SVOD2008 Jury

Generation Origin is a traditional early-stage IT venture capital fund that builds global companies in Silicon Valley by sourcing technologies from Chinese and Japanese entrepreneurs. Since starting in private equity in 1989, Kari has spearheaded innovative investment products and forged alliances between tech start-ups and Japanese corporations. As a Principal at Knightsbridge Advisors, she originated fund-raising for the sixth Knightsbridge early-stage U.S. venture capital fund of funds.

Prior to that, she gained early-stage operational experience overseeing a ten-fold increase in assets under management over five years as one of five members of an executive team at VenCap International, an Oxford-based private equity fund of fund and public technology manager. Kari began her career at Sumitomo Trust, Tokyo, where her passion for budding technology was kindled as she invested in U.S. venture funds and initiated a tech focus for the M&A team. She earned a B.A. from Kokusaikirisutokyo University in Japan and an MBA with honors from Solvay in Brussels. Raised in Asia, she speaks 5 languages, including Japanese.

Ilya Antipov
Co-Founder, RUSSEE Consulting, TEKAMA Inc

Ilya Antipov is co-founder of RUSSEE Consulting, TEKAMA Inc. Ilya has over 15 years of science intensive software engineering and management experience. He lead software process improvement and CMMI certification consulting projects for over dozen of software development companies. Prior to that, Ilya worked at TransDecisions Inc, where he lead advanced technology department. Company was acquired by Bentley Systems and Servigistics. Ilya graduated from Carnegie Mellon University, and went through executive education programs at Sloan School of Management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Haas School of Business at University of California Berkeley. He is a lecturer of software entrepreneurship at Start in Garage program, Moscow Institute of Technology and Saint Petersburg State University of Economics and Finances. Ilya serves as advisor to several start-up companies in Moscow and St. Petersburg.

Eitan Bek
Partner, Pitango Venture Capital

Eitan Bek joined Pitango in late 2000 and became a Partner in 2007. Before joining Pitango Eitan was a member of the founding team that established Beautifulisland.Com, a startup with a goal to be the first Personal Internet Service Company dedicated to helping people who don't know computers enjoy the many benefits of the Internet.

Prior to joining the Start Up world Eitan worked at Lehman Brothers, where he initiated and managed a special technology project, enabling automation of post-trade processing for institutional investors.

In the mid-90s, Eitan served as Director of System Specification group at Elbit Systems (NASDAQ: ESLT). In this role, he led development teams and was directly accountable for R&D activities in customer projects, with an aggregate value in excess of $100 million, and was responsible for marketing upgrade suites.

Eitan holds an MBA from the University of Michigan Business School, and a BA degree (magna cum laude) in Business Administration from the College of Management, Tel Aviv Eitan currently serves on the board of 3DV Systems and works closely as an active observer with Discretix and Provigent.

Philippe Botteri
Investment Professional, Bessemer Venture Partners

Philippe Botteri is an investment professional with Bessemer Venture Partners, a top tier international venture fund with $2B of assets under management. He focuses on the Enterprise Software, SaaS, and Internet sectors and was closely involved with Bessemer’s investments in Wize.com, Intego, Intacct, Cornerstone OnDemand, and Eloqua.

Before joining Bessemer, Philippe was a Senior Engagement Manager at McKinsey & Company's high-tech practice in Silicon Valley, specializing in the software, IT solutions, and consumer electronics industries. During his tenure with McKinsey, which started in Paris in 1998, Philippe led the development of "web 1.0" internet start-ups, pioneered the firm's work with "on-demand" software, and advised clients on sales and marketing, growth strategy and M&A. His clients included multi-national corporations and private equity funds.

Philippe holds an MS in Applied Engineering from the Ecole des Mines de Paris, and an MS in Science from the Ecole Polytechnique. He has also served in the French Navy. In addition to his native French, he is fluent in English and Italian. To read his venture and technology blog, go to www.cracking-the-code.blogspot.com

Yan Breek
Angel investor

Serial entrepreneur and angel investor. Founded 4 start-up companies in the fields of software development, finance, and real estate services.

Invested in start-up companies in US, Russia, and South America. Invested in international real estate deals. International business development expert.

Graduated from Stanford Business School in 2004 MS degree in Physics from Moscow, Russia, 1988 Born in St Petersburg, Russia. Live in Silicon Valley since 1991.

Philippe Cases
Partner, Partech International

Philippe joined Partech in 1997 and focuses on software. He has 17 years of experience in private equity in Europe and the U.S., with 12 years specifically focused on early stage investing.

Prior to joining Partech, Philippe was a Partner with Sofinnova in Paris. He has been a Director of Egide and BVRP (both listed on the French market) and Adknowledge (acq. by CMGI). In addition, he was involved with Flamel Technologies (FLML) and Rightpoint Software (acq. by E.piphany).

Philippe currently sits on the board of directors of Jaspersoft, Spoke Software and VUE Technology and board advisor to Bocada and InQuira. He attended the Engineering School of Mines in Nancy, France and received an MS from Stanford University where he was named a Sloan Fellow.

Mr. Bruce Crocker has more than 25 years of experience in the high-tech industry, including venture investing, general management and investment banking. Mr. Crocker joined the Pitango team as a Managing Director with the combination of the Eucalyptus and Pitango management groups in April 2000.

Prior to that, Mr. Crocker co-founded Eucalyptus Ventures in 1997, and since that time has served as Managing Director of the fund. Prior to founding Eucalyptus, he served as a managing director in technology investment banking at Hambrecht & Quist. Mr. Crocker led the development of H&Q's initial underwriting practice in Israel, and sponsored six H&Q venture investments. Mr. Crocker previously served as President and CEO of Exploration Systems, a start-up application software company targeting the oil and gas exploration markets, and of EG&G Geometrics, a manufacturer of geophysical instruments and a supplier of airborne geophysical survey services.

Mr. Crocker holds a B.Sc. and an M.Sc. in Chemical Engineering from MIT, and an M.B.A. from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

Mr. Crocker serves on the Board of Directors of Mercado Software, BioControl Medical, iamba Networks and VisionCare Ophthalmic Technologies among others, and is an observer at Cadent and Kilopass Technologies.

Tom Fountain
Principal, Mayfield Fund

Tom Fountain's experience as an entrepreneur and operating executive shapes his investments in infrastructure software, networking and storage.

Tom's investments include Akimbi (acquired by EMC/VMware) and Webroot. He is actively involved with Centrify, Kickfire and Mimosa Systems. Tom previously sat on the board of directors for Scalix (acquired by Xandros) and worked with Determina (acquired by EMC/VMware). Tom serves on the advisory board for Power.org.

Prior to joining Mayfield in 2003, Tom was a serial entrepreneur. He co-founded Ingrian Networks (acquired by SafeNet), a leader in network and database security, and was founder and CEO of an outsourced software development firm with operations across the western U.S. Tom previously taught on the faculty at Stanford University in both the electrical engineering and computer science departments. He is an inventor of ten U.S. and four international patent-pending technologies related to networking, security and operating systems.

Tom was a Ph.D. student in electrical engineering at Stanford University, where he earned an M.B.A. with distinction as an Arjay Miller Scholar, an M.S. in Electrical Engineering, an M.S. in Computer Science, and a B.S. in Computer Systems Engineering.

Marc Friend
General Partner, MF Capital

Marc is an experienced software investor, working with companies from startup through IPO and beyond. Throughout his career, Marc has focused on Internet, Enterprise and Infrastructure software. One of the earliest investors in SaaS, Marc continues to look at Open Source and OnDemand software as a means to develop and market business software. Marc continues to seek technologies, products and companies that enable consumers and businesses to better harness information.

Marc’s investments and board responsibilities include: Salesforce.com (NYSE: CRM), Check Point Software (NASDAQ: CHKP), NetDynamics, 3dfx Interactive, GetThere, Inc., Blue Martini Software, and MediaQ. Marc was a founding investor in Acta Technology, where he worked with the technical founders from conception to over $25M in revenue prior to acquisition by Business Objects. Marc enjoys working closely with entrepreneurs to develop clear and concise product strategies and sales models that support them.

Marc started his venture capital career in 1988 at Charles River Ventures in Boston. Since 1994, Marc has served as a General Partner at USVP and Summit Partners, and as Venture Partner at Partech International. Earlier in his career, Marc was a Director of Product Marketing at Channel Computing, a Product Manager at Microsoft and Member of the Technical Staff at The Aerospace Corporation.

Marc holds Bachelors and Masters degrees in Electrical Engineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and an MBA from Harvard Business School.

Nader Gamini
Venture Partner, Minah Venture

Minah Ventures is a Silicon Valley-based venture capital firm with offices in Boston and Dubai, focused on making early stage investments in technology startups,. The fund is managed by a team that brings direct experience in founding, running, and profitably exiting technology ventures.

Nader has over 24 years of technology experience working for companies such as Rambus and Sirenza Microdevices (now RF Microdevice). He is currently the VP of Manufacturing for the PLP Group at NetLogic Microsystems. He was the founding COO of Aeluros which was acquired by NetLogic in 2007. Besides Aeluros, Nader has served on the boards of several companies including Verticle Inc and Celerity Research. He has been an advisor to dozens of high-tech companies in solar, MEMS, optoelectronics, high-brightness LEDs, and semiconductor fields.

Nader received his B.S. degree in Computer Science and Mathematics from Cal State Hayward and dropped out of the MBA program at UCLA to launch Aeluros, Inc. in 2001.

David Goldberg
Entrepreneur in Residence, Benchmark Capital

Dave Goldberg is an accomplished entrepreneur, an influential music industry executive, and a driving force in the online music industry. He co-founded LAUNCH Media Inc. in 1994, which was dedicated to delivering music and music-related content online, and he led the company through its acquisition by Yahoo! in 2001.

Upon joining Yahoo!, Dave served as vice president and general manager of Yahoo! Music, where he led the company’s global music operations and built it into the Internet’s number one music destination. During his tenure, traffic increased from two million to 25 million unique users per month, and 4 billion music videos were streamed in 2006 alone. In addition, LAUNCHcast Radio became the number one Internet radio service, and Dave was named one of Billboard Magazine’s top power players in digital music.

Prior to co-founding LAUNCH, Dave was director of marketing strategy and new business development at Capitol Records in Los Angeles. In that role, he was responsible for the development of new multimedia distribution methods and the creation of alternative channels through which music and new artists could be effectively marketed to consumers.

Dave graduated magna cum laude from Harvard University with a Bachelor of Arts degree in history and government. He is a member of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences.

Shai Goldman
Director, SVB Capital

Shai Goldman is part SVB Capital's Venture Exchange program, which serves as a platform to provide quality referrals to venture firms and assist emerging companies in raising capital through strategic introductions to the right investors for their business. His responsibilities include identifying investment opportunities for SVB Capital Partners Fund and other venture capital firms. The primary sector focus for Goldman is software, including SaaS, open source, mobile software, digital media, etc. Goldman has assisted numerous companies raise capital including InfusionSoft, Veodia, Fastscale, Gamestrata, etc.

Goldman joined SVB Financial Group in December 2001. Prior to joining the Venture Exchange program in 2006, Goldman worked with SVB Private Client Services, providing personal financing solutions to entrepreneurs, investors and senior executives in the technology, life science, private equity and premium wine industries.

Goldman holds a bachelor's degree in economics from Santa Clara University. Goldman is the co-chair of SDForum's Venture Finance SIG, a group dedicated to helping early-stage entrepreneurs prepare to meet with and attain funding from the venture capital community. Goldman is also active with Astia and the California Clean Tech Open. Since 2004, Goldman has also been a mentor for BUILD, a non-profit organization committed to motivating underserved high school students to succeed in school and go onto higher education, by helping them start and run their own businesses.

Irwin Gross
General Partner, Worldview Technology Partners

Irwin brings to Worldview more than a decade of experience working with high technology enterprises as an advisor, strategist, and investor. He focuses on investments in software, systems, and services companies.

Irwin currently serves on the Board of Directors of ActiveGrid, Podbridge, Stretch, and Ensim.

Irwin joined Worldview in June 2004 from Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, where he co-founded the firm’s nationally recognized intellectual property counseling practice and served as a manager of the firm’s venture capital fund. As part of this practice, Irwin leveraged his extensive intellectual property expertise to assist companies in developing new market strategies, products, and revenue streams.

Companies for whom Irwin has worked include a host of successful venture-backed firms, such as Brocade, Avanex, VMware, RealNetworks, and Netscape, as well as large technology enterprises such as EMC, Broadcom, and Hewlett-Packard.

Irwin received a B.S. in Computer Science from Stanford University and a J.D. from Harvard Law School.

Basil Horangic
Partner, North Bridge Venture Partners

Basil Horangic joined North Bridge in 2007. Basil came from Austin Ventures, where he spent over 6 years as Partner and then General Partner. He started in the venture business at Oak Investment Partners, where he spent 3 years as an Associate and then Principal. Previously, Basil worked at McKinsey and Goldman Sachs.

Basil's venture investing started in telecommunications equipment and consumer internet. Over time, he has added servers and storage, semiconductors, EDA/IP, and consumer electronics. He primarily starts or incubates companies, with selected activity in later stage projects.

Basil is a graduate of MIT with bachelor degrees in Computer Science and Economics, and a Masters Degree in Management Science. He is ABD for a Ph.D. in Industrial Organization from the University of Chicago, and also received and MBA during his time there.

Maha Ibrahim
General Partner , Canaan Partners

Maha Ibrahim is a technology trend spotter with deep operational experience. She joined Canaan’s Menlo Park office in March 2000 and focuses on digital media, networking and wireless investments.

At Canaan, Maha helped to negotiate and manage a partnership between Tacit Networks and Brocade, and established Canaan as a lead investor in Mobilitec and MiNO Wireless. Maha also led the firm’s investments in PicksPal and Watercooler, both leading community applications via social networking platforms.

Prior to joining Canaan, Maha held numerous executive-level roles at Qwest Communications, including Vice President of Business Development and Vice President of eBusiness and Internet Operations. While at Qwest, her keen networking skills helped the company forge relationships with Netscape and Microsoft. Earlier in her career, Maha was a management consultant with both the Boston Consulting Group and Price Waterhouse.

Maha holds a B.A. in Economics and an M.A. in Organizational Behavior from Stanford University and a Ph.D. in Economics from MIT. She currently sits on the boards of eBillme, MiNO Wireless, SenSage , Virsto and Watercooler. Previous board seats include PicksPal, Tacit Networks (acquired by Packeteer) and Mobilitec (acquired by Lucent).

Sumeet Jain
Senior Associate, CMEA Ventures

Sumeet is an investment professional in CMEA's Technology group. Prior to CMEA, Sumeet was with Goldman, Sachs & Co. in its Technology, Media & Telecom investment banking group. At Goldman Sachs, he focused on mergers and acquisitions as well as equity and debt financing transactions across the software, internet, semiconductor, and communications equipment sectors. Prior to Goldman Sachs, Sumeet worked in business development and sales at iManage, a content management software company until its acquisition by Interwoven in 2003.

Previously, Sumeet was with Personify, an early web analytics software company, and where he helped grow the company with roles in product management, business development, sales and professional services. Sumeet began his career with Andersen Consulting (Accenture) where he worked on operations for companies in Andersen Technology Ventures portfolio. Sumeet holds a Bachelors Degree in Electrical Engineering & Computer Science from Cornell University, and a MBA from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

Arif Janmohamed
Senior Associate, LightSpeed Venture Partners

Arif joined Lightspeed in 2008 and focuses primarily on investments in the areas of infrastructure, communications, networking, and software.

Prior to joining Lightspeed, Arif worked in the Corporate Business Development group at Cisco where he focused on opportunities in the unified communications and SaaS market. Before joining Cisco Systems, he was with Novitas Capital, an early-stage venture capital firm.

Earlier in his career, Arif worked in technical development and product management roles at WebTV (acquired by MSFT), Andes Networks (acquired by SUNW), and Sun Microsystems.

Arif holds an MBA from the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania and a BSc in Computer Engineering from the University of Waterloo, Canada.

Tarun Kalra
Investment Professional, Battery Ventures

Tarun focuses on investments in enterprise applications, on demand services, security software and mobile. Prior to joining Battery, Tarun was a member of Deutsche Bank’s Technology Investment Banking Group where he worked on equity and debt financings and strategic advisory assignments for leading technology and software clients, including: Hewlett-Packard, Cadence Design Systems, Concur Technologies, Taleo Corporation and SuccessFactors. Before Deutsche Bank, Tarun worked at Citigroup Investment Research, initially focusing on Internet and new media and subsequently covering security and infrastructure software.

Tarun is a graduate of Middlebury College with a dual degree in political science and economics with a minor in mathematics.

Amir Lahat
Head of Business Ventures , Nokia Siemens Networks

Amir Lahat is Head of Business Ventures for Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN). In this role Amir leads new business initiatives focusing beyond the current scope of NSN operations, as well as driving world-wide partnerships with the venture industry, VCs and startups. Amir joined NSN through the Atrica’s acquisition, the Carrier-Ethernet company he co-founded. Amir's operational background spans over telecom and datacom industries where he had business development, solution and strategy, product marketing, product management and engineering roles. Prior to Atrica he was with 3Com/NiceCom and Nortel/Telrad. Amir brings to NSN over 18 years of startup entrepreneurship, venture community network both in the silicon-valley Israel and Asia, and global communication corporations experience.

Amir holds 10 patents and another 4 pending approval patents in the areas of network & system architecture, applications, protocols, optical and data networking.

Amir owns MBA and engineering degrees from Tel-Aviv University, and continued studies from Stanford. Amir is based in the Silicon Valley, California.

Ravit Lichtenberg
Principal , Ustrategy Consulting

With over 15 years of experience, Ravit has consulted a variety of companies from start-ups to Fortune 50 corporations. Ravit worked as a Customer Experience Strategy consultant at Hewlett Packard—working across HP businesses and products to set customer-driven strategies and improve HP’s hardware and software products, online solutions, and merger and acquisition processes. Prior to HP, Ravit worked with startup companies as well as with large retail, financial services, automotive, and hi-tech companies. Ravit is also an advisor to a number of startups and executives in the Silicon Valley.

Ravit holds an MBA from the UCLA Anderson School of Management (a dual degree program with the National University of Singapore, and a Master in Human Factors and Applied Experimental Psychology from California State University, Northridge. Ravit is also classically trained in mixed media and art.

Dmitriy Lisenkov
Managing Director, RUSNANO

Dmitriy has joined the Corporation in August 2008. He heads an investment team and is responsible for venture investments in innovative nanotechnology-based businesses. His team is organized as an internal venture capital fund, which manages deals from origination and due diligence to deal closing, business development and exit.

From 2003 and until joining RUSNANO Dmitriy worked as an investment officer for the management company of the Russian Technology Fund (“RTF”). RTF was established in 1995 and was the first venture capital fund, which invested in Russian technology companies. At RTF Dmitriy was responsible for investees’ business development and exits.

In 2007 Dmitriy co-founded the Bioprocess Capital Partners, the management company of the Bioprocess Capital Ventures (“BCV”). BCV is 3 billion rubles (~$110 million) venture capital fund, currently investing in Russian technology start-ups.

Dmitriy has an MS in Economics with honors from the St. Petersburg State University of Economics and Finance and an MBA in Finance and Investments with honors from the Zicklin School of Business, City University of New York.

Prior to co-founding Almaz Capital, Peter was a partner at Alloy Ventures from 2001-2008. Before his career in venture capital, Peter co-founded an enterprise software company and was an operating executive with two other successful Internet and mobility start-ups in Silicon Valley. From 1989 through 1994, he worked in Russia with prominent scientific institutions, including the Kurchatov Institute, Troitsk Triniti Research Center, and the Russian Academy of Sciences, to facilitate licensing arrangements with US companies, including Apple, Sun Microsystems, and General Atomics, among others. In 1991, Peter was the first to organize a Perestroika-era Russian-American symposium on technology transfer and commercialization. He is on the board of directors of Attune Systems, Apptera and Ravenflow, and is a co-inventor on five patent-pending voice advertising and mobile messaging technologies. Peter earned an MBA and BS Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley.

Sam Madani
Partner , North Point Advisors LLC

Sam Madani joined North Point Advisors in 2006. He has spent two decades in operations, M&A transactions, and post acquisitions at Zhone Technologies, Lucent, Cisco, and Hewlett Packard. Prior to his involvement with North Point Advisors, he was Vice President of Business Development and M&A at Zhone Technologies, He was also involved in historical multibillion dollar Telecom transactions while serving Ascend/Lucent and Cisco. Additionally, Sam has strong business and technology background in hardware, software, finance, and management and guides companies through their advisory boards.

Sam earned BS and MS in Electrical Engineering from the University of Colorado and BA and MBA from Tehran University. He lives in Los Altos with his wife Nahid and their children Michael, and Michelle.

Mark Mangiola
Venture Partner, Canaan Partners

Mark Mangiola joined Canaan in 2001 after over 20 years in operational leadership roles in the cable and broadband industry. Mark invests in communications companies that are transforming the delivery of digital media, as well as new consumer content companies that meld entertainment with interactivity. Mark has a visionary outlook about how consumers will watch and interact with content in the future, having participated first hand in the early emergence of both cable TV and the Internet. He also supports key clean tech opportunities. Mark actively participated in Canaan’s investment in Ellacoya, a rapidly-growing broadband service optimization company, and Zolo Technologies, a clean tech pioneer that is dramatically reducing emissions from power plants.

A super-connected industry veteran, Mark leverages his network to fill key executive positions at Canaan’s portfolio firms and helps them spearhead strategic relationships with industry-leading corporations. Prior to Canaan, Mark served as CEO of @Home Solutions, a division of Excite@Home. He was previously the President and CEO of Positive Communications and an Executive VP at KBLCOM/Time Warner. He sits on the board of Zolo Technologies.

When Mark is not thinking about how consumer-generated video will change the world, he is sprinting around a track. A passionate athlete, Mark coaches high-school and college track athletes and never misses a Meet of Champions track meet.

Alexander Marquez
Director , Strategic Investments, Intel Capital

Alexander joined Intel Capital in 2000. Prior to Intel Capital, Alexander served as technical advisor to the senior vice president of Intel's Interactive Media Services division where he advised on strategy and media investments. Alexander also served as controller for Intel's Content Services division where he oversaw financial aspects of the division, including numerous investments in Europe, Japan, Asia, and Latin America. Alexander has managed successful investments around the globe including exits at Atom Entertainment (acquired by Viacom) and The Generations Network (acquired by Spectrum Equity). Alexander is a board observer for BlackArrow, Envivio, K2 Network, SixApart and Synacor. Alexander holds a BS in Electrical Engineering from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas where he was also the past Chairman of the Electrical and Computer Engineering Advisory Board and currently serves on the College of Engineering Advisory Board. He received his Masters in Business Administration from Purdue University.

Allan Martinson
Founder and Managing Partner, Martinson Trigon Venture Partners

During his career as an entrepreneur, Allan Martinson has been launching, managing and exiting several companies in the Baltic TMT sector, all of which became leaders in their respective industries.

He was the founding CEO of Baltic News Service, which quickly after launch in 1990 became the dominant real-time news organization in the region after outcompeting and bankrupting its state-owned competitors. In 1998 Martinson joined MicroLink, the leading PC maker in the Baltics, and re-launched it as a fast-growing and diversified technology group, backed by four rounds of equity investments. As the CEO of MicroLink, Martinson orchestrated an aggressive M&A campaign to create the leading IT services and data communications group in all three of the Baltic countries. With EUR 40 m in annual sales and more than 500 employees, it strongly dominates the market. MicroLink launched Delfi , the leading Baltic new media enterprise. Delfi was sold in the fourth year of its existence after reaching profitability at EUR 2 m from revenues of EUR 5 m. MicroLink was also the parent of SAF Tehnika – the fastest-growing developer of microwave radiolinks for the global mobile telecom industry (please see SAF’s story in the beginning of this document).

Martinson is a member of the supervisory boards of MicroLink, SAF Tehnika, Baltic News Service, Tallinn Stock Exchange, the leading Estonian media company Ekspress Grupp, the IT company Regio, Estonian ICT association and EstonianAcademy of Arts. He was nominated for the Businessman of the Year in 2000 and got the Best Decision Award in 2004 for successfully executing the strategy of MicroLink.

Susan Mason
General Partner , Communications & Networking, ONSET Ventures

Susan Mason is a General Partner at ONSET Ventures and came to ONSET in 1996 after holding positions in high technology engineering, marketing and business development. Susan most recently led a successful consulting practice, helping Fortune 100 corporations capitalize on emerging markets and technologies. Early in her career, she held positions in marketing and engineering design of high-performance systems and microprocessors for Fujitsu Microelectronics, Fairchild Semiconductor and NCR Microelectronics.

At ONSET Ventures, Susan specializes in hardware and software investments in the communications, networking and security arenas. She currently serves on the boards of 1020, Airplay, Brilliant Networks, ClariPhy Communications, Glimmerglass, Obopay, PacketMotion, Securent (acquired by Cisco in 2007) and SS8 Networks.

Susan received a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Colorado and her MBA from the University of California, Los Angeles. Susan is a Kauffman Fellow and a founding board member and Chairman of the Center for Venture Education.

Nikolay Mitushin
Investment Director , ABRT Venture Fund

From 2003-2007 Dr. Mitushin was Technology Entrepreneurship program manager at Intel Corporation helping Russian entrepreneurs to turn technological ideas into successful businesses. Prior to that in 2000-2003 Dr. Mitushin founded software company Arptek and served as it's CEO. For his achievements in Arptek Dr. Mitushin received recognition award from World Technology Network and was elected as Individual WTN Member in 2002.

Mitushin received his master's degree from Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology in 2001 and a PhD degree in Investment Strategy Optimization from the same college in 2004. In 2005 he successfully completed Entrepreneurship Colloquium at Harvard Business School.

Gady Nemirovsky
General Partner , Inspiration Ventures

Gady Nemirovsky is Founder and General Partner at Inspiration Ventures, a seed stage venture fund. Prior to switching over to the “Dark Side” of venture capital, he founded and/or joined several early stage companies, including C*ATS Software, Sonnet Financial, AlterEgo Networks, and Adzaar.

Gady started his career in New York at JP Morgan Investment Management, and he holds a BS Economics degree from the Wharton School of Business and a BS Electrical Engineering degree from the University of Pennsylvania. He currently serves as Director or Advisor to Feder8, Handipoints, Kinfo, TransAria Communications, and YouNoodle.

Oleg Nodelman
Portfolio Manager and Partner, Biotechnology Value Fund

Oleg Nodelman is a Portfolio Manager and Partner of the Biotechnology Value Fund, a biotech focused investment fund in San Francisco where he is responsible for evaluating investment opportunities, in-depth scientific due diligence and working with company management on formulating business and financial strategies. BVF was founded in 1993 and is focused on both public and private therapeutic discovery and development ventures. Mr. Nodelman has served on the Boards of several seed stage start-ups. Before joining BVF, Mr. Nodelman was a consultant with Mercer Management Consulting: a strategy firm. At Mercer, he worked with senior management from companies in a variety of industries to develop and implement long-term strategy and build shareholder value. Mr. Nodelman holds a Bachelor of Science with a focus on Science and Technology from the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. He was also the recipient of an honors certificate in International Business Diplomacy from the Landegger Program at Georgetown. Mr. Nodelman speaks fluent Russian, and conversational Spanish and French.

Didier Perez
Managing Partner , Innovation Ventures LLC

Didier Perez is the Managing Partner of Inovation Ventures LLC, a venture capital firm focusing on early stage investments in life science companies. During the last six years, Didier Perez has been the COO and CFO of Investigen Diagnostics. Other experience includes Managing Director of Plantagenet Capital Management, and financial consultant with Merrill Lynch International.

Don Plaisted
Managing Director , Draper Investment Company

Draper Investment Company is an international venture capital firm that specializes in investments early-stage global information technology, telecommunications and software companies. We seek international entrepreneurs with the energy, vision, experience and desire to build great companies.

Don Plaisted is Managing Director of Draper Investment Company and based in Zurich, Switzerland. Mr. Plaisted has over 12 years of management experience and is responsible for day to day management of Draper Investment Company and investment advisory to Mr. Draper.

Serge Plotkin
Venture Partner, Opus Capital

In Opus Capital Serge sources and evaluates investment opportunities and contributes technical assistance to portfolio companies. Serge is also an associate professor of Computer Science at Stanford University, where he has served since 1989.

Together with Opus Capital General Partner Dan Avida, Serge co-founded Decru in 2001 where he served as chief technology officer and vice president of engineering. Serge has published more than a hundred technical papers and has been issued seven patents. He is currently the vice chair of the Security in Storage Workgroup P1619/P1619.1, IEEE standardization committee, which is tasked with creating a standard for storage encryption, and is the editor of the IEEE1619 standard.

Serge obtained a Ph.D. in Computer Science from MIT and BSc and MSc degrees in Electrical Engineering from Ben Gurion University, Israel. Before his studies at MIT, Serge served for five years as an officer in the Israel Defense Forces.

Pavel Pogodin
Partner, Sughrue Mion PLLC

Pavel Pogodin, Ph.D., is a partner in Sughrue’s Silicon Valley office, where he counsels clients on all aspects of intellectual property law, including patent procurement, due diligence, product clearance, licensing and litigation. Dr. Pogodin has developed advanced tools and methodologies for efficiently and effectively building and managing intellectual property strategies and portfolios for various types of enterprises ranging from startups to FORTUNE 500 companies. He has successfully handled and managed cases in a broad range of technologies and has a vast litigation experience before the patent office as well as state and federal courts. Dr. Pogodin has authored numerous publications on scientific and legal topics and he is a frequent invited speaker at legal and corporate events and conferences both in the US and abroad.

Dr. Pogodin came to Sughrue from Oracle Corporation, the world’s largest supplier of database management systems and other business software. While at Oracle, Dr. Pogodin was responsible for all aspects of managing intellectual property internationally, including developing and implementing intellectual property strategies for various business units, supervising patent prosecution work, evaluating intellectual property of acquisition targets, negotiating complex intellectual property agreements, performing product clearances, and handling patent litigations. In addition, Dr. Pogodin has extensive experience in obtaining patent protection for software inventions, as well as inventions in telecommunications and hardware, image analysis, electronic circuit design and manufacture, physics, optics and semiconductor chip design, manufacture and testing.

Chris Redlitz
General Partner , Transmedia Capital

A 25-year Internet and retail industry veteran, Mr. Redlitz is currently a partner at Transmedia Capital, an investment fund, focused on early stage, online media related companies. Mr. Redlitz was previously an executive team member for Skyrider, a peer to peer advertising and media distribution company. Prior to joining Skyrider, Mr. Redlitz was President of Feedster, a leader in RSS search and syndication. In 1997, Mr. Redlitz co-founded AdAuction, the first online media exchange and received Ad Age’s i20 Award for his accomplishments in the development of interactive advertising. Mr. Redlitz has served in executive positions for Money Mailer Inc., and lead generation companies, Get Relevant (acquired by Lycos) and Aptimus (acquired by Apollo LLC). Early in his Internet career he founded the first independent online yellow pages, On Village, which was acquired by World Pages. Mr. Redlitz spent more than 10 years at Reebok International where he held management positions in sales and marketing and also owned and operated one of the first boutique sports retail chains in Southern California. Mr. Redlitz has been a featured speaker at advertising and media related conferences, and is an adviser and director to several early stage media companies.

Tom Rodgers
Principal, ATV Capital

Tom joined ATV in 2004 and focuses on healthcare investments, with a specific focus on therapeutic medical devices, diagnostics, imaging and other therapy enabling technologies. His investments since joining include Aperio, Gynesonics, Helixis, PolyRemedy, and Valeritas. He is also an observer on the Boards of ConcepTx and Zeltiq Aesthetics.

Prior to joining ATV, Tom had 12 years of operating experience in the healthcare industry, most recently serving as vice president of corporate strategy and business development at McKesson Corporation, a Fortune 15 company in the healthcare IT and pharmaceutical/medical device services industries. In this role Tom managed a variety of successful initiatives including the launch of McKesson¹s Medicare Prescription Drug Card, the origination of a direct sourcing channel for generic pharmaceuticals from India, the evolution of the company¹s RFID and e-prescribing strategies, and acquisitions of Moore Medical and Sky Pharmaceuticals.

His management background also includes five years consulting at The Wilkerson Group where he focused on medical devices and diagnostics. Tom holds an M.B.A. from the Wharton School and a B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania.

Bill Shetti
Senior Associate, Storm Ventures

Bill Shetti focuses on investments in the network and data center infrastructure, software, and Internet (media and content delivery technologies) sectors.

Prior to Storm, Bill worked in business development and product management at Cisco, where he was responsible for market insertion strategies into Asian service providers, and managing Cisco's high end routing platforms, including launching Cisco CRS-1, Cisco's flagship router.

Prior to Cisco, Bill worked as a product manager at N.E.T. Bill began his career at Telecordia, where he was responsible for leading the development of several telecommunication operation support systems, and advising service providers on networking operations.

Bill received a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Rutgers University, and a M.S. in Information Networking from Carnegie Mellon.

Ashmeet Sidana
General Partner, Foundation Capital

Ashmeet is a seasoned executive who comes to Foundation Capital with a combination of 15 years of experience in enterprise software and core systems technology. His experience spans line-of-business management, product strategy and engineering at start-up and large companies.

Most recently, he was at VMware (acquired by NYSE:EMC) where he was responsible for multiple products including Virtual SMP, P2V and their flagship product, ESX Server. At VMware, he grew ESX Server from early pilots to widespread worldwide deployment in mission critical systems by Fortune 500 companies. Prior to VMware, Ashmeet was CEO of Sidana Systems, a successful enterprise-software company that pioneered Docsan for publishing ultra-large (terabyte) documents. He bootstrapped Sidana Systems from inception through growth to its acquisition by Doclinx. Ashmeet began his professional career at Hewlett-Packard and later Silicon Graphics, holding various key technology roles.

Ashmeet currently serves on the board of Pano Logic, Sanrad, Altor Networks, Simply Hired, and Zetta.

Ashmeet loves adventure travel and in his spare time can be found planning his second trip to Mt. Everest.

In addition to an MBA from the Wharton School, Ashmeet received an MSCS from Stanford University.

Richard Simoni
Partner, Asset Management Company

Rich joined Asset Management Company in 2002. He combines a deep technical background with extensive operational business experience. Over the past 20 years he has been involved with numerous start-up companies, in both management and consulting roles. Prior to joining the firm in 2002, he co-founded Talkway Communications, a provider of internet video services such as video email to major providers including AT&T and British Telecom.

Two of his academic publications were chosen for inclusion in the 25-year retrospective of the International Symposium on Computer Architecture, the premier conference in the computer architecture field. He is an expert in distributed computing, performance measurement and optimization, scalable computing, internet protocols and architectures, digital audio and video, and wireless computing.

Rich has a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University, where he held a Fellowship from the National Science Foundation. Rich also has master's and bachelor's degrees in Electrical Engineering from Stanford and Rice University. Rich is a board member or board observer of KonaWare, Brilliant Telecommunications and Athena Design Systems.

Roman Simonov
Managing Director, Delta Private Equity

Roman Simonov, Managing Director, manages projects in the TMT sectors. Prior to Delta Private Equity, Mr. Simonov worked at Intel Capital, the world’s largest corporate venture capital program, sponsored by Intel Corporation. During his ten-year career at Intel, Roman held several positions in finance/treasury and strategic business development. Roman joined the Operations and Finance department of Intel Corporation in Santa Clara, CA in 1996 as Senior Financial Analyst. Later, in 1999, he moved to Intel Capital, and in 2003 he brought Intel Capital to Russia and helped it launch its office in Moscow. Mr. Simonov was involved in over 60 transactions, including Intel’s acquisition of Elbrus/UniPro 550+ engineers in Russia and investment in Parallels (aka SWsoft). Roman currently serves on the Boards of Directors of Delta Leasing and Noviy Disk, both in Russia.

Roman graduated from the Moscow Civil Engineering University and holds a Master of Business Administration (MBA) degree cum laude in Finance from Case Western Reserve University, Weatherhead School of Management, Cleveland, USA.

Patrick Suel
Venture Partner, Panasonic Venture Group

Patrick Suel joined the venture group in 2006. He brings 18 years of experience in software technologies, venture investment, international marketing and business development. He previously worked as a venture partner for SKG Ventures and was a software executive with various venture-backed Silicon Valley startups in artificial intelligence, financial services, enterprise software and software tools where his contributions resulted in two IPOs and two M&A exits. As an entrepreneur, he founded three startup companies in software and life sciences. Patrick holds a Masters of Science in Artificial Intelligence from the University of Marseilles III and a Masters of Science in Advanced Physics from the University of Marseilles II.

Oleg Svintsitski
Senior VP, Russia Partners Management, LLC

Oleg Svintsitski is a Senior Vice President at Russia Partners Management, LLC, a Russia-based growth capital fund of Siguler Guff & Company, and the first foreign investment fund formed in Russia in the early 1990s.

Oleg's investment expertise builds on more than 12 years of international entrepreneurial development and investment experience in Eastern Europe and the United States. Before joining Russia Partners, Oleg was part of the investment team at EDF Ventures, an early-stage technology and health care VC fund. Prior to that, he worked with Glencoe Capital, a middle-market buyout firm. Previously, Oleg was a co-founder and manager of several start-up companies in medical devices and biotechnology, internet services, and wholesale distribution in the United States and in Russia.

Oleg holds an M.S. degree with High Honors in Aerospace Engineering and Applied Math. from the Moscow Aviation Institute, an M.S. in Operations Research from the University of Michigan, and an M.B.A. from the Stephen M. Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan.

Igor Taber
Investment Director , Intel capital

Igor Taber is Investment Director for Intel Capital based in Moscow. In this role, Igor is responsible for all Intel Capital equity investment activities in Russia and CIS. He also serves as an observer on the boards of several Intel Capital portfolio companies, such as Akella, Alternet, Infinet and others. For last seven years at Intel, Igor held variety of marketing and business development roles, most notably leading multiple large WiMAX deals with major service providers in US, Russia, and Eastern Europe. Prior to that, Igor served as Chief of Staff to Vice President and General Manager of Intel WIMAX group. Igor has undergraduate degree in Computer Engineering and is pursuing MBA from Wharton Business School.

Rob Theis
Managing Director, Scale Venture Partners

Rob Theis invests in technology infrastructure and applications companies at ScaleVP. Prior to joining ScaleVP in May 2008, Rob was with venture capital fund DCM - Doll Capital Management, where he was a General Partner for 8 years, and invested in leading companies, including JasperSoft, NeoPath Networks (acquired by Cisco), PGP Corporation, Roamware, VanceInfo (NYSE: VIT) and Wikinvest.

Rob's investing career builds on his global experience driving technology startups' sales, marketing and partnership success. As executive vice president for New Era of Networks (NEON), Rob grew the company to $200 million in revenues and was instrumental in leading NEON through a successful IPO. Prior to NEON, Rob spent 10 years in varied executive roles at Sun Microsystems, where he drove growth in a series of new strategic initiatives, including Sun's success in the Financial Services Industry sector. Rob's previous experience includes launching Silicon Graphics' initial workstations and selling timesharing services for McDonnell Douglas (now Boeing).

Theis was awarded the Honors Scholarship at the University of Pittsburgh, where he earned a B.A. degree in economics.

Brian Wilcove
Partner, Sofinnova Ventures

Brian Wilcove joined Sofinnova Ventures in 2006 as a Partner on the Technology investment team. Brian focuses on investments in the communications, networking, and mobility markets. His current investments include ConteXtream, Guavus and microAzure. Prior to joining Sofinnova, he spent five years with TeleSoft Partners, where he was responsible for a number of investments, including BayPackets (Genband), Calix, Internet Photonics (Ciena), LogLogic, OnFiber (Qwest), Tele Atlas (TomTom), and VoiceObjects. Earlier in his career, Brian was a co-founder of Virtela Communications, a managed services company, where he served as VP of Marketing and Business Development. Previously, Brian was responsible for Qwest's IP product portfolio, where he launched and managed the P&L of several business units, including DSL, Virtual Private Networking, and Internet Access. Brian began his career at America Online. He graduated from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio.

Tim Wilson
General Partner , Partech International

Tim joined Partech International in 2001 and focuses on communications and components investments.

Between 1997 and 2001, Tim was the Chief Marketing Officer for Digital Island, a Partech portfolio company. The company was acquired by Cable & Wireless in 2001 for $350M. Prior to Digital Island, Tim was a General Manager at Lucent Technology where he led the international voice communications product management team (now Avaya) with P&L for product lines generating over $2B in annual sales and coauthored a VOIP related patent. Before Lucent, Tim held a variety of senior management positions within AT&T (North America and Australia) and AT&T Bell Labs from 1983-1995.

Tim's current portfolio companies include Acco, Discera, Five9, Invensense, LedEngin, Spudnik and Teknovus where he holds a board seat with each company.

He graduated summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa from Bowdoin College receiving his undergraduate degree in Physics. He received his MBA from Duke University's Fuqua School of Business where he was named a Fuqua Scholar.

Evgeny Zaytsev
Partner, Asset Management Company

Asset Management Company is one of the oldest venture capital firms in Silicon Valley. He joined the fund in 2001 and brings diverse professional experience in research and operations. He has been Chief Scientific Officer of the Medico-Ecological Institute in Barnaul, Siberia, Russia, which was responsible for studying the health and environmental effects of the former Soviet Union's nuclear testing program. The Institute developed into an internationally recognized research center during his seven-year tenure in that position. Evgeny is an author of 39 publications, including 8 books and a NATO Advanced Study Institutes (ASI) Series publication.

For his biomedical research, he was awarded the European Commission's Young Scientist Award and the Reward for the Best Achievements in Science and Technology (Russia). Evgeny was also Founder and Executive Director of the first US-Russia Technology Symposium held at Stanford University in January 2004. In 1991 Evgeny received an M.D. with honors and a Ph.D. from Altai Medical University, Russia, and in 2002 earned an M.B.A. from the Stanford Graduate School of Business. At Asset Management, Evgeny focuses on early stage investments in biotechnology and medical device companies. He is a Board Member of a number of private life sciences companies.