flarion Technologies (acquired by QUALCOMM), River Delta Networks (acquired by Motorola), and Hammerhead Networks (acquired by Cisco Systems), and served on all three boards. Formerly CEO of Xylogics, Bruce led a turnaround and sale to Bay Networks where he served as executive vice president, managing four company acquisitions in a year. After leaving Bay Networks, he became CEO of Stratus Computer, ultimately leading the company to its successful sale to Ascend. Bruce holds a master of engineering in electrical engineering from Cornell University, an MBA from Northeastern University and a BS in electrical engineering from Bucknell University.
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About CRV, Simplivity: CRV is a venture capital firm that invests in early-stage investments in technology companies.
William Johnson
Operating Partner of Advent International
William Johnson is a Member of the Board of Directors at UPS since 2009. William is a Member of the Executive Committee and serves as the Lead Independent Director and Chairperson of the Nominating and Corporate Governance Committee. William is the former Chairman of the Board of Directors, President and Chief Executive Officer at the H. J. Heinz Company, offering high quality and healthy products worldwide. With more than $10 billion in annual sales, Heinz’s 50 companies have leading brands in more than 200 countries. The Heinz brand enjoys international renown and accounts for more than $3 billion in annual sales. Other well-known U.S. brands include Ore-Ida, Boston Market Homestyle Meals, T.G.I. Fridays, Classico and Bagel Bites. Among Heinz’s best-known overseas brands in addition to Heinz are, Plasmon, ABC, Wattie’s, Pudliszki, Complan, and Long Fong. William joined Heinz in 1982 as General Manager – New Businesses for Heinz USA. In 1984, William was promoted to Vice President – Marketing for Ketchup, Foodservice and Sauces. William was named President and Chief Executive Officer at Heinz Pet Products in 1988, and assumed leadership of Star-Kist Foods, Inc., in May 1992, when the pet food business and Star-Kist were re-united. These businesses were spun off and merged with Del Monte Foods in December 2002. In 1993, William was named Senior Vice President of Heinz and joined the company’s Board of Directors. William’s responsibilities included Heinz operations in the Asia/Pacific area, including Australia, New Zealand, China, Thailand and South Korea, in addition to the canned tuna and pet food businesses of Star-Kist Foods, Inc. William became President and Chief Operating Officer of Heinz in June 1996 and assumed the position of President and Chief Executive Officer on April 30, 1998. William was named Chairman of the Board of Directors, President and Chief Executive Officer on September 12, 2000. Prior to joining Heinz, William was employed by Drackett, Ralston Purina and Anderson-Clayton. William earned his Undergraduate degree from UCLA and his MBA from the University of Texas. An active supporter of community organizations, William has served as a Member of the National Athena Awards committee, chaired the 2001 annual campaign for the United Way of Western Pennsylvania, and chaired numerous local events including the 2004 Pittsburgh Cultural Trust gala event. In 2006, William received the inaugural Global Visionary Award from Helen Keller International for Heinz’s micronutrient program for combating childhood anemia. William also received the Marco Polo Award, the highest honor bestowed by the Chinese government on foreign business leaders, for Heinz’s support of the development of the Chinese food industry. William also serves on the Board of Directors of Emerson Electric Company, PepsiCo, Inc., the Grocery Manufacturers of America and is an active member of the University of Texas McCombs School of Business advisory council. In 2007, William was inducted into the Hall of Fame at the McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas.
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About Advent International: Advent International is a global private equity firm that invests in the business and financial services.
Bob Chicoski
Founder & General Partner of Tech Pioneers Fund
Bob Chicoski is the founder and Managing Partner of Tech Pioneers Fund, a venture capital fund with offices in San Francisco, Boston and New York. Tech Pioneers Fund makes early and growth stage investments in pioneering companies in emerging and established info tech sectors. TPF is built around a “value network” of successful business leaders, including members of the World Economic Forum’s Technology Pioneers community. Tech Pioneers Fund works alongside top tier investors and provides targeted assistance to portfolio companies by leveraging the unique Tech Pioneers Fund network. This network serves to enhance returns and provide other derivative benefits to members. Tech Pioneers Fund portfolio companies include Compass, Orbital Insight, and Digisure. Prior to founding Tech Pioneers Fund, Bob was a General Partner at Saturn Partners, a Boston based venture capital fund, where he led investments in such companies as Alignable and Omaze. Previously, Bob worked for a family office; industry2industry; Deloitte Consulting; and the Federal Reserve Bank. He has also been an advisor to Pfizer and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Bob received an MBA from Harvard University and a BA in Economics from Georgetown University.
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About Tech Pioneers Fund: Tech Pioneers Fund is an independent and membership-driven venture capital fund investing in innovative technology companies.
Joseph A. Yanchik III
Venture Partner of Apple Tree Partners
Joseph Yanchik, a venture partner at ATP, has been founding and funding life science companies for more than 20 years. In 2005, Joe founded ATP portfolio company Tokai Pharmaceuticals, focused on biopharmaceutical treatments for prostate cancer, serving as president and CEO from 2005 to 2008 and then as a director through 2017. Concurrently, Joe founded ATP portfolio company Aileron Therapeutics, focused on developing a novel class of stabilized cell-permeating peptides called stapled peptides, for cancer and other diseases. He established a $1.1 billion partnership between Aileron Therapeutics and Roche Pharmaceuticals and led Aileron from inception to public listing, serving as president, CEO, and director from 2006 to 2018. Previously, Joe served as vice president of corporate development at Mendel Biotechnology, an agricultural biotech company, and founded and served as chief financial officer of Poetic Genetics, a gene therapy company. He began his career practicing corporate and securities law at Cahill Gordon & Reindel, where he specialized in public securities offerings, high-yield debt financings, and M&A. He then moved to Venture Law Group in Menlo Park, where he specialized in financing early-stage life science and technology companies. Joe received a BBA from Loyola College in Maryland and a JD from the Villanova University School of Law, where he was managing editor of the Law Review. He is a member of the New York, California, and District of Columbia bars.
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About Apple Tree Partners: Apple Tree Partners is a venture capital firm that invests in pharmaceuticals, biotech, medtech, and healthcare services.
Spiros Liras
Venture Partner of Apple Tree Partners
Spiros Liras is a Venture Partner at Apple Tree Partners.
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About Apple Tree Partners, Nereid Therapeutics, Nine Square Therapeutics: Apple Tree Partners is a venture capital firm that invests in pharmaceuticals, biotech, medtech, and healthcare services.
Michael Ehlers
Chief Scientific Officer and Venture Partner of Apple Tree Partners
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About Apple Tree Partners, Aulos Bioscience, Intergalactic Therapeutics: Apple Tree Partners is a venture capital firm that invests in pharmaceuticals, biotech, medtech, and healthcare services.
Alexander McCampbell
Venture Partner of Apple Tree Partners
Alexander McCampbell is a venture partner at ATP. A highly skilled pharmaceutical scientist specializing in rare and neurodegenerative diseases, Alex worked at Biogen for nine years, most recently as a vice president building and leading a translational team of 25 people in neuromuscular and muscle research. He has advanced eight agents into the clinic with a range of modalities, including antibodies, small molecules, and antisense oligonucleotides, in disease areas including amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, Alzheimer’s disease, and spinal muscular atrophy (SMA). These efforts have resulted to date in one approved drug for SMA (Spinraza™) and multiple drug candidates in proof of concept or pivotal stage trials. Alex has also been integral in multiple business development deals as the scientific point person on strategic collaborations. He has more than 30 publications spanning nearly two decades and multiple patents, and he has participated on scientific advisory boards and NIH study sections. Alex received his PhD in Neuroscience from the University of Pennsylvania and completed his post-doctoral training at Harvard Medical School.
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About Apple Tree Partners: Apple Tree Partners is a venture capital firm that invests in pharmaceuticals, biotech, medtech, and healthcare services.
Alex Benik
Partner of Battery Ventures
Alex joined Battery in 2001 and currently works out of Battery’s Waltham office. From 2001 through 2006, he was based in Menlo Park. Alex focuses on investments in infrastructure technologies for Enterprise, Data Centers, and wired/wireless service providers. He has also been actively involved in building Battery’s semiconductor portfolio. Alex is also the focal point for Battery’s relationships with technologists and end-users at Fortune 1000 enterprises and large web scale operators. He is particularly interested in the challenges of building web scale data center networks and distributed computing systems. During his tenure at Battery, Alex has been involved with several of the firm’s investments including Achronix, Anobit Technologies (acquired by Apple), Aurora Networks, Cumulus Networks, Diablo Technologies, MaxLinear (NYSE: MXL), Nutanix, Optichron, Tracelytics (acquired by AppNeta), Veraz Networks (NASDAQ: VRAZ), VSS Monitoring (acquired by Danaher), and ZeroG Wireless (acquired by Microchip). Prior to joining the firm, Alex was an Analyst at The Yankee Group, where he performed market research and consulting focused on local, wide area, and transport networks. While in this position, he executed strategic marketing and competitive analysis for clients including major telecommunications equipment and service providers. Alex earned a BA in Government from Wesleyan University. Alex co-authors www.thewholestack.com, a blog focused on infrastructure IT, and was named a top cloud investor by GigaOm in 2012.
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About Battery Ventures: Battery Ventures finances technology sector companies with venture capital, private equity, and debt financing investments.
Morad Elhafed
General Partner of Battery Ventures
Morad joined Battery in 2008. He focuses primarily on growth and buyout investments in the Software and Internet sectors. Based in Battery’s Boston office, Morad is active in the firm’s investment activities in North America and Europe. He is involved with Battery’s investments in IHS, Jeeves Information Systems, SingleHop and Vero Software and was involved with Neolane prior to its acquisition by Adobe. Before Battery, Morad worked in the technology investment banking practice at RBC Capital Markets, where he focused on M&A, equity and debt financings. Morad graduated with a BBA from the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan.
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About Battery Ventures: Battery Ventures finances technology sector companies with venture capital, private equity, and debt financing investments.
Jesse Feldman
General Partner of Battery Ventures
Jesse Feldman is a General Partner at Battery Ventures.
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About Battery Ventures: Battery Ventures finances technology sector companies with venture capital, private equity, and debt financing investments.
Michael Brown
General Partner of Battery Ventures
Since joining Battery Ventures in 1998, Michael has made, or managed, multiple investments in the areas of financial services, enterprise software and technology-enabled business services. Michael currently serves on the board of ExactTarget, Fingerhut Direct Marketing, Panjiva, and TradeKing. In addition, he has been actively involved with Battery’s investments in ChemConnect (acquired by InterContinental Exchange), The London International Financial Futures and Options Exchange (LIFFE) (acquired by Euronext), MRU Holdings, and OutlookSoft Corporation (acquired by SAP). From 1996 to 1998, Michael was a member of the High Technology Group at Goldman, Sachs & Co., where he worked on numerous debt and equity financings and merger and acquisition assignments. Previously, he was a Financial Analyst within Goldman’s Financial Institutions Group between 1994 and 1996, where he focused on merger and acquisition assignments within asset management, insurance, specialty finance and retail/mortgage banking. Michael graduated magna cum laude from Georgetown University with a dual BS in Finance and International Business.
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About Battery Ventures, Next Insurance, Placement Spot: Battery Ventures finances technology sector companies with venture capital, private equity, and debt financing investments.
Zack Smotherman
Partner of Battery Ventures
Zack joined Battery in 2013 as a vice president and focuses on later-stage investments in industrial technologies. He is currently involved with Battery’s investments in James Heal and Noise & Vibration Technologies, a platform company created with Data Physics, Lansmont Corp. and Team Corp. Prior to Battery, Zack was an associate at WestView Capital Partners, where he evaluated and executed middle-market buyout and recapitalization transactions across the tech-enabled services and software sectors. Zack began his career in the investment banking group at Avondale Partners. Zack graduated magna cum laude from Tufts University with a BS in economics. He also holds an MBA from the MIT Sloan School of Management.
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About Battery Ventures: Battery Ventures finances technology sector companies with venture capital, private equity, and debt financing investments.
Russell Fleischer
General Partner of Battery Ventures
Russell Fleischer, a three-time, software-industry CEO, joined Battery as a partner in 2014 and was promoted to general partner in 2015. He has also served as a longtime executive in residence at the firm. At Battery, Russell focuses on new investment opportunities in the enterprise-software sector. He is currently involved with Battery Ventures portfolio company Enviance and its add-on company Remedy Interactive. He also participated in the spin out and creation of Qognify, a company that Battery acquired from NICE Systems’ Physical Security Business Unit. His focus is later-stage deals, including buyouts, rollups and take-privates. He is also focused on developing new talent, both at Battery portfolio companies and inside the firm. Prior to joining Battery as a partner, Russell was the CEO of HighJump, a supply-chain management software company, and a member of the company’s board of directors. Under Russell’s four-plus years of leadership the business grew to $110M in revenues and a worldwide workforce of over 500 people from $50M in revenue. In July of 2014 the company was acquired by Accel|KKR and merged with Accellos. Before that Russell served as CEO of Healthvision Software, a healthcare information-technology provider. Healthvision was acquired by Lawson Software in 2010. Russell and his team grew Healthvision from a company with $25 million in revenue into a global business employing more than 300 people and generating approximately $70 million in revenue and $20 million in EBITDA. Prior to Healthvision, Russell served as CEO of TriSyn Group, a core banking applications-software provider focused on serving the top 100 banks in the U.S. There, he was responsible for launching the company as a standalone entity after its acquisition from Computer Associates. In addition, he has over time served as a board director for many public and private companies, including Adams Golf, HomeCareHomeBase, Vero Software, Data Innovations and RogueWave. Russell has been both a public- and private-company CFO, primarily in the software sector, for InConcert, InterWorld and Adams Golf. He also worked with CheckFree, D&B Software, Sales Technologies and Xerox. Russell earned a BA in economics from Johns Hopkins University and an MBA from Vanderbilt. He is a board member and trustee for Cooks Children’s Hospital in Fort Worth and a board member for the Michael E. Nozik Foundation in Rochester, NY, which raises funds to send deserving children to Camp Seneca Lake in the Finger Lakes of western New York.
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About Battery Ventures, Healthvision Solutions: Battery Ventures finances technology sector companies with venture capital, private equity, and debt financing investments.
Blake Bartlett
Partner of OpenView
Blake helps identify value and lead investments in product-led businesses driving market dislocation. Prior to joining OpenView, he was a Vice President at Battery Ventures, where he focused on growth-stage software and Internet businesses. Blake joined Battery in 2009 and helped lead 10 investments, including Wayfair, Optimizely, Sprinklr, Catchpoint, Glassdoor, Tealium, Q2eBanking, Mass Relevance, and VSS Monitoring (acquired by Danaher). He began his career in the growth equity group at Kayne Anderson, a $25 billion private equity firm in Los Angeles.
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About OpenView, Postscript, Zipwhip: OpenView is an expansion stage venture firm that helps grow software companies into market leaders.
Mackey Craven
Partner of OpenView
Mackey focuses on investments in the software and internet sectors, partnering with management teams to build enduring value Prior to joining OpenView, Mackey was an Associate at Bessemer Venture Partners focusing on investments in cloud computing, consumer internet, and data infrastructure. At Bessemer, Mackey was a Board Observer at Xtime, Twitch, and Apperian and was involved with the Bessemer’s investments in Infinio, Liazon, Zapier, and Intigua. He began his career in research and teaching positions at the Sloan School of Management and in the Departments of Physics and Biology at MIT where he co-founded BioVolt, a company focused on designing low-cost microbial fuel cells for use in the developing world. He has also served as an independent scientific consultant to Continuum Energy Technologies and analyzed PIPE and SPAC opportunities for Hudson Bay Capital Management. Mackey graduated Phi Beta Kappa from MIT with an S.M. in Technology and Policy, an S.B. in Biological Engineering, and an S.B. in Mathematics in four years
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About Applitools, Axonius, Balena, Cogito, JumpCloud, Logz.io, OpenView, UserTesting: OpenView is an expansion stage venture firm that helps grow software companies into market leaders.
George Roberts
Venture Partner of OpenView
George Roberts is the Venture Partner at OpenView.
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About OpenView: OpenView is an expansion stage venture firm that helps grow software companies into market leaders.
Ricky Pelletier
Partner of OpenView
At OpenView, Ricky focuses on identifying and analyzing various market and investment opportunities and works with other members of the investment team to structure and conduct diligence on new investments. Ricky is a Board Director at Intronis, SmashFly, and Open-E, and is active as a Board Observer at FieldLens, Spredfast, and FieldAware. Prior to joining OpenView, Ricky was an Associate at Symmetric Capital, a growth-focused private equity firm investing across industries. He previously interned at Landmark Partners, an investment firm centered on acquiring secondary interests in venture capital and private equity funds.
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About OpenView, Optimize.health, Pipefy, project44, VTS: OpenView is an expansion stage venture firm that helps grow software companies into market leaders.
Sanjiv Kalevar
Partner of OpenView
Sanjiv joined Battery in 2013 and focuses on Internet, SaaS/software and digital media investments. Prior to Battery, Sanjiv worked for Bessemer Venture Partners, a global venture capital firm with offices in the U.S., India, Brazil, and Israel. Sanjiv also worked with an early-stage angel investment group in Chicago and with 37signals, makers of the popular project management software Basecamp. Previously, Sanjiv was Business Development Manager with Constellation Software (TSX:CSU), where he helped grow his division 5X through a combination of organic and inorganic growth initiatives. Sanjiv graduated from Queen’s University in Ontario, Canada and holds an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth.
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About OpenView: OpenView is an expansion stage venture firm that helps grow software companies into market leaders.
