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 Partner operating in the Business Development space. If you think a Partner is missing from this list, feel free to contact our editor on editor@beststartup.us.
The individuals on this list have been included because of exceptional performance in one of the following categories:
- Innovation – Operating as a key part in an extremely innovative business or startup.
- Growth – Operating as a key figure in the growth and upscale of a market leading business or startup.
- Management – Showing exceptional management skills.
- Societal impact – Putting their business on the map for their positive societal or environmental impact.
Our Data – We source our data from OSINT (open source intelligence) and public directories such as Crunchbase, SemRush and many more. The data from these sources should be treated with a degree of caution and verified yourself.
Bryan Rosenblatt
Partner of Craft Ventures
Bryan Rosenblatt (born July 4, 1989 in New York, New York, United States) is an American Venture Capitalist and entrepreneur. He is a Partner at Craft Ventures, a venture firm with over $2 billion AUM started by David Sacks. He is also a founder of Riverside Ventures which he started in 2017.
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About Craft Ventures: Craft Ventures is an early-stage venture fund specializing in the craft of building great companies.
Michael Tam
Partner of Craft Ventures
Michael is a partner at Craft on the investment team, based in Los Angeles. Prior to joining Craft, he was an investor at Crosscut, where he led investments at the seed stage. As an operator, Michael managed Uber’s business in Southern California markets and launched L., a direct to consumer brand acquired by Procter & Gamble. Michael began his career in venture at Bullpen Capital. Previously, he worked at BofA Merrill Lynch’s tech investment banking group and began his career at PwC. Michael serves on the investment committee of the USC Marshall Fund, which invests in startups in the Southern California tech ecosystem.
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About Craft Ventures: Craft Ventures is an early-stage venture fund specializing in the craft of building great companies.
Lainy Painter
Partner of Craft Ventures
Elena is an associate in Battery Ventures’ Menlo Park office. At Battery, she focuses on venture and growth investments in the software and Internet sectors. Previously, Elena worked at Gainsight, a Battery Ventures portfolio company that offers customer success solutions to B2B companies. There, she helped lead business operations and strategy across the organization, including initiatives to grow services revenue and drive product adoption. Prior to that, Elena worked at Goldman Sachs on the technology, media and telecom investment banking team, advising companies including PayPal, LinkedIn, Zendesk and 2U. Elena graduated summa cum laude from The College of William and Mary. She received a BA in finance and a minor in economics.
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About Craft Ventures: Craft Ventures is an early-stage venture fund specializing in the craft of building great companies.
Bill Lee
Co-Founder and General Partner of Craft Ventures
Bill Lee was CEO and co-founder of Remarq, a Benchmark Capital-backed collaboration company. At Remarq, Bill guided the company in its development of a complete end-to-end Internet messaging and collaboration platform. Before its acquisition by Critical Path in March 2000, the company developed high-volume messaging platforms for sites such as eBay, Sun, Novell, and Amazon. The company raised over $43 million in venture and debt financing. Bill has been appointed by the Mayor of San Jose to the Redevelopment Committee of San Jose. Bill also graduated Beta Gamma Sigma from UC Berkeley with a B.S. in accounting/finance and received a JD/MBA from UCLA.
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About Craft Ventures, West Coast Holdings: Craft Ventures is an early-stage venture fund specializing in the craft of building great companies.
Brian Murray
Partner & COO of Craft Ventures
Brian leads Craft’s investment team. As one of the first employees at Craft, Brian built the infrastructure that powers the firm’s investment process and hired a talented team to expand Craft’s growing portfolio. Prior to joining Craft, Brian was the VP of Business Operations at Zenefits where he led many of the company’s largest, cross-functional initiatives. Brian spearheaded Zenefit’s transition to a pure SaaS business, established the company’s most important channel partnerships, and led the compliance overhaul of its benefits management product. Previously, Brian was the VP of Sales and Customer Success at Cotap (acquired by ServiceMax) where he led sales, marketing, and post-sales efforts.
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About Cabal, Craft Ventures: Craft Ventures is an early-stage venture fund specializing in the craft of building great companies.
Jeff Fluhr
Co-Founder and General Partner of Craft Ventures
Jeff is co-founder and general partner at Craft. He has been a successful tech entrepreneur and investor for two decades. While at Stanford Graduate School of Business, Fluhr entered the annual business plan competition with the idea of creating a trusted and transparent marketplace where fans could buy and sell tickets for sporting events and concerts. Fluhr dropped out of school and co-founded StubHub in March 2000. By 2007, StubHub had over 400 employees, more than $600 million of gross merchandise volume and partnerships with many professional and college sports teams. Fluhr served as CEO of StubHub until it was acquired by eBay for $310 million in 2007.
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About Craft Ventures: Craft Ventures is an early-stage venture fund specializing in the craft of building great companies.
Joe Cheung
Operating Partner – Talent of Craft Ventures
Joseph is currently the Talent Partner at Craft Ventures, previously Recruiting Talent Consultant@Sequoia Capital, @eero, @Greylock Partner’s Talent Team, lead recruiting efforts at Medium. He has also held the position of Director of Recruiting at the Yammer Division of Microsoft Office. During his time at Yammer he lead efforts in aggressively growing the organization from 55 to over 430 employees globally which led to the eventual acquisition by Microsoft for $1.2 billion dollars. Previous to Yammer, Joseph held recruiting positions at Google, Microsoft, Netflix and Salesforce.com where he supported teams such as Hotmail, Quality Engineering and Streaming Infrastructure Teams at Netflix, the entire Research and Development Organization at Salesforce.com, and Japanese Product Focused Teams as well as other confidential product teams at Google.
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About Craft Ventures: Craft Ventures is an early-stage venture fund specializing in the craft of building great companies.
Scott Shleifer
Partner of Tiger Global Management
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About Tiger Global Management: Tiger Global Management is an investment firm that deploys capital globally in both public and private markets.
Chase Coleman
Partner of Tiger Global Management
Chase Coleman is the partner of Tiger Global Management LLC (previously known as Tiger Technology Management LLC) in 2001.
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About Tiger Global Management: Tiger Global Management is an investment firm that deploys capital globally in both public and private markets.
Justin Kan
General Partner & Co-Founder of Goat Capital
Justin Kan is the CEO and co-founder of Atrium, a technology company and corporate law firm providing fast, transparent, and price-predictable business and legal services to startups. As a founder of multiple companies and an investor in hundreds more, Justin involuntarily became a power user of corporate legal services. Justin’s mixed experiences with traditional law firms and billing practices inspired him to reimagine the delivery of legal services with a better client experience as his guide. At Atrium, Justin is chief visionary and leads a team of talented executives in developing a technology platform for legal professionals to meet client needs responsively, and rethinking and refining how services are packaged and priced so that legal spend is clear, transparent, and predictable for client legal budgets. The Atrium corporate law firm employs experienced startup lawyers who are attuned to the needs of Atrium’s client base of emerging companies. Prior to Atrium, Justin was a partner at Y Combinator, the preeminent startup accelerator. Justin was a co-founder of Justin.tv, which became Twitch, the popular video game streaming platform (acquired by Amazon in 2014); Exec, an on-demand errand service (acquired by Handybook in 2014); Socialcam, a mobile app for sharing video (acquired by Autodesk in 2012); and Kiko, the first Ajax web calendar. Justin is a prolific angel investor and mentor to startup founders. He is a graduate of Yale University.
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About Goat Capital, Zero-F: Goat Capital is a venture capital firm that invests in early-stage companies.
Robin Chan
Co-Founder & General Partner of Goat Capital
Robin Chan joined Goat Capital Founder and General Partner in 2020.
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About Bird, Expa, Goat Capital, Operation Masks, Operator, Square: Goat Capital is a venture capital firm that invests in early-stage companies.
Hans Tung
Managing Partner of GGV Capital
Hans Tung is the Managing Partner of GGV Capital.
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About GGV Capital: GGV Capital is a global venture capital firm that invests in local founders.
Jeff Richards
Managing Partner of GGV Capital
A Managing Partner at GGV Capital, Jeff joined the firm in 2008 after spending 13 years as an entrepreneur and operating executive in the US and Asia. Prior to joining GGV, Jeff founded two venture-backed companies, one a success and one a “huge failure” in his own words – “I learned a lot.” His background as an entrepreneur gives him a unique perspective on the challenges of starting and running a venture-backed company, and he works closely with the GGV Talent team on Founders + Leaders. Jeff focuses on the Software and Internet sectors, and currently sits on the boards of or is a board observer at BigCommerce, one of the top ecommerce software platforms, Boxed, a rising star in the ecommerce space, Brightwheel, the leading SaaS provider for the early education vertical, Gladly, a next generation SaaS platform for customer care, Percolate, a leading marketing SaaS platform for global brands,PlushCare, a mobile platform for consumer healthcare, Reebonz, Southeast Asia’s leader in luxury ecommerce, Slice, a market network for the pizza industry, and Tile, the platform for location. Jeff also led GGV’s investments in Appirio (acquired in 2016 by Wipro), BlueKai (acquired in 2014 by Oracle), Buddy Media (acquired in 2012 by Salesforce), Citrus Lane (acquired in 2014 by Care.com), Evolv (acquired in 2014 by Cornerstone OnDemand), Flipboard, HotelTonight, ShiftGig, Voicera and Zylo, and has been actively involved in GGV’s investments in Domo, OpenDoor, Square and Wish. Prior to joining GGV, Jeff founded two software companies: R4, a supply chain SaaS business acquired by VeriSign (NASDAQ: VRSN), and QuantumShift, a telecom software business backed by Texas Pacific Group (TPG). Earlier in his career, Jeff worked in Asia and Latin America with PriceWaterhouseCoopers. Jeff graduated from Dartmouth College, where he was a four-year letterman on the basketball team and is on the Advisory Board for the Dartmouth Entrepreneur Network (DEN). Jeff is a frequent guest on CNBC and often writes on topics like startup management and leadership, venture-backed IPOs and shifts in tech trends across the US and China. Follow Jeff on Twitter @jrichlive or check out his LinkedIn profile for more information.
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About Addi, All Raise, Appirio, Belong, BigCommerce, Boxed, Brightwheel, Coinbase, Convex, Curebase, Electric, Fairmarkit, GGV Capital, Gladly, Handshake, Homebase, Lambda School, Namely, People.ai, Phil, Pinpoint.com, Realm, Slice, Stream, Tala, Tile, Vic.ai, Voicea, Workboard: GGV Capital is a global venture capital firm that invests in local founders.
Glenn Solomon
Managing Partner of GGV Capital
Glenn Solomon is a venture capitalist. He is a partner at [GGV Capital](https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/ggv-capital), a venture capital firm that invests in the U.S. and China. Since 2006, Solomon has worked with entrepreneurs and leaders at companies where he has led GGV’s investments such as Zendesk (NYSE: ZEN), Pandora (NYSE: P), Successfactors (NYSE: SFSF/Acq by SAP), Isilon (NASDAQ: ISLN/Acq by EMC), Nimble Storage (NYSE: NMBL), Quinstreet (NASDAQ: QNST), Square, Conviva, Domo, AlienVault, HashiCorp, and Gridstore. He also assists his partners on other GGV investments such as Appirio, BlueKai, Buddy Media, China Talent Group (CTG), MediaV, Tujia, and Qunar. Prior to GGV, Solomon was a general partner with Partech International, where he led investments in Broadbase Software, Datacenter Technologies, Digital Island, Pentasafe, and Vignette (NASDAQ:VIGN). Earlier in his career, he worked with [Goldman Sachs](https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/goldman-sachs) and also with SPO Partners, a San Francisco-based private investment partnership. Glenn Solomon graduated from [Stanford University](https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/stanford-university), where he majored in tennis, starting on three NCAA championship tennis teams, and he also earned an M.B.A from Stanford where he was an Arjay Miller Scholar.
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About Airbnb, GGV Capital, Kong, Slack, Spotlight Foundation: GGV Capital is a global venture capital firm that invests in local founders.
Jason Ewell
Operating Partner of Insight Partners
Jason leads TravelClick’s global product team, which includes reservations, business intelligence, media, web, and guest management product lines. He focuses on assisting hotels increase revenue, reduce costs, and improve performance through our complete suite of hotel solutions. He has 18 years of experience specializing in digital media, marketing, and partnerships for small and mid-sized companies in the travel, ecommerce, and financial services industries. Jason spent 14 years with American Express, where he led digital customer acquisition for the OPEN Small Business Group, and managed travel product and distribution partnerships for the Global Commercial Card group. Jason received a bachelor’s degree from the University of Pennsylvania.
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About Insight Partners: Insight Partners is a private equity firm that invests in growth-stage technology and software companies.
Gary Survis
Operating Partner of Insight Partners
Gary Survis is the Chief Marketing Officer of Syncsort, leading Syncsort’s global Big Data integration marketing team. Gary is a seasoned marketing executive with experience combining traditional and digital marketing tools to provide practical solutions to today’s marketing challenges. Before joining Syncsort, Gary was Founder and “Chief Buzz Officer” at Practical Digital Marketing. Prior to that, he was COO of Geoscape Solar, a firm specializing in residential, commercial and non-profit solar projects. Gary holds a BA in Business from University of Pennsylvania-Wharton, and an MBA in marketing from NYU Stern School. He is also currently a Lecturer at the Wharton School and a Senior Fellow at Wharton’s Initiative for Global Environmental Leadership.
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About Insight Partners: Insight Partners is a private equity firm that invests in growth-stage technology and software companies.
Pablo Dominguez
Operating Partner of Insight Partners
Pablo Dominguez is an operations executive with experience in working across global internet, technology, software, and communications industries. He is the vice president of global business operations at [AppNexus](https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/appnexus), a technology company enabling cloud-based software platform enables and optimizes programmatic online advertising. Previously, he served the same company as was the vice president of sales enablement and operations. Prior to AppNexus, Dominguez worked at [ADP](https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/adp#/entity), holding various leadership roles in global sales operations and compensation. He was also the director of global sales compensation at [Avaya](https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/avaya). Dominguez holds a bachelor’s degree in management information systems and international economics from [The University of Texas](https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/the-university-of-texas-at-austin#/entity) at Austin and an MBA in global businesses and strategy from [New York University](https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/new-york-university#/entity).
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About Insight Partners: Insight Partners is a private equity firm that invests in growth-stage technology and software companies.
Shelley Perry
Operating Partner of Insight Partners
Shelley Perry is a Venture Partner at Insight and joined the firm in 2016. Shelley is a technology evangelist, innovator, product strategist, and C Level advisor with over 20 years of experience growing IaaS and SaaS organizations, across both start up and public companies. Shelley has a passion for growth stage scaling and turn-arounds. Prior to Insight, Shelley served as the Chief Product Officer, Cloud with Dimension Data (an NTT Group Company), Chief Development Officer at NTT Innovation Institute, CTO of Industry SaaS Solutions at HP, Vice President of Engineering, Ticketmaster and various other CTO Roles focused on Industry solutions across Finance, Healthcare, Transportation, Entertainment, Education and Retail. In her role as Venture Partner at Insight, Shelley evaluates potential investments with the investment team, and serves as mentor and executive coach to the Onsite portfolio companies.
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About Insight Partners: Insight Partners is a private equity firm that invests in growth-stage technology and software companies.
Shana Fisher
Managing Partner of Third Kind Venture Capital
Shana Fisher is the Managing Partner of HLVP, a NY Based venture fund focused on early stage investments. From December 2003 to June 2010, Ms. Fisher served as IAC’s Senior Vice President, Strategic Planning & Mergers and Acquisitions, and prior to that as the Senior Vice President of Business Operations for IAC. Previously, Ms. Fisher served as Vice President and Director, Media and Technology Mergers and Acquisitions and Corporate Finance for Allen & Company, LLC. In this capacity she led principle investments and advised publicly traded technology firms, private telecommunications firms and media companies. Prior to Allen & Company, LLC., Ms. Fisher was a program manager for the Microsoft Corporation. Ms. Fisher received her B.A. from Hampshire College with a triple major in Sculpture, Philosophy and Linguistics and attended the Master of Arts program at New York University’s ITP.
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About Third Kind Venture Capital: Third Kind Venture Capital is a venture capital fund focused on early-stage investments.
Adam Bain
Co-Founder & Managing Partner of 01 Advisors
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About 01 Advisors, Goat Group: 01A is a venture firm founded by a team of operators to help entrepreneurs build great companies.
Dick Costolo
Managing Partner & Co-Founder of 01 Advisors
Since October 2010, Dick has been the Chief Executive Officer of Twitter, where he was responsible for the growth and management of the overall business. Previously, as Twitter’s Chief Operating Officer, he oversaw monetization and day to day operations. Before joining Twitter, Dick was co-founder and CEO of FeedBurner, a digital content syndication platform that was acquired by Google in 2007. While at Google, Dick was Group Product Manager on the Ads team responsible for social media ads. Previously, Dick lived and worked in Chicago, where he founded and ran two digital media companies: SpyOnIt, a web page monitoring service, and Burning Door Networked Media, a web design and development consulting company. Dick was also an improv performer with the acclaimed Annoyance Theater. He graduated from the University of Michigan with a B.S. in Computer Science.
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About 01 Advisors: 01A is a venture firm founded by a team of operators to help entrepreneurs build great companies.
Karen (Appleton ) Page
General Partner of B Capital Group
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About B Capital Group, Forum Ventures: B Capital Group is a venture capital firm that backs global entrepreneurs in the field of information technology.
Robert Mittendorff
General Partner and Head of Healthcare of B Capital Group
Robert brings to NVP more than a decade of operational and medical experience. Based in NVP’s Palo Alto office, Robert focuses on investing capital in venture and growth opportunities in the healthcare sector. Prior to NVP, Robert was the Vice President of Marketing and Business Development at Hansen Medical Inc. (Nasdaq: HNSN). During his tenure, he launched multiple products, including the Magellan and Sensei X robotic systems, and was involved in leading products from concept to first commercial shipment. As a corporate officer, Robert also led the Company’s partnerships with GE, Siemens, Philips and St. Jude Medical and executed transactions totaling over $100M. He created the Scientific Advisory Board and participated in two public financings. Prior to Hansen Medical, Robert worked in the device, pharmaceutical and biotech industries with experience at a number of companies, working in strategic, business development and marketing capacities. Robert is also a board certified emergency physician who completed his residency training at Stanford. Robert received his M.D. from Harvard Medical School and his M.B.A. from Harvard Business School. He received his B.S. in biomedical engineering from Johns Hopkins University where he played on the soccer team. He has completed fellowships under the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (neuroscience), MIT Sloan School of Management, and Harvard Business School.
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About B Capital Group, Health Catalyst, Kaiser Permanente: B Capital Group is a venture capital firm that backs global entrepreneurs in the field of information technology.
Rashmi Gopinath
General Partner of B Capital Group
Rashmi is a General Partner at B Capital leading growth-stage enterprise investments. Previously, she was a Managing Director at M12, Microsoft’s Venture Fund and led investments for the fund globally in cloud infrastructure, cybersecurity, devops, AI/ML, and enterprise SaaS. She brings a combination of strong venture capital and startup operating experience. Previously, Rashmi was an Investment Director at Intel Capital focused on investing in cloud infrastructure, and big data companies. She also led global business development for high-growth startups Couchbase and BlueData. Prior to that, she held product development positions at GE and Oracle. Rashmi has an MBA from the J.L. Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University and a Bachelor of Engineering from the University of Mumbai in India.
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About B Capital Group: B Capital Group is a venture capital firm that backs global entrepreneurs in the field of information technology.
Gabe Greenbaum
General Partner at B Capital of B Capital Group
Gabe Greenbaum is the General Partner at B Capital Group.
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About B Capital Group, Cue, Spring Labs, Storeplacer: B Capital Group is a venture capital firm that backs global entrepreneurs in the field of information technology.
Adam Seabrook
Partner of B Capital Group
Adam Seabrook is a Partner at B Capital Group.
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About B Capital Group: B Capital Group is a venture capital firm that backs global entrepreneurs in the field of information technology.
Raj Ganguly
Co-Founder and Partner of B Capital Group
Raj Ganguly is a Founding Partner of B Capital Group where he focuses on creating exponential growth by bringing together thought leaders, technology and capital. With 18 years of deep industry knowledge, Mr. Ganguly has earned a reputation for building businesses and driving growth. Previously, he co-founded and served as a Managing Partner at Velos Partners, a venture capital firm with offices in Los Angeles, Singapore and London. At Velos, he led numerous venture investments and served on the boards of Surf Air, Silvercar and Pong. Prior to founding Velos, Mr. Ganguly spent six years at Bain Capital investing and driving operational excellence in consumer-focused companies across the U.S. and Asia. Earlier in his career, he was with McKinsey & Company, Diageo plc. and Miradiant, one of the first internet payment startups. Currently, Mr. Ganguly serves as an external consultant (‘Senior Advisor”) to The Boston Consulting Group.
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About B Capital Group: B Capital Group is a venture capital firm that backs global entrepreneurs in the field of information technology.
Matt Levinson
Partner of B Capital Group
Matt is a Partner at B Capital Group. prior to that, he was the Principal on the investment team at FinTech Collective. Prior to joining FinTech Collective, Matt co-founded NYC-based startup Aerobo, a venture-capital-backed provider of drone services. Previously, Matt worked in private equity at AEA Investors, where he invested in middle-market buyout transactions. Matt started his career in management consulting at LEK. Matt received his B.A. cum laude from Yale University, has studied in Spain, and lived and worked in Brazil.
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About B Capital Group, FinTech Collective: B Capital Group is a venture capital firm that backs global entrepreneurs in the field of information technology.
Allen Duan
Partner of B Capital Group
Allen Duan is the General Partner at B Capital Group.
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About B Capital Group, Pied a Terre Winery: B Capital Group is a venture capital firm that backs global entrepreneurs in the field of information technology.
Sami Ahmad
General Partner of B Capital Group
Sami Ahmad serves as a General Partner at B Capital Group.
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About B Capital Group: B Capital Group is a venture capital firm that backs global entrepreneurs in the field of information technology.
Virginia Schmitt
Partner, Chief Financial Officer and Chief Administrative Officer of B Capital Group
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About B Capital Group: B Capital Group is a venture capital firm that backs global entrepreneurs in the field of information technology.
Louis Lehot
Partner of Foley & Lardner
Louis Lehot is a partner and business lawyer with Foley & Lardner LLP, based in the firm’s Silicon Valley, San Francisco and Los Angeles offices, where he is a member of the Private Equity & Venture Capital, M&A and Transactions Practices and the Technology, Health Care, and Energy Industry Teams. Louis focuses his practice on advising entrepreneurs and their management teams, investors and financial advisors at all stages of growth, from garage to global. Louis especially enjoys being able to help his clients achieve hyper-growth, go public and to successfully obtain optimal liquidity events.
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About Foley & Lardner: Foley & Lardner is a legal service provider that offers business and legal insights.
Chris Laukenmann
Partner of Foley & Lardner
Chris Laukenmann is a seasoned business lawyer, with over two decades of experience in advising a broad range of companies on capital, investment, corporate and structured finance, debt, equity, governance, strategic corporate development, treasury, risk management, vertical/lateral integration, restructuring and regulatory matters. He is a Partner with Foley & Lardner LLP, a leading international law firm, and is based in Los Angeles. Chris holds a B.A. and a J.D./L.L.M. from Duke University. Chris Laukenmann has occupied a number of high-ranking legal positions throughout his career. He was a Partner with Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman, a leading global law firm, for 14 years, where he offered his expertise on a broad range of legal issues that included derivatives, mergers and acquisitions, and dispute resolution. Prior to this, Chris served as AGC and divisional general counsel of Transamerica/Aegon, where he was responsible for the company’s asset management division. He was also the VP/Legal for Washington Mutual, where he advised clients on issues ranging from banking to real estate, insurance, and governance and risk management. In addition to his legal expertise, Chris Laukenmann is a dedicated triathlete and an experienced golfer. He owns his own vineyard in the Russian River Valley, CBL Vineyards, where he sells a blend of Zinfandel and Cabernet wines. The label on its bottles, well-renowned in the region, holds a sanskrit logo on the front and a CBL logo on the back. Chris’ love for wine goes along with a deep-set interest in travel; he enjoys discovering new countries across the world, and sampling wine in each new location.
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About Foley & Lardner: Foley & Lardner is a legal service provider that offers business and legal insights.
Susan Pravda
Managing Partner of Foley & Lardner
Susan E. Pravda is a business lawyer and the managing partner of the Boston office of Foley & Lardner LLP. Susan Pravda’s practice focuses on mergers and acquisitions, venture capital, initial public offerings, and related securities transactions. She is a member of the firm’s Private Equity & Venture Capital and Transactional & Securities Practices and the Health Care, Food & Beverage, and Energy Industry Teams. Susan Pravda serves as chief strategic talent acquisition partner for the firm and is a managing director of Foley Ventures LLC, a venture capital fund. She chaired the Technology Industry Team for 10 years from 2004 to 2014 and served on the firm’s national management committee from 2009 to 2016. Susan Pravda represents high-growth and emerging businesses, including companies in the telecommunications, Internet, software, wireless and service industries, as well as health care IT, life science and biotechnology companies, from start-ups to public companies. Susan Pravda also frequently acts as special mergers and acquisitions counsel for private and public companies in the manufacturing, service, distribution, technology, health care, life science and pharma sectors, including buyers, sellers and management groups. She advises clients with respect to valuation issues, stockholder relationships and incentive compensation plans.
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About Foley & Lardner: Foley & Lardner is a legal service provider that offers business and legal insights.
Natasha Allen
Partner of Foley & Lardner
Natasha Allen is a Partner in Foley & Lardner.
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About Couzin Taylor LLP, Foley & Lardner: Foley & Lardner is a legal service provider that offers business and legal insights.
Robert DuPuy
Partner of Foley & Lardner
Robert A. DuPuy was named the President and Chief Operating Officer of Major League Baseball on March 7, 2002. As President and Chief Operating Officer of Major League Baseball, he is responsible for all phases of baseball’s Central Offices, including licensing, sponsorship, international, broadcasting, publishing, marketing, public relations, government relations, baseball operations, legal affairs, finance, baseball’s internet operations and the labor relations committee. DuPuy has been involved in most of Major League Baseball’s legal issues since 1989, when he was brought in as outside legal counsel. He negotiated the settlement of the collusion grievance in 1990, and served as the principal outside counsel to the Commissioner and the Executive Council from 1992 until 1998, when Commissioner Allan H. (Bud) Selig hired him as the MLB Executive Vice President of Administration and Chief Legal Officer. In that capacity, DuPuy oversaw the consolidation of the American and National Leagues into the Central Offices, the consolidation of MLB’s office in Washington, D.C., and the formation MLBAM (Major League Baseball Advanced Media) as its initial Chief Executive Officer. DuPuy, who grew up in Branford, Conn., received an A.B. from Dartmouth College in 1968 and a J.D. from Cornell in 1973. There, he was Editor-in-Chief of the Cornell Law Review. He saw military service with the U.S. Army from 1968 to 1970 and served a year in Vietnam in the 504th Military Police Battalion, where he received the Army Commendation Medal for his service. After receiving his law degree, DuPuy joined Foley and Lardner, one of the nation’s largest law firms, in 1973, becoming a partner in 1980. He has served as a member of that firm’s Management Committee, and as Chairman of the firm’s Professional Standards Committee. He is a long-time member and Past-Chairman of the State Bar of Wisconsin’s Professional Ethics Committee. He has taught legal ethics and professional responsibility at Northwestern Law School, the University of Wisconsin Law School, and Marquette University Law School, and has served as a long-time faculty member of the National Institute of Trial Advocacy.
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About Foley & Lardner: Foley & Lardner is a legal service provider that offers business and legal insights.
Christopher Cain
Partner of Foley & Lardner
Christopher C. Cain is a partner and business lawyer in Foley & Lardner’s Chicago and Madison offices. He helps clients tame technology vendors of all sorts (software, hardware, cloud, SaaS, social media). He represents private equity and strategic clients in mergers & acquisitions in a myriad of industries. He also represents high technology start-ups and is a co-founder of Catapult Chicago, a peer-sourced technology accelerator. Mr. Cain is a member of the firm’s Transactional & Securities, Private Equity & Venture Capital, Technology Transactions & Outsourcing, and Privacy, Security & Information Management Practices. He is also a member of the firm’s Partner Selection Committee. Previously, Mr. Cain was vice president and general counsel at Sonic Foundry, Inc., a publicly traded software/television/film production company where he handled and oversaw all aspects of the company’s legal issues, including securities law, mergers & acquisitions, intellectual property and litigation. Mr. Cain was also a Certified Public Accountant and tax senior at Arthur Andersen. In 2014, Mr. Cain was mentioned in the Chicago Tribune article, “Inside views on Chicago’s coworking spaces: Catapult,” (January 2014).
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About Catapult Chicago, Foley & Lardner, Foley & Lardner: Foley & Lardner is a legal service provider that offers business and legal insights.
Andrew Kurzon
Partner of Foley & Lardner
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About Foley & Lardner: Foley & Lardner is a legal service provider that offers business and legal insights.
Edwin Thom Rumberger Jr.
Partner of Foley & Lardner
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About Foley & Lardner: Foley & Lardner is a legal service provider that offers business and legal insights.
Edwin Thom Rumberger Jr.
Partner of Foley & Lardner
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About Foley & Lardner: Foley & Lardner is a legal service provider that offers business and legal insights.
Vik Sasi
Partner of Dreamers VC
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About American Family Ventures, Dreamers VC: Dreamers VC is a venture capital fund for startups that are addressing social problems.
Harley Miller
Founder and Managing Partner of Left Lane Capital
Harley Miller joined Insight in 2011. He previously worked as an analyst at Lubert Adler Real Estate Funds in Philadelphia, focusing on acquisitions and asset management. Harley graduated magna cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business with a BS in Economics, with concentrations in both ‘International Venture Capital & Consumer-Facing Industries’ and ‘Information Management’. During his time at Wharton, Harley launched his first startup, MobileEatz – a mobile food ordering portal targeted at college campuses. Harley is fluent in both Spanish and Portuguese.
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About Left Lane Capital, MobileEatz: Left Lane Capital is a venture capital and early-growth equity firm that invests in high-growth internet and consumer technology businesses.
Dan Ahrens
Partner of Left Lane Capital
Dan joined Insight in 2016. He previously worked as a strategy consultant at the Boston Consulting Group in Philadelphia, where he advised clients in the financial services, retail, and consumer goods industries. His projects covered a variety of functional topics, including long-term growth strategy, sales force effectiveness, and operating model design. Dan graduated from Duke University with degrees in Economics and Political Science, and a minor in Mathematics. Born and raised in St. Louis, MO, Dan spends his free time watching and playing basketball and soccer, cooking, and traveling.
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About Left Lane Capital: Left Lane Capital is a venture capital and early-growth equity firm that invests in high-growth internet and consumer technology businesses.
Alexander Morgan
Partner of Khosla Ventures
Alex is a Partner on the investment team at Khosla Ventures where he has a special focus in biotechnology, healthcare, data science, and AI/ML. Alex has an MD and PhD in biomedical informatics from Stanford, with a dissertation on machine learning methods in precision medicine under the supervision of Atul Butte. Alex has completed additional graduate work in biology and physics and a short postdoctoral fellowship in biochemistry and genetics with Ronald W. Davis at the Stanford Genome Technology Center. As a scientist, he has published over 50 scientific publications, primarily at the intersection of computer science, biology, and healthcare. As an inventor, he has licensed IP to three separate companies. As an entrepreneur, he has worked as an early employee or co-founder at a range of startups. He currently sits on the boards of some of Khosla Ventures’ investments. Alex is committed to improving access to healthcare to underserved communities through community service, and served as co-manager of the volunteer-staffed Arbor Free Clinic in Menlo Park, where he also worked as head of IT and helped develop and deploy their electronic medical records system. Alex is particularly interested in helping to advance diversity in STEM fields, including technology entrepreneurship.
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About Khosla Ventures, Khosla Ventures: Khosla Ventures is a venture capital firm that focuses on environmentally friendly tech, internet, computing, mobile, and silicon tech.
Sandhya Venkatachalam
Partner of Khosla Ventures
Sandhya Venkatachalam is a Partner at Khosla Ventures focused on AI/ML and Enterprise/B2B technology companies Sandhya holds an M.B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business and an A.B. in Economics magna cum laude from Harvard University.
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About Creative Destruction Lab (CDL), Deep Ventures, Khosla Ventures: Khosla Ventures is a venture capital firm that focuses on environmentally friendly tech, internet, computing, mobile, and silicon tech.
Bruce Armstrong
Partner of Khosla Ventures
Bruce brings over 25 years of experience developing, marketing, selling, and investing in technology to PivotLink, with an emphasis in data warehousing and analytic applications. Prior to joining PivotLink, Bruce served as Chairman and CEO of venture-backed Kickfire, a pioneer in next-generation data warehouse appliances focused on the open source MySQL database market (acquired by industry leader Teradata in 2010). Earlier, Bruce served as President and CEO of publicly-traded KNOVA Software, a leading provider of search and analytic applications for unstructured data. Prior to that, he was EVP of Sales & Marketing at Broadbase Software, where he helped create the analytic application category for CRM, and VP & GM of the Server Products Group at Sybase, where he ran the company’s $700M enterprise database management business. Bruce started his career at Teradata Corporation, where – after seeing the company through a successful IPO and acquisition by AT&T/NCR – he was named VP & GM of the $500M Enterprise Solutions Division, President of Teradata, and a company officer of AT&T. Bruce has a Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science from the University of California at Berkeley.
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About Khosla Ventures: Khosla Ventures is a venture capital firm that focuses on environmentally friendly tech, internet, computing, mobile, and silicon tech.
Rajesh Swaminathan
Partner of Khosla Ventures
Rajesh Swaminathan joined Applied Materials in 2009 and brings with him two decades worth of experience assisting and investing in disruptive startups. At Applied Ventures, Mr. Swaminathan is responsible for general fund operations and his investment focus areas include AI, AR/ VR, Autonomous Vehicles, 3D Printing, Energy Storage and Healthcare. He serves as a Board Observer in many of our investments in these sectors. Prior to joining Applied Materials, he worked at Third Point LLC developing the firm’s venture and public investment strategy in Cleantech and Semiconductors. Mr. Swaminathan previously worked at Deutsche Bank’s investment banking group in the renewable energy team. At Bell Labs, he held senior positions, driving the due diligence process and successful partnerships in several Nanotechnology, Optical, and III-V startups. He also led the DFR program for Lucent’s 10Gb/s and 40Gb/s telecommunication systems. Mr. Swaminathan holds an MBA from Harvard, an MS (MEMS/ Nanotech) from the University of Maryland at College Park, and a Bachelor’s degree in Chemical Engg. from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras where he was awarded President Shankar Dayal Sharma Medal for overall excellence.
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About Khosla Ventures: Khosla Ventures is a venture capital firm that focuses on environmentally friendly tech, internet, computing, mobile, and silicon tech.
Evan Moore
Partner of Khosla Ventures
Evan Moore is a Venture Partner at Khosla Ventures in 2018. He is passionate about early-stage product development, customer-centered design, business prototyping, and giving people leverage through technology. Evan first met the KV team as co-founder and head of operations at DoorDash. He joined KV as an EIR in 2014, where he helped with seed investments in Checkr and NimbleRx. From KV, Evan joined the Opendoor team pre-launch to lead the product. At Opendoor, he built teams in product, sales, and operations and then scaled the buyer side of the marketplace as General Manager. Evan started his career as an executive assistant at Universal Music Group, where he helped create and spin-out the music video platform Vevo. Before having a “real” job, Evan was a drummer and audio engineer. He is available to play drums at events and weddings.
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About Khosla Ventures, Motion AI: Khosla Ventures is a venture capital firm that focuses on environmentally friendly tech, internet, computing, mobile, and silicon tech.
Samir Kaul
Founding Partner and Managing Director of Khosla Ventures
Samir is a founding partner and managing director at Khosla Ventures, where he focuses on health, sustainability, food, and advanced technology investments. Samir led the firm’s investments in Cadre, Guardant Health (NASDAQ: GH), Impossible Foods, Mojo Vision, NanoH2O (acquired by LG Chem), Nutanix (NASDAQ: NTNX), Oscar, Quantumscape, and Ultima, among others. Prior to co-founding Khosla Ventures, Samir spent five years at Flagship Ventures where he started and invested in early-stage biotechnology companies. While there, he was involved in co-founding Helicos BioSciences (IPO), a leader in developing single-molecule sequencing instruments to revolutionize personalized medicine, along with Stan Lapidus and Steve Quake of Stanford. Samir was also founding CEO of Codon Devices, where he raised their Series A financing, built the technical and advisory teams, and booked significant revenues in the company’s first year of operations. His other investments include Epitome (acquired by Millipore), LS9 (acquired by REG), and Morphotek (acquired by Eisai). Previously, Samir led the Arabidopsis Genome Initiative at Craig Venter’s Institute for Genomic Research. Under his direction, the project was completed early and cost-efficiently, culminating in a historic publication in the scientific journal Nature in December 2000. Samir is active in philanthropy and has been a longstanding member of the leadership committee of the Tipping Point Community. He is also a board member of UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital and on the Board of Trustees for the US Ski and Snowboard Association. In his spare time, Samir enjoys golf, skiing, tennis, meditation, reading, and traveling. He is an avid sports fan with undying loyalty to the Michigan Wolverines, Washington Redskins, and Boston Red Sox.
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About Ausra, Calera, Cogenra Solar, Khosla Ventures, Khosla Ventures, NanoH20, PRAJ Industries, Segetis, Stion, Transonic Combustion: Khosla Ventures is a venture capital firm that focuses on environmentally friendly tech, internet, computing, mobile, and silicon tech.
David Weiden
Founding Partner & Managing Director of Khosla Ventures
David is a Founding Partner and Managing Director at Khosla Ventures, where he focuses on Internet software and services. A number of his investments have led to significant exits, including AppNexus (acquired by AT&T), Climate Corporation (acquired by Monsanto), Okta (NASDAQ: OKTA), RingCentral (NYSE: RNG) and Upstart (NASDAQ: UPST). David has also been recognized by Fortune and Forbes as one of the top technology investors. Prior to Khosla Ventures, David spent five years at Tellme Networks as VP of marketing and business development. Using the quantitative decision making framework, RIFLE, the company drove revenue to over $100 million, and was ultimately acquired by Microsoft for more than $700 million. Previously, he led AOL’s communications, community and instant messaging product divisions as they surpassed 50 million users worldwide. In 1995, after being told by his employer Morgan Stanley that email would never be used for business, David jumped at the chance to join Netscape, where he learned many lessons in product management. David’s career began in door to door sales, where one sales pitch led to his new career in technology via McCaw Cellular, now AT&T. David holds a bachelor’s degree magna cum laude with highest honors in organizational behavior and economics from Harvard University.
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About Khosla Ventures: Khosla Ventures is a venture capital firm that focuses on environmentally friendly tech, internet, computing, mobile, and silicon tech.
Brian Byun
Venture Partner of Khosla Ventures
Brian Byun is a venture partner at Khosla Ventures focused on B2B software including developer, data, security and cloud infrastructure. Prior to joining Khosla Ventures, Brian served as a VMware executive leading products, marketing and partnership functions as it scaled over 50X in employees and revenues from 2003 thru 2013. During this time he led the diversification of VMware from a single server and workstation product to an enterprise portfolio of datacenter, availability, management, desktop suites; built out the software, technology and OEM ecosystem; led corporate strategy and M&A including the developer platform basis for Pivotal Labs; and led portfolio of new product initiatives that form many of VMware’s post-datacenter businesses such as vCloud Network, CloudFoundry, enterprise mobility and cloud workspace. Previously Brian held software engineering, consulting, product management leadership roles in a range of domains (security, e-commerce, consumer web, distributed operating systems, servers and databases) at startups and industry incumbents: Rhapsody Networks (BRCD), AOL, Netscape and HP. Brian holds a SB in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
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About Khosla Ventures: Khosla Ventures is a venture capital firm that focuses on environmentally friendly tech, internet, computing, mobile, and silicon tech.
David Beuerlein
Operating Partner of Khosla Ventures
David Beuerlein currently works as the Operating Partner for Khosla Ventures. He previously worked at Google as the Director, Leadership Staffing.
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About Khosla Ventures: Khosla Ventures is a venture capital firm that focuses on environmentally friendly tech, internet, computing, mobile, and silicon tech.
Nikita Shamgunov
Partner of Khosla Ventures
Nikita Shamgunov co-founded our company and has served as CTO since inception. Prior to co-founding the company, Nikita worked on core infrastructure systems at Nikita Shamgunov co-founded our company and serves as CEO. Previously, he served as CTO for the company. Prior to co-founding the company, Nikita worked on core infrastructure systems at Facebook. He served as a senior database engineer at Microsoft SQL Server for more than half a decade. Nikita holds a bachelor’s, master’s and doctorate in computer science, has been awarded several patents and was a world medalist in ACM programming contests.
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About Khosla Ventures, SingleStore: Khosla Ventures is a venture capital firm that focuses on environmentally friendly tech, internet, computing, mobile, and silicon tech.
Sven Strohband
Partner & Managing Director of Khosla Ventures
Sven is a Partner and Managing Director at Khosla Ventures, and led the firm’s investments in Berkshire Grey, GitLab, and Rocket Lab, among others. An engineer at heart, Sven is passionate about technologies that forge new industries and enable novel user experiences. Sven spent six years at Mohr Davidow Ventures where he led technical diligence for the infrastructure IT and sustainability practices. He also worked with the firm’s companies, recruiting technical talent, running product-market fit experiments and crafting fundraising strategies. Previously, Sven was a project manager for the Electronics Research Lab of Volkswagen, where he led technical projects for Volkswagen brands ranging from LED front lighting, electro chromic glass, and driver assistance systems and robotics. Sven also served as lead engineer and project lead for the Stanford racing team’s autonomous car, Stanley, which went on to win the 2005 DARPA Grand Challenge. Now on display at the Smithsonian Museum, Stanley became the foundation for the Google self-driving car project. He also co-founded AI company Metamind and served as CEO. Metamind is now part of Salesforce and a key component of Salesforce Einstein. Sven sits on the boards of numerous companies, including Berkshire Grey, Fulfil, Openwater, Rocket Lab, Velo3D, Vicarious, Voyage, and Uhnder. He holds a bachelor’s of science degree in mechanical engineering from Purdue University, as well as a Ph.D. in mechanics and computation from Stanford. In his spare time, Sven enjoys teaching his kids to code, flying autonomous drones and cycling.
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About Khosla Ventures: Khosla Ventures is a venture capital firm that focuses on environmentally friendly tech, internet, computing, mobile, and silicon tech.
Peter Buckland
Partner, Managing Director, & COO of Khosla Ventures
Peter is a Partner, Managing Director and COO at Khosla Ventures. Peter has spent the last 20+ years advising founders and entrepreneurs through the full lifecycle of their companies. Prior to joining Khosla Ventures, Peter was a Partner at WilmerHale LLP, where he led the firm’s emerging growth technology practice and was responsible for building their West Coast corporate practice. During his time there, he grew the practice by 3X, completed hundreds of financing transactions and, mostly importantly, developed deep and long term relationships with amazing entrepreneurs and their teams. Peter holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of California, Santa Barbara and a J.D., magna cum laude, from the University of San Francisco. In his spare time, Peter enjoys spending time with his wife and three daughters, skiing, sailing, mountain biking and reading.
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About Khosla Ventures: Khosla Ventures is a venture capital firm that focuses on environmentally friendly tech, internet, computing, mobile, and silicon tech.
Adam Margolin
Venture Partner of Khosla Ventures
Adam Margolin is a Venture Partner at Khosla Ventures.
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About Khosla Ventures, NextVivo: Khosla Ventures is a venture capital firm that focuses on environmentally friendly tech, internet, computing, mobile, and silicon tech.
Irene Au
Design Partner of Khosla Ventures
Irene currently runs Product and Design at Udacity, a startup focused on bringing higher education online. Irene formerly led the User Experience and Design practice at Google, responsible for the user interface design of Google-branded products. Prior to Google, Irene was Vice President of User Experience and Design at Yahoo, where she built the interaction design and user research practice, and led product and platform design efforts worldwide. Irene began her career at Netscape Communications, where she was an interaction designer and led cross-product design efforts on Netscape’s browser, mail/news client, and page editor. Irene holds a master’s degree in human-computer interaction from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Having received two full scholarships to attend the University of South Carolina Honors College, she earned a bachelor’s degree in electrical and computer engineering and graduated summa cum laude. An avid advocate of Montessori education, Irene is Co-Chair of the Board of Trustees at Bowman International School. Irene also teaches several yoga classes per week in the SF Bay Area.
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About Khosla Ventures: Khosla Ventures is a venture capital firm that focuses on environmentally friendly tech, internet, computing, mobile, and silicon tech.
Kelly Kinnard
Operating Partner of Khosla Ventures
Kelly Kinnard currently works as the Operating Partner for Khosla Ventures. She previously worked at Battery Venture as the VP of Talent.
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About Khosla Ventures: Khosla Ventures is a venture capital firm that focuses on environmentally friendly tech, internet, computing, mobile, and silicon tech.
Catherine Casuga
Operating Partner of Khosla Ventures
Catherine Casuga currently works as the Operating Partner for Khosla Ventures. She previously worked at Google as the Staffing Manager.
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About Khosla Ventures: Khosla Ventures is a venture capital firm that focuses on environmentally friendly tech, internet, computing, mobile, and silicon tech.
David Foley
Sr. Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Blackstone Energy Partners of Blackstone Group
David I. Foley is a Senior Managing Director in the Private Equity Group and Chief Executive Officer of Blackstone Energy Partners. David Foley is based in New York and is responsible for overseeing Blackstone’s private equity investment activities in the energy & natural resource sector on a global basis. Since joining Blackstone in 1995, David Foley has been responsible for building the Blackstone energy & natural resources practice and has played an integral role in every private equity energy deal that the firm has invested in, including: Premcor, Kosmos Energy, Foundation Coal, Texas Genco, Sithe Global Power, OSUM Oil Sands, PBF Energy, Global Offshore Wind, GeoSouthern, Alta Resources, Moser Baer, Cheniere and LLOG Exploration. Before joining Blackstone, David Foley worked with AEA Investors in the firm’s private equity business, and prior to that served as a consultant for the Monitor Company. David Foley received a BA and an MA in Economics, with honors, Phi Beta Kappa, from Northwestern University and received an MBA with distinction from Harvard Business School.
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About Blackstone Group: Blackstone is an investment and advisory firm providing financial solutions for investors and clients.
Michael Petryczenko
Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of Strategic Partners of Blackstone Group
Michael A. Petryczenko is a Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer for Strategic Partners, Blackstone’s secondary private fund of funds business, which was acquired from Credit Suisse in August 2013. Michael Petryczenko is involved with overseeing the financial reporting, tax structuring and treasury operations related to Strategic Partners’ secondary private equity funds. Before joining Strategic Partners, Michael Petryczenko was the Tax Manager for the Peabody Fund, an opportunistic real estate fund jointly managed by J.P. Morgan and The O’Connor Group. Prior to joining the Peabody Fund, Michael Petryczenko was a Tax Manager at Ernst and Young, LLP in the Real Estate Group. His clients included DLJ Real Estate Capital Partners and SL Green Realty Corp. Michael Petryczenko received a BS in Accounting from St. Francis College, New York and an MS in Taxation from Pace University, New York. He subsequently earned the C.P.A. designation.
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About Blackstone Group: Blackstone is an investment and advisory firm providing financial solutions for investors and clients.
Dennis Henner
Operating Partner of Blackstone Group
Dennis Henner is an Operating Partner in Blackstone Life Sciences group, having joined Blackstone as part of its acquisition of Clarus in December of 2018. Prior to joining Blackstone he was co-founder and Managing Director of Clarus for 12 years beginning in 2005 with the firm’s inception. Dr, Henner has over 30 years of direct industry and investment experience within the healthcare sector, and has led investments in the biopharmaceutical sector including partnerships with pharmaceutical companies. Prior to Clarus, Dr. Henner was a General Partner at MPM Capital, a healthcare venture capital firm. From 1981 to 2001, he was an executive at Genentech where he held various positions including Senior Vice President of Research, and was a member of Genentech’s executive committee. Dr. Henner is currently a member of the Board of Directors for Forty Seven Inc. (NASDAQ: FTSV) and Imago BioSciences. Dr. Henner received his PhD from the Department of Microbiology at the University of Virginia and did postgraduate training at the Scripps Clinic and Research Foundation. Dr. Henner is a member of the Board of Trustees of Reed College.
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About Aerie Pharmaceuticals, Blackstone Group: Blackstone is an investment and advisory firm providing financial solutions for investors and clients.
James Quella
Senior Managing Director and Senior Operating Partner of Blackstone Group
James Quella has been a director since December 2009. Quella was a Senior Managing Director and Senior Operating Partner in the Corporate Private Equity group of The Blackstone Group until June 30, 2013. Quella was responsible for monitoring the strategy and operational performance of Blackstone portfolio companies and providing direct assistance in the oversight of large investments. He was also a member of the firm’s Private Equity Investment Committee. Currently, James serves as a Senior Advisor to the Private Equity Group of Blackstone and continues to be involved in a few key portfolio companies as a board member and executive advisor, as well as participating in selected portfolio review processes and due diligence. Prior to joining Blackstone in 2004, Quella was a Managing Director and Senior Operating Partner with DLJ Merchant Banking Partners-CSFB Private Equity. Prior to that, Quella worked at Mercer Management Consulting and Strategic Planning Associates, its predecessor firm, where he served as a senior consultant to CEOs and senior management teams, and was Co-Vice Chairman with shared responsibility for overall management of the firm. Quella received a BA in International Studies from the University of Chicago/University of Wisconsin-Madison and an MBA with dean’s honors from the University of Chicago. He is also the co-author of Profit Patterns: 30 Ways to Anticipate and Profit from the Strategic Forces Reshaping Your Business. Quella has been a member of various private equity company boards and currently, in addition to Catalent, serves as a Director of Freescale Semiconductor, Inc., Michaels Stores, Inc., and DJO Global.
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About Blackstone Group: Blackstone is an investment and advisory firm providing financial solutions for investors and clients.
Ilya Golubovich
Founder, Managing Partner of I2BF Global Ventures
Ilya has been a partner since the fall of 2005. He is a member of the Board of Directors of JSC Russian Investors, a private equity group with $200 million under management, and Linxlogic, a business software corporation in Los Angeles. Ilya formerly worked in the Energy Department of the London office of Louis Dreyfus in commodity trading and as a project manager at the Siberian Internet Company (Sibintek) at both their Novosibirsk and Moscow offices. Mr. Golubovich has an industrial engineering degree from Stanford University.
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About Aeroxo, Buzzoola, Enki.com, I2BF Global Ventures, Octi, Presto, Primus Power, ServiceTitan: I2BF is a venture capital firm that focuses on early stage technology companies.
Eric Bahn
General Partner & Co-Founder of Hustle Fund
Eric Bahn is a Co-Founder and General Partner at Hustle Fund, an early-stage venture capital firm based in San Francisco. Hustle Fund invests in software startups at the pre-seed and seed stages, backing founders who exhibit great execution and high velocity (aka, hustle). Previous to Hustle Fund, Eric was an angel investor and partner at 500 Startups. And prior to becoming a professional investor, he spent over a decade as an operator (Facebook, Instagram) and entrepreneur (Beat The GMAT, The Hustle). Eric draws from his product and growth experience to advise his founders in scaling their own enterprises. Eric is a native of Detroit, Michigan and first arrived to Silicon Valley to attend Stanford University (BA, MA), which launched his career into software and startups. Eric is happily married with two kids.
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About Hustle Con, Hustle Fund: Hustle Fund is a seed fund that seeks to invest in early-stage startups.
Elizabeth Yin
Co-Founder & General Partner of Hustle Fund
Elizabeth Yin is co-founder and CEO of LaunchBit. She frequently speaks at conferences and events and has previously spoken at Women 2.0 partner events, Web 2.0, Lean Startup events, TechStars, MIT, Stanford, Yale, and Babson among others. Prior to LaunchBit, she built profitable niche websites and previously worked as a product marketing manager at Google. She holds a BS in electrical engineering from Stanford and an MBA from MIT Sloan.
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About Hustle Fund: Hustle Fund is a seed fund that seeks to invest in early-stage startups.
Shiyan Koh
Managing Partner of Hustle Fund
Shiyan leads NerdWallet’s Personal Financial Management products. Before NerdWallet, she was an investment professional at Bridgewater Associates. Shiyan was also a Senior Investment Associate at Institutional Venture Partners, and began her career as an Investment Banking Analyst at JPMorgan, serving technology and healthcare clients. She is a graduate of Stanford University and Harvard Business School.
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About Hustle Fund: Hustle Fund is a seed fund that seeks to invest in early-stage startups.
Brian Nichols
Venture Partner, Squad Leader of Hustle Fund
Brian Nichols is Co-Founder at RewardTag.
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About Hustle Fund: Hustle Fund is a seed fund that seeks to invest in early-stage startups.
Brent Hill
Managing Partner of Origin Ventures
Brent Hill is a partner at Origin Ventures, an early-stage venture capital firm. Brent joined Origin Ventures as a partner in January 2013, and leads the firm’s office in Salt Lake City. He serves on the Board of Directors of 15Five, Fountain, Pronto, Voxpopme, Apptentive, Kidizen, Measured, and Mighty. He is a board observer for Cameo, AppDetex, DirectScale, and ViralGains. Other previous investments include Grubhub (NYSE: GRUB), BacklotCars (acquired by KAR Global), Ahalogy (acquired by Quotient), and Teem (acquired by WeWork). Prior to joining Origin, Brent led the Central Region sales organization for Twitter – opening their first business office in the Midwest in 2010. Prior to joining Twitter, he was the head of Financial Services for Google (Chicago). Brent joined Google after his previous company, FeedBurner, was acquired by Google in 2007.He previously co-founded MVP.com, an online sporting goods retailer. Brent started his career with Accenture, where he spent 10 years developing CRM software for the telecom industry. Brent received a B.S. in Finance from Bradley University, where he was captain of the golf team. He received his MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, where he serves as a judge for the annual New Venture Challenge. He was recognized in the Crain’s Chicago Business Tech 50 in 2014. An avid runner and cyclist, Brent has completed 20 marathons – including three of the World Marathon Majors (Chicago, Boston, NY). He was a 2013 Team USA qualifier for the World Duathlon Championships.
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About Origin Ventures, Origin Ventures: Origin Ventures is an early-stage venture capital firm investing in software and marketing businesses enabling the Digital Native economy.
Steven N. Miller
Founding Partner of Origin Ventures
Steven N. Miller is a partner and co-founder of Origin Ventures. Prior to co-founding Origin, Steve spent 10 years at Quill Corporation, a direct marketer of office products started by his family in 1956. His experience there included running the Canadian distribution center as well as P&L responsibility for a $30 Million product line. Steve’s final two years at Quill were devoted to starting up the e-commerce operation. He wrote the business plan for the company’s first web site, quill.com, and managed the team that executed it to $15 Million in annual revenue. In 1998, the Miller family sold Quill to Staples and achieved a $1 Billion exit. Steve serves on the boards of Backlot Cars, Impact Engine, and VHT, and was previously a director of doggyloot and Shoutlet. He was on the board of GrubHub (NYSE: GRUB) for the first four years after Origin led the company’s initial round of venture funding. Prior to its sale in 2004, he served on the board of directors of iNest. He was also an investor and advisor at Golf.com, before it was acquired by Time Inc. in 2006. Steve is president of the board of Victory Gardens Theater and vice chair of the Better Government Association. He is a board member of the Jewish United Fund/Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago, as well as Stage 773, and serves the Metropolitan Planning Council as an Executive Advisor. Steve is a member of the Economic Club of Chicago and the University of Illinois Foundation, and was awarded the 2014 Richard J. Daley Medal by the Illinois Venture Capital Association. Steve received a B.S. degree in Business Administration/Marketing from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1987, where he now chairs the Dean’s Business Council and serves on the board of the Hillel Foundation. He also provides funding for the Steven N. Miller Entrepreneurial Scholarships, the Diane N. & Steven N. Miller Centennial Chair in Business, and the Origin Ventures Academy for Entrepreneurial Leadership at the University of Illinois.
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About Origin Ventures, Victory Gardens Theater: Origin Ventures is an early-stage venture capital firm investing in software and marketing businesses enabling the Digital Native economy.
Jason Heltzer
Managing Partner of Origin Ventures
Jason joined Origin Ventures as a partner in 2014. Jason is currently a board member or observer for Ahalogy, Atavium, Base, MyAlerts, Tock, and Tovala. The prior 13 years before joining Origin, Jason worked at OCA Ventures where, as a member of the investment committee and as a general partner, he was involved in over 60 venture capital investment transactions and worked directly with founders to grow many of OCA’s portfolio companies. While at OCA, Jason led the seed round in Base CRM where he continues to serve on the board of directors. Previously, Jason had board responsibilities for Alert Logic (acquired by Welsh Carson), TradeKing, Red Foundry, Whittl and Pinpoint Health. Jason also led OCA’s investments in Cartavi (acquired by Docusign), Brightnest (acquired by Angie’s list) and FeeFighters (acquired by Groupon). Jason was named a Crain’s Chicago Business Tech 50 member in 2013. Before OCA, Jason spent three and a half years as a software engineer and software architect for Deloitte Consulting. He also led engineering and business teams at 1stUp, a San Francisco-based startup. Jason holds an MBA in finance and entrepreneurship, with high honors, from Chicago Booth, where he was selected as a Siebel Scholar. Jason also holds a BS in computer science, with highest distinction, from the University of Michigan, where he also founded a fraternity. In addition to his professional responsibilities at Origin, Jason is an Adjunct Assistant Professor of Entrepreneurship at Chicago Booth, where he teaches the venture capital and private equity lab class. Jason serves on the board of Temple Sholom of Chicago. He also authors a blog devoted to examining startups and the venture capital business from the eyes of a former software engineer: www.ventureevolved.com. Jason has an interest in movies, and has watched every Best Picture movie from 1927-2013, plus about 100 documentaries. In addition, for most of his life, Jason has been addicted to video games, which is what prompted him to teach himself how to code when he was 13.
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About Origin Ventures, The University of Chicago Booth School of Business: Origin Ventures is an early-stage venture capital firm investing in software and marketing businesses enabling the Digital Native economy.
Scott Stern
Partner of Origin Ventures
Scott Stern is a Senior Associate at Origin Ventures, having joined in February 2016 as an intern while in business school, and full-time in August 2017. He serves as a board member for Origin portfolio company Tovala, and a board observer for Atavium, Backlot Cars, Fountain, and Kidizen. Prior to Origin, Scott spent six years as a quantitative trader, focusing on deregulated electricity products through the use of advanced computing and big data. During this time he was also an active angel investor, most notably in Knotch. Before attending business school, he helped start and launch Qore Performance – a performance apparel and thermoregulation startup in Northern Virginia. Scott holds a B.A. in economics and mathematics from Washington University in St. Louis, and an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business with concentrations in entrepreneurship and Finance. Scott is an avid foodie and amateur chef and also enjoys traveling.
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About Origin Ventures: Origin Ventures is an early-stage venture capital firm investing in software and marketing businesses enabling the Digital Native economy.
Alexander Meyer
Managing Partner of Origin Ventures
Alex Meyer is Vice President, Global Business Development at SAP. A seasoned international executive, he has traveled and done business globally including some of the world’s most challenging developing markets and has addressed international gatherings of the United Nations, World Bank, World Investment Forum, and others. Previously, Mr. Meyer served clients with multinational management consulting firm Deloitte. He was also previously Director of Operations for Hollywood based House of Blues, Inc. Alex is the founder and chairman of the Harvard Business School Alumni Entrepreneurship Council of Chicago managing the HBS Angels, recognized as one of Chicago’s most active early stage investors, the HBS Global Alumni New Venture Competition for the U.S. Central Region, and the Distinguished Speaker in Entrepreneurship & Venture Capital series. Mr. Meyer is a member of the Harvard Business School Alumni Board of Directors where he serves on the Executive Committee. He is President Emeritus of the Harvard Business School Club of Chicago and has served on the board of the HBSCC Charitable Fund. Mr. Meyer has contributed to a variety of entrepreneurship and innovation programs at Harvard University, University of Chicago, University of Illinois, Northwestern, IIT, and Endeavor as a judge, lecturer, advisor, and international selection panelist and co-authored the Harvard Business School case: Rising from the Ashes – The Emergence of Chicago’s Entrepreneurial Ecosystem (HBS Press). He served on Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s tech and economic development delegations to Boston, London and Israel. Alex is the founder and past-president of the Society for Business & Management in Engineering, now the National Organization for Business & Engineering (NOBE), and a recipient of the NOBE Lifetime Dedication Award. Alex is a founder and officer of the board of Chicago’s Stage773 Theater operating the Stage773 performing arts center and incubator, producing the Chicago Sketch Comedy Festival, and the Cupid Players Theatre Company. He holds a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Illinois, an MBA from the Harvard Business School, and theatrical education from the Second City Conservatory. He was named one of Chicago’s 40 Under 40 and is a member of the Economic Club of Chicago.
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About Harvard Business School, Harvard Business School Angels Chicago, Origin Ventures, Stage 773: Origin Ventures is an early-stage venture capital firm investing in software and marketing businesses enabling the Digital Native economy.
Bruce N. Barron
Founding Partner of Origin Ventures
Bruce N. Barron is a partner and co-founder of Origin Ventures. He is an observer to, or member of, the Boards of Directors of DialogTech, MyAlerts, Bound, and Tock. He previously served on the GrubHub Board of Directors. In addition, he serves on the boards of the American Cancer Society, the Illinois Venture Capital Association, the Chicago Baseball Cancer Charities, and Israel Cancer Research Fund Chicago and International Chapters. Bruce was named a Crain’s Chicago Business Tech 50 member in 2013. He also provides funding for the Origin Ventures Academy for Entrepreneurial Leadership at the University of Illinois. Since 1985, Bruce has been involved in the management of several start-up medical technology companies. From 1995 – 2007 he had served as a member of the Board of Directors of Applied NeuroSolutions, Inc. (APNS), a public biotechnology company developing a diagnostic to detect, and therapeutics to treat, Alzheimer’s disease. He also served as CEO of APNS from 1995-2004, and as Chairman of the Board from 1999-2006. From 1988 to 2001 Bruce also served on the Board of Directors of Trimedyne Inc., a public manufacturer of surgical lasers used to treat diseases and other medical conditions. He has served as President/Chairman CEO and/or CFO, from time to time, of the following companies: Gynex Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (sold to what is now known as Savient Pharmaceuticals in 1993), Pharmatec Inc. (merged with Pharmos Corp. in 1992) and Xtramedics, Inc. (merged with Athena Medical Corp. in 1994). Bruce assisted in guiding these entrepreneurial, public companies through their early stages to their ultimate sales or mergers with larger companies. Bruce received a B.S. degree in Accounting from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1977. He earned his C.P.A. certificate and worked as an accountant in the Chicago office of Touche Ross (the predecessor of Deloitte & Touche) and other medium-size public accounting firms. He left the practice of public accounting in 1985 to begin his entrepreneurial career.
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About Origin Ventures: Origin Ventures is an early-stage venture capital firm investing in software and marketing businesses enabling the Digital Native economy.
Scott Birnbaum
Founding Partner of Red Sea Ventures
Scott is the founder of red sea ventures. He combines 15 years of entrepreneurial experience including his time as co-founder of epok, an early cloud-based enterprise solution launched in 2001 with his experience as a corporate attorney at white & case and digital media expertise developed at cbs local where he focused on strategy and business development. Scott is a member of the board of seeds of peace, a founding member of young leadership committee (ylc) and served as chairman of the ylc board. Scott is the recipient of the young peace maker award for his outstanding leadership in and dedication to supporting the mission of seeds of peace and the ylc. Scott grew up in paris and attended georgetown university and fordham law school.
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About Red Sea Ventures, Vero: Red Sea Ventures is a venture capital firm that specializes in early stage investments based in New York.
Mike Dodd
General Partner of Silverton Partners
Mike has been an active technology investor as well as an executive at a number of leading technology companies for the past 20 years. As an investor, prior to joining Silverton, Mike was a partner at Austin Ventures where he focused on technology investing in enterprise and consumer applications, and prior was a partner at Europeatweb, a European/US venture capital firm. Notable investments included MapMyFitness (Under Armour), Mass Relevance (Spredfast), Ancestry.com, Liqudity Services Inc. (Nasdaq: LQDT) and Spredfast. As an executive, Mike was SVP of Corporate Development at Omniture (Adobe) and SVP and GM at Ancestry.com. In his early career Mike was a technology investment banker with Robertson Stephens in San Francisco. Mike received an MBA from Harvard Business School and a BS in finance from Syracuse University.
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About Austin Ventures, Silverton Partners: Silverton Partners is an early-stage venture capital firm that invests across software, tech-enabled services, and CPG brands.
Roger Chen
Partner of Silverton Partners
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About Silverton Partners: Silverton Partners is an early-stage venture capital firm that invests across software, tech-enabled services, and CPG brands.
Kip McClanahan
General Partner of Silverton Partners
General Partner at Silverton Partners.
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About Silverton Partners: Silverton Partners is an early-stage venture capital firm that invests across software, tech-enabled services, and CPG brands.
Morgan Flager
Managing Partner of Silverton Partners
Morgan Flager joined Silverton in 2006. Prior to joining Silverton, Morgan worked with FTVentures in San Francisco, where he focused on software & services companies in the financial services industry. Prior to FTVentures Morgan served as Director of Business Development at Ingrian Networks, a leading data privacy, and information security solution provider. Earlier in his career, Morgan co-founded Woosh, a $30 million venture funded by HP, which developed e-commerce infrastructure solutions. Morgan received his BS from Stanford University.
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About Silverton Partners, TurnKey Vacation Rentals: Silverton Partners is an early-stage venture capital firm that invests across software, tech-enabled services, and CPG brands.
Talia Goldberg
Partner of Bessemer Venture Partners
Talia Goldberg joined Bessemer in 2012 and is the youngest elected partner in the firm’s history. She is based in the San Francisco office where she focuses on early and growth stage software, consumer, and marketplace investments. In 2018, she was named one of Forbes’ 30 Under 30 for Venture Capital. Prior to joining Bessemer, Talia worked at Foursquare, a location-based mobile company, and Simple Finance, a consumer-facing mobile banking solution (acquired by BBVA). While in school, Talia was a founding partner of the Dorm Room Fund, First Round Capital’s student-run investment fund that now has investment committees across the U.S. She was also on the founding team of an adaptive and personalized learning startup. Through Parity Partners, Talia is a pod leader and mentor for rising female VCs and entrepreneurs. Talia graduated summa cum laude with honors from the University of Pennsylvania where she created her own major between the Wharton School of Business and the College of Arts & Sciences.
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About Bessemer Venture Partners: Bessemer Venture Partners is a venture capital firm that funds consumer, enterprise, and healthcare startups.
Bob Goodman
Partner of Bessemer Venture Partners
Robert Goodman is a general partner at [Bessemer Venture Partners](https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/bessemer-venture-partners#/entity) since 1998. He also serves as a member of the board of directors at [Apperian](https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/apperian#/entity), [Vasona Networks](https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/vasona-networks#/entity), Light, [LogicNow](https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/logicnow#/entity), Thinking Phones Networks, [Intigua](https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/intigua#/entity), [Affirmed Networks](https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/affirmed-networks#/entity), Anaqua, [CloudLock](https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/cloudlock#/entity), Disco, Vayyar, and Sedona Systems. Goodman served as a director at [Syncsort](https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/syncsort#/entity) for over 7 years before he joined Bessemer Venture Partners. He has also worked at [Intucell](https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/intucell#/entity), [Broadsoft](https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/broadsoft#/entity), [SelectMinds](https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/selectminds#/entity), [ART Advanced Recognition Technologies](https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/advanced-recognition-technologies#/entity), [Flarion Technologies](https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/flarion-technologies#/entity), and many other companies. Goodman holds a bachelor’s degree in arts from [Brown University](https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/brown-university-2#/entity) and master’s degree in finance from [Columbia University](https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/columbia-university-in-the-city-of-new-york#/entity). He lives in New York, United States.
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About ACV, Bessemer Venture Partners, cargo.one, Cypress.io, Devo USA, Electric, Light, Pharos Capital Partners, Qwilt, Sisense, Tackle: Bessemer Venture Partners is a venture capital firm that funds consumer, enterprise, and healthcare startups.
Brian Feinstein
Partner of Bessemer Venture Partners
Brian Feinstein Bessemer Venture Partners as Partner in 2008. Brian Feinstein is a partner at BVP, where he focuses on enterprise software and consumer Internet investments. Brian led the firm’s investments in Procore, Clio, LiveAuctioneers, Restaurant365, Weave, and a stealth mobile gaming business. He has also been involved in the firm’s investments in Gainsight, Mindbody, Playdom, and United Capital, and helped found Columbia Lake Partners, a European venture debt fund. Prior to joining Bessemer, Brian was a founder of Opera New Media, an online advertising agency, and worked in the private equity group at Blackstone. Brian holds a B.A. in government from Harvard University.
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About Bessemer Venture Partners, Blackstone Group, Bumble, nCino: Bessemer Venture Partners is a venture capital firm that funds consumer, enterprise, and healthcare startups.
Elliott Robinson
Partner, Bessemer Growth of Bessemer Venture Partners
Elliott Robinson is a partner in the San Francisco office where he focuses primarily on growth investments in SaaS and cloud companies. He co-authors Bessemer’s iconic 10 Laws of Cloud Computing and the annual State of the Cloud Report. He looks to partner with companies and management teams that are defining their market category while also maintaining a set of core values that will allow them to grow their leadership position. Elliott is currently a board member for Hyperscience and a board observer for Hinge Health. Prior to joining Bessemer, Elliott was a partner with M12, leading investments in companies such as Livongo (IPO: LVGO), BlueVine, Trusona, and Cooler Screens. Elliott started his career with Syncom Venture Partners, investing in both early and growth stage enterprise software and frontier tech companies such as CLEAR and Iridium Communications (IPO: IRDM). After six years with Syncom, he joined Georgian Partners, investing in a number of successful growth stage software companies such as TurnItIn (acquired by Advance), Kinnser (acquired by Mediware), and eSentire. Elliott earned his M.B.A from Columbia Business School and a Bachelor of Science in mathematics from Morehouse College. He is also a member of the Kauffman Fellows Class 22.
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About Bessemer Venture Partners, BlueVine, Kauffman Fellows: Bessemer Venture Partners is a venture capital firm that funds consumer, enterprise, and healthcare startups.
Mary D’Onofrio
Partner of Bessemer Venture Partners
Mary is a Partner at Bessemer Venture Partners, which she joined to start the firm’s growth investment practice. She was promoted from Vice President in 2021 with the launch of their new funds. She primarily focuses on growth investments in cloud software, with recent investments including LaunchDarkly, Hyperscience, HashiCorp, and BigID. She is a board member or observer for Hyperscience, BigID, Reputation, GetInsured, Tile, and Retail Solutions, and is also involved with Bessemer portfolio companies Guild Education, Zapier, and nCino. Mary actively tracks both private and public cloud software and is one of the key architects behind the BVP-Nasdaq Emerging Cloud Index, which serves as a benchmark for public cloud companies. She also developed Bessemer’s Cash Conversion Score and is an author of the 10 Laws of Cloud and the State of the Cloud. Previously, Mary worked in Equity Capital Markets at Morgan Stanley. She holds an MBA from the Yale School of Management and graduated cum laude with an A.B. in Politics from Princeton University.
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About Bessemer Venture Partners: Bessemer Venture Partners is a venture capital firm that funds consumer, enterprise, and healthcare startups.
Felda Hardymon
Partner of Bessemer Venture Partners
Felda Hardymon, a partner in Bessemer’s Cambridge, Mass. office, joined the firm in 1981. He focuses on investments in the software, communications and storage sectors. He serves on the boards of Vertica (acquired by HP), Streambase, Goal.com (acquired by Perform), Endeca and SVB Financial Group (aka Silicon Valley Bank). Past investments include superconducting materials company American Superconductor (NASDAQ: AMSC); telecommunications providers Cascade Communications (acquired by Ascend) and Sirocco (acquired by Cascade); Celcore, a maker of switches for wireless-telephone networks (acquired by DSC); African telecommunications provider Celtel (acquired by MTC, now called Zain); Parametric Technology, a provider of product cycle-management software; sporting-goods chain Sports Authority; office-supply company Staples; and Axis Networks (acquired by ACE) a 4G, wireless-remote radio head supplier. Since 1998, Felda also has taught and done research at Harvard Business School where he holds the appointment of MBA Class of 1975 Professor of Management Practice. He is currently on leave from Harvard and is a visiting professor of finance at The London School of Economics. Prior to joining Bessemer, Felda worked at BDSI, the original venture subsidiary of General Electric, where he was an investor in Ungermann-Bass, Stratus Computer and Western Digital. Prior to that, he taught mathematics and served as director of systems and research at Duke University. Felda has a B.S. from Rose Polytechnic, an M.A. and Ph.D from Duke and an MBA from Harvard.
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About Bessemer Venture Partners: Bessemer Venture Partners is a venture capital firm that funds consumer, enterprise, and healthcare startups.
Andrew Hedin
Partner of Bessemer Venture Partners
Andrew Hedin is a Board of Director at Kymera Therapeutics. He’s also the Vice President in Bessemer’s Cambridge office, where he focuses on investments in healthcare. Prior to joining Bessemer in 2015, Andrew worked at F-Prime Capital, Fidelity’s healthcare-focused venture capital fund. While there, he invested broadly across healthcare in early stage healthcare tech, healthcare services, biotech and medtech startups. Andrew has also worked with Health Essentials, a healthcare services company focused on providing post-acute and coordinated care to the frail elderly. Andrew began his career at Leerink Partners, a boutique healthcare-focused firm where he focused on growth strategies for pharmaceutical, biotech and medical device companies. Andrew holds an MBA with honors from The Wharton School, where he majored in Health Care Management and Finance, as well as a B.A. in Biological Basis of Behavior from the University of Pennsylvania, where he conducted research in both the neuroscience and psychology departments. Andrew also serves on the steering committee of the New England Venture Network, the largest group of young venture capitalists in the New England area.
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About Bessemer Venture Partners: Bessemer Venture Partners is a venture capital firm that funds consumer, enterprise, and healthcare startups.
Mayo Stuntz
Operating Partner of Bessemer Venture Partners
Mayo S. Stuntz, Jr., a New York-based media and digital executive and investor, is a founding member of Pilot Group LLC, a private investment firm, and an operating partner at Bessemer Venture Partners. Previously, Stuntz served as executive vice president of AOL Time Warner, a position that followed his appointments as chief operating officer of AOL’s Interactive Services Group and president of CompuServe. Prior to AOL, Stuntz served as executive vice president of Six Flags Theme Parks, chief operating officer of Century 21 Real Estate, executive vice president of Quantum Media, executive vice president of Time Warner Enterprises, and senior vice president of business management and development for MTV. Stuntz began his career as a marketing manager for American Airlines and went on to serve in management capacities at both ABC and NBC. A graduate of Cornell University, Stuntz received his MBA from Harvard Business School. He is an accomplished pilot, and also serves as chair of New York Public Radio which operates WNYC and WQXR, and produces the RadioLab and Freakonomics podcasts.
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About Bessemer Venture Partners: Bessemer Venture Partners is a venture capital firm that funds consumer, enterprise, and healthcare startups.
Mike Droesch
Partner of Bessemer Venture Partners
Mike Droesch joined Bessemer Venture Partners New York City office as a senior associate in 2017. He focuses on cloud software and infrastructure, developer platforms, and telecommunications. Prior to BVP, Mike worked with a few venture-backed startups in Boston, including spending time at two BVP companies, Fuze and InsightSquared, where he supported sales operations and analytics efforts. Mike started his career as a systems engineer and then spent nearly three years in management consulting at Navigant, where he helped companies build new businesses around emerging energy and infrastructure technologies in the U.S. and Middle East. Mike holds an MBA from the MIT Sloan School of Management, a master’s degree in naval architecture and engineering from the University of Michigan and a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from Tufts University.
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About Bessemer Venture Partners: Bessemer Venture Partners is a venture capital firm that funds consumer, enterprise, and healthcare startups.
Byron Deeter
Partner of Bessemer Venture Partners
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About Bessemer Venture Partners, Canva, Intercom, nCino, Vlocity: Bessemer Venture Partners is a venture capital firm that funds consumer, enterprise, and healthcare startups.
Robert Stavis
Partner of Bessemer Venture Partners
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About Bessemer Venture Partners: Bessemer Venture Partners is a venture capital firm that funds consumer, enterprise, and healthcare startups.
Ed Colloton
Partner of Bessemer Venture Partners
Ed Colloton is the Partner at Bessemer Venture Partners.
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About Bessemer Venture Partners, Harvard Law School, Outward Bound USA: Bessemer Venture Partners is a venture capital firm that funds consumer, enterprise, and healthcare startups.
David Cowan
Partner of Bessemer Venture Partners
David Cowan joined Bessemer Venture Partners As a partner in 1992.venture capitalist with Bessemer Venture Partners in Silicon Valley, David Cowan (@davidcowan) has led early stage investments in Twitch, LinkedIn, Skybox, Twilio, Blue Nile, and 20 other startups that went IPO. Cowan also co-founded three cybersecurity companies: VeriSign, Good Technology (fka Visto), and Defense.Net. The Forbes Midas List of the top venture capitalists has included Cowan 13 times, ranking him as high as #6. Cowan wrote, directed, and performed in the acapella stage musical Lies in the Attic, which enjoyed a commercially successful run in San Jose in early 2016. He earned his BS (in C.S. and math) and his MBA degrees from Harvard University.
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About Bessemer Venture Partners, Britely: Bessemer Venture Partners is a venture capital firm that funds consumer, enterprise, and healthcare startups.
Ethan Kurzweil
Partner of Bessemer Venture Partners
Ethan Kurzweil, a partner in the Menlo Park, Calif. office, joined Bessemer in 2008 where he focuses on investments in consumer technologies and cloud computing – and leads Bessemer’s roadmap on developer platforms.Ethan’s portfolio includes consumer companies including Twitch, Life360 and Piazza; developer platforms including Twilio and Sendgrid; and cloud computing pioneers including Intercom, Simply Measured and Hightower. He has also been actively involved with the firm’s investments in Playdom (sold to Disney), adap.tv (sold to AOL), Zoosk, Crowdflower, Reputation.com, Sweet Labs, Skybox Imaging, and Mojave Networks. He currently serves on the board of directors of Twitch, Simply Measured, Intercom, Crowdflower, Hightower, Piazza and Sweet Labs.Ethan joined BVP from Linden Lab, the creator of Second Life. Previously, he held a series of positions at Dow Jones & Co., including leading new business development efforts and managing the turnaround of The Wall Street Journal international editions. While an undergraduate at Stanford, Ethan co-founded SSB-Bart Group, a provider of software and services that make the Web accessible to users with disabilities, and served as head of business development. Ethan earned a BA from Stanford University – where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa – and an MBA with distinction from Harvard Business School. He serves on the Bay Area advisory board for New Leaders, a national non-profit dedicated to ensuring high academic achievement for all students through recruiting and supporting great school leaders. And despite living in California, he is still a life-long Boston Red Sox fan. Follow Ethan on twitter at @ethankurz.
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About Bessemer Venture Partners: Bessemer Venture Partners is a venture capital firm that funds consumer, enterprise, and healthcare startups.
Robert Arditi
Partner of Bessemer Venture Partners
Rob is a founding partner of BVP Forge. Before starting BVP Forge, Rob was a general partner and co-head of growth equity at Norwest, a $9B+ multi-stage investment firm. Prior to Norwest, Rob was an associate at Lake Capital, where he focused on investments in the tech-enabled services industry. Rob holds an MBA from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania with a major in management. He also has a B.S. and M.S. in finance from the University of Florida.
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About Bessemer Venture Partners: Bessemer Venture Partners is a venture capital firm that funds consumer, enterprise, and healthcare startups.
Chris Gabrieli
Partner – Cambridge, Massachusetts Emeritus of Bessemer Venture Partners
Chris Gabrieli, a partner in Bessemer’s Cambridge, Mass. office, joined the firm in 1986 to launch its healthcare practice. In 25 years of investing with Bessemer, he has invested broadly in healthcare and other industries. He currently focuses on biotechnology, healthcare services and education. Chris is closely involved in Bessemer’s investments in cancer-therapeutics firm AVEO Pharmaceuticals and biopharmaceutical firms Acceleron Pharma, Proteon, Oxagen and Transave. He serves on the board of digital textbook pioneer Flat World Knowledge. Among his past portfolio companies are biopharmaceutical company Affymax ( NASDAQ: AFFY); electronic health-record solutions company Allscripts (NASDAQ:MDRX); Isis Pharmaceuticals, a company that is the leading innovator in RNA-targeting pharmaceuticals; PerSeptive BioSystems, a maker of instruments for protein synthesis (acquired by Perkin-Elmer); Sirtris Pharmaceuticals, a developer of small-molecule drugs (NASDAQ: SIRT, acquired by GlaxoSmithKline); TravCorps, a pioneering healthcare-staffing company acquired by Cross Country Healthcare (CCRN); and VistaCare (NASDAQ:VSTA), a provider of hospice-care services. Prior to his career at Bessemer, Chris founded and served as CEO of GMIS, a healthcare-software company he co-founded and helped build, take public and sell to the leading industry consolidator, McKesson (NYSE: MCK). Bessemer was an investor in GMIS. Chris graduated from Harvard University with a B.A. in history and science and completed two years of the Columbia College of Physicians & Surgeons M.D. program. He is also a leader in education innovation and is founder and chairman of the National Center on Time & Learning and a lecturer at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.
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About Bessemer Venture Partners: Bessemer Venture Partners is a venture capital firm that funds consumer, enterprise, and healthcare startups.
Stephen Kraus
Partner of Bessemer Venture Partners
Stephen Kraus, a partner in the Cambridge, Mass. office, has worked with Bessemer since 2004 and focuses on the healthcare sector. Currently, he focuses his new deal activity on early and growth stage opportunities in healthcare IT and healthcare services. He currently sits on the boards of Liazon, Health Essentials, DocuTAP, Ovascience, Verastem, Allena Pharmaceuticals and Alcresta and is actively involved in BVP’s investments in Acceleron and Proteon. Steve has been actively involved in Bessemer’s investments in Sirtris Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: SIRT, acquired by GlaxoSmithKline); Affymax (NASDAQ: AFFY); Aveo (NASDAQ: AVEO); Alnara, acquired by Eli Lilly; Transave (NASDAQ: INSM); Stromedix, acquired by Biogen Idec, Verastem (NASDAQ: VSTM), and Restore Medical (NASDAQ: REST), acquired by Medtronic. Prior to joining Bessemer, Steve was a director at the Ironwood Equity Fund, a growth-stage, private-equity firm, and a management consultant at Bain & Co. In 2002, he served as speechwriter and operations director for the Democratic nominee for governor of Massachusetts Steve graduated summa cum laude with a B.A. from Yale University and earned his MBA from Harvard, where he was a Baker Scholar. He serves on the boards of the New England Venture Capital Association (NEVCA), the Achievement Network, and Interise. Steve was recently recognized by Forbes Magazine as one of the top life science investors if 2013. Steve regularly blogs with BVP’s Ambar Bhattacharyya at HCVC’s(two healthcare investors’ musings on work and life).
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About Bessemer Venture Partners: Bessemer Venture Partners is a venture capital firm that funds consumer, enterprise, and healthcare startups.
Jeremy Levine
Partner of Bessemer Venture Partners
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About Bessemer Venture Partners: Bessemer Venture Partners is a venture capital firm that funds consumer, enterprise, and healthcare startups.
Charles Birnbaum
Partner of Bessemer Venture Partners
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About Bessemer Venture Partners: Bessemer Venture Partners is a venture capital firm that funds consumer, enterprise, and healthcare startups.
Tess Hatch
Partner of Bessemer Venture Partners
Tess is a vice president at Bessemer Venture Partners fostering entrepreneurship of frontier technology, specifically the commercialization of space, drones, autonomous vehicles, and the future of agriculture and food technology. She wants to invest in technology and people who believe as strongly as she does that frontier technology will develop solutions for societal problems. Tess earned a Bachelor’s degree in aerospace engineering from the University of Michigan and a Master’s degree in aeronautics and astronautics engineering from Stanford. She went on to work for Boeing and then SpaceX where she worked with the government on integrating its payloads with the Falcon9 rocket. She remains close to her alma mater by co-teaching a class at Stanford for professors interested in commercializing their research, serving on the board of advisors for the Stanford Technology Ventures Program, and founding the Stanford Aero/Astro Alumni Association. Tess was recently named Forbes’ 30 Under 30 in Venture Capital. Tess is passionate about space exploration and imagines a future where we all travel to space. She hopes to one day take a trip herself.
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About Bessemer Venture Partners: Bessemer Venture Partners is a venture capital firm that funds consumer, enterprise, and healthcare startups.
Alex Ferrara
Partner of Bessemer Venture Partners
Alex Ferrara joined BigID as Board Member in 2019. Part-time Alex Ferrara is a partner in Bessemer’s New York office where he focuses on investments in the software and Internet sectors. Alex’s previous board service includes Yodle, Shopify, OMGPop (acquired by Zynga), SelectMinds (acquired by Oracle), and Quadriserv. Alex was also involved with the firm’s investments in Pure Networks (acquired by Cisco), Skype (acquired by Ebay), SiteAdvisor (acquired by McAfee), Goal.com (acquired by Perform Group), Activ Financial, TeamViewer, and Gerson Lehrman Group. Alex’s other historical investments include HootSuite and Alibaba Group. Earlier in his career Alex worked at Goldman Sachs in technology investment banking. Alex started his career as a software developer at Salomon Brothers and later worked as a derivatives trader. Alex holds an MBA from Columbia Business School, and a B.S. in electrical and computer engineering from the University of Pennsylvania.
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About Bessemer Venture Partners, BigID, Wandera: Bessemer Venture Partners is a venture capital firm that funds consumer, enterprise, and healthcare startups.
Kent Bennett
Partner of Bessemer Venture Partners
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About Bessemer Venture Partners: Bessemer Venture Partners is a venture capital firm that funds consumer, enterprise, and healthcare startups.
