SVOD2007 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.

With 16 years experience building successful companies and guiding them through to profitable outcomes, Dan Avida brings a strong operating background to Opus Capital.

Most recently, Dan was President and CEO of Decru Inc., a pioneering storage security company that Dan co-founded in 2001. Decru was acquired for $272.5M by Network Appliance (NASDAQ: NTAP) in 2005.

In 1989, Dan was a founding member of Electronics for Imaging (NASDAQ: EFII), which received its only round of venture funding from Weiss, Peck & Greer Venture Partners, in 1992. Initially, Dan led the Fiery project—the cornerstone of EFI's success. He went on to be promoted several times, ultimately to Chairman and CEO. Under Dan's leadership, EFI experienced five years of dramatic, consecutive growth, placing the company on Business Week, Fortune and Forbes lists of fastest growing companies, and on the Nasdaq 100 index.

Dan served as an officer in the Israel Defense Force during the years 1984-1989. He holds a B.Sc. degree in Computer Engineering from Technion, the Israel Institute of Technology, where he graduated summa cum laude.

Eric Di Benedetto
Founder, Active Starts

Eric Di Benedetto has over 16 years of Silicon Valley experience as a professional investor in software start-ups. After a successful career as a venture capitalist, Eric established Active Starts as an angel investment firm focused on the coaching and financing needs of entrepreneurs within a year from product launch. Active Starts leads or participates in investment syndicates whose mission is to bridge start-up companies to market validation. Once a market opportunity has been proven, more traditional venture capital firms usually follow in subsequent rounds of financing.

Active Starts manages two investment portfolios totaling 15 software companies. A first portfolio of 12 start-ups was assembled between 2003 and 2006. In addition, a second portfolio including 3 companies to date was initiated in 2007 as part of its second investment cycle. The Active Starts portfolios are broken down into the three balanced categories of "The Social Web", "Mobility Services" and "On-demand Applications". Active Starts' future areas of focus are expected to be consistent with the innovation acceleration enjoyed by the software industry and Eric's expertise in software supporting the enterprise, mobility and the distribution of digital media developed over the last 16 years. Eric has been an angel investor in companies such as Collaxa (BPEL process manager, acquired by Oracle, ORCL in 2004), NeonYoyo (wireless delivery of targeted XML content, acquired by Interwoven, IWOV in 2000), Visible Path (enterprise relationship capital management software, funded by Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers in 2004, and Menlo Ventures in 2006), ClairMail (2-way mobile customer interaction, funded by Norwest Venture Partners and Outlook Ventures in 2005, JAFCO in 2006, and winner of the 2006 SIIA Codie Award for Software Newcomer of the Year and many other industry awards), Kalat (powering cloud-based telephony), Xactly (on-demand sales compensation management, funded by Bay Partners and Rembrandt in 2005, Outlook Ventures in 2006, Alloy Ventures in 2007, and winner of a 2007 American Business Award and many other business awards), GoFish (the leading independent internet video network and community in the US, now publicly traded on Nasdaq), ActiveWeave (applications for the social layer of the web, including the recommended Firefox add-on BlogRovr delivering your blogs wherever you browse), RealTravel (the travel guide and trip planner powered by advice from real travelers, winner of the 2007 Atlas Award for the Best Online Travel Community and many other industry awards), Plastyc (payment card for teenagers), Before The Call (on-demand prospect development management), Chegg (local student classifieds, funded by Maples Investment and Gabriel Venture Partners in 2006), RapLeaf (portable and open reputation management system, funded by The Founders Fund in 2006 and Rembrandt in 2007), BuzzLogic (the pioneering social media influence company funded by Adams Capital Management and Transcosmos Investments in 2006), Koders (the leading search engine for open source code) , Blue Chip Expert (described as a "MySpace for job seekers" by Business 2.0) and Lending Club (online lending community funded by Norwest Venture Partners and Canaan in 2007).

Eric has invested in over 40 companies as a venture capitalist or as an angel investor since 1991. His investments have already led to 10 public offerings and 4 sales to public companies. Three of those companies (Signio, AdForce and CBT Group - now SkillSoft) reached market capitalizations in excess of $1 billion. Eric is a general partner with Convergence Partners, a Silicon Valley based information technology venture capital firm with $200 million under management. The Convergence Partners funds are now fully invested. Eric manages four Convergence Partners investments (Amphire, Clickability, IdeaBlade and Penguin Computing) after sitting on the board of directors of ten others in the last ten years. Amphire, a provider of supply chain automation solutions to the food service industry, processed over $8 billion in transaction value on behalf of its customers in 2005. Clickability is the leading on-demand web content management software company used by blue-chip customers such as Cisco, Gray and Popular Mechanics. IdeaBlade provides productivity solutions for rapid development and deployment of enterprise internet applications. Penguin Computing is a prominent vendor of Cluster Virtualization solutions, delivering virtualized cluster systems to the enterprise, High Performance Computing ("HPC") and Web Hosting markets with over 2,000 customers worldwide.
Before co-founding Convergence Partners in 1997, Eric was the managing director of US venture capital funds managed by BANEXI, the merchant banking arm of BNP (Banque Nationale de Paris, now BNP Paribas), including a joint partnership with Robertson Stephens & Co. Prior to his venture capital career, Eric was a workout and restructuring specialist with the PARGESA/Lambert Brussels Group, and a mergers and acquisitions associate covering defense electronics for Bankers Trust Company (now Deutsche Bank).

Eric holds an MBA degree from ESSEC, Paris, France, and a BA in mathematics and physics.

Eric was profiled in Business Week ("Go West, Young Whiz"), in The European ("Where the Brains Drain") and in The Red Herring ("Growing Wings").

Jeffrey Black
Chairman, Founder and Chief Strategy Officer, TalkPlus

Jeffery Black is Chairman, Founder and Chief Strategy Officer of TalkPlus, and has over 28 years of international business experience in developing and marketing emerging technologies in the wireless, internet search, and internet appliance markets.

As CSO, Black directs every aspect of the company, from strategic vision and product development to marketing and operations issues. During his career, Black has founded and sold several companies including Hotels.com, iAtlas Corporation, and Resorts.com. Prior to TalkPlus, Inc., Black was acting chief executive officer/investor of BizExpense, Inc.; vice president of business development for Conomae Corporation; and vice president, Business Solutions Division, for the AltaVista Company. He also held numerous management and technology positions at Digital Equipment Corporation and the Tandy Corporation.

While at Digital Equipment Corporation, Black held top secret security clearances with the National Security Agency (NSA), allowing him to work closely with a number of other government agencies, including the Pentagon, the Central Intelligence Agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the Drug Enforcement Agency.

Black holds six patents for his work in emerging technologies.

David S. Britts
Partner, ComVentures

David Britts has extensive experience advising, building and investing in leading communications and digital media technology companies, an increasing number of whom have significant operations and markets in China. A passion for emerging technologies and understanding of global market developments drive and inspire his investments. David focuses his investments on early-stage communications and digital media companies. He is currently on the boards of Aurora, Celestial, Exalt, OpVista, Skyrider and SG Micro. His past investments include HotRail (acquired by Conexant) and PortalPlayer (Nasdaq: PLAY; acquired by NVIDIA).

David joined ComVentures from JPMorgan Partners, where he was a General Partner and the global head of the firm's communications, semiconductors and storage technology venture investment group. Previously, David was a member of the founding team of Deutsche Morgan Grenfell (DMG) Technology Group, which later became a part of Credit Suisse First Boston. There, he established the global communications equipment practice, advising and investing in numerous early-stage companies. David holds an MBA from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and a BA in Economics from the University of California, Berkeley.

Rudy Burger
Managing Partner, Woodside Capital Partners

Rudy is a leading expert in digital technologies and international business development. Over the past twenty-five years, he has founded companies in the US, run a European public company, and served as a senior executive for two global 500 companies - EVP and CTO for NEC Packard Bell and VP Software for Xerox. He is an effective, dynamic leader with a proven track record in strategic planning, change management, and business development.

Prior to Woodside Capital Partners, Rudy led the restructuring of Scipher plc which involved the sale of all of the company's operating businesses. Prior to Scipher, Rudy was the founding CEO of Media Lab Europe, a $40M joint venture between MIT and the Irish government.

Rudy has founded five companies, all in the digital media technologies sector. One of these companies, Visioneer, went public in 1995 on NASDAQ.

In addition to being a partner of Woodside Capital Partners, Dr. Burger serves on the boards of several US and overseas companies including Quester Capital Management and Motorola's Research Board. Rudy has a BSc and MSc from Yale University and a PhD from Cambridge University.

David M Burwen
Managing Director, Venture Development Group; Founder, Burwen Education Foundation

David divides his time between working on new high tech company formation as a Managing Director of Venture Development Group, education improvement, as a founder of the Burwen Education Foundation, and adventure travel. Since 1998 he has invested in more than 30 early stage companies and several side firms of major Venture Capital companies, such as Sequoia. In certain cases he has led angel round investments and provided substantial strategic, operational, as well as marketing and sales consulting. For example, his leadership of the Genitope Corporation D round resulted in an angel round financing of $20MM and led to a subsequent IPO in 2005.

Prior to providing Venture Capital David was the initial sales, marketing and business development executive for start-up Aspect Development, Inc.(now part of I2) and was a key contributor to Aspect’s growth to 1997 sales of $50M, with an IPO in 1996. Prior to Aspect he was CEO of Echelon Management Systems (consulting firm in supply chain management and business development), CEO of Adaptive Intelligence (robotic assembly work cells,) and a director of CIM at Integrated Automation (a Teknekron Company). He started his career as a sales rep for Olivetti, Digital Equipment and Data General. David has served on the board of directors of several private high tech companies.

Through the Burwen Education Foundation, David and his wife, Dr. Susan Jo Burwen, provide enabling scholarships to high potential high school students from economically disadvantage families to enable them to attend a quality four year college. The BEF provides substantial funding and mentoring for a few select students. It currently has 4 students at UC Santa Cruz, UCB, and Santa Clara University. The BEF is also providing “bottoms up” development in rural Nepal where it is funding scholarships, built a school educating 85 students, and built a microhydroelectric power plant providing the first electricity for a remote village of 250 residents.

David’s adventure travels include trekking and/or skiing in mountains around the world including Nepal, Alaska, Patagonia, and Canada.

David has a BS in physics for Worcester Polytechnic Institute and a MA in physics from Brandeis University.

Albert Cha
Managing Partner, Vivo Ventures

Dr. Cha is an accomplished scientist with expertise in neuroscience and medical devices. He received his B.S. and M.S. in electrical engineering from Stanford University and worked at Oracle Corporation in pharmaceutical consulting. He subsequently received an M.D. with honors (AOA) and Ph.D. in Neuroscience from the University of California at Los Angeles, where he won multiple awards including the Outstanding Graduate Student Award. Dr. Cha has published several
research articles in the field of molecular biophysics in journals such as Nature and Neuron. He currently serves on the boards of several private biotechnology and medical device companies. He joined Vivo Ventures in 2000 and became Partner in 2003.

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.

Dr. Graham Crooke
Managing Partner, Asset Management Company

Graham joined Asset Management Company in 2000 and is in charge of the life sciences portfolio.

Graham first practiced as a physician in Australia and, after business school, became a Product Manager at Molecular Devices Corporation, a venture-backed, start-up, bio-analytical company. He then worked as a management consultant focused on health-care strategy and operations at the consulting firm of Booz, Allen & Hamilton. In 1992, Graham joined the venture capital group of Dillon Read & Co., a New York investment bank, where he focused on investments in biotechnology and medical device companies. After Dillon Read was acquired by Swiss Bank Corporation in 1997, the venture capital group was spun out to form Ticonderoga Capital, Inc. Graham became a partner of Ticonderoga and led the firm's healthcare investment activity for the next three years.

Graham has a medical degree from the University of Western Australia and he attended the Stanford University Graduate School of Business, where he earned his MBA.

Graham invests in medical device and biotechnology companies. He is a director of the public biotechnology company Insmed, Inc. (NASDAQ: INSM) as well as private companies including iScience Interventional, Chimerix, Capnia and Manoa Medical.

Somesh Dash joined IVP as a Senior Analyst in March of 2005. He focuses on expansion-stage investments in software and communications.

Prior to joining IVP, Mr. Dash was an Analyst in the Corporate Finance Division of CSFB's Technology Investment Banking Group. While at CSFB, Mr. Dash focused on strategic financing initiatives for a number of public and private technology companies. His responsibilities included analyzing and executing a variety of financings within the Semiconductor, Software, Internet, Communications, and IT Services verticals.

Prior to joining CSFB, Mr. Dash worked for Luxmi Capital, an early stage venture capital fund focused on digital media investments. He also worked for the Corporate Development Division of Sony Entertainment Television (SET) in Mumbai, India. His responsibilities included developing strategies for augmenting advertising revenues, and establishing partnerships with leading Indian technology and media companies.

Mr. Dash received a B.S. in Business Administration from the Haas School of Business at the University of California at Berkeley.

Bennett S. Dubin
Managing Partner, Asset Management Company

Ben Dubin joined as a partner in 1998 and heads the Information Technology venture capital team at Asset Management Company.

Ben has over 20 years working in technology, primarily as an engineer and technologist. He started as a hardware and software engineer at Lockheed Martin in 1985 designing EDA tools for chip- and board-level systems. In 1987 he joined Sun Microsystems and helped design and release a state of the art parallel software development environment. He then co-founded two start-up Silicon Valley companies: Full Source Software, an open source application software firm, and Los Altos Technologies, an open systems software security business. At Los Altos, he also served as Chief Technology Officer and a board member until the sale of the company. Ben also worked as an engineer or consultant at Netscape, Sybase, Sandisk, Pittiglio Rabin Todd & McGrath (PRTM), Broadware and Vicinity. Ben was the senior manager for Enterprise Java at JavaSoft. His responsibilities included the introduction, management, and marketing of the EJB component technology as well as some other essential Java interfaces such as JNDI, JMS, RMI and JDBC technologies. He holds a patent on a technique for minimal information database restoration.
Ben holds two Bachelor of Science degrees from the University of Michigan, in Electrical Engineering and Computer Engineering, and an MBA from the Harvard Business School.

Currently, he sits on the boards of directors of Athena Design Systems, Corrigo, KonaWare, PrimeAdvantage, Mondosoft and Vetcentric, and is an observer on the boards of Brilliant Telecommunications and Molecular Imprints.

Ben is actively involved in the IEEE Computer Society, ACM, the Churchill Club, the Software Entrepreneurs' Forum, and the MIT/Stanford Venture Lab. Ben also heads the finance committee and is a board member of the Foothill-De Anza College Foundation and a member of the Computer History Museum Finance committee.

Parker Emmott
Partner, Norwest Venture Partners

Parker Emmott focuses on investments in digital media, consumer Internet and software/SaaS at Norwest Venture Partners (NVP). Before joining NVP in 2006, Parker worked at Lehman Brothers' Technology Investment Banking Group where he specialized in M&A and corporate advisory work for companies across a wide range of technology categories. While at Lehman, Parker worked on mergers and acquisitions, public and private buy-side and sell-side transactions, and equity transactions for clients such as QUALCOMM, Symantec, Serena Software, Conexant Systems and Vishay Intertechnology. Prior to Lehman Brothers, Parker held financial, research and technology marketing positions at SalesRamp and Franklin Templeton Resources.

Parker is a graduate of Johns Hopkins University, where he received his bachelor's degree in economics. He was also a senior captain of the Johns Hopkins varsity water polo team where he was a four-time Academic All-American.

Laura Faller
Venture Exchange Associate, SVB Capital

Faller joined SVB Silicon Valley Bank's Emerging Technologies Group in 2005, which works with more than 2,000 early stage, bootstrapped and angel-backed companies worldwide. Prior to joining SVB Silicon Valley Bank, Faller spent two years at National Semiconductor, managing the company's worldwide foreign currency balance sheet positions. Previously, she assisted high net worth individuals with their financial planning needs at an independent wealth management firm.

Faller holds a bachelor's degree in business administration and psychology, with a concentration in financial management, from California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo, Calif.

Skip Fleshman
Partner, Asset Management Company

Skip has been with Asset Management Company since 2002. He has been in operational roles for over 15 years, has founded two startups and has worked in both small and large organizations. Skip has experience in software, security and government sales.
Skip is an officer in the United States Air Force where he first served as a fighter pilot flying the F-16. He flew numerous combat missions during Operation Desert Storm and also served as the wing expert in electronic combat systems and programs, including advanced radar theory and electronic countermeasure systems.

After the Air Force, Skip continued to fly part-time in the Air National Guard and, during this time, was a founder and executive in two startups, the most recent being BGI LLC - a company that provides software development, training services, simulation consulting to US and Foreign militaries and major defense contractors such as Boeing, Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, and L3 Communications.

He received a Bachelor of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of California at Davis. Skip was a Sloan Fellow and received an M.S. in Management from the Stanford University Graduate School of Business.

Skip focuses on software infrastructure (security and automation), enterprise software (open source and SaaS) and consumer solutions. Prior and current board seats include Alara, db4objects, StrataVia, and Virtio (sold to SNPS).

Brian D. Frenzel
Investor, Band of Angels

Mr. Frenzel is a life sciences entrepreneur and angel investor. He serves on the boards of directors and the management advisory boards of a several of private companies. His management experience includes co-founding and serving as President and CEO of Centaur Pharmaceuticals (acquired by Renovis, NASDQ:RNVS), a pharmaceutical discovery and development company. He also co-founded and was the President, CEO and Chairman of the Vesta Medical, a medical device company (acquired by Pfizer, NYSE:PFE), co-founded and served as President and CEO of Adeza Biomedical (NASDQ:ADZA, acquired by Cytyc, NASDQ:CYTC) and co-founded and served as Executive Vice President and COO of Genelabs Technologies (NASDQ:GNLB). Prior to entering the biomedical startup company arena, Mr. Frenzel held positions as Director of Corporate Planning at Syntex Corporation, Principal at Booz, Allen & Hamilton and Lieutenant in the U.S. Navy Nuclear Power Program. He holds a BS in physics and an MBA from Stanford University where he graduated first in his MBA class.

Skip Glass
Venture Partner, Canaan Partners

Skip Glass joined Canaan Partners' Menlo Park, CA office in 2003. He currently serves as a Venture Partner focusing on information technology investments. Skip's background includes twenty years of experience as an entrepreneur, early stage investor, and advisor to numerous successful companies. Operational roles have included CEO and President of uRoam (acquired by F5 Networks); COO of Kiva (acquired by Netscape); Vice President of Field Operations at Illustra (acquired by Informix) and Vice President of Marketing at Sybase (IPO). Early in his career he spent ten years with IBM in senior sales and marketing positions. Skip serves on the Board of Directors of Evident Software , GroundWork , Sygate , Vidient , Voyence and Vue Technology and holds numerous consultant positions with venture and privately backed startups.

Shai Goldman
Venture Exchange Manager, SVB Capital

Shai Goldman co-manages 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.

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. 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.

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.

Vladimir joined NEA in 2005. He focuses on investments in information technology, including software, communications and technology-enabled services. Currently he is on the Board of Directors of Compiere and Pentaho and serves as an advisor to Sugar CRM. Since starting his venture career with Robertson Stephens Venture Capital in 1996, Vladimir was involved in investments in over 20 companies, including CenterRun (acquired by Sun), Equinix (NASDAQ EQIX), Metapath (acquired by Marconi), OnDisplay (acquired by Vignette), Saba Software (NASDAQ SABA). Previous board memberships include, among others, AmberPoint, Cendura, IMLogic, NewScale. Before joining NEA, Vladimir was a Managing Director at Crosslink Capital, a fund established after a management buyout from Robertson Stephens. Previously, he was a Management Consultant with McKinsey and Company in San Francisco and Milan, Italy. Prior to that, Vladimir worked at Intel and Ingres. Vladimir received his MBA from Harvard Business School and a BS in Computer Science from the University of San Francisco.

Darrell Kong
Director of Venture Capital Services, Fenwick and West

Darrell focuses on strengthening Fenwick's relationships with both venture capital investors and the entrepreneur community. He has worked with emerging technology companies since 1998 in a variety of roles. Prior to joining Fenwick and West, he managed Gray Cary's Venture Pipeline group. His investment experience includes positions with Claremont Creek Ventures, Ex'tent (a private Dutch investment fund) and Sylvan Ventures where he worked on capital deployments totaling more than $40M into early stage companies. In addition to his investment experience Darrell launched myBschool.com, an on-line affinity marketing company targeting professional school students, while completing his graduate studies.

Darrell graduated from UCLA with a BA in Economics and holds an MBA from Columbia Business School.

Mr. Leinwand focuses on technology investments and joined the firm in 2004. From 2001 to 2004, he was President and Co-founder of Proficient Networks, Inc. From 2000 to 2001, he was Chief Technology Officer and Vice President of Engineering at Telegis Networks, Inc. In 1997 Mr. Leinwand joined Digital Island, Inc. (NASDAQ: ISLD) at inception and served as their Vice President of Engineering and Chief Technology Officer through the company's IPO and secondary offering. From 1990 to 1997, Mr. Leinwand served as Manager of Consulting Engineering and Senior Software Engineer at Cisco Systems, Inc. helping to build and engineer service provider and enterprise networks worldwide. He co-authored "Cisco Router Configuration" and "Network Management: A Practical Perspective" and has been granted a patent in the field of data routing. He currently is an Adjunct Professor at the University of California, Berkeley where he teaches the subjects of computer networks, network management, and network design. Mr. Leinwand holds a B.S. in Computer Science from the University of Colorado at Boulder. He presently serves on the board of directors of Affinity Internet, Inc. and Vyatta, Inc. He is also a board observer to Cedar Point Communications and Sylantro Systems.

Peter Longhenry
Director, 3i Venture Capital

Paul Longhenry is a Director with 3i Venture Capital. He joined 3i from Sonim Technologies, a 3i portfolio company and leader in the market for wireless VoIP services and devices. During three years with Sonim, Paul served as the Vice President of Corporate and Business Development and was responsible for the company’s global partnerships across a broad range of network equipment providers, wireless handset vendors and commercial distribution channels.

Paul has prior experience with 3i as well, having served as a Senior Associate in the firm’s Menlo Park team from 2001 to 2003. During that time Paul focused on investments in wireless applications, infrastructure and services. Prior to 3i, Paul focused on later stage leveraged buyout opportunities in the telecommunications sector as an investor with The Yucaipa Companies, a $1B private equity firm in Los Angeles. Paul also worked as an investment banker with Bear Stearns, specializing in mergers and acquisitions and graduated magna cum laude in Finance and Economics from the University of Southern California.

Peter N. Loukianoff joined Alloy Ventures in January 2001. Prior to Alloy, he was on the founding management teams of two venture capital-backed startups: Autonomy, Inc. (NASDAQ: AUTN) and Ubiquinet, Inc. (now C-Cor, NASDAQ: CCBL). Peter also started and ran the cable division of Alliance Systems (acquired by Mobile Data Solutions, NASDAQ: MDSI). He began his career as a design engineer with Zurich-based ABB, Ltd. From the beginnings of Mikhail Gorbachev's Perestroika program in 1989 through 1994, Peter pioneered technology joint ventures between prominent scientific institutions in Russia and leading U.S. and European companies. He is a member of the board-of-directors of Attune Systems, Apptera, Ravenflow and Sapias. His prior investments include AudioBasket (acquired by eMotion, Inc.), K2 Optronics (acquired by Emcore, NASDAQ: EMKR), Versata (NASDAQ: VATA) and ZipRealty (NASDAQ: ZIPR). Peter is a co-inventor on four voice technology patents. He earned an MBA and BS Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley.

Gopan Madathil
Founder and President, TechCoire

Gopan Madathil is the Founder and President of TechCoire, the largest network of technology entrepreneurs and executives from the greater Sacramento region and a Strategic Advisor to Vision & Execution, a marketing strategy firm.

Gopan helps high-tech companies overcome their marketing and product development challenges by providing coaching and/or interim leadership in the areas of marketing, product management, and strategic business development. He also coaches entrepreneurs through the company creation and fundraising process. Gopan provides strategic vision and operational expertise from his 17 years of experience in IT and telecom and advisory roles in a variety of high technology industries.

Gopan has held marketing and fundraising roles with stealth mode and early stage start-up firms. He has provided senior marketing leadership for Jamcracker, an online service provider, leading their expansion into the telecom space. He was Director of Product Marketing for Venturi Wireless. Gopan led the wireless strategic marketing efforts at Agilent Technologies, guiding new products and solutions for Agilent’s $200M a year Wireless OSS business. He also served as an advisor to Agilent Ventures, the venture arm of Agilent Technologies. Before that, as Director of Product Management, Gopan led Objective Systems Integrators’ entry into the IP marketplace. He created systems management software at ESQ for Tandem Computers after starting his career with Wipro InfoTech in India, applying engineering and business expertise as R&D engineer, marketing analyst, and product manager. Gopan has a Bachelor of Science in Computer Engineering from Madras University in India.

Tom Marchok
Director, Strategic Investments, Intel Capital

Tom Marchok is a Director of Strategic Investments in Intel Capital, which is Intel's corporate business development and venture capital arm. Tom is responsible for strategic investment and business development activity on behalf of Intel's Corporate Technology Group (i.e., central R&D labs). His activities focus on emerging technologies that will impact Intel's future microprocessor and communications platforms. His responsibilities include developing investment strategies, executing strategic investment and business/licensing deals, and company building. Tom has been with Intel for 14 years, and Intel Capital for eight years. He represents Intel as an observer to the Board of Directors for four companies. Tom is part of a team that recently received of an Intel Achievement Award – Intel’s highest honor - for developing ultra-wideband technology, the associated standards, favorable worldwide regulatory environment, and establishing an aligned external ecosystem of suppliers. Tom previously worked in microprocessor development teams, and holds 1 US patent. Tom holds BS, MS, and PhD degrees in Electrical & Computer Engineering, all from Carnegie Mellon University, and has completed the Executive Program at Stanford University's Graduate School of Business.

Didier G. Perez
Managing Principal, CelerityFund

Mr. Perez is responsible for the day-to-day management of the Portfolio companies, and acts as CFO for all companies of the CelerityFund. During the last five years was the COO and CFO of Investigen Inc, a molecular diagnostics company. Prior to that, Mr. Perez was Managing Director at Plantagenet Capital Management, an investment banking firm which specialized in turnaround and M&A situations.

Prior to that, he was an international financial consultant with Merrill Lynch. Prior to that, he was Director of U.S. operations for Gimeor SA, a French computer assisted design software company. Mr. Perez has over 25 years experience working with small to medium size companies. Mr. Perez serves as Director on the Boards of the following companies: Investigen Molecular Diagnostics, AuthentiSure Inc, Apothos Inc, Orbeco, The French American Chamber of Commerce as Co-Chair of the Biotech Committee and The UCSF Mont Zion Hospital Healthcare Fund.

Don Plaisted
Senior Associate, Draper Investment Company

Don Plaisted has over 11 years of management experience and is responsible for the day to day management of Draper Investment Company and advisory to Mr. Draper.

Formerly a Senior Manager with Deloitte & Touche's Enterprise Risk Services Group, Don was responsible for advising clients in operations, technology and finance. Most recently, Don was with Northrop Grumman's Information Technology Group responsible for developing, reviewing and implementing solutions in emerging technologies; including managed IT services, network design, infrastructure management, systems integration, project management and disaster recovery planning.

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.

Peter Redford
CEO, Chairman, TV Interactive Corp

Mr. Redford has been a pioneer in the Silicon Valley technology industry for the last 30 years, starting as a researcher with the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC). Since 1981, he has served continuously as CEO of investor funded Silicon Valley technology companies.

Mr. Redford is an expert company builder, negotiator, and marketing strategist and has broad experience in product development, OEM and mass-market consumer sales, international business development (Japan, Taiwan, Korea, Thailand and Ireland), and intellectual property licensing and protection.

Mr. Redford was involved in the development and commercialization of the graphical user interface (GUI), the computer mouse, the computer sound card, the LeapPad and the AutoPlay feature of Microsoft Windows. In 2005 Redford settled a major patent infringement lawsuit against Microsoft for AutoPlay.

Redford holds over 40 patents including one of the original software patents for the graphical user interface (patent # 4,692,858).

Mr. Redford is Chairman and CEO of TV Interactive Corporation (TVI, funded by Intel Capital, NTT, Sega and Hasbro), President of the Silicon Valley Association for Corporate Growth (ACG), member of the Band of Angels (where he chairs the software deal selection committee), and member of the board of several Silicon Valley technology companies.

Redford holds an M.S. in Engineering and Computer Science from the University of California, Berkeley.

Aydin Senkut
Founder and President, Felicis Ventures

Aydin Senkut is the Founder and President of Felicis Ventures. He's an active angel investor in early-stage, consumer internet start-ups. His current portfolio encompasses over 25 companies including Brightroll, Freewebs, Meraki Networks, Mint, Powerset, Saynow, and Voicestar (acquired by Marchex).

Prior to starting Felicis Ventures, he was a Senior Manager at Google, responsible for strategic partner development and account management in Japan and Asia Pacific. Aydin joined Google in 1999 as a Product Manager to launch Google's first 10 international sites and then became the first International Sales Manager at Google, closing numerous strategic syndication partners on 4 continents. Before joining Google, Aydin was the Product Manager for Data Visualization and Data Mining software MineSet, and led the business development efforts for the financial services industry at SGI.

Aydin received a BS in Business Administration with Honors from Boston University . He also earned an MBA in Marketing from the Wharton School and an MA in International Studies from the School of Arts at the University of Pennsylvania with a scholarship from Long Term Credit Bank of Japan . He serves on the board of Lead 21 and is a member of The Director's Circle of San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

Ben Shih
Principal, JAFCO Ventures

Ben Shih is a principal of JAFCO Ventures. He joined our firm in 2003 as an associate, bringing eight years of technology operations and private equity investing experience. Ben enjoys thinking very broadly about technology markets and then diving into the details of a business plan or product road map to develop a rich understanding of investment opportunities. He has been instrumental in providing our firm with the highest levels of both deal and operational support. Portfolio companies for which Ben has been actively involved include ClairMail, DATAllegro, Infinera (INFN) and Symwave.

Prior to joining JAFCO, Ben first began his venture capital career as an associate with Crystal Ventures. Before that, he was an analyst for MDT Advisers, a quantitative asset management firm with $6.7 billion under management. At MDT, Ben was a key member of the team that developed and managed a quantitative hedge fund strategy. Earlier in his career, Ben worked in software development at Lotus.

Ben earned an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business, where he was an Arjay Miller Scholar. He received Master of Engineering and Bachelor of Science degrees in electrical engineering and computer science, along with a Bachelor of Science degree in management science, at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

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.

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.

Bill Tai
Partner, Charles River Ventures

Bill joined CRV in 2002 to lead it’s West coast practice. He has 16 years of experience as a venture capitalist, and has had over 20 portfolio companies become publicly listed (16) and or be acquired (7). His portfolio of early stage projects spans web services, communications systems, and enabling technologies. In 2005 he was named by Forbes to their list of "Top 100 dealmakers in Technology".

Bill represents CRV on the board of MAXTHON, a ‘web 2.0’ browser company with over 180 Million downloads to date and is an angel investor in VideoEgg. His CRV portfolio also includes Avvenu, Nantero, Rosum and WangYou Media among other companies. He is also on the board of public companies Microtune (Nasdaq: TUNE) and Transmeta (Nasdaq: TMTA) and serves as an outside director of TRADEBEAM, a company he founded.

Specific to the panel topic, prior to his VC career, he positioned public offerings while at Alex. Brown and Sons for Adaptec, Atmel, Cirrus Logic, Dallas Semiconductor, Exar, and Zilog.

He holds a B.S.E.E, with Honors, in Electrical Engineering from the University of Illinois as well as an M.B.A. from Harvard Graduate School of Business. He is an acknowledged kiteboarding addict and maintains a blog about the sport at Kiteboarding at http://www.kitevc.blogspot.com/.

Randy Williams
Founder and CEO, Keiretsu Forum

Randy Williams founded the Keiretsu Forum in September 2000, to provide a disciplined and structured approach to private equity investing. Randy's passion for investing and bringing together like-minded community leaders has created powerful and giving environment for entrepreneurs.

Randy has 25 years of experience in finance, real estate, and marketing. He currently holds board and advisory positions in eight companies. Randy is co-founder and Director of Diablo Valley Bank, which was acquired by Heritage Bank in 2007. Randy was President of Pacific Union Commercial Brokerage, founder of the LaMorinda Bank, and Managing Director of Kennedy-Wilson International, an international real estate investment company.

Randy is also the founder of the Keiretsu Forum Charitable Foundation. Since its inception in 2001, 91 deserving charities have been granted sizable donations. The goal of the Keiretsu Forum Charitable Foundation is to grant $250,000 annually, to worthy local charities throughout the Keiretsu Forum regional chapters.

Randy is a frequent guest speaker at investment conferences, leading universities, and business schools.

Randy holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of California Berkeley and Masters degree from St. Mary's College of California. He is an avid Masters swimmer, holding past Master's World Records. He was also an All-American Water Polo player at Cal. He lives in Orinda with his wife Maile and their two children, Ford and Summer.

Jeffrey Yu
Managing Director, The Angels' Forum

Jeffrey Yu recently joined The Angels’ Forum as Managing Director. He has spent the last 10 years working with and investing in early stage companies. Prior to joining The Angels’ Forum, Jeff was a Principal at Crescendo Ventures from 2000 to 2007 where he focused on investments in enabling technologies such as semiconductors, optical systems and networking solutions.

From 1990 – 2000, he held various responsibilities at Nortel Networks including R&D, new product introduction, network planning, product management and business development. Before his work at Nortel Networks, Jeff developed ultrasonic techniques for testing materials at the Industrial Materials Institute of Canada; and prior to that worked as a software engineer for CAE Electronics. Jeff holds both a Master's and Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering from McGill University.

George Zachary
Partner, Charles River Ventures

George Zachary joined Charles River Ventures in 2004. He brings more than 17 years of operating and investing experience in computing and consumer technology. George’s focus is on building great services and software technology companies. George led CRV’s investments in cRight and GoTV, and is on the board of directors at both companies.

Previously, he was a general partner at Mohr Davidow Ventures (MDV). His directorships included: Accrue Software (Nasdaq:ACRU), Andale, Critical Path (Nasdaq: CPTH), Ovation Entertainment, Sandcastle (acquired by Adobe, Nasdaq:ADBE), Securify (acquired by Kroll-O’Gara, Nasdaq: KROG), Shutterfly, Supertracks (acquired by Centerspan) and Telebot (acquired by Z-Tel, Nasdaq: ZTEL).

Prior to MDV, George led the Nintendo 64 development business at Silicon Graphics, managed sales and marketing for virtual reality pioneer VPL Research, and served as a product marketeer at CATS Software. He is a board advisor at the MIT Sloan School of Business and Stanford BASES. He is also an advisor to X PRIZE. George earned a joint BS from MIT and MIT Sloan School of Business.

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.