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 United States based Founder operating in the Internet of Things 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.
Marcy Boyle
Co Founder, CEO of Hot Bit VR
Marcy Boyle is the CEO and co-founder of Hot Bit VR, a upcoming webVR marketplace of experiential social shopping. Hot Bit VR has been featured on ZDnet, Entrepreneur, Fox News, and listed as one of the “30 Best Virtual Reality Companies to Change Your World Soon.” She and her co-founder’s VR experiences have been featured in art galleries, universities, conferences, and festivals including FIVARS in Toronto and VRUK in London. Hot Bit VR was selected for the first class of the AR/VR/XR accelerator at the Green Screen Institute, and Silicon Valley’s Women’s Startup Lab. Prior to working in VR, she co-directed the feature film, NOBODY CAN COOL, which was released internationally. Marcy is a graduate of Barnard College, Columbia University and is a member of Women in VR, Women in Film, and on the Board of the Alliance of Women Directors.
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About Hot Bit VR, Oculus: An experiential marketplace in virtual reality.
Markus Levin
Co-Founder of XYO
Markus mined his first Bitcoin in 2013 and has been captivated by blockchain technologies ever since. Markus has over 15 years experience in building, managing and growing companies around the globe. Markus is originally from Germany (with English as his second language), and specializes in getting the most out of companies by implementing data-driven systems and utilizing the key talents of each employee to get the best out of his team. After dropping out of his Ph.D. studies at Bocconi University, Markus began working with companies in hyper-growth industries around the globe. Markus has led cutting-edge technology ventures such as Novacore, “sterkly”, Hive Media and Koiyo.
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About XYO: XYO is a decentralized crypto-location oracle network aiming to provide accurate location data from cars to smartphones.
Arie Trouw
CEO & CTO & Founder of XYO
Ten years before Elon Musk wrote his first line of computer code, another young prodigy from South Africa was busy writing software on his TRS-80 Model I. In 1978, at the age of 10, Arie Trouw started developing software on the TRS-80 Model I, moving on to Atari, Apple, and PC. He then ran a series of bulletin boards centering on game-theory modification. Arie is an accomplished serial entrepreneur with a rich history of technological breakthroughs and business successes involving multiple 8-figure exit events. He is a strong believer in decentralization and the creation of the integrated owner/user model. Arie founded XY in 2012 (incorporated as Ength Degree, LLC before it was converted to a C Corporation in 2016). He currently serves as Chief Executive Officer, Chief Financial Officer, Chief Operating Officer and Chairman of the Board of Directors. Prior to starting XY-The Findables Company, Arie was CEO and Chairman of Pike Holdings Inc and Chief Technology Officer of Tight Line Technologies LLC. He received his Bachelor of Science in Computer Science from the New York Institute of Technology. Fun Fact: He is a member of one of the first Afrikaans speaking families to emigrate to the US from South Africa in 1976.
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About XY Labs, XY – The Persistent Company, XYO: XYO is a decentralized crypto-location oracle network aiming to provide accurate location data from cars to smartphones.
Scott Scheper
Founder, Vice Chairman & CMO of XYO
Scott has worked on many exciting ventures with exceptionally talented people, including the Co-founder of Uber. Scott’s first “real boss” was Arie Trouw, who hired Scott in 2009 during an economic recession, when very few companies were hiring, and even fewer were starting companies. What began as a Facebook app startup with four guys and a ping pong table, grew to over 200 employees and 9-figures in revenue in less than two years. In 2013 Scott took a break from corporate life to pursue the dream of working remotely on a laptop while sipping tropical drinks on the beaches of St. Thomas, Virgin Islands (U.S.). During this period, Scott launched Greenlamp, a programmatic advertising agency specializing in direct-response media buying. The agency was fully automated; built entirely using algorithms to manage the campaigns. The team was built with project-basis software engineers, and had only one full-time employee: that being Scott. The advertising campaigns were managed by an automated system, nicknamed “Stewie” (Family Guy). 24-hours a day, Stewie managed everything, making automated tweaks to the advertising campaigns. He even emailed Scott to chat about the changes made (Stewie’s emails included signature Stewie lines). In its first year of operation, Greenlamp generated over $12M in revenue. When not working, Scott can be found reading books by his idols, Gary C. Halbert and Charlie Munger, or sometimes even outside with friends and family in San Diego, California.
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About XYO: XYO is a decentralized crypto-location oracle network aiming to provide accurate location data from cars to smartphones.
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.
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.
Jose Vieitez
Co-Founder, Director and Portfolio Manager of Boomtown Accelerators
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About Boomtown Accelerators, The Farm Atlanta: Boomtown’s bespoke accelerator programs help startups turn ideas into profitable, scalable businesses.
Stephen Groth
Co-Founder of Boomtown Accelerators
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About Boomtown Accelerators: Boomtown’s bespoke accelerator programs help startups turn ideas into profitable, scalable businesses.
Jaxon Klein
CEO, Co-Founder of Keyo
Jaxon Klein is an American businessman, entrepreneur, investor and startup advisor. Klein is currently CEO of Keyo, Inc., where he is a co-founder and former CTO. Prior to his role at Keyo, Klein founded two companies in hosting technology and web services.
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About Keyo: We place people’s identities in the palm of their hands.
Cayetana Polanco
Co-Founder and Chief Brand Officer of Keyo
Cayetana Polanco is the co-founder and chief brand officer at Keyo. Prior to co-founding Keyo, Cayetana was the co-founder and COO of Invento Media. She was also the co-founder and COO of Reneweb Hosting Services. Cayetana holds a bachelor of applied science (B.A.Sc.) in public health from Beloit College.
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About Keyo: We place people’s identities in the palm of their hands.
Raullen Chai
CEO, Co-Founder of IoTeX
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About IoTeX: IoTeX is the leading decentralized network to power billions of machines at scale, drive the machine economy (machinefi) applications.
Salah Zalatimo
Chief Executive Officer & Founder of Voice
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About Camerama, Forbes, Voice: Voice is a platform that redefines media by cultivating creation, sharing, discovery and promotion of content by real users.
Joshua Chodniewicz
Chief Executive Officer & Founder of Fundify
Josh is the co-founder and CEO of Fundify. Most recently, he co-founded and served as CEO of Art.com, Inc., and currently serves on its Board of Directors. Josh has an in-depth knowledge of the Internet and e-commerce and is extremely passionate about building sustainable value by providing vision, direction, and meeting the needs of the customer. One of his greatest accomplishments has been building Art.com and Allposters.com into the world’s largest online consumer marketplace for prints, posters, photographs, and custom frames. He is a firm believer that great companies are built by great people, and he attributes much of Art.com’s success to the combined vision and effort of his co-workers.
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About Art.com, Fundify: Fundify connects startups and investors to each other.
Trung Pham
Founder, CEO of RYSE
Co-founder of a rapidly growing entertainment app in Toronto, also part-time stunt double for Elon Musk.
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About RYSE: RYSE is an IoT company that develops smart shade solutions. We are the world’s most intelligent window shade automation platform.
Drew Perkins
Co-Founder and CEO of Mojo Vision
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About Mojo Vision: Mojo Vision is developing Mojo Lens, the world’s first AR smart contact lens with a built-in display that delivers Invisible Computing
Michael Wiemer
VP Eng / Co-Founder and CTO of Mojo Vision
Michael Wiemer is the Co-Founder and CTO at Mojo Vision.
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About Mojo Vision: Mojo Vision is developing Mojo Lens, the world’s first AR smart contact lens with a built-in display that delivers Invisible Computing
Jason Huggins
Founder & Chief Executive Officer of Tapster Robotics, Inc.
Jason Huggins is a co-founder of Sauce Labs. Prior to Sauce, Jason was a testing engineer at Google in Mountain View where he worked on the scaled test automation of Google web applications. Jason’s experience also includes time at ThoughtWorks in Chicago. While at ThoughtWorks, Jason created Selenium, an integrated tool for automated web site testing. When not programming in Python or JavaScript, Jason enjoys hacking on Arduino-based electronics projects.Jason has spent time in New York City, LA, and the Bay Area, but Chicago is his kind of town.
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About Tapster Robotics, Inc.: Robots for testing mobile phones, tablets, and the Internet of Things.
Will Jessup
Founder, Head of Services of TheoremOne
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About TheoremOne: We are an engineering and innovation firm. We solve complex business problems through optimization of process, technology, and culture.
Tomer Schwartz
Co-Founder of Armis Security
Tomer Schwartz Co-Founder and CTO at Dazz
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About Armis Security, Dazz: Armis Security offers an agentless IoT security solution that lets enterprises see and control any device or network.
Nadir Izrael
Co-Founder and CTO of Armis Security
As co-founder and CTO, Nadir Izrael guides the technology vision behind Armis to protect the new connected or IoT devices in and around the workplace. He co-founded the company in 2015 with its CEO, Yevgeny Dibrov. Prior to Armis, worked at Google as senior software engineer. Before Google, Nadir spent six years in the Israeli army, specifically in unit 8200, where he designed and programmed software projects and systems, serving as team leader and attaining the rank of captain.
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About Armis Security, Cyberstarts: Armis Security offers an agentless IoT security solution that lets enterprises see and control any device or network.
Blake Patton
Managing Partner & Founder of Tech Square Ventures
Blake Patton is a technology entrepreneur and investor. Blake is the founder and Managing Partner of Tech Square Ventures. Tech Square Ventures is an Atlanta-based early-stage venture capital firm. Tech Square Ventures invests in enterprise (B2B), marketplace technology, and technology-enabled service companies at the Seed and Series A stages of company development and remain committed partners through the journey of growth and scale. At Tech Square Ventures, we focus on funding companies located in the Southeast and selectively invest in companies across the U.S. Our platform is built on a strategic network of innovation ecosystem, corporate, and university relationships that help founders inform and accelerate go-to-market strategies.
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About Center for American Entrepreneurship, Creative Destruction Lab (CDL), Engage, Pointivo, Tech Square Ventures: Tech Square Ventures is a seed & early-stage venture fund that investing in enterprise, marketplace and platform, and tech enabled services
Nick Weaver
Co-Founder and CEO of eero
Nick Weaver is Co-founder of eero inc. and serves as its Chief Executive Officer. Nick Weaver is an Associate at Menlo Ventures. Nick Weaver joined Menlo in 2012 and focuses on investments in mobile, consumer internet, digital media, and enterprise software. Prior to this, Nick Weaver worked at McKinsey & Company and advised technology and private equity clients on ecommerce, go-to-market strategy, and acquisitions. While at Stanford, he was involved Stanford Student Enterprises and helped found StartX (formerly, SSE Labs).
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About eero: Eero offers a Wi-Fi system for household use.
Nate Hardison
Chief Product Officer and Co-Founder of eero
Nate is a Preceptor in Computer Science at the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. He received his B.S. in Symbolic Systems from Stanford in 2010 and his M.S. in Computer Science from Stanford in 2011.
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About eero: Eero offers a Wi-Fi system for household use.
Manju Hegde
CEO and Co-Founder of Uhnder
Manju Hegde is corporate vice president, AMD Global Business Unit, with responsibility for leading the development of the software ecosystem around AMD products. As head of AMD’s Content, Applications and Solutions team, Manju is responsible for driving and executing AMD’s ecosystem, strategy across the technology, marketing and business functions as well as directing AMD strategy and collaboration in engaging the computing ecosystem to shape the next generation of devices, environment, tools and application experiences made possible by the AMD‘s product roadmap. Before joining AMD, Manju was vice president of CUDA technical marketing at NVIDIA, where he focused on training and enabling researchers and developers to leverage the parallel architecture and performance of the GPU for general purpose applications. Prior to joining NVIDIA in 2008, Manju was co-founder and CEO of AGEIA Technologies (acquired by NVIDIA in 2008) since 2002, when he began his mission to minimize the challenge of physics in game development. From 1999 to 2001, Manju was co-founder and CTO of Celox Networks, which developed the industry’s leading edge router able to deliver high bandwidth applications with QoS. Manju was also a professor of electrical engineering at Washington University in St. Louis and at Louisiana State University. Manju earned his Bachelors of Electrical Engineering degree from the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, and his Ph. D in Computer Information and Control Engineering from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. He also has his master’s degree in management from the University of Bombay.
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About Uhnder: Uhnder develops a digital automotive radar-on-chip designed to automate systems for safety and better feedback response.
Curtis Davis
COO and Co-Founder of Uhnder
Curtis Davis currently works as Chief Operating Officer and Co-Founder at Uhnder, Inc.
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About Uhnder: Uhnder develops a digital automotive radar-on-chip designed to automate systems for safety and better feedback response.
Krishna Kumar
CEO & Founder of App Orchid Inc
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About App Orchid Inc: The App Orchid platform helps enterprises build AI fueled apps for the energy, utilities, Insurance and healthcare industries.
Robert Jadon
Co-Founder & Director of Startup UCLA Accelerator
Robert is a technology investor and entrepreneur in Los Angeles for the past 15 years, with experience founding and scaling businesses, along with multiple, successful exits. Robert’s passion is working with great entrepreneurs and product developers, adding value both as an investor and an operator. Prior to joining Altpoint and leading it’s LA office, Robert co-founded ScaleFunder, the leading crowdfunding and online giving SaaS platform in higher education. ScaleFunder has helped numerous nonprofit institutions raise tens of millions of dollars through the platform, in addition to acquiring new donors and retaining existing ones. ScaleFunder was successfully acquired by Ruffalo Noel Levitz, a leader in the nonprofit fundraising and enrollment space. Robert’s first company, Micro Memory, was a leader in the signal processing and storage networking markets. . Split primarily between storage and mil-aero verticals, the company’s customers included EMC, Network Appliance, Raytheon, Northrop Grumman and many others. Micro Memory was acquired by Curtiss-Wright Corporation (NYSE: CW). Robert has also worked with early stage companies for many years. Robert co-founded the Startup UCLA entrepreneurship and accelerator program at UCLA. The first of it’s kind in Los Angeles, the Startup UCLA program took best practices from the private sector, and applied them to UCLA students and alumni. The summer accelerator has spawned numerous companies, and has been the basis for best-practices at universities across the country and internationally. Robert has been an angel investor for many years, helping entrepreneurs with product and fundraising from the earliest stages. He formed the Dauntless Fund to focus on investments in consumer-facing startups. Robert is also an investor in and advisor to the Amplify.LA startup accelerator in Venice, Calif, and a former member of the Tech Coast Angels. Robert holds a Bachelor of Arts in Economics from UCLA.
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About NeuralX, Presence.Fit, Startup UCLA Accelerator: Startup UCLA Accelerator provides a workspace, guidance, legal services, and mentors to early-stage companies.
Peter Hunn
Founder & CEO of Clause
Peter Hunn is Founder and serves as Chief Executive Officer at Clause, Inc. The Accord Project (now a Linux Foundation project) from Clause, Inc. is the leading organization for the development of techno-legal standards for smart legal contracts and distributed ledger applications in the legal industry. Peter is also an angel investor in early stage startups.
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About Accord Project, Clause, Substrate: Clause is a digital contracting platform connecting agreements to trusted systems, verifying data, and accelerating actions.
Rufus Griscom
CEO & Founder of Next Big Idea Club
I am in an immersive period right now, spending a lot of time talking with people doing innovative things in online media … happy to connect.
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About Next Big Idea Club: Next Big Idea Club is a subscription book club.
Jonathon Perrelli
CEO & Co-Founder of LifeFuels
Jonathon’s newest project and startup is LifeFuels, a beverage technology company created with the goal of helping people feel their best, from the inside out. Jonathon and his team will be launching the world’s first portable beverage maker, which makes drinks on the go tailored to match your activity and lifestyle, in 2018. Inspiration for Fortify Ventures and Distilled Intelligence came from Jonathon’s 18 years as an entrepreneur and angel investor. As a native Washingtonian, Jonathon is a key player in the thriving startup technology ecosystem in our nation’s capital. He is dedicated to and passionate about startupland. Jonathon is a proud graduate of Virginia Tech and alumnus of UUNET.
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About LifeFuels, SecureForce: LifeFuels is changing the way consumers approach hydration and nutrition by empowering them to create personalized beverages on the go.
Rob Lawson-Shanks
CTO & Co-Founder of LifeFuels
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About LifeFuels: LifeFuels is changing the way consumers approach hydration and nutrition by empowering them to create personalized beverages on the go.
Alan Chan
Co-Founder & CEO of Joy
Alan Chan is the Cofounder & CEO of Joy (https://joy.co)
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About Joy: Joy is the first Smart Photo Album – an all-in-one hardware, software and cloud solution for families to organize and relive their memories.
Madison Wickham
Founder, CEO of Grandex
Madison is a Co-Founder and CEO of the Austin-based media and commerce company Grandex Inc. Madison was born, raised, and currently lives in Austin, Texas.
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About Grandex: Commerce powered by original media
Suman Kanuganti
CEO, Founder of Personal AI
I am a creator, entrepreneur, father and husband. I love robots, technology, and humans. I create things that solve meaningful problems, see aira.io and luther.ai (current). I have a desire to learn, college in engineering, a master’s in robotics and a master’s in business.
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About Personal AI: Personal AI is on a mission to organize the human mind and make it interactive and useful.
Sharon Zhang
CTO & Co-Founder of Personal AI
I am a scientist, a creator, and a builder. I believe in data, innovation, and humans. I am passionate about people and about technologies that evolve alongside humanity. I have pursued expertise in artificial intelligence for over the past decade, building NLP products that impact the lives of patients, employees, and everyday people. I strive to build companies that move the world forward – embracing the principles of original thinking and humane AI. And that is why my partners and I are creating Human AI Labs (hu.man.ai).
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About Personal AI: Personal AI is on a mission to organize the human mind and make it interactive and useful.
Kristie Kaiser
Head of Design & Co-Founder of Personal AI
I am a designer and a craftsman that sees the world in pixels, grids, color codes, and typefaces. I previously designed impactful products like Aira.io for the blind, and now focusing on human memory retention and recall. My core design principles are simplicity, inclusivity, and beauty.
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About Personal AI: Personal AI is on a mission to organize the human mind and make it interactive and useful.
Vivek Ravisankar
Co-Founder & Chief Executive Officer of HackerRank
Vivek Ravisankar is the Co-Founder and CEO at HackerRank, a platform that helps programmers hone their skills and connect with companies. HackerRank is the leading player in the programming talent assessment space, and the company is growing. Prior to HackerRank, Ravisankar used to be a part of the Kindle team at Amazon, India. HackerRank is the first company to be accepted by Y-combinator from India.
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About HackerRank: HackerRank, the developer skills company, helps businesses attract, evaluate and hire the best technical talent from around the world.
Hamid Ansari
President & Co-Founder of Prodea
Hamid Ansari is President and Co-Founder and brings more than 25 years of entrepreneurial experience building and deploying technology products and services worldwide. His expertise in strategic positioning, mergers and acquisitions has resulted in several successful business transactions with values ranging from tens of millions to more than a billion dollars. Prior to co-founding Prodea Systems, Hamid co-founded telecom technologies, inc., where he managed a professional services organization and oversaw the creation and worldwide deployment of four carrier-class products. Hamid served as the company’s President until its successful merger with Sonus Networks (Nasdaq: SONS) in 2001. Hamid launched his career at MCI, where he was part of a small group of pioneers in the world of telecommunications divestitures. As part of the advanced engineering group, his contributions led to the development and implementation of new products and services and resulted in one of the most technically advanced telecommunications networks in the world. Later, Hamid headed the advanced data communications network division of an international consulting company in support of World Bank projects in Africa and the Middle East. Hamid has completed advanced credits towards a doctorate of communications. He earned a master’s degree in computer science and telecommunications from George Washington University.
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About Prodea: Prodea provides multi-service, multi-screen platforms for the residential Internet of Things, delivering digital services globally.
Amir Ansari
Co-Founder & CTO of Prodea
An inventor and serial entrepreneur, Amir Ansari brings more than 16 years of experience to Prodea Systems, where he serves as Chief Technology Officer. Prior to co-founding Prodea Systems, Amir served in the intelligent IP division of Sonus Networks(Nasdaq: SONS), a provider of IP-based voice infrastructure products. There he was responsible for providing technical guidance and direction in deploying one of the industry’s first soft switches in a carrier network. Amir joined Sonus via its acquisition of Telecom Technologies, Inc., where he was co-founder and Chief Technology Officer. There Amir led efforts to design and deploy the INtelligentIP (INIP) Softswitch, the most robust and scalable product of its type. Telecom Technologies’ client list consisted of Fortune 500 companies such as WorldCom, Qwest Communications, Hewlett-Packard, Sprint, and AT&T. Under Amir’s stewardship as Chief Technology Officer, Telecom Technologies earned recognition as one of Inc. Magazine’s 500 fastest-growing companies and Deloitte & Touche’s Fast 500 technology companies. Amir is a member of the XPRIZE Foundation’s Vision Circle and its Board of Trustees. Together with his family, he was a title sponsor for the Ansari XPRIZE, a $10 million cash award for the first non-governmental organization to launch a reusable manned spacecraft into space twice within two weeks. Amir is actively involved with several non-profit organizations that strive for social development. He has co-authored numerous technical papers and filed several U.S. patents in the areas of voice over IP and multimedia services. He earned a Bachelor’s Degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from George Mason University.
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About Prodea: Prodea provides multi-service, multi-screen platforms for the residential Internet of Things, delivering digital services globally.
Greg Bentley
CEO & Founder of Bentley Systems
Greg joined his four brothers at Bentley Systems in 1991. Previously, he founded a financial trading software firm, which became part of SunGard Data Systems, Inc., an S&P 500 company on whose public-company board Greg served from 1991 through 2005. He holds an M.B.A. in finance and decision sciences from Wharton. Greg is a trustee of Drexel University, where he also serves as chairman of the advisory board for the Pennoni Honors College, and a trustee of the National Building Museum.
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About Bentley Systems: Bentley Systems is the infrastructure engineering software company. We provide innovative software to advance the world’s infrastructure.
John Xie
Co-Founder & CEO of Taskade
John Xie is the Co-Founder & CEO at Taskade.
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About Forem, GitStart, Laserfocus, Outlier, Taskade: Taskade is a real-time organization and collaboration tool for distributed teams.
Weili Dai
Co-Founder & President of Marvell
Weili Dai is one of the most successful women entrepreneurs in the world today. Widely considered a technology visionary, she is the only woman co-founder of a global semiconductor company, and since it began in 1995, she has helped Marvell’s rise to become one of the top semiconductor companies in the world. Dai’s business acumen, strategic thinking, product leadership, endless passion and personal network have contributed greatly to Marvell’s fast rise to success. Her close relationship with her customers and the foundation of the trust shared with them has given her a strong reputation for professionalism and integrity throughout the technology industry.
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About Marvell: Marvell is a technology company that manufactures and offers integrated circuit solutions using communications mixed-signal processing.
Brendan Fallis
Founder/General Partner/Investment Committee Member of Leawood Venture Capital
Brendan Fallis is the Founder, General Partner, and Investment Committee Member at Leawood Venture Capital. He is the former President of a $2 Billion Verizon unit and experienced technology executive in both domestic and international markets. Over 20+ years’ experience in senior leadership roles in sales, distribution, go-to-market, business development, and strategy. Technical expertise in wireless, IoT, SaaS, PaaS, and Cloud solutions. He increased revenue from $1 Billion to $2 Billion in six years as a Region President with Verizon Wireless, personally executed revenue committed contracts with 25% of the Fortune 500, led a $250 million technology and infrastructure acquisition and integration, lead negotiator for a $7.7 Billion long term services contract, named to the top 40 under 40 business leaders. He earned a B.A. from Pomona College, an M.B.A. at the Norwich University, and executive programs at Harvard and Stanford.
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About Leawood Venture Capital: Investing in Disruptive Early-Stage Technology Companies Nationwide
Aayush Phumbhra
Co-Founder & Chief Executive Officer of Nectar
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About Nectar: Nectar develops an IoT solution for the hospitality and consumer packaged goods industries.
Melissa Brandao
Founder and Chief Revenue Officer of HerdDogg
Melissa Brandao is Founder and CEO of HerdDogg. For the past decade, Melissa has been a pioneer in the Internet of Things, for the farm. Recognized as a rural innovator at the Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention and Innovation at the Smithsonian, she advocates for entrepreneurship and jobs as a path towards economic recovery for small town America. Prior to HerdDogg, Melissa founded the electric vehicle company, Barefoot Motors, the first female ever to found a vehicle company. She was recently invited by President Obama to participate first ever White House Demo Day. She has lived and worked in several countries including Russia, Brazil and Mexico. She is a multi-patent holder, she speaks several languages and appeared in the 2016 reality TV show, America’s Greatest Makers.
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About HerdDogg: HerdDogg is a global herd health and data science platform.
Rodney Williams
Co-Founder | Chairman of LISNR
Rodney Williams is the co-founder of SoLo Funds and LISNR.
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About LISNR, LISNR, SoLo Funds: LISNR enables secure and seamless data transmission using the most advanced ultrasonic data technology
Chris Ostoich
Co-Founder of LISNR
Chris Ostoich is Co-Founder and Head of Innovation at LISNR, the world’s leading data-over-audio platform,and the new standard for microcommunications between devices using sound. LISNR’s proprietary technology is being used to connect the customer journey and power transactions around the globe – for customers like Visa, Target, METRO, Ticketmaster, Macy’s, Jaguar Land Rover and more. Under the founder’s leadership, the company has raised more than $50MM in venture capital (from the likes of Visa, Intel and Synchrony Financial), joined the TechStars Connected Devices Accelerator, grown to more than 50 employees in 3 offices, won a Gold Lion at Cannes Lions International Festival for Creativity, and has been named to CNBC’s Disruptor50 three times. In addition to LISNR, Chris also serves the Founder and Chairman of the professional athlete representation and development agency BLVCKOPS, Founder and Chairman of global talent series DisruptHR, and head of digital strategy for ArtsWave, greater Cincinnati’s local arts agency and the nation’s first and largest community campaign for the arts. Chris is a sought after public speaker, a contributing writer in Forbes, Fast Company and Inc., and an active investor in a variety of companies including FC Cincinnati, ShowerPill, and many more.
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About LISNR: LISNR enables secure and seamless data transmission using the most advanced ultrasonic data technology
Cameron Teitelman
Founder, Chairman, and head of admissions and oversee investment vehicles of StartX (Stanford-StartX Fund)
Cameron Teitelman is the Founder and Chairman of StartX, a 501 (c)(3) nonprofit that runs an accelerator for Stanford affiliated entrepreneurs. Under his management, StartX has supported more than 1,100+ founders building 500+ companies. StartX companies have raised over $3.3B to date. In 2013, the Stanford-StartX Fund was launched. To date, SSF has invested in 250 StartX companies across 400+ rounds, investing $130 million in capital.
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About StartX (Stanford-StartX Fund): StartX is an educational non-profit that helps Stanford’s top entrepreneurs.
Dan Ha
Co-Founder, Sr. Managing Director of StartX (Stanford-StartX Fund)
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About StartX (Stanford-StartX Fund): StartX is an educational non-profit that helps Stanford’s top entrepreneurs.
Ben Jorgensen
Co-Founder and CEO of Constellation Labs
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About A-Five Meats, Constellation Labs, Ittoryu GOZU, Lattice Exchange: Constellation Labs is a blockchain microservice operating system based company.
Altif Brown
Co-Founder & CCO,Global Community Architect of Constellation Labs
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About Constellation Labs: Constellation Labs is a blockchain microservice operating system based company.
Wyatt Meldman-Floch
Co-Founder & CTO of Constellation Labs
With over five years of experience as a Software Engineer & Data Scientist in Silicon Valley, Wyatt Meldman-Floch is the CTO and Co-founder of Constellation Labs. Prior to co-founding Constellation Labs, Wyatt contributed to the Graphic User Interface of the Kepler spacecraft’s light curve data and the implementation of Shannon entropy for non-human communication for NASA. He also served as a data engineer for Radius Intelligence and Rally Health, a platform engineer for Zignal Labs, and as the Lead Backend Engineer for Arrived.us. Wyatt holds a B.S. in Physics and in Mathematics from The College of William and Mary.
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About Constellation Labs, Lattice Exchange: Constellation Labs is a blockchain microservice operating system based company.
Clint Chao
Co-Founder & General Partner of Moment Ventures
Clint Chao is a founding General Partner of Moment Ventures. Moment is a Palo Alto based early stage VC firm investing in the Future of Work: startups bringing technology into and across other industries to transform the business or labor operations in areas such as logistics, food, oil & gas, education, healthcare, construction and more. Clint has invested in companies including Flowspace, Pod Foods, Swing Education, Validere, TARA AI, Netsil (acq by Nutanix), Skyward (acq by Verizon), and Payable (acq by Stripe). Prior to Moment, Clint was a co-founding Managing Director at Formative Ventures, an early-stage VC firm. During his time at Formative, Clint invested a third of the fund’s capital in early-stage technology startups, focusing on software infrastructure, web services, cloud computing applications and advanced semiconductors. Clint’s investment and board leadership experience include Mashery (acq by Intel), SOASTA (acq by Akamai), Silicon Clocks (acquired by Silicon Labs), Vungle (acq by Blackstone) and Zyray Wireless (acquired by Broadcom). Clint is an experienced technology executive who brings more than 20 years of start-up operating experience including marketing, sales and business development to Formative Ventures. Prior to co-founding Formative Ventures, Clint served as the first Vice President of Marketing, Sales and Business Development at SkyStream Networks (acquired by Tandberg TV), a leading provider of video routing solutions. Under his leadership, SkyStream became the worldwide leader in MPEG routing solutions to the broadcast, networking and enterprise markets. Prior to joining SkyStream, Clint served as Senior Director of Marketing at C-Cube Microsystems where he was responsible for marketing for the PC Division, a group he co-founded and grew to run rates exceeding $50M in sales annually. Clint began his tenure at C-Cube as the first Salesperson for the company, where he created the company’s sales representation network around the country. While there, C-Cube became the dominant supplier of digital video and imaging compression chips to the consumer electronics, computing and communications markets. Before joining C-Cube, Clint held numerous sales and sales management positions at Motorola’s Semiconductor Products Sector, where he was recognized as one of the company’s top salespeople. Clint earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from the University of California at Berkeley.
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About Formative Ventures, Moment Ventures, PANTASTIC: Moment Ventures is an early-stage venture capital firm investing in the future of work.
Ammar Hanafi
Co-Founder & General Partner of Moment Ventures
Ammar Hanafi joined Alloy Ventures as a general partner in 2005. At Alloy, he focuses on investments in communications and IT infrastructure, as well as internet-enabled consumer and enterprise applications and services.Operating experience:Ammar has over a decade of financial and operational management experience in the communications and technology industry. He previously served as vice president of new business ventures at Cisco Systems, where he led new product efforts in the enterprise datacenter market. From 2000 to 2002, he was vice president of corporate business development, and in that capacity, he was responsible for Cisco’s acquisitions, acquisition integration, investment, and joint venture activity on a global basis. He joined Cisco in 1997 as a member of the Corporate Business Development Group. During Ammar’s tenure at Cisco, he helped the company complete over 100 investment and M&A transactions, including 50 successful acquisitions and over $750 million in venture capital investments. Leveraging his deep industry expertise, he helped lead Cisco into a number of major new businesses, including optical networking and integrated voice and data infrastructure and applications.Prior to Cisco, Ammar held leadership positions at PanAmSat Corp., a global satellite services provider, and the investment banking firms of Morgan Stanley and Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette.Ammar received a BS in Applied and Engineering Physics from Cornell University (1988) and an MBA from Stanford University (1995). Current board seats:Ammar serves on the board of directors of 3Leaf Systems, YouSENDit, Retrevo, Mavenir Systems, GigaOM, Qwaq, Infineta Systems and Moxsie. He also led Alloy’s investment in Cortina Systems. Ammar also serves on the board of the Silicon Valley Education Foundation, a non-profit.
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About Alloy Ventures, Moment Ventures: Moment Ventures is an early-stage venture capital firm investing in the future of work.
Jeremy Hitchcock
Founder / Exec Chair of Minim
Operator/tech/investor, 2x founder/CEO, Bookery MHT.
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About Bookery Manchester, Minim, New North Ventures, Orbit Group: Minim (NASDAQ: MINM) was born as a networking company and now delivers intelligent software to protect and improve the WiFi we depend on.
Nicole Zheng
Founder and President of Minim
Nicole Zheng is the Co- founder and CMO of Minim (OTCQB: MINM), the creator of innovative internet access products under the globally-recognized Motorola brand. While at Minim, she has been recognized by Entrepreneur as a Top Female Founder in the United States (2020). Prior to Minim, Nicole held the position of Chief Marketing Officer at cloud software companies Antidote Technologies and OnSIP (ACQ: Intrado). She has served as a board member of Alliance of Channel Women, a nonprofit on a mission to advance careers for women in the communications technology sector through education, community, and advocacy. Nicole holds a B.S. in Materials Science Engineering and B.S. in Engineering and Public Policy from Carnegie Mellon University, as well as business certifications from The Wharton School. She currently resides in Southampton, NY.
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About Minim, Zoom Telephonics (now Minim): Minim (NASDAQ: MINM) was born as a networking company and now delivers intelligent software to protect and improve the WiFi we depend on.
Alec Rooney
CTO and Co-Founder of Minim
Alec Rooney is the Co-founder and CTO at Minim.
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About Minim: Minim (NASDAQ: MINM) was born as a networking company and now delivers intelligent software to protect and improve the WiFi we depend on.
Harpaul Sambhi
Founder of stealth
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About Inovia Capital, stealth: Stealth specializes in high performance Industrial grade Displays, Computer Systems & Peripherals.
Michael Winn
CEO and Co-Founder of DroneDeploy
Michael Winn is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of DroneDeploy, a cloud-based drone platform that provides automated flight safety checks, workflows, real-time mapping, and data processing.
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About DroneDeploy: DroneDeploy is a cloud-based drone mapping and analytics platform to help businesses get things done.
Jono Millin
Co-Founder of DroneDeploy
Jono Millin is a founder of DroneDeploy, the cloud-based drone management platform. Jono completed his undergraduate degree in Computer Science, Information Systems and Applied Maths at Rhodes University before moving to the UK to obtain an MSc in Artificial Intelligence, and 2/3 of a PhD in Machine Learning from the University of Edinburgh. During his time in Edinburgh, Jono co-founded Zoom2Work and AdvertEyes before moving to San Francisco with DroneDeploy.
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About DroneDeploy: DroneDeploy is a cloud-based drone mapping and analytics platform to help businesses get things done.
Nicholas Pilkington
CTO, Co-Founder of DroneDeploy
Nicholas Pilkington is the founder of DroneDeploy, a platform for simple managed drone operations. Originally from Johannesburg, South Africa, he completed degrees in computer science, maths and information systems at Rhodes University. After graduating he started a Ph.D in machine learning at the University of Cambridge (Magadalene College) on a Nelson Mandela Rhodes University Scholarship. While at Cambridge Nicholas co-founded MyMoneyDog and Curious-Orange as well as the South African Bitcoin Exchange, Bitx. He currently resides in SOMA, San Francisco.
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About DroneDeploy: DroneDeploy is a cloud-based drone mapping and analytics platform to help businesses get things done.
Sameer Kalwani
Founder & Advisor of Element Analytics
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About Element Analytics: SaaS provider transforming IT/OT data into contextualized, graph-based models to support diverse analytical workloads and data governance.
Sam Mallikarjunan
CEO & Co-Founder of OneScreen.AI
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About HubSpot, OneScreen.AI: The world’s first Market Network for real-world media. Performance marketing meets out-of-home on the internet of places.
Hugo Fiennes
Founder & CEO of Electric Imp
Hugo Fiennes is CEO and Co-founder of Electric Imp, an innovative and powerful Internet of Things-based cloud service and hardware platform that makes it simple to connect devices to the Internet. Hugo began developing hardware and software for early ARM-based computers in the late 1980s and has been building useful and successful things ever since. After designing many MP3 players for Rio, Hugo led Apple’s hardware team through the first four generations of the groundbreaking iPhone, and was then an early advisor to Nest Labs, architecting the hardware for their first thermostat product before starting Electric Imp in 2011. He graduated first honors from University of Warwick in Coventry, England with a degree in Computer Systems Engineering.
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About Electric Imp: Electric Imp provides a secure IoT platform, connecting cloud services with the real world
Tak Miyata
Founder & General Partner of Scrum Ventures
Tak Miyata is a Founding Partner at Scrum Ventures. He has over 15 years of international experience in the IT industry both as an entrepreneur and as a senior executive. NevenVision, Tak’s first US based startup, was acquired by Google in 2006. His second startup, Japan based J-Magic, was acquired in 2009 by mixi. At mixi, Tak served as the Executive Vice President of Alliance. Tak holds a Master’s degree in nano Science from Waseda University. • 15+ years experience in startup, investment, executive management, sales and BizDev. • Proven results-oriented executive with early stage start-up companies. • Designed, developed and managed Japan and APAC(Asia PACific) sales strategies and teams. • Implemented sales, training and development programs and processes • Excellent leadership, business analysis, financial and negotiation skills • Presentation and Panel in many global events such as SXSW, LeWeb, Social Media Forum and etc.
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About Scrum Ventures: Scrum Ventures is an early-stage venture firm that helps startups and corporations innovate together.
Gabriel Halimi
Co-Founder & CEO of Flo Technologies
Gabriel is a former law partner turned corporate operations executive, with extensive startup experience, including in business development and brand marketing.
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About Flo Technologies: Flo prevents water damage and unnecessary water waste in homes with its Flo by Moen smart home water monitoring and leak protection system.
Henry Halimi
Co-Founder, Chairman of Flo Technologies
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About Flo Technologies: Flo prevents water damage and unnecessary water waste in homes with its Flo by Moen smart home water monitoring and leak protection system.
Oksana Kovalchuk
Founder of ANODA Web & Mobile Development Agency
“When I started ANODA in 2013, my experience in the industry was frustrating. From one side waterfall way built buggy products. On the other, we had dozens of uncontrolled tickets without a plan and with missed deadlines. Both developers and clients were completely frustrated with results, expectations, and quality. Experience working inside big outsourcing companies gave me an idea to create another(anoda) way to create software. For customers and team players, this way should be both flexible and predictable. This value became our DNA. I wanted to make excellent software that people would actually use. And to do that by putting the human element back in software development. As a first stage, we implemented our processes like Agile. That gave power and responsibility back to the creator. And we built the principle of testing constantly into our flow. When completed these changes, I added warranty in our responsibility. It is a personal challenge to keep any application that was crafted by our minds on a top-level of quality. No matter what. Transform people’s life through software. Automate boring tasks and free up more time for creativity. Now we’re working on robotic process automation to free up more time for creative people from routine to put in place innovative things. It is to achieve more than 1 billion downloads of all our crafted apps by the end of 2030. We think we’re off to a pretty good start.
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About ANODA Web & Mobile Development Agency: Web and Mobile solutions for Healthcare and IoT
Diego Netto
Co-Founder and Head of Engineering of Booster
Diego Netto is a Co-Founder and Head of Engineering @ Booster Fuels.
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About Booster: Booster is energy delivered, integrated logistics, and society’s solution for decarbonizing last-mile delivery.
Tyler Raugh
Co-Founder & President of Booster
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About Booster: Booster is energy delivered, integrated logistics, and society’s solution for decarbonizing last-mile delivery.
Iryna Korolenko
Founder and CEO of iSALON Beauty App
The founder of iSALON, a businesswoman and entrepreneur, fashion model and world-traveler, Iryna Korolenko is a portrait of the modern Renaissance woman. Born in Ukraine, she balanced passion and professionalism, ambition and sophistication from an early age, modeling internationally by 16 while prioritizing higher education. After receiving postgraduate degrees both in international economy and psychology, Iryna began a career working for global corporations, negotiating multi-million dollar contracts. By seamlessly navigating between the worlds of business and beauty, from airline to fashion runways, she has gained a worldview unique among her peers. Seeking new opportunities, Iryna packed a single suitcase and moved to the United States in 2014. Despite having no support network, she paved her way in an unfamiliar environment, and continues to trailblaze her singular career workingwith prominent designers and global brands both as a model and businesswoman. In boardrooms and at photo shoots, presentation matters, but it doesn’t have to be inconvenient. It was during a commute in traffic that Iryna realized it was smarter, safer, and simpler to have beauty services delivered directly to her door. Any modern professional will recognize the importance of quickly connecting with services wherever they are, whenever they are – and with iSALON, you can. Iryna is based in California but continues to pursue her passion exploring new places and meeting new people, always looking forward to new challenges and discovering innovative ideas. A consummate Capricorn, culinary dilettante, and classic cinema enthusiast, she most appreciates the simple things in life, especially her French bulldog, Blu.
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About Coleman Research, Fohr, GLG, iSALON Beauty App, Kelly Moore Paints, Look Model Agency, RED HOT MONDE: Delivering Beauty to Your Doorstep
Michael Jansen
Chairman, Founder & CEO of Cityzenith
Michael Jansen is a sought after Smart City industry leader and public speaker with numerous awards and accolades to his credit, and has been featured on CNN, CNBC, and myriads of business, technology, and AEC publications worldwide, including Architectural Record, ENR, Business Week, Domus, Contract Magazine, et. al. In 2007, Michael was awarded Building Design + Construction Magazine’s prestigious “40 Under 40” award honoring top CEOs in the architecture, engineering, and construction industry under the age of 40. An impassioned architect, urbanist, and entrepreneur, Michael founded Satellier in 2004, a CAD and BIM production services company backed by venture capital firm Sequoia Capital. Under his leadership, in just four years Satellier experienced explosive growth from a team size of 10 to over 450 and fundamentally changed the way AEC firms deliver services. In 2010, Michael assumed the helm of Cityzenith to pursue his dream of transforming life in cities all over the world. Michael was educated as an architect at Yale and Cambridge; earned a Fulbright scholarship; studied art and architecture in China and India; speaks four languages and has traveled to more than 80 countries; designs high-end, exotic furniture, and is an avid guitar player.
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About Cityzenith: Cityzenith is a technology startup that provides data visualization platform software and applications for IoT and Smart Cities.
Abhishek Pitti
Founder & CEO of Nucleus Vision
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About Nucleus Vision: Nucleus Vision is IoT based contact less identification system, empowering retailers to identify and better serve their customers.
Krenar Komoni
Founder & CEO of Tive
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About Tive: Tive develops a hardware and software platform designed to track the conditions of shipments.
Deborah Farrington
Co-Founder & Managing Partner of StarVest Partners
Farrington is a founder and Managing Partner of StarVest Partners, L.P., a New York City-based venture capital firm that invests in software, eCommerce and business services. Founded in 1998, StarVest has invested in many leading software-as-a-service and internet marketing companies. Farrington has over 30 years of private equity and venture investing, finance, and operating experience. Prior to founding StarVest, Farrington held positions including: President and CEO of Victory Ventures, LLC, a New York-based private equity investment firm where she also served as chairman of Staffing Resources, Inc.; and Managing Director of Asian Oceanic Group, a Hong Kong-based merchant bank. Earlier in her career she was in management positions spanning international and domestic investment banking and securities analysis with Merrill Lynch & Co. based in New York, Hong Kong and Tokyo, and was an officer with The Chase Manhattan Bank. Having served on the boards of many private and public companies previously, Farrington currently sits on the Boards of NetSuite (NYSE: N), where she is lead director and chairman of the Compensation Committee, Fieldglass, Insurance.com, Perquest and PivotLink on behalf of StarVest. She is also a director and chairman of the Compensation Committee of Collectors Universe, Inc. (NASDAQ: CLCT). She has been named multiple times to the Forbes Midas 100 List of top venture capitalists in the United States. She is a graduate of Smith College and holds an MBA from Harvard Business School, where she is a member of the Dean’s Visiting Committee.
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About StarVest Partners: StarVest Partners is a venture capital firm specializing in expansion, and growth capital investments.
Laura Sachar
Co-Founder & Managing Partner of StarVest Partners
Laura Sachar is a Founder and Managing Partner of StarVest Partners, a New York City based venture capital firm founded in 1998. StarVest invests in technology-enabled business services companies. StarVest was an early investor in the software-as-a-service trend: in 2000, it invested as the only venture firm in NetSuite -NYSE-listed and subsequently acquired by Oracle for $10 Billion. Laura is an experienced entrepreneur and private equity investor. She was an early identifier of the growth in digital media and has invested for nearly two decades in technology-enabled business services companies. As a founding partner of StarVest, she has been active with StarVest’s investments in Veracode (acq. CA Technologies), MessageOne (acq. by Dell Computer), Connected (acq. by Iron Mountain), iCrossing (acq. by Hearst) and Newgistics (acq. by Littlejohn and subsequently Pitney-Bowes) among others. Laura currently serves on the boards of RetailNext, Vyze, Persado, Transactis and Ceros. Prior to founding StarVest, Laura was responsible for direct private equity investments at Gabelli Securities where she sourced digital media investments including the first institutional round of Digital River (NASDAQ:DRIV). In the early 1990’s, Laura identified digital media as a growth area and founded Sachar Capital, which sourced Redgate Software, founded by Ted Leonsis, (merged into AOL in 1994) as an investment opportunity for its Advisory Counsel. Laura was the Founding Chairman of the New York New Media Association Angels Investors Program (now NY Angels), where she assisted hundreds of early-stage New York area companies in accessing initial capital. Laura has a BA from Barnard College, Columbia University, and an MBA from the Columbia University Graduate School of Business. Laura is a former member of the Young President’s Organization and a current member of the World President’s Organization. She is a Private Women’s Investor Network (PEWIN) Steering Committee Member. She has a Professional Director Certification with the American College of Corporate Directors.
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About StarVest Partners: StarVest Partners is a venture capital firm specializing in expansion, and growth capital investments.
Slim Souissi
Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Ospitek Inc.
Dr. Slim Souissi is the co-founder and CEO of OSPITEK, a leading HealthTech company that develops digital AI-IoT software for improving patient experience and surgical center productivity. He is also the founder and CEO of MIOTIV, a developer of IoT platforms specializing in the development of bespoke SAAS platforms for the automotive and the healthcare industries . He is the former president and COO of Novatel Wireless. He began his career at Motorola in ’94 and made key contributions to the architecture FLEX paging data networks. In 1997, he lead the architecture of the company’s location based services platform. In 2000, Dr. Souissi joined Novatel Wireless to lead the Software Defined Radio program. He was promoted to CTO and VP of engineering in 2002. Dr. Souissi guided Novatel Wireless through the worldwide expansion of the mobile broadband market which culminated at a company valuation of more than $800M and an annual revenue of ~ $500M. Dr. Souissi and his team invented the award winning MiFi mobile hotspot creating a global market category worth tens of billions of dollars. Dr. Souissi is the holder of several MiFi essential patents asserted against ZTE and Apple. MiFi was picked by Time Magazine as one of the greatest/most influential gadgets of the century. The company was named by Forbes as one of the top five most innovative technology companies in America. Dr. Souissi was awarded the distinction of being part of ExecRank’s “Top CTO Rankings” of America in 2013 and 2014. Dr. Souissi holds a MSEE degree from Ecole Central de Marseille, a MS degree in DSP from Supelec, France, a MSEE and a Ph.D from Georgia Tech. He was inducted into the Academy of Distinguished Engineering Alumni of Georgia Tech. Dr. Souissi is a published IEEE author and holds 60 US patents. He is the recipient of the distinguished innovator award from Motorola and the J.D. innovation award from Novatel. He served on the advisory boards of Nextivity, TAM and Zyray Wireless.
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About Miotiv Inc., Ospitek Inc.: SaaS Company – Healthcare Technology
Robb Monkman
Co-Founder & Chief Executive Officer of React Mobile
Robb Monkman is the Founder and CEO of React Mobile, Inc a leading provider of enterprise safety technology. A seasoned entrepreneur with experience launching multiple products, from idea to exit. Several years ago, Robb was the victim of an armed robbery and hostage situation that left a lasting impression on him. He soon learned that thousands of people every day were in situations where they desperately need help but couldn’t make a call. He made it his mission to solve this problem, founding React Mobile to create a simple yet powerful personal safety platform that today is transforming the way people call for help in emergencies. React Mobile is making tomorrow a safer place and already helping people all over the world.
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About React Mobile: React Mobile is a robust cloud based SaaS platform that provides enhanced safety solutions to protect employees of our enterprise customers.
Remy De Vlieghere
Founder and CEO SmarTECHS, LLC of SmarTECHS
Remy is a serial entrepreneur with a track record in building businesses and high-performance teams, and delivering break through innovation. Remy brings 20 years of broad international operations and commercial experience.
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About SmarTECHS: SaaS – Delivering context relevant work and safety instruction for technicians in the field
Christopher Kryzan
Founder & Managing Director of Brilliant Things
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About Brilliant Things: Marketing & Product Strategy for the Internet of Things
Tong Zhang
Co-Founder & CTO of Timecros
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About Timecros: Digital life sharing
Mark Levitt
Co-Founder and CEO of Trixta
Four-time SA Open chess champion, with many years history in Chess commerce, including: publishing, software and retail business. Levitt was also an early investor & CIO of search engine marketing company www.incubeta.com, and a founding member of TEIM Ventures.
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About ChessCube.com, Trixta, Trixta: Trixta’s low-code tools revolutionize how teams build software – faster, better, with fewer developers
James Tamplin
Founder Partner of Founder Collective
James has founded 4 startups. His last one, Firebase, was acquired by Google, where he leads product for Firebase as a part of Google Cloud Platform.
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About Founder Collective: Founder Collective is a seed-stage venture capital fund that helps entrepreneurs build their businesses.
Zach Klein
Founder Partner of Founder Collective
Zach Klein is co-founder and CEO of DIY. He was a partner and led product design at Connected Ventures, the creators of CollegeHumor. In 2006, he and his partners sold a major stake of Connected Ventures to IAC. Zach is best known for co-founding and designing [Vimeo](/organization/vimeo), a popular video-sharing community emphasizing authenticity and quality. Time Magazine’s CEO Shimon Haber named Vimeo one of the web’s Top 50 sites. He led product at [Boxee](/organization/boxee), an open-source interface for televisions making it easy to watch shows, movies and homemade videos from the Internet. Zach also serves as a director on the boards of Skillshare and Svpply.
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About DIY.org, Dwell, Dwell, Founder Collective, Svpply: Founder Collective is a seed-stage venture capital fund that helps entrepreneurs build their businesses.
Charles Michael Yim
Founder and CEO of Breathometer
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About Breathometer, CMY Ventures, Cohabit Labs, Inc., Cointopia, Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy, VitaBowl, Walt Disney Television: Breathometer develops a breath analysis technology that helps people make smarter decisions and improve their lives.
Niall Murphy
CEO & Co-Founder of EVRYTHNG
Niall Murphy is a CEO and co-founder of EVRYTHNG, the IoT Smart Products Platform connecting products to the Web and managing real-time data to drive applications and experiences. He is also known as a technologist and serial entrepreneur. Niall co-founder pan European WiFi network The Cloud with George Polk, ultimately acquired by BSkyB in 2010. He founded one of the first ISPs in South Africa in a joint venture with Sprint, and three digital media businesses in South Africa. Niall co-founded Amsterdam-based scenario thinking consultancy The Digital Thinking Network in 1994 with Daniel Erasmus. He is a member of UK telecoms regulator Ofcom’s advisory board, and was a co-author of the Wi-Fi International Roaming Access Protocols Framework in 2005. Murphy completed his secondary education at Redhill High School and obtained a bachelor’s degree in computer science from the University of Witwatersrand. Murphy currently lives in New York, USA.
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About EVRYTHNG, Kubu Ventures: EVRYTHNG develops an IoT platform for consumer product brands, articulating data with real-time insights for billions of things.
Michael W. Wellman
CEO & Founder of Virgil Security
Michael W. Wellman is CEO &Founder at Virgil Security.
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About Bloomberg Beta, MACH37, NextGen Venture Partners, SparkLabs Cyber+Blockchain, Virgil Security: Virgil Security provides easy-to-deploy and easy-to-use cryptographic software and services for use by developers and end-users.
Dmitry Dain
Co-Founder of Virgil Security
Dmitry Dain is the Co-Founder at Virgil Security, Inc.
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About NextGen Venture Partners, Virgil Security: Virgil Security provides easy-to-deploy and easy-to-use cryptographic software and services for use by developers and end-users.
Zach Supalla
Founder & CEO of Particle
Zach Supalla is the founder and CEO of Particle, an IoT startup that’s making it easier to build, connect and manage internet-connected hardware products deployed at massive scale. Supalla earned an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management and an MEM (masters in engineering management) from the McCormick School of Engineering at Northwestern. Before Particle, Supalla worked as a management consultant with McKinsey & Company, advising Fortune 500 companies on strategy, operations and product development. He is a graduate of HAX, the world’s first, and most prolific hardware accelerator.
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About Particle: Particle provides hardware and software tools to help users prototype, scale, and manage IoT products.
Bryan Mistele
Founder & Chief Executive Officer of INRIX
Bryan Mistele, Founder & CEO of INRIX, a leading provider of traffic information, connected car services and transportation analytics. Bryan Mistele grew up in Detroit, spent time in Boston and now live in the Seattle area. Bryan Mistele got his Bachelor’s in Computer Engineering at the University of Michigan (go Blue!) and then his MBA at Harvard. Bryan Mistele worked at Ford Motor Company and Microsoft prior to starting INRIX.
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About INRIX: INRIX enables smarter mobility by empowering cities, people & businesses with data & insights to make movement greener, safer & faster
Meirav Oren
CEO & Co Founder of VERSATILE
Meirav Oren is the CEO and Co-Founder at VERSATILE.
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About VERSATILE: VERSATILE uses machine learning and AI to optimize construction and industrial processes.
Raju Indukuri
Co-Founder of Quantela
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About FalconX, Pi Datacenters, Quantela, Swiftly: Quantela is the leading Outcomes-as-a-Service (OaaS) company in the space of IoT enabled smart cities and urban infrastructure digitization.
Kishau Rogers
Founder & CEO of Time Study
Kishau Rogers is a technology entrepreneur using computer science, systems thinking, and common sense to create intelligent human-centered solutions. As the Founder and CEO of Time Study, Kishau is one of the first Black women in the state of Virginia to raise millions in venture capital to scale her tech startup. Headquartered in New York City, Time Study is a platform that uses artificial intelligence to help enterprises understand the impact of how their employees spend their time. Time Study is used by four out of the top 10 hospitals in the United States as ranked by the U.S. News and World Report. Kishau’s work has been featured in Forbes, The Wall Street Journal, Entrepreneur, and Black Enterprise. She holds a Computer Science degree and has over 25 years of technology and entrepreneurial leadership experience.
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About Time Study, Websmith, Inc: Our platform makes complex time tracking easy. We proudly serve the largest hospital systems.
Raghu Bala
Founder and CEO of NetObjex, Inc.
CEO, NetObjex Inc based in Southern California. Formerly with Yahoo, Infospace, Primedia, Source Interlink Media, PwC, and with 3 successful startup exits. Wharton MBA in Finance, MS in Computer Science from RPI, Ex-Columbia University Adjunct Lecturer, published author and major conferences including IoT India Congress, Google IO, and more. Bala has significant domain expertise in the media industry having led digital operations for 100 brands including MotorTrend, HotRod, Import Tuner, Automobile, Recoil, Shutterbug, and Slam. His responsibilities included managing digital assets across multiple mediums including web, mobile, video/YouTube channels, and social media. The portfolio of digital assets managed had a total visitor profile with monthly statistics of over 16M unique visitors and 100M pageviews. Bala also has deep expertise in search engine advertising and audience conversion from his stints at Infospace and Yahoo. Bala has been working on IoT since 2011 and has deep expertise in end to end IoT in multiple domains.
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About : NetObjex’s Matrix Digital Asset-as-a-Service (DAaaS) platform enables enterprises to manage their digital assets using IoT, AI, and DLT
Adam Sobol
Founder & CEO of CareBand
Adam Sobol is the founder and CEO of CareBand, Inc, a wearable technology company dedicated to seniors living with dementia. Adam has been developing web and mobile applications since he was 16. He is a creative innovator focused on social impact projects. In 2017, Adam was named to AARP’s 50+ Innovation Leaders for healthcare. Adam is also active on the Illinois Technology Association’s IoT Council focused in policy and cybersecurity. Adam earned an undergraduate degree in informatics and a graduate degree in information systems and cybersecurity, both from Indiana University. Based in Chicago, IL, Adam is an avid rower, tennis player, and cellist.
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About CareBand, IU Ventures: Wearable technology for seniors living with dementia
Justin Oliveira
Co-Founder, Advisory Board Member of Hedron
Justin started his career at NASA in ‘07 after being recruited to work on the Space Shuttle and Constellation Programs. Later, he transitioned to R&D management, serving on various agency-wide committees and partnering with small businesses to develop space technology. In 2012 he went to NASA HQ to work on revamping NASA’s strategy capability. In 2014 he went to the White House Office of Management and Budget where he oversaw NASA’s Human Spaceflight and Aeronautics Research Program and the Smithsonian. In the spring of 2016, he co-founded Analytical Space. He holds a B.S./M.S. in Aerospace Engineering from Florida Tech and an MBA from the Harvard Business School.
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About Boston Geospatial: Hedron is a satellite communications company based out of Boston that is leveraging hybrid RF-laser communications technology.
Suhas Ahuja
Co-Founder, COO of SIERA.AI
Suhas is an experienced entrepreneur with multiple successful exits in the high-tech sector. Suhas leads all of Stocked Robotics’ sales and business development operations globally.
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About SIERA.AI: SIERA.AI is a mobility tech company that helps warehouses and factories increase safety and efficiency of their industrial vehicle fleets.
Saurav Agarwal
Co-Founder, CEO of SIERA.AI
Saurav has worked at Qualcomm Research developing multiple patents for autonomous drones. He has won the prestigious Qualcomm Padovani Fellowship for his work along with National Innovation Awards and NSF I-Corps.
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About SIERA.AI: SIERA.AI is a mobility tech company that helps warehouses and factories increase safety and efficiency of their industrial vehicle fleets.
Yichun Zhang
Founder and CEO of OpenResty
Yichun is founder and CEO of OpenResty Inc, creator of the OpenResty open source web platform, and a contributor to the NGINX, LuaJIT, and SystemTap open source projects. He previously worked on large distributed software systems based on NGINX and OpenResty at Cloudflare, Taobao, and Yahoo! China.
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About OpenResty: OpenResty is a full-fledged web platform.
Allison Clift-Jennings
CEO & Co-Founder of Filament
Allison Clift-Jennings is the CEO and Co-Founder at Filament.
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About Filament, Tonic Audio Labs: Filament builds blockchain hardware & software solutions for enterprise and IoT.
Amit Narayan
Founder / CEO of Autogrid
Amit Narayan is the Founder and CEO of AutoGrid, Inc. From 2010 to 2012, he was the Director of Smart Grid Research in Modeling & Simulation at Stanford University, where he continues to lead an interdisciplinary project related to modeling, optimization and control of the electricity grid and associated electricity markets. Prior to founding AutoGrid, Dr. Narayan was the Vice President of Products at the publicly traded company Magma Design Automation, Inc. (Nasdaq: LAVA), where he led the product development and product management teams responsible for Magma’s flagship product in the design implementation area. Over one third of all semiconductor chips used in consumer electronic devices — such as smart phones, blue-ray players and video games — were designed using products developed by Dr. Narayan’s team at Magma. Prior to joining Magma, Dr. Narayan founded Berkeley Design Automation, Inc. (BDA), a venture-backed company in analog and radio-frequency semiconductor design software and served as its founding CEO and later Vice President of Engineering, responsible for all research and product development activities, as well as customer engagements. Under Dr. Narayan’s leadership, BDA saw its products adopted by over 100 semiconductor companies in the world (including 20 out of the top 25). For his work at BDA, Dr. Narayan’s received the EDN’s “Innovation for the Year” award in 2006.Dr. Narayan received his B. Tech. in Electrical Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology at Kanpur and Ph.D. from University of California at Berkeley. He has published over 25 papers about design automation, holds seven U.S. patents and is an active advisor to several startup companies in the Bay Area.
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About Autogrid, Berkeley Design Automation: AutoGrid Systems organizes energy data and employs big data analytics to generate real-time predictions that create actionable data.
