John Gengarella

Venture Advisor

John is currently the CEO of Contract Wrangler, a SaaS solution to accurately extract and transform contract prose to actionable data.  Prior to Contract Wrangler, John was CEO at Owsy (Cloud Agency Management System purpose-built for specialty insurance distribution.) and at Netpulse (Provider of branded mobile apps for health clubs).  Prior to Netpulse, John was Vice President at C3 Energy and also as CEO at Voxify which was acquired by 247 Customer, Inc. in 2011.  Prior to Voxify, John was Vice President at Oracle.  John also serves as a mentor at StartX.

John received his BS in Computer Science from the University of Pittsburgh and an MBA from Harvard Business School. 

Ofir Bar Levav

Venture Advisor

Ofir is currently Chief Business Officer at Indoor Robotics and Insoundz.  Prior to Indoor Robotics, Ofir was General Manager and VP Ventures of Open Innovation at Johnson Controls (“JC”) where he led select JC investments and startup partnership.  Prior to JC, Ofir was CFO at Tyco Israel and was at P&G for 10 years with various roles including Co-Founder & CFO at Duracell Powermat JV and CFO of P&G Israel.  Ofir started his career at Deloitte in Israel. 

Ofir received his BA in Accounting & Philosophy, as well as MA in Philosophy from Tel Aviv University.

Judy Loehr

Venture Advisor

Judy was employee number 50 at Salesforce, where she was instrumental in the Company’s early product and marketing efforts.  She was also acting CMO at Zuora and several other leading enterprise SaaS startups such as Servicemax and Conga.  A tech industry veteran, Judy has 20 years’ experience investing in and building enterprise SaaS companies from the ground up.

In addition, Judy Loehr is a VC investing in early-stage tech companies with enterprise SaaS and AI products.  Judy transitioned to the VC world in 2014, building a firm in San Francisco and investing in early-stage cloud business application companies.  With Bayla Ventures, Judy is now investing in a new portfolio of successful enterprise SaaS and AI companies.

In her spare time Judy mentors cloud executives, and is the Executive Producer for Makeshift Society – the first-ever tv comedy series about a female founder in Silicon Valley.  Judy received her BA in Economics from Occidental College. 

Relentless Hustle – examples in action

Investing in and building some of the world’s most transformative software companies is our life’s work.  This isn’t a 9/5 job.  We are on call 24/7 for you.  We love to see you win and through your products, transform and elevate entire industries.  We know you walk through or over walls.  We expect nothing less of ourselves as your partner.

Uber Connector – examples in action

Nine months before a portfolio CEO was starting to plan their Series A raise (we like to get a head start on relationship building), we mapped the top GPs at leading venture funds whom we have close relationships with, provided select intros to start a casual discussion.  These discussions resulted in multiple terms sheets (several preemptive) when the Company started to contemplate raising their A round.  We repeat this playbook multiple times each year.

Another portfolio CEO had received multiple term sheets, but was looking to also bring in a strategic investor with relevant domain expertise.  We provided an introduction to a highly relevant strategic investor, who in turn participated in the round.

Yuri Sagalov

Venture Advisor

Yuri served as a visiting/part-time partner at Y Combinator.  In addition, Yuri is an active angel investor with portfolios including Flexport, Boom Supersonic, Mattermost, and others.

Prior to Y Combinator, Yuri was Co-Founder and CEO of AeroFS, an enterprise collaboration platform which got acquired by RedBooth in 2017.

Yuri graduated from the University of Toronto’s elite Engineering Science program, majoring in Computer Engineering.  Yuri was studying towards a Masters of Applied Science focusing on Distributed Systems at the UofT before taking a leave of absence to start AeroFS.

Charles Carmel

Venture Advisor

Charles is a seasoned technology investor, executive, and advisor with over 20 years of experience spanning private equity, venture capital, corporate development, and investment banking.  He is a recognized strategy and deal leader with a successful track record of over $25 billion in investments and acquisitions across the technology industry.  Charles is currently an active investor, board member, and advisor to several emerging growth companies and investment firms.

Previously, Charles was a Partner and Managing Director at Warburg Pincus where he led the firm’s multi-stage investing efforts in growth companies across the Enterprise and Communications technology sectors.  His areas of focus included software, infrastructure, and services at the intersection of cloud computing, mobility, and data.

Prior to joining Warburg Pincus, Charles was the Vice President and Head of Corporate Development at Cisco where he managed a global team responsible for driving Cisco’s worldwide acquisition and venture capital strategy.  During his 10 years at Cisco, Charles led more than 30 acquisitions totaling over $20 billion including some of Cisco’s largest and most successful transactions.  He was also responsible for Cisco’s $2 billion global venture capital portfolio that spanned across segments and stages creating significant strategic and financial returns.

Charles holds an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business and a Bachelor’s degree with honors from Tufts University

Courtney Broadus

Venture Advisor

Courtney is passionate about helping startups execute, deliver, scale, and build excellent teams founded on strong cultures.  She has an investment portfolio of over 30 startups.

Courtney has held executive leadership and management positions in technology for over fifteen years at both startup and Fortune 500 companies.  She joined Salesforce when it was fewer than 60 employees and was a key technology leader in building the 1+B market-leading SaaS service and company that defined the cloud.  She scaled her organization from 2 to 300+ over her 10 years at Salesforce.com, delivering innovation with excellence and defining the industry standard on how to consistently deliver scalable, reliable on-demand software with renowned quality.

Courtney graduated cum laude from Colgate University.

Philippe Suchet

Venture Partner

Philippe is a serial entrepreneur turned investor.  He co-founded two companies in the marketing automation and mobile commerce spaces, which were respectively acquired by Acxiom (NASD: ACXM) and Shopzilla.  He is an active angel investor in startups such as WePay (acquired by JP Morgan), Forter, FundBox and Le Tote and served as a mentor for 500 Startups and Alchemist Accelerator.  He has also been a real estate investor and developer for over 20 years.

Most recently, Philippe was the Chief Strategy Officer at Shopzilla, which acquired his latest start-up, Zappli.  Prior to that, he was the CEO and Co-Founder of Zappli, one of the 1st players in the mobile shopping and payment space.  Prior to Zappli, he was the CEO and Co-Founder of Kefta, a leading online marketing SaaS player, acquired by Acxiom.  Previously, Philippe worked for the Boston Consulting Group, Goldman Sachs, Abuzz (acquired by NYT), and Keeboo, and has lived in Africa, Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and the U.S.

Philippe received Masters degree in Entrepreneurship from HEC School of Management, MSc in Statistics from ENSAE, and MBA from Harvard Business School.

How was working through several downturns informed your view as an operator, advisor, and investor?
I have been involved with technology startups since the late 90s, first by co-founding and leading several companies, and later by investing in many high-growth startups.  Over my 25 year career, I experienced quite a few downturns.  Through these downturns, I was able to see how the ability to face and respond to such adverse and unforeseen events was a key long-term success factor required for the best startups.

In downturns, I have learned first-hand that many of the following elements could have a life or death impact on the business: the presence of strong and positive company culture; the alignment of all the founders; the flexibility, persistence, and resilience of the management team: the underlying strength of the unit economics, and the level of satisfaction of the company’s partners and customers.

Do you miss being a founder/operator? What are some highs and lows of being a founder?
I tremendously miss my experience of starting and running companies.  The thrills include the “aha moment” of figuring out the market dynamics; defining a vision for the company and reaching alignment on the path forward; going outside of your comfort zone and adjusting to all kind of complexities; the motivation and learning that comes from working with such great employees, investors and partners; closing the first large six-figure deals and framing the check or invoice; listening to delighted customers; and seeing team members fulfill their tremendous potential.  All of this was so incredibly exciting, but I don’t miss the lonely periods I sometimes felt as a CEO, and the times when I would wake up in the middle of the night being worried about (often-insignificant) issues.

Neal Goldman

Operating Partner

Neal is an experienced entrepreneur, CEO, investor, and board member.  Neal enjoys his role as a mentor and coach to several of the portfolio company CEOs and strives to be the consistent and supportive resource he always wished he had had throughout his career.

Neal’s CEO and entrepreneurial experience includes founding and serving as Chairman and CEO of Capital IQ, for which he raised approximately $40 million and subsequently sold to the Standard & Poor’s division of McGraw Hill for $225 million.  Additionally, he is the Chairman of Relationship Science and the Co-Founder of Goode Holdings, an investment holding company which is the sponsor of approximately $600 million of private capital funds focused on investing in middle-market consumer companies.

Earlier in his career, Neal was an investment banker in the Mergers & Acquisitions Group at Lehman Brothers.  Neal is a Young Global Leader at the World Economic Forum, a Henry Crown Fellow at the Aspen Institute, a Member at the Council on Foreign Relations, a member of the Young Presidents Organization, and a board member or advisor to several private companies and non-profit organizations.  Additionally, Neal has served as an Adjunct Faculty Member at Columbia Business School.  He received a B.A. from University of Pennsylvania and an MBA from Columbia Business School.

Why do you enjoy working with Founders?
Founders are a unique type of highly creative people manifesting change in the world.  By starting businesses, they are demonstrating tremendous courage, commitment and a capacity for hard work.  I appreciate and have deep respect for every founder I meet.  I know how hard it is to “move the mountain” in face of the natural state of inertia.  It gives me great pleasure to be one of the people that truly helps founders on their way to where they are going.

How do you help Founders in the portfolio?
I have been the founder and CEO of several companies over my career.  I have executed many financings, hired and managed many people, built technology and commercial operations, and bought and sold companies.  While I certainly haven’t seen everything, I do have a deep reservoir of experience to share with founders that can help inform their perspective and decisions.  I try always to be available to our founders to help them in any way I can.

What advice do you have for founders who are starting out?
Remember to take care of yourself.  Founders often put themselves last in terms of giving their energy to the company and their other commitments, which can lead to exhaustion and anxiety.  This is a long and difficult journey, and the warrior who does not know how to rest will quickly be unfit for battle.