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 United States based Founder operating in the Enterprise space. If you think a Founder 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.
Wayne Chang
Co-Founder of Digits
Wayne Chang (born August 3, 1983) is an American entrepreneur, angel investor, film producer, and philanthropist. He is best known for founding Crashlytics, which in little over a year was acquired by Twitter for over $100 million in 2013 (later valued at $259.5 million at Twitter’s IPO), creating i2hub, a popular filesharing network, his seed investments that include companies like JetSmarter, Draftkings, and Gusto, and his lawsuit against the Winklevoss brothers, who were famously depicted in The Social Network movie.
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About Digits: Digits is building financial technology so powerful.. you’ll think they stole it from the future
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Jeff Seibert
Co-Founder & Co-CEO of Digits
As Senior Director of Product at Twitter, Jeff has led the company’s consumer, developer, and publisher facing products, including Twitter for iOS, Android, and the Web, Fabric, Crashlytics, Answers, Digits, Twitter Kit, TweetDeck, Twitter’s Publisher Platform, and Gnip. Previously, Seibert was Twitter’s Director of Developer Platform where he led Fabric, the company’s suite of mobile developer tools, as well as its enterprise Data Platform and Content Syndication efforts. Seibert was the co-founder and CEO of Crashlytics, an award-winning crash analysis service for iOS and Android apps. Crashlytics was acquired by Twitter in 2013 and has become an essential piece of the mobile developer toolchain – today powering over a million apps across well over two billion devices worldwide. Seibert co-founded Increo in 2007 and served as its COO and lead architect until its acquisition by Box in 2009. He subsequently oversaw the integration of Increo’s document preview and annotation technologies into Box’s cloud content platform. Seibert gained experience at Apple in both marketing and engineering capacities and led Stanford University’s Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders seminar series as Co-Coordinator. He was selected as a Mayfield Fellow in 2007 and received a B.S. in Computer Science from Stanford University in 2008. Seibert is a frequent presenter on both entrepreneurship and technical topics and has lectured at Stanford, Harvard, MIT, and Tufts, as well as keynoted Twitter Flight, AppsWorld, AnDevCon, EclipseCon, and others. Find him on Twitter at @JeffSeibert.
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About Digits: Digits is building financial technology so powerful.. you’ll think they stole it from the future
Neha Singh
Co-Founder & CEO of Tracxn
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About Tracxn: The largest data platform of Startups
Dustin Moskovitz
CEO & Co-Founder of Asana
Dustin Moskovitz is a Co-Founder and CEO at Asana. He is also the Co-Founder of Open Philanthropy Project and Good Ventures. Mr. Moskovitz is a former Co-Founder of Facebook.
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About Asana, Good Ventures, Open Philanthropy Project: Asana is a computer software company that specializes in the fields of work management and productivity.
Mickey Alon
CTO and Founder of Gainsight PX of Gainsight
Mickey Alon is the founder and CTO of Gainsight PX (previously Aptrinsic), the Product Experience Platform. He is a serial entrepreneur focused on designing, building and launching innovative products that help drive business outcomes. Before joining Gainsight through the acquisition of Aptrinsic, Mickey was Global VP of Engineering where he led the global engineering and product management for their web personalization and predictive content solutions. He is also the CEO and Co-Founder of Insightera, a personalization and predictive analytics software, which was acquired by Marketo in 2013. He also co-authored Mastering Product Experience in SaaS – a book on delivering personalized product experiences with a product-led go-to-market strategy.
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About Aptrinsic, Gainsight: Gainsight is a technology company that offers a range of software for optimizing the customer experience and improving product analytics.
Brynne Kennedy
Founder and Chairwoman of Topia
Brynne Kennedy is the Founder and former CEO of Topia, the talent mobility suite that helps companies move their employees between locations. Brynne founded Topia after working in investment banking and private equity. She has raised more than $100 million in venture capital funding for Topia and grown the company to operate worldwide. Topia contributes a % of revenue to support refugees and at-risk populations, and Brynne has pledged a % of personal exit proceeds to charity. Brynne holds an MBA from London Business School and a BA from Yale, where she was a Division 1 gymnast.
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About Mobility4All, Topia, Topia: Topia is a talent mobility platform that enables employees to work remotely.
Ed Doran
Senior Director Product Management, Microsoft Research, 4x Founder of Microsoft
Ed Doran is a proven technology leader and founder (Cortana). He began his career in market research and insight, expanded to management consulting, and ultimately to product and business leadership. He has experience leading in large and small organizations, local and global teams, and complex partnerships. Ed sets the vision, builds the teams, and drives… 1. Developing a deep understanding of consumers, competitors, and the technology landscape. Identifying the high value business opportunity based on the market conditions 2. Delivering compelling experiences by bringing together business, engineering, and design across platforms. 3. Driving momentum for the experience, brand, and company through marketing (e.g., brand, positioning, messaging), business strategy, and strategic partnerships Ed’s teams integrate design, engineering, and business to create great products at a global scale. Ed has earned a doctorate degree as well as received specialized training at Harvard Business School and Stanford Graduate School of Business.
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About Microsoft: Microsoft is a software corporation that develops, manufactures, licenses, supports, and sells a range of software products and services.
Mariano Suarez-Battan
Co-Founder & CEO of MURAL
Mariano Suarez-Battan is a Co-founder and CEO at MURAL, a digital workspace for visual collaboration. He is a three-time co-founder and an inventor by trade, who is on a mission to inspire, enhance, and connect “imagination workers” so they can collaborate and solve hard problems together. Previously, he co-founded Three Melons, a video game studio that designed and published online games for clients like LEGO, Disney, Mattel, Warner Bros. Three Melons created more than 50 games as well as the soccer-based Facebook game Bola!, which had more than 20 million players globally in 2010 (1M daily during the World Cup). The company was acquired in 2010 by Playdom/Disney, where Mariano served as Creative Director following the acquisition. He then co-founded Idea.me, a leading crowdfunding site for the Latin American region. Mariano is an active angel investor and startup advisor at Endeavor.org, a global non-profit leading the high-impact entrepreneurship movement. As an Endeavor entrepreneur, he mentors other founders at various stages of their scaleup journey. He is a graduate of the Endeavor Leadership Program by the Stanford Graduate School of Business.
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About MURAL: MURAL is a digital workspace that provides a visual collaboration platform that enables teams to work remotely and efficiently.
Parker Harris
Co-Founder, EVP Technology of Salesforce
Parker Harris founded salesforce.com along with Marc Benioff, Dave Moellenhoff and Frank Dominguez in the spring of 1999. As Executive Vice President, Harris oversees the development of all software for salesforce.com. Prior to founding salesforce.com, Harris developed web application and salesforce automation expertise at Left Coast Software, a private consulting company he co-founded, as well as at Metropolis software, an early pioneer in field sales force automation subsequently acquired by Clarify. Harris has over twelve years of software engineering and management experience. He graduated from Middlebury College with a Bachelor’s Degree in English Literature.
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About Salesforce, Salesforce Ventures: Salesforce is a global cloud computing company that develops CRM solutions and provides business software on a subscription basis.
Peter Wang
Co-Founder & CTO of Anaconda
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About Anaconda, Anaconda: Anaconda is a data science platform and the foundation of modern machine learning.
Alcyr Araujo
Founder & CEO of Mosyle
Founder & CEO at Mosyle
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About Mosyle: Mosyle is the leader in modern mobile device managment for Apple enterprise and education customers.
Brad Birnbaum
CEO & Founder of Kustomer
Brad is an innovator and a trailblazer in creating disruptive enterprise technologies. He has spent more than 20 years as a C level executive and a serial entrepreneur, building companies and solutions for customer service and support. Mission driven and passionate, he believes in leading with purpose and building solutions that solve real world problems. As co-founder and CEO of Kustomer, Brad set out together with Jeremy Suriel and the Kustomer team to build something the world desperately needs: a modern, customer-centric platform for building applications while modernizing the customer support tool landscape. Before founding Kustomer, Brad co-founded Assistly which was acquired by Salesforce and rebranded as Desk.com; making it the Salesforce SaaS SMB support solution. Brad began his career by founding eShare Communications while in college. As Chief Technology Officer and Executive Vice President of Product Development at eShare Technologies, he took part in revolutionizing community chat and launching the first chat tool used for customer support. eShare was later sold to Melita International where he continued his role as CTO for the larger entity which rebranded as eShare Communications. Brad held executive roles at Divine Interventures, eAssist and Talisma all the while focusing on improving customer support for enterprise companies. Additionally, Brad lead the community chat team at AOL and was CTO for Airtime. Brad contributes regularly to Forbes where he writes about trends that affect the customer service industry today. As a born and raised New Yorker, Brad insists on building the next great NYC based tech startup. Brad serves as Kustomer’s Chairman of the Board. Birnbaum served as a Justice Louis Brandeis Scholar at Brandeis University and a Simon’s fellow at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, where he conducted advanced organo-metallic research in chemistry. Birnbaum has been published in a variety of publications and has also served as a technical editor for some of Macmillan’s best-selling Java and Internet books. Birnbaum holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Information Systems from the State University of New York at Stony Brook.
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About CRMXchange, Kustomer: Kustomer is an omnichannel Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) CRM platform specializing in customer service.
Jeremy Suriel
CTO & Founder of Kustomer
Jeremy is a seasoned tech founder with a deep knowledge and expertise in software development & architecture.Jeremy was Co-founder and Chief Architect of Assistly. Previously he was a Co-founder of eAssist, then a Co-founder & CTO at Goowy Media which was acquired by AOL.
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About Kustomer: Kustomer is an omnichannel Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) CRM platform specializing in customer service.
Christopher Kirchner
Co-Founder, Chairman and CEO of Slync.io
Christopher S. Kirchner is the co-founder, chairman, and CEO at Slync.io. Prior to this, Christopher has worked as a senior vice president of sales and marketing and a director of marketing and sales at Turner Labels. Christopher holds a degree in communications, minor marketing from the University of Kentucky.
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About Slync.io: Slync.io is a provider of process automation for enterprise supply chains and the global logistics industry.
Raj Patel
Co-Founder and CPO of Slync.io
Raj Patel is the Co-Founder and CPO of Slync.io.
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About Slync.io: Slync.io is a provider of process automation for enterprise supply chains and the global logistics industry.
Peter Kazanjy
Co-Founder of Atrium
Pete Kazanjy (LinkedIn, Twitter) is a serial founder, and seasoned early stage Saas executive, advisor, and investor. Pete founded TalentBin, a category-defining talent search engine and recruiting CRM, which exited to Monster Worldwide in early 2014. Pete currently is the founder of Atrium, a proactive sales performance analysis solution, author of Founding Sales, the definitive Startup Sales Handbook, and founder of Modern Sales, the nation’s largest sales operations, leadership, and enablement community.
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About Atrium: Atrium help sales managers with its data-driven management software that provides coaching insights and continuous monitoring.
Spencer Kimball
Co-Founder and CEO of Cockroach Labs
Spencer Kimball is the co-founder and CEO of Cockroach Labs, where he maintains a delicate balance between a love for programming distributed systems and the excitement of helping the company grow smoothly. While in university, he was one of the original authors of the GIMP. He cut his teeth on databases during the dot com heyday, and had a front row seat at Google for a decade’s worth of their evolution.
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About Cockroach Labs: Cockroach Labs is a software company that develops a cloud-native SQL database for modern cloud applications.
Sam Lessin
Co-Founder of Fin.com
Sam is currently the co-CEO of Fin and a General Partner at Slow Ventures. He was formerly a vice president of product management at Facebook from 2010 to 2014, where he managed the People, Places, and Things product group and the Identity product group. Prior to joining Facebook Sam founded drop.io, a file-sharing platform that was acquired by Facebook in 2010. Before drop.io Sam was an associate at Bain and Company. In his spare time Sam enjoys skiing and kite-surfing. He writes a column at The Information, where he interns.
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About Fin.com, Slow Ventures, SocialGreat, Thimble: Fin.com is a work insights platform that provides cross-applications and enterprises data insights for CX and operations teams.
Paul J. Ferri
Founder & Partner Emeritus of Matrix Partners
Paul Ferri is the Founder of Matrix Partners, and one of the most respected investors in the venture capital industry. Like many of the entrepreneurs with whom he has worked over the years, Paul was born in another country and built his legacy from scratch, persevering through adverse conditions and making the best of the opportunity and luck that came his way. Born in Rome, Italy, Paul immigrated to the U.S. at the age of seven. It was 1944, the height of World War II, and neither Paul nor anyone in his family spoke English. His family settled in Virginia where his father worked for the government as an aeronautics engineer. They ultimately moved to the suburbs of New York, where Paul grew up. Paul studied engineering at Cornell University and the Polytechnic Institute of New York, and business at Columbia University. In 1977 Paul and Warren Hellman co-founded Hellman Ferri Investment Associates. The duo initially invested across multiple stages and in multiple sectors, and after five years Paul and Warren decided the best approach would be to develop distinct areas of expertise. Warren started a late stage private equity fund in San Francisco, which became Hellman & Friedman; Paul focused on early stage deals and established Matrix Partners in 1982. Over the next few years, Paul began to direct the firm’s investments toward information technology start-ups. One of the most significant companies Paul supported was Cascade Communications. The company, founded by Desh Deshpande and run by Dan Smith, became an industry leader that spawned new innovations. The company sold to Ascend, which was later bought by Lucent. Cascade’s founders and employees went on to found some of the most significant companies of the era, including ArrowPoint, Sonus Networks and Sycamore Networks—all of which were Matrix portfolio companies. Paul has led more than twenty portfolio companies to the public markets, and another twenty to profitable acquisitions. He continues to invest on behalf of the firm and guide his entrepreneurs through the ups and downs of start-up life on the path to success. Education: Cornell University, B.S. Electrical Engineering Polytechnic Institute of New York, M.S. Electrical Engineering Columbia University, MBA
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About Matrix Partners: Matrix Partners is a venture capital firm that focuses on seed and early-stage investments.
Matt Ocko
Co-Managing Partner and Co-Founder of DCVC
Matt has nearly three decades of experience as a technology entrepreneur, operating executive and venture capitalist, with over 20 patents granted or pending in areas as diverse as hardware systems and social games. He still reads C++ code but admits to occasional struggles with Erlang. Matt is a cofounder of Data Collective, a venture fund with a unique team of experienced venture capitalists, technology entrepreneurs and practicing engineers, investing together in seed and early stage Big Data and IT infrastructure companies. During his venture capital tenure, he has invested in and/or helped grow a variety of companies including XenSource (CTRX), Zynga (ZNGA), Impermium, Verisign (VRSN), Facebook (FB), Virtuata (CSCO), Akimbi Systems (VMW), Cotendo (AKAM), Tango.me, MetaWeb (GOOG), FlashSoft (SNDK), DataMirror (IBM), UltraDNS (NSR), Kenshoo, Metamarkets, Fortinet (FTNT), SupportSoft (SPRT), Alantro (TXN), CouchBase, Spool (FB), BranchOut, On-Ramp Wireless, and many others.
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About AngelList, Archimedes Capital, DCVC, Uber: DCVC backs entrepreneurs using Deep Tech to solve problems and multiply the benefits of capitalism for everyone while reducing its cost.
Zachary Bogue
Co-Managing Partner and Co-Founder of DCVC
Zack has over a decade of experience in Silicon Valley as an entrepreneur, lawyer, angel investor and advisor for big data startups. Zack is a cofounder of Data Collective, a venture fund with a unique team of experienced venture capitalists, technology entrepreneurs and practicing engineers, investing together in seed and early stage Big Data and IT infrastructure companies. Zack also is a cofounder and managing partner of Founders Den, a shared workspace for experienced technology entrepreneurs. He was previously an associate at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati and a law partner at Virtual Law Partners, where he worked with numerous start-ups and their founders, and developed expertise in technology law and Silicon Valley business practices.
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About aWhere, Cask, Citus Data, Cotendo, DCVC, Founders Den, Montara Capital Partners, Square, The World Economic Forum, Uber: DCVC backs entrepreneurs using Deep Tech to solve problems and multiply the benefits of capitalism for everyone while reducing its cost.
Avishai Abrahami
Co-Founder & CEO of Wix
Avishai Abrahami is our Co-Founder, has served as our Chief Executive Officer since September 2010 and was our Co-Chief Executive Officer and a director since October 2006. From 2004 to 2006, Avishai was the Vice President of Strategic Alliances at Arel Communications & Software Ltd., a private Israeli company specializing in communication technology. In 1998 he co-founded Sphera Corporation, a private company which develops software for managing data centers, and he served as its Chief Technology Officer from 1998 until 2000 and its Vice President of Product Marketing from 2000 until 2003. In 1993, he co-founded AIT Ltd., a private Israeli software company, and served as its Chief Technology Officer until the company’s sale in 1997. Avishai served in the Israeli Defense Forces’ elite computer intelligence unit from 1990 until 1992.
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About Utsav Kraft, Wix: Wix provides a platform for the development of cloud data services for millions of registered users worldwide.
Phil Black
Co-Founder of True Ventures
Phil is an early stage venture capitalist and co-founder of True Ventures. He learned the venture trade and met his future True Ventures co-founder during his time at Summit Partners. He held general partner positions for eight years prior to raising and investing a small angel fund called Blacksmith Capital, which became a seminal moment in his career of managing venture fund investments. Phil believes in risk-taking at the earliest stage and that startup founders benefit most when they are supported fully, both professionally and personally. Phil is a product of Oklahoma and Stanford alumni. He loves art, wine, and travel. His favorite place outside of the San Francisco Bay Area is London.
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About True Ventures: True Ventures is a venture capital firm that invests in early-stage technology startups.
Phil Black
Co-Founder of True Ventures
Phil is an early stage venture capitalist and co-founder of True Ventures. He learned the venture trade and met his future True Ventures co-founder during his time at Summit Partners. He held general partner positions for eight years prior to raising and investing a small angel fund called Blacksmith Capital, which became a seminal moment in his career of managing venture fund investments. Phil believes in risk-taking at the earliest stage and that startup founders benefit most when they are supported fully, both professionally and personally. Phil is a product of Oklahoma and Stanford alumni. He loves art, wine, and travel. His favorite place outside of the San Francisco Bay Area is London.
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About True Ventures: True Ventures is a venture capital firm that invests in early-stage technology startups.
Jon Callaghan
Co-Founder and Managing Partner of True Ventures
Jon is an early stage venture capitalist and co-founder of True Ventures. He has been in the venture capital business since 1991 and built three companies of his own. His first was Mountain Bike Outfitters, Inc., which he created at age 18. Jon started his venture career as an associate at Summit Partners and then joined Greenhouse, AOL’s venture capital investment group and incubator. He entered the internet market early by joining CMGI’s @Ventures group in 1996. Before founding True, Jon was a managing director at Globespan Capital Partners. First as a founder and now as an investor in early-stage technology companies, Jon’s direct startup experience has allowed him to see the world through an entrepreneur’s eyes. Jon’s career has been driven by a deep belief in the power of human creativity to improve our world. Jon received a bachelor’s degree in government from Dartmouth College and an MBA, with distinction, from Harvard Business School. He was recently the Chairman of the National Venture Capital Association. When he is not empowering the entrepreneurs of tomorrow, you can find him talking about airplanes or hanging out with his wife and four boys.
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About NexPrise Corporation, True Ventures: True Ventures is a venture capital firm that invests in early-stage technology startups.
Jon Callaghan
Co-Founder and Managing Partner of True Ventures
Jon is an early stage venture capitalist and co-founder of True Ventures. He has been in the venture capital business since 1991 and built three companies of his own. His first was Mountain Bike Outfitters, Inc., which he created at age 18. Jon started his venture career as an associate at Summit Partners and then joined Greenhouse, AOL’s venture capital investment group and incubator. He entered the internet market early by joining CMGI’s @Ventures group in 1996. Before founding True, Jon was a managing director at Globespan Capital Partners. First as a founder and now as an investor in early-stage technology companies, Jon’s direct startup experience has allowed him to see the world through an entrepreneur’s eyes. Jon’s career has been driven by a deep belief in the power of human creativity to improve our world. Jon received a bachelor’s degree in government from Dartmouth College and an MBA, with distinction, from Harvard Business School. He was recently the Chairman of the National Venture Capital Association. When he is not empowering the entrepreneurs of tomorrow, you can find him talking about airplanes or hanging out with his wife and four boys.
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About NexPrise Corporation, True Ventures: True Ventures is a venture capital firm that invests in early-stage technology startups.
Steve Kokinos
Founder & Chairman of Fuze
Steve is responsible for the strategic direction and management of Thinking Phone Networks. Under his leadership, the company is transforming the way enterprises view communications as a key driver of business visibility, process improvement, and results. Previously, Steve was a founder of BladeLogic, Inc., a recognized leader in the data center automation market with a Fortune 500 client list that includes GE, Time Warner, Microsoft, Cable & Wireless, Walmart, and Sprint, among others. Prior to BladeLogic, Steven was founder, president, and CEO of WebYes, Inc., an early market leader in the Web hosting and application service provider arena. WebYes provided the electronic software distribution platform for all of Sun Microsystems’ software products, including Java, and was acquired by Breakaway Solutions in 1999. At Breakaway, Steve established and ran the company’s ASP business. He played a critical role in driving the business to $120M in revenue and taking the company public, and in just 18 months was responsible for Breakaway’s #2 worldwide ASP industry ranking. Steve holds a B.A. from McGill University
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About Algorand, Fuze, G20 Ventures: Formerly ThinkingPhones, Fuze is a cloud-based communications and collaboration solution that connects organizations across devices.
Tope Awotona
CEO & Founder of Calendly
Tope spent the last seven years growing strategic accounts and territories for some of the most successful software companies including IBM, Perceptive Software, ImageRight/Vertafore and EMC. During that time, he managed $2m+ territories, won numerous awards, influenced others to achieve results and succeeded in high-pressure environments. When not fine-tuning and perfecting Calendly, he’s probably LOLing at a standup comedy club, occasionally showing up for CrossFit or dreaming about a tropical vacation. And oh yeah, Go Dawgs!
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About Calendly: Calendly is a modern scheduling platform that helps individuals, teams, and organizations automate meeting by removing the back and forth.
J.M Sawkat Akbar
Founder and Chairman of BJIT Group
Jem Akbar Shukat is the founder and Chairman of BJIT.
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About BJIT Group: BJIT Group is an information, communications, and ICT company that provides software development and information technology service.
Arash Ferdowsi
Co-Founder of Dropbox
Arash Ferdowsi is the Co-Founder & CTO at Dropbox. After studying at MIT, Arash Ferdowsi founded Dropbox with Drew Houston. Dropbox was a TechCrunch50 finalist in 2008.
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About Dropbox: Dropbox is a smart workspace company that provides secure file sharing, collaboration, and storage solutions.
Rodney Sampson
Founder, Executive Chairman, and Chief Executive Officer of OHUB
Rodney Sampson is heralded as the leading inclusive innovation, entrepreneurship and investment ecosystem builder in the world, particularly given his mission to ensure that everyone, everywhere, particularly socially disadvantaged communities, have equitable access to the new multi-generational wealth creation opportunities afforded in the future of work and fourth industrial revolution as definitive paths to reducing poverty and the racial wealth gap everywhere. Throughout his twenty-year entrepreneurial career, Sampson has co-founded startup companies that have overcome the odds by collectively raising more than $20 million in angel and venture capital, created hundreds of new jobs, and generated tens of millions in revenue before the acquisition or going public. At the beginning of the 21st century, Sampson co-founded, built, and sold Multicast Media Technologies (Streamingfaith.com) and EFactor (EFCT). He was one of three Black co-founders during this era whose high growth technology startups raised over $1 million in angel and venture capital and were subsequently acquired for eight-figures. During this time, Sampson also built Intellectual Currency, a world-class integrated go-to-market, publishing, and advisory firm with clients ranging from major Hollywood film studios, cable networks, tech companies, global corporates, publishers, the United States government, African heads of state and leading Black church denominations. Since 2007, Sampson has worked closely with high growth startups and seed-stage venture funds as a selective advisor, investor, and limited partner. His current investment and advisory portfolio include Cross Culture Ventures, TechSquare Capital, Digit, York Exponential, Plum.io, Patientory, The Mentor Method, and Momentum Learning. In 2013, Sampson co-founded Opportunity Hub as a follow up to the highly successful Kingonomics’ book release and large-scale conferences in Atlanta, GA, and Washington, DC. OHUB scaled quickly to become the leading multi-campus coworking space, entrepreneurship center, and tech hub featuring over 300 events a year, a startup pre-accelerator, coding boot-camp, and scholarship initiative and angel investing platform for founders from underestimated and under-tapped communities. Over 15,000 people walked through OHUB’s doors each year. From 2015-17, Sampson was a Partner at TechSquare Labs, a tech hub, seed-stage venture fund, and creator of the $100,000 Atlanta Startup Battle. Today, TechSquare Labs’ portfolio companies have raised follow on the capital of nearly $300 million, are valued at over $1.5 billion, generate over $100 million in annual recurring revenue, and employ over 1000 people and growing. He remains the largest minority limited partner in the fund. Today, as Executive Chairman & CEO of Opportunity Hub and OHUB Foundation, Sampson is focused on scaling OHUB as the definitive global future of work, opportunity, and wealth-creating platform by ensuring that everyone, everywhere has early exposure to tech, startup, and venture; in-demand technology education, training, and talent placement; inclusive entrepreneurial ecosystem building; and capital formation. This is driven by the thousands of college and young professional members and growing from hundreds of colleges and universities across America and beyond. OHUB is a supplier, vendor, and partner to over 50 tech companies, major corporations, high growth startups, venture funds, municipalities, foundations, associations, colleges and universities and growing. Current national initiatives include OHUB@Cities, OHUB@Campus, OHUB@SXSW, 100 Black Angels Fund I and DEIS, a new strategy, service, and future software platform to operationalize diversity, equity, and inclusion across the major divisions of growing enterprises. Sampson is also a Nonresident Senior Fellow in the Metropolitan Policy Program at the Brooking Institution in Washington, DC, and a Professor of Entrepreneurship at Morehouse College in Atlanta, GA. Sampson previously served as the 1st Head of Diversity at Mark Burnett Productions, executive producers of the hit ABC show, ABC’s Sharktank. A strong believer in philanthropy and its role in social impact and advocacy, Sampson supports and serves on the boards of Artificial Intelligence for All (AI4All), Multicultural Media, Telecom and Internet Council (MMTC), International Bishops Conference, and GA Technology for All Policy Summit. Sampson was educated at Tulane University, Pennsylvania State University College of Medicine, and Keller Graduate School of Management. Sampson resides in Atlanta, GA with his wife and six children.
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About Huddle Ventures, OHUB, Plum.io, ROHO: OHUB is an ecosystem building platform to ensure authentic diversity, equity, and inclusion in the fourth industrial revolution and beyond.
Aditya Singh
Co-Founder and Managing Director of Neotribe Ventures
Adit is a hands-on early stage company builder having helped build three startups with an operating career spanning 15 years before entering venture capital. From 2013 to 2017, he led the b2b/enterprise practice at Foundation Capital as a Partner investing across the stack from enterprise applications, cloud infrastructure, analytics and cybersecurity. Adit graduated from University of Illinois (BS/MS in Computer Engineering) and from the University of Chicago (MBA). He started his career as an engineer at Growth Networks (a NEA/Lightspeed company) which was acquired by Cisco for $355m. At Cisco, he led the datacenter infrastructure team as a senior technical leader and delivered several products (converged servers, switches and edge routers) for data center infrastructure. He co-founded a networking appliance company, Bitsplay Systems that streamed video from data centers, out of the EIR program at Foundation Capital. In 2008, he joined Enphase Energy (networked solar microinverters), a Series A startup as their first product manager through IPO on the NASDAQ in 2012. When Enphase went public, Adit was Senior Director of Product Management and responsible for the main microinverter business. He is extremely connected in the the deeply technical circles of silicon valley and has the reputation of building companies from the bottom up by working hand in hand with founders.
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About Bloomreach, Cockroach Labs, Neotribe Ventures, Phantom: Neotribe Ventures is an early stage-venture capital firm which invests in breakthrough technologies that stretch the imagination.
Steven Bragonier
CFO and Co-Founder of Neotribe Ventures
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About Gainspeed, Neotribe Ventures: Neotribe Ventures is an early stage-venture capital firm which invests in breakthrough technologies that stretch the imagination.
Amir Goldman
Founder / Investor of Susquehanna Growth Equity
Amir founded Susquehanna Growth Equity in 2006 with the owners of SIG. He focuses on investments in software and financial technology, and currently serves on the boards of B-Stock, iCIMS, PaySimple, Payoneer and Zyme. He previously served on the boards of CashEdge (acquired by Fiserv), Plimus (acquired by Bluesnap Technologies), ESP Technologies (acquired by ITG), Kashya (acquired by EMC), and Prosight (acquired by Primavera/Oracle) and was involved in investments in ClariFI (Standard & Poor’s), Whale Communications (Microsoft), Paradigm Geophysical (NASDAQ, then acquired by Apax) and Crossworlds (NASDAQ, then acquired by IBM). He was previously a venture capitalist at TL Ventures and BRM Capital, and was also an investment banker at Robertson Stephens. Amir grew up in Albuquerque, New Mexico and attended La Cueva High School. Although he doesn’t watch Breaking Bad, he is fairly certain that Walter White is modeled after his 7th grade physics teacher. In high school, Amir made a valiant attempt to be a wrestler, but moved on after a 4-4 season (three of his wins by forfeit). Instead, he became a coder in Assembler Language, Pascal and Basic, and was particularly adept on the Apple III computing platform. When Apple discontinued its then most disastrous commercial product line, he gave up his programming aspirations and took up the study of finance. He is the proud father of five charming and bright boys. Yes, his wife is a saint. Although five boys naturally suggests a basketball team, their athletic abilities have led them to favor the Reading Olympics. Amir received an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School and a B.S. in Economics from the University of Pennsylvania. He taught entrepreneurial management to second year MBA candidates at the Wharton School from 2005-2010 and is a frequent guest lecturer at the school.
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About Susquehanna Growth Equity, Susquehanna Private Capital: Susquehanna Growth Equity invests in growth stage technology companies in the software, information services, and internet.
Grant Miller
Founder & CEO of Replicated
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About Replicated: Replicated provides a platform for delivering and managing Kubernetes applications in any environment.
Hamza Zia
Founder & CEO of GitStart
Founder and CEO at GitStart (YC S19) Y Combinator-backed startup that helps engineering-focused companies be more agile, scale feature deployment faster, and reduce management complexity. Passionate about technology and programming from a very young age, I have built technology-based businesses globally and scaled high-performance teams across San Francisco, Zurich, Shanghai, and Hong Kong. Worked closely on the core Microsoft Azure team at Shanghai, helping improve their cloud platform, and was recognized as an outstanding individual contributor.
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About GitStart: The modern way to scale your tech team
George Baker Sr.
Founder, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer of ParkHub
Entrepreneurial, practical, and a visionary. These words seem somewhat contradictory, but these words truly describe George’s leadership style. His experience and education have led him to the point where he is today – building his own brand in the parking industry and beyond. Even though he has big ideas, he possesses the pragmatism to see the limitations, challenges and obstacles at hand. He believes in others and enjoys building teams and driving innovation through collaborative effort. This team-first ethos forms the foundation upon which George built ParkHub into the successful and driven organization that it is today. George has nearly 17 years of hands-on experience in the parking realm, focusing on managing the parking operations of class-A office garage facilities and comparable top-tier parking operations across the continental United States. He prides himself on deep domain knowledge of the event parking space and providing a comprehensive suite of services both software and hardware to support his ever-growing clientele therein. In order to consistently exceed customer expectations in the event-parking space, ParkHub provides logistics and occupancy management services, as well as cutting-edge insights into parking management. Truly, George is reshaping the parking universe, one satisfied customer at a time. When he’s not modernizing the parking world, he’s at his home in Dallas, Texas, spending time with his wife Chelsey and their two children, George II and Kuper. George graduated from the University of Arizona with a Bachelor’s of Science in Regional Development | City Planning. George is a proud Eagle Scout, Past Worshipful Master of his Texas Masonic Lodge, winner of the 2016 Greater Dallas Business Ethics Award, multiple recipient of the National Parking Association 40 under 40 award, 2016 finalist of EY Entrepreneur of the Year, and devoted member his local Highland Park United Methodist Church congregation.
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About ParkHub: ParkHub is a technology company that provides software and hardware for the destination industry.
Martin Gedalin
Founder & Partner of Lumia Capital
Martin is Founder of Lumia Capital, an expansion-stage VC partnering with leading tech companies in under-invested emerging markets and forward-thinking US companies targeting these markets to accelerate growth. Previously, Martin was one of five investment professionals at Focus Ventures, a technology-focused venture capital firm in Palo Alto with ~$850M under management and ~110 expansion-stage investments across three funds. Prior to Focus, Martin was a Product Manager at Oracle Corp., where he was responsible for core components of Fusion CRM, Oracle’s next generation CRM strategy, and a $1B+ product line. Prior to these roles, Martin was a management consultant for both Siebel Systems (Customer Strategy Team) and, post acquisition, Oracle (Insight Group), where he provided strategic recommendations across people, process and technology domains to Oracle/Siebel’s top global customers. Martin began his career in Corporate Strategy at NCR Corporation. Personally, Martin is also an adviser to a number of private companies and funds.
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About Lumia Capital: Expansion-stage VC firm partnering with forward-thinking US and European innovators expanding internationally for breakout growth.
Michael Stark
Founder & General Partner of Crosslink Capital
Michael co-founded Crosslink Capital. He oversees all the Firm’s investment activities. Michael also serves as Portfolio Manager for the Partners and Emerging Growth Long/Short funds and all of the Firm’s Crossover Funds. Michael joined Robertson Stephens in 1983 where he served as Director of Research and equity analyst covering the semiconductor and software industries. Prior to that he was at Intel Corporation.
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About Crosslink Capital, Northwestern University, University of Michigan: Crosslink Capital partners with founders that are market disrupters and category creators typically at the Seed-Series A stage.
Jonathan Anderson
Co-Founder & CEO of Candu
Jonathan Anderson is a Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer at Candu.
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About Candu: Candu is a product experience platform for software teams who want to design, refine, and personalize their application’s user interface.
Jai Pradeesh
Founder of DeepSource
Founder of DeepSource. Interested in building tools to improve developer productivity.
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About DeepSource: Deepsource is an enterprise tech startup that provides an automated tool to review codes.
Sanket Saurav
Founder of DeepSource
Co-founder of DeepSource: Helping developers ship fewer bugs.
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About DeepSource: Deepsource is an enterprise tech startup that provides an automated tool to review codes.
Ramesh Rajagopal
Co-Founder and President of Authentic8
Ramesh is Co-Founder and President of Authentic8. Prior to this, he was VP Corporate Development at Postini running all strategic planning and business development leading up to the acquisition of the company by Google in 2007 for $625 million. Before Postini, Ramesh was Senior Director of the Corporate Strategy Group at Microsoft, where he co-led a team in identifying and evaluating new growth opportunities for the company in areas that included consumer web services, business applications and security. Prior to his time with Microsoft, Ramesh was with JP Morgan in both the investment banking and capital markets groups. Ramesh holds an MBA in Finance from the University of Chicago and an MA in Economics from the University of Cambridge.
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About Authentic8: Authentic8 is redefining how the browser is used with Silo, a secure browser in the cloud designed to insulate and isolate web data.
Howard Lerman
Co-Founder and CEO of Yext
Howard Lerman founded Yext in 2006 with a single goal: to build an impactful, great company with super talented people. Along the way, Yext has re-invented three industries: pay-per-call advertising, business listings synchronization, and today, digital knowledge management. With hundreds of amazingly talented employees serving many of the world’s leading businesses, Yext is on its way to realizing Howard’s original vision. Yext is Howard’s fourth software company. Howard is also Co-Founder and Chairman of Confide, a leading off-the-record messaging service. Howard is a proud graduate of TJHSST and barely graduated from Duke University.
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About Confide, Yext: Yext is a knowledge engine platform that helps brands deliver official answers.
Derek Belch
Co-Founder and CEO of STRIVR
Derek Belch is a Co-Founder and the Chief Executive Officer of STRIVR.
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About STRIVR: STRIVR is an information technology company that specializes in virtual reality, customer experience, and athlete performance.
Jeremy Bailenson
Co-Founder of STRIVR
Professor at Stanford University, head of Stanford’s Virtual Human Interaction Lab, and VR expert. Jeremy Bailenson is a Co-founder and the Chief Visionary at STRIVR. He is the founding director of Stanford University’s world-renowned Virtual Human Interaction Lab and a Professor in the Department of Communication at Stanford. He is one of the world’s leading experts in virtual reality. His findings have been published in over 100 academic papers in several fields including communication, computer science, education, law, medicine, and psychology. Bailenson is an author of the book Infinite Reality which was recently quoted by the Supreme Court outlining the effects of immersive media.
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About Cognitive Leap Solutions Inc., Stanford University, STRIVR: STRIVR is an information technology company that specializes in virtual reality, customer experience, and athlete performance.
Trent Edwards
Co-Founder & Sports Training of STRIVR
Trent Edwards is a Co-Founder at STRIVR. He was a Former Stanford and NFL Quarterback for the Buffalo Bills, Jacksonville Jaguars and Philadelphia Eagles. Trent is a former Stanford and NFL quarterback. He was drafted in the third round by the Buffalo Bills in 2007 and spent three seasons as the team’s starting quarterback. Following his stint with the Bills, Edwards spent a season each with the Jacksonville Jaguars and Philadelphia Eagles and two training camps with the Oakland Raiders. Edwards brings his experience as a quarterback at the professional, collegiate, and high school levels to the development of STRIVR’s products and services.
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About STRIVR: STRIVR is an information technology company that specializes in virtual reality, customer experience, and athlete performance.
Nathan Sportsman
Founder and CEO of Praetorian
As the Founder and CEO of Praetorian, Nathan is responsible for championing the vision, maintaining the culture, and setting the direction of the company. He also holds the additional duties of CTO where he is responsible for overseeing the innovation and development engine of the company keeping the firm well positioned to defeat the ever evolving cybersecurity threat. Prior to bringing in professional management to help run the company, Nathan managed the day-to-day operations of the firm from its 2010 beginnings as a bootstrapped start-up to its current YoY hyper-growth. Since Praetorian’s founding, Nathan has successfully instilled a “customer first” mentality that has become part of the DNA of the company which has led to unprecedented customer satisfaction reviews as reflected in a historical net promoter score of 86%. This reputation for delivering value to the customer has resulted in a three year growth rate of 214%. Under Nathan’s leadership, the company has earned national recognition on the Inc. 5000 list multiple times, the Cybersecurity 500, CIO Top 20, and locally on Austin’s “Fastest 50” growing firms. Prior to founding Praetorian, Nathan worked in various technical roles at industry-leading companies such as Sun Microsystems, Symantec, and McAfee. His experience has cross cut most industry sectors, and customers have ranged from Wall Street and Silicon Valley to government intelligence agencies and renowned educational institutions. Nationally recognized as a leader in the cybersecurity field, Nathan is a frequent public speaker, is a contributing author to the world’s best-selling computer security book, Hacking Exposed, is a U.S. patent holder, and has served as an adjunct professor at the University of Texas at Austin (nationally ranked #5 for Computer Science and Engineering). Nathan holds a BS in electrical & computer engineering from The University of Texas at Austin.
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About Praetorian: Praetorian is a cybersecurity company whose mission is to make the world safer and more secure.
Adi Kunalic
President & Co-Founder of Opendorse
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About Opendorse: Opendorse operates the leading SaaS-enabled Marketplace in the athlete endorsement industry.
Blake Lawrence
CEO and Co-Founder of Opendorse
Blake Lawrence is the CEO and co-founder of Opendorse, the athlete endorsement company. More than 75,000 athletes use Opendorse to understand, build, and monetize their name, image, and likeness (NIL) value. Prior to Opendorse, Blake co-founded Hurrdat, a social media agency, in Lincoln, Nebraska. Over four years, Hurrdat grew from two to twenty-five employees, and was acquired in July 2014 by B2 Interactive. Prior to his journey as an entrepreneur, Blake was a member of the Nebraska football team. Lawrence was a highly recruited linebacker, who started at Linebacker in 2008 and 2009, before his career was cut short due to recurring concussions. Off the football field, Blake earned his marketing degree in just 2.5 years, and received his MBA from Nebraska in 2011.
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About Opendorse: Opendorse operates the leading SaaS-enabled Marketplace in the athlete endorsement industry.
Jim Riley
Co – Founder & CEO of iCare
Jim Riley is the co-founder and CEO of iCare and has over 15 years of leadership experience in the Software as a Service (SaaS) industry. Mr. Riley had a single mission in mind when founding iCare in 2011; to create an on-demand health information management service to replace traditional enterprise software technology in the healthcare sector. Prior to founding iCare, Mr. Riley founded Learn.com, a cloud-based Human Capital Management provider where he acted as Chairman & CEO until the sale of the company. The innovative product set pioneered at Learn.com, is now part of Oracle Corporation. Mr. Riley led the company to the top of the industry in terms of customer success, analyst acclaim and product innovation. Mr. Riley received a B.S. in Systems Engineering from the University of Florida and served as a fighter pilot in the U.S. military.
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About iCare: iCare provides cloud-based EHR solutions to healthcare facilities.
James Hutchins
Co-Founder, Managing Partner of North Island Ventures
James Hutchins is the Co-Founder and Managing Partner at North Island Ventures.
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About North Island Ventures: North Island Ventures is a crypto-focused VC fund
Muhammet Enginar
Co-Founder, Head of Engineering of UserGuiding
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About UserGuiding: UserGuiding improves product adoption rates through ‘no coding needed’ interactive user onboarding flows.
Osman Koc
Co-Founder & CEO of UserGuiding
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About UserGuiding, YNOT Partners: UserGuiding improves product adoption rates through ‘no coding needed’ interactive user onboarding flows.
Andrew Ninh
Co-Founder and CSO of Docbot
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About Docbot: Docbot is an AI technology company that offers AI-assisted image analysis solutions to revolutionize gastrointestinal care.
William Karnes
Co-Founder and Chief Medical Officer of Docbot
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About Docbot, UC Irvine Health: Docbot is an AI technology company that offers AI-assisted image analysis solutions to revolutionize gastrointestinal care.
Dario Vergara
CTO & Co-Founder of LendingFront
Formerly SVP of technology for OnDeck. Most recently, VP of Technology for Bonobos, the largest apparel brand ever built on the web in the US.
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About LendingFront: Small business lending software platform for banks and other financial institutions
Jorge Sun
CEO & Co-Founder of LendingFront
Founding team member and Chief Credit Officer for OnDeck. Most recently, Head of Small Business Credit at Capital One Bank.
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About GATHER & SAVE, LendingFront: Small business lending software platform for banks and other financial institutions
Waleed Mohsen
Founder & CEO of mynurse.ai
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About mynurse.ai: a digital health program to help seniors with chronic conditions live their best lives.
Morgan Mercer
Founder, CEO of Vantage Point
Morgan Mercer is the founder of the VR-based enterprise training company, Vantage Point. Vantage Point’s suite of immersive training tools is initially aiming at tackling Anti-Sexual Harassment and Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) training. Mercer was recently regarded as one of the Top 10 Female Tech Innovators [in history] by TechRadar and has been featured in 4+ dozen publications including WIRED, NPR, The Economist, Vogue and more. Mercer was regarded by the UN Women chapter as a “Champion of Change” in the ‘Era of Equity’.
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About Vantage Point: We create experiences that change the way you think. Vantage Point is the future of workforce learning.
Hani Goldstein
Founder & CEO of Snappy
Founder at Snappy App.
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About Snappy: Snappy is an all-in-one enterprise gifting platform that allows companies to send gifts to their customers and team members.
Stephen DeAngelis
Founder, President & Chief Executive Officer of Enterra Solutions
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About Enterra Solutions, Massive Dynamics, Princeton University: Enterra Solutions is a developer of enterprise management software to solve complex challenges for industry, government, and science.
Sheila Gulati
Managing Director & Founder of Tola Capital
Sheila Gulati is the Managing Director at Tola Capital.
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About Pratham, Tola Capital: Tola Capital is a venture capital firm that invests globally in enterprise software companies across multiple stages.
Amish Jani
Founder & Partner of FirstMark
Amish Jani is a founder and Managing Director of FirstMark and has been an active venture capitalist for nearly 20 years. He invests broadly across the cloud and Internet landscape, including SaaS applications, ecommerce, infrastructure and more. Amish has been recognized by CB Insights and the New York Times as a Top 100 Venture Capitalist globally. Amish has invested in industry-defining companies that include Shopify (NYSE: SHOP), InVision, Pendo, Starry, Tracelink, Frame.io, Guru, Bluecore, IMImobile (LSE: IMO), Schoology (acquired by PowerSchool), Boomi (acquired by Dell), Aveksa (acquired by EMC), and many more. Prior to founding FirstMark, Amish served as a Partner with Pequot Ventures. Amish holds both a B.S. and an M.B.A. from the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania.
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About FirstMark: FirstMark Capital is an early-stage venture capital firm that partners with exceptional entrepreneurs.
Rick Heitzmann
Founder, Partner, and Managing Director of FirstMark
Rick Heitzmann is a Founder and Managing Director at FirstMark Capital. Mr. Heitzmann focuses on investments in emerging media, advertising, data, and information services. Rick has led or co-led many investments in market leaders in commerce (StubHub, acquired by eBay), gaming (Riot Games, acquired by Tencent), data services (First Advantage, NASDAQ: FADV; acquired by First American), advertising technology (Tapad), media (Pinterest), and more. Previously, Rick was a Managing Director at Pequot Ventures, and a founding member of the senior management team at First Advantage (NASDAQ: FADV). At US Search, Rick, as the Senior Vice President of corporate development and member of the Board of Directors, led the public company turnaround. Mr. Heitzmann graduated from Georgetown University with a B.S. in Business Administration and earned his M.B.A. from The Harvard Business School. Rick sits on the Board of Directors of Pinterest, Dashlane, Omaze, and Hubble Contacts among others. Rick is also on the Board of Directors of the New York Venture Capital Association.
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About FirstMark: FirstMark Capital is an early-stage venture capital firm that partners with exceptional entrepreneurs.
Edward Wang
Co-Founder of VMware
Dr. Edward Wang, Co-Founder and serves as Principal Engineer of Vmware, Inc. Dr. Wang has 10+ years of high tech industry experience. Prior to joining VMware, he worked as a principal engineer at VXtreme and Mindcraft and has consulted extensively on UNIX software projects. In 1993, he received a Lifetime Achievement Award from Usenix for his contributions to the development of Berkeley UNIX. He also helped to neutralize the infamous Internet Worm virus by discovering and describing one of its key mechanisms. He holds Ph.D. and M.S. degrees in computer science and a B.S. in electrical engineering and computer science from the University of California at Berkeley.
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About VMware: VMware is a software company providing cloud and virtualization services that powers complex digital infrastructure.
Scott Harris
Co-Founder | VP. Product Definition & UX of Onshape
Scott Harris is a Co-founder and the vice president of product definition and user experience at [Onshape](https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/onshape-inc-#/entity), a full-cloud 3D CAD system. Previously,he co-founded and worked as the VP of new concepts at SolidWorks.
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About Onshape: Onshape is a product development platform that unites CAD, data management, collaboration tools, and real-time analytics.
Erik Troan
Founder & CTO of Pendo
Erik Troan is the Founder of Pendo.io, Inc and serves as its Chief Technology Officer. Mr. Troan co-founded rPath, Inc. in 2005 and served as its Chief Technology Officer. At rPath, Mr. Troan was responsible for all aspects of product design and implementation and for rPath’s IT infrastructure. Mr. Troan was involved in Linux development and was a maintainer of the Sunsite Linux Archives. Prior to founding rPath, Mr. Troan served in multiple roles at Red Hat, Inc. including the Vice President of Product Engineering for several years as well as the Senior Director of Marketing and Chief Developer for Red Hat Software. Mr. Troan was responsible for leading development for Red Hat Linux, RPM and Anaconda. He managed a multimillion-dollar budget, participated in two public stock offerings and assisted in acquiring and integrating nine other companies. He serves as Member of Advisory Board of Cloudsoft Corporation Limited Mr. Troan is Member of the Technology Advisory Committee at Southern Capitol Ventures. Since May 2007, he also serves on the Board of Directors for Digium, Inc. He served as a Director of rPath, Inc. Mr. Troan has co-authored two editions of Linux Application Development.
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About Pendo: Pendo is a product-analytics app that helps software companies develop products that resonate with customers.
Rahul Jain
Founder & VP Business Development of Pendo
Rahul Jain is Founder & Biz Dev at Pendo.io.
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About Pendo: Pendo is a product-analytics app that helps software companies develop products that resonate with customers.
Todd Olson
CEO & Founder of Pendo
Todd Olson is co-founder and CEO of Pendo, a product experience platform that helps product teams create software customers love. A three-time entrepreneur, Todd has experienced the highs and lows of running fast-growth technology companies. A proficient coder by age 14, he spent his teen years working as a database designer and software architect for MBNA Bank in Delaware. By graduation from Carnegie Mellon University, he’d invented a data integration product, co-founded Cerebellum Software, and raised seed capital. Cerebellum went on to raise $17 million in institutional capital and hire 65 people, only to shut down when funding dried up during the dotcom era. A role as vice president of product development at TogetherSoft brought Todd to Raleigh, where he eventually started 6th Sense Analytics, which he sold to Rally Software. The inspiration for Pendo came as Todd led the product team at Rally. With no product usage data available, he struggled to decide which of the dozens of feature requests that hit his desk each week were worth the investment of time and capital. After Rally’s IPO, he teamed up with fellow product leaders and technologists from Red Hat, Cisco and Google to launch Pendo in October 2013. The company has since raised $56 million in venture capital, landed more than 500 customers and now employs 170 people across offices in Raleigh, San Francisco, New York and Yakum, Israel. It was named a Top 50 U.S. Startup by LinkedIn in 2017. Todd prides himself on his product background, and the knowledge, experience and empathy it lends to customers of Pendo. He frequently speaks at industry events on topics like Agile software development, product management, startup fundraising and entrepreneurship. Outside of work, Todd is typically enjoying life in Raleigh with his wife and four children, aged 1 to 21. He also loves to bake, especially cakes.
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About Pendo: Pendo is a product-analytics app that helps software companies develop products that resonate with customers.
Patricia House
Co-Founder of C3 AI
Pat House is the Co-founder and Executive Vice Chairman at C3 Energy. She co-founded and served as Vice Chairman and Executive Vice President of Siebel Systems. Patricia House is chairman of the Mary Mae Foundation and is a member of the board of directors of the Hewlett Foundation and The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. She is a frequent guest lecturer at Stanford University.
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About C3 AI: C3 AI is a provider of Enterprise AI software for accelerating digital transformation.
Kuty Shalev
Founder of Clevertech
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About Clevertech: Clevertech is a custom software and app development company that solves hard problems. Business & systems integration.
David Politis
Founder and CEO of BetterCloud
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About BetterCloud: The SaaS Operations leader: Transform employee experience, centralize data protection, and maximize operational efficiency.
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.
Matt Doherty
Founder & CTO of ResoluteAI
Matt Doherty is the Founder & CTO at ResoluteAI.
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About ResoluteAI: ResoluteAI makes information retrieval seamless, helping you to innovate smarter.
Scott McFarlane
Founder & CEO of Avalara
Scott co-founded Avalara in 2004 and today is responsible for the vision and strategic direction of the company. He has a long history of advancing ideas that shake up the status quo, going back to his college days when he partnered with his roommate to launch Lifecycle, the most popular computerized exercise bike of all time. Since then Scott oversaw development for AIRCOA, the largest independent hotel company in the U.S., and he has led and developed several companies including MetaInfo, a pioneering internet software firm that was ultimately acquired by Check Point.
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About Avalara: Avalara develops a platform that automates the major steps of tax compliance, all in the cloud.
Elias Guerra
Founder & CEO of Popwallet
Elias is the Founder and CEO of Popwallet, a mobile wallet marketing automation platform.
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About Popwallet: Mobile Wallet Marketing Automation and CX
Wes Biggs
Founder & CTO of Popwallet
Wes Biggs is the founder and CTO of Popwallet.
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About Popwallet: Mobile Wallet Marketing Automation and CX
Jett McCandless
Co-Founder and CEO of project44
Jett McCandless is Founder and CEO of project44.
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About project44: Project44 is a logistics technology company that provides a visibility solution to span the entire shipment workflow.
Jonathan Roberts
Founder & Partner Emeritus of Ignition Partners
Jonathan Roberts is a founder and partner of Ignition. He invests in business application and services companies and represents Ignition as director on the boards of DocuSign, AVST, HyperQuality, Spoken Communications and Earth Class Mail. Prior to Ignition, Jonathan spent 13 years at Microsoft, most recently as general manager of the Windows CE Intelligent Appliance Division, where he was responsible for developing new WinCE products, product marketing, business development and long-term planning for the Windows CE platform, as well as the retargeting of the Microsoft’s PocketPC effort. Jonathan led the marketing and business efforts for Windows 3.1, 3.11, Windows NT 3.51, NT 4.0, BackOffice 1.0, Windows 98 and NT 4.0 on the Desktop, and finally all of Windows CE including embedded, Pocket PC, Auto, Phones, Set-top, Games, etc. Jonathan received his BA in history from the University of Washington where he was also student body president.
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About Ignition Partners: Ignition Partners is a venture capital firm dedicated to helping the best entrepreneurs seize opportunity.
Max Paltsev
CEO & Founder of Service Fusion
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About Service Fusion: Service Fusion provides a suite of management software applications to HVAC, plumbing, electrical, IT and many other service businesses.
Robert Douglas
CEO and Co-Founder of Skopenow
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About Skopenow: Skopenow is an analytical search engine for discovering fraud, threat, and risk.
Vinshu Gupta
Founder of Blockcluster
Being one of the early players of blockchain revolution in India, Vinshu have been on the DLT bandwagon since late 2012. Over the course of last 6 years, he has worked for 30+ big and small clients in Blockchain space across US, Europe, Middle east, SEA and India. Vinshu sits on board of one of the few profitable service companies for blockchain in India – Nonceblox. In summer of 2017, Vinshu along with the young blockchian prodigy and long term partner Mr.Narayan Prusty conceptualised the idea of Blockcluster – a turnkey automated Blockchain Management System which helps customers set up their Blockchain stack in under “15 mins”. If you have a business requiring blockchain expertise feel free to drop him a message at : vinshu.gupta@blockcluster.io
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About Blockcluster: Legos for Enterprise blockchains – Making DLTs Easier to Implement!
Matt DeBergalis
Co-Founder and CTO of Apollo
Matt founded and ran ActBlue, the largest political fundraising platform in the world. ActBlue has raised over 700 million dollars for candidates and political groups nationwide. Before that, Matt was a kernel hacker. Some of his technical credits include the NeXT port of NetBSD and work on the NFSv4 and DAFS specifications while at Network Appliance. As an undergraduate at MIT, Matt built a phone system for his fraternity, fabricating the circuit boards and writing the operating system from scratch.
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About ActBlue, Apollo: Apollo helps engineering teams build unified graphs to accelerate application development and deliver better, more cohesive experiences.
John Sall
Co-Founder & Executive Vice President of SAS
John Sall heads SAS’ JMP business division, which creates interactive and highly visual statistical discovery software designed for scientists and engineers. He also remains the primary architect for JMP®software. Sall joined Jim Goodnight and two others in 1976 to establish SAS. He designed, developed and documented many of the earliest analytical procedures while also leading research and development efforts. In the late 1980s, Sall noticed a niche to fill for researchers and engineers whose jobs didn’t revolve solely around statistical analysis. JMP launched in 1989 to dynamically link statistical analysis with the graphical capabilities of Macintosh computers. Now running on Windows as well, JMP continues to play an important role in modeling processes across industries as a desktop data visualization and analysis tool. It also provides a visual interface to SAS® software. The goal of JMP, Sall said, is to make statistical modeling as friendly, accessible and informative as possible, and to increase the efficiency of experimentation. “The value of statistics is realized when it is translated, taught and delivered with accessible computing environments to the scientists and analysts who use it,” he added. Sall is a Fellow of the American Statistical Association and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the world’s largest general scientific society. Reflecting his passion for global conservation and environmental issues, he serves on the World Wildlife Fund board, the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History advisory board, and is a former board member of The Nature Conservancy. Sall also is a former trustee of North Carolina State University, where he studied graduate-level statistics. In 1997, he and his wife, Ginger, joined Jim and Ann Goodnight in founding Cary Academy, which integrates technology into all facets of education for students in grades six to 12. Sall earned a bachelor’s degree in history from Beloit College and a master’s degree in economics from Northern Illinois University (NIU). Both NIU and NC State awarded him honorary doctorates.
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About JMP Software, SAS: SAS provides advanced business analytics and business intelligent software and services to enable companies to optimize their operations.
Mike Galgon
Co-Founder & Managing Director of Pioneer Square Labs
Mike Galgon is a Managing Director and Co-Founder of PSL. He loves partnering with Founders to build world-class companies. Beyond working with pre-launch studio projects, Mike represents PSL on the boards of Ad Lightning, Taunt, Gradient, and Attunely. Mike has had a long career as an entrepreneur and investor in the Pacific Northwest. Mike co-founded aQuantive, which boasted both the largest independent digital agency in the world (Avenue A|Razorfish) and the largest marketer-side ad serving platform (Atlas), prior to selling to Microsoft in 2007. After leaving Microsoft in 2009, Mike served on the boards of Buuteeq (sold to Priceline), Energy Savvy, Market Leader (sold to Zillow), Real Networks, Flexe, Pixvana, and Pipeline Deals. Outside of work, you’ll find Mike in the outdoors: backpacking, camping, surfing, telemarking, snowshoeing, wakeboarding, biking, running, etc., etc.. More trails than macadam, but he’ll get it in regardless. And, when possible, you’ll find him with at least one of his four daughters. Mike has also served on the boards of a variety of non-profit organizations, including Global Partnerships (a leading impact investor focused on market-based solutions to global poverty), The Bush School, The Thacher School, and Summit Public Schools (a leading national charter school network). Mike studied Economics at Duke University, Getting It Done as a Diving / Mine Countermeasures Officer in the US Navy, and earned his MBA from Harvard Business School.
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About Pioneer Square Labs: Pioneer Square Labs is a startup studio and venture capital fund that creates and launches technology startups.
Ben Gilbert
Co-Founder and Managing Director of Pioneer Square Labs
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About Acquired.FM, Glow, Iteratively, Pioneer Square Labs, Taunt: Pioneer Square Labs is a startup studio and venture capital fund that creates and launches technology startups.
Greg Gottesman
Co-Founder & Managing Director of Pioneer Square Labs
Greg Gottesman is a Managing Director and Co-Founder of PSL. Prior to PSL, Greg served as one of the three initial Managing Directors of Madrona Venture Group, where he worked for almost 20 years. He also co-founded and led Madrona Venture Labs. Greg represents PSL on the boards of Boundless, Cash, LumaTax, and NextStep. He is also the founder, current board member, and former CEO of Rover.com. “Venture is about finding truly great entrepreneurs and supporting their efforts in every way possible. The rest is noise.”
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About Boltive, Pioneer Square Labs, Rover: Pioneer Square Labs is a startup studio and venture capital fund that creates and launches technology startups.
Greg Shenkman
Founder of EIS Group
Greg Shenkman is the founder of EIS Group.
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About EIS Group, Exigen Capital: EIS Group is focused on providing IT solutions that enable companies to convert their technology into strategic assets.
Cal Henderson
Co-Founder and CTO of Slack
Cal Henderson is the co-founder and CTO of Slack. He is an experienced technology leader, having previously built and led the engineering team at Flickr, through its acquisition by Yahoo. As a popular speaker on engineering scalability, he authored the best-selling O’Reilly Media book “Building Scalable Websites”. He was a pioneer in the use of web APIs, and created the basis for oAuth and oEmbed, now used by YouTube, Twitter, and many others. Cal has a Bachelor of Computer Science from the University of Central England, and was involved in London’s early online community through his work with the early digital community B3ta and his personal blog iamcal.com, which he has ran for over 15 years. Cal now resides in San Francisco.
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About Slack: Slack is an enterprise software platform that allows teams and businesses of all sizes to communicate effectively.
Brad Brooks
Co-Founder, CEO of TigerConnect
Brad is the Co-Founder and CEO of TigerConnect and a Co-Founder of Whisper. He previously ran DIC Entertainment as President for 6 years after working for Donaldson, Lufkin, and Jenrette as an Investment Banker. After acquiring the company with Bain Capital from the Walt Disney Company in 2000, he helped grow the company from less than $10mm of revenues to over $80mm in 2005 when he took the company public on the London Stock Exchange at a $200mm valuation. Brad received his BA from UC Berkeley and an MBA from the University of Chicago.
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About TigerConnect, Whisper: TigerConnect is a healthcare collaboration platform that streamlines clinical workflows and systems.
Andrew Brooks M.D.
Co-Founder/Chief Medical Officer of TigerConnect
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About TigerConnect: TigerConnect is a healthcare collaboration platform that streamlines clinical workflows and systems.
Chad Bronstein
CEO, Founder of Fyllo
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About Fyllo: Fyllo is a software company that provides compliance-first solutions for highly regulated industries.
Aristotle Loumis
Co-Founder, Chief Business Officer, Managing Partner of Fyllo
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About Fyllo: Fyllo is a software company that provides compliance-first solutions for highly regulated industries.
Erik Shani
CPO, Co-Founder of Fyllo
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About Fyllo: Fyllo is a software company that provides compliance-first solutions for highly regulated industries.
Ira Weiss
Founder & General Partner of Hyde Park Venture Partners
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About Base, Hyde Park Venture Partners, The University of Chicago Booth School of Business: Hyde Park Venture Partners is an early-stage venture capital firm focused on high-growth, mid-continent technology startups.
Guy Turner
Founder & Managing Director of Hyde Park Venture Partners
Guy is an early-stage venture investor in Chicago and a co-founder of Hyde Park Venture Partners.
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About Hyde Park Venture Partners, InContext Solutions, Kauffman Fellows, Oak Street Health, YCharts: Hyde Park Venture Partners is an early-stage venture capital firm focused on high-growth, mid-continent technology startups.
Ben Porterfield
Co-Founder & VP of Engineering of Looker
Ben Porterfield is the co-founder and VP of engineering at Looker. He held positions for various companies including Readyforce, Rally Up Inc., BlackArrow, and Sticky Inc. Ben holds a BS in computer science from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
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About Looker: Looker is a an enterprise platform for business intelligence, data applications, and embedded analytics.
Bob Hower
Co-Founder of G20 Ventures
Bob is a 13-year VC vet twice named to the Forbes “Midas List,” having led investments in great ideas and great teams including Acme Packet (APKT, acquired by Oracle), AppIQ (acquired by HP), Channel Advisor (ECOM), Actifio, [x+1] (acquired by Rocket Fuel), Evergage and Fuze. Before becoming a Venture investor, Bob held senior marketing, product management, and sales positions at Lotus Development, Cabot, Cabot and Forbes, General Mills, and Priority Call Management. Today Bob is on the Boards of Channel Advisor, Actifio, [x+1], Evergage and Thinking Phone Networks. He remains a GP at Advanced Technology Ventures; serves as an Xconomist, and on the non-profit boards of the New England Venture Capital Association, Cambridge Community Foundation and Pivot – an NGO in Madagascar. Bob holds a B.A. degree from Harvard College and an M.B.A. from The Amos Tuck School.
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About Advanced Technology Ventures, G20 Ventures: G20 Ventures invests in enterprise tech startups in the early stages of their growth.
Bill Wiberg
Co-Founder of G20 Ventures
Bill is an accomplished executive and 17-year venture investor passionate about technical innovation, and helping entrepreneurs win. Bill has extensive operating experience, culminating in his role as the President of Lucent Technology’s $5 billion Cellular and PCS Wireless Networks division. He held senior management positions in product development and marketing at AT&T, Bell Labs, and Lucent, and made the change to venture investing in 2000. Bill serves on the Boards of G20 portfolio companies Mautic and Siemplify. He remains a GP at Advanced Technology Ventures, and serves on the Boards of Great Point Energy, Rive Technology, Silicor Materials, Oasys Water and Aquion Energy. Bill earned an M.B.A. from Columbia University, an M.S. from Stanford University, and a B.S. from Cornell University.
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About Advanced Technology Ventures, G20 Ventures, GreatPoint Energy, Oasys, Rive Technology: G20 Ventures invests in enterprise tech startups in the early stages of their growth.
Puneet Mehta
Founder / CEO of Netomi
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About Netomi: An AI-first customer service platform that enables companies to deliver the highest quality customer experiences.