INSIGHTS
Venture firms rush to find ways to support Black founders and investors
Venture firms rush to find ways to support Black founders and investors
Venture firms rush to find ways to support Black founders and investors
Venture firms rush to find ways to support Black founders and investors
Venture firms rush to find ways to support Black founders and investors
Venture firms rush to find ways to support Black founders and investors
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.
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.
Operating Partner
Judy is Chief Product Officer at PartnerTap, the leading ecosystem sales platform for enterprises. A SaaS industry veteran, Judy has 23 years’ experience investing in and building enterprise SaaS companies from the ground up. She was employee 51 at Salesforce where she spent 4 years as the original PM for the Service Cloud, then moved to marketing post IPO where she drove the development, launch, and early partnerships for the AppExchange.
Post Salesforce, Judy has been an early-stage CMO, a venture capitalist, and an adviser for B2B SaaS companies. Judy is known for her strategic product and go-to-market advise, as well as her clear and direct communication style.
In her spare time, Judy mentors cloud executives, actively supports female founders, 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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.