Vispi Daver, Director
Vispi Daver is a Partner at Sierra Ventures, a private venture capital firm located in Menlo Park, California. The firm invests in Information Technology companies based in the United States, Canada, China and India. Vispi focuses on the firm's investments across software sectors and is responsible for the firm's cross-border investment strategy in India. His other current investments at Sierra Ventures include Parature, Approva, Code Green Networks and Greenplum in the U.S. and MakeMyTrip.com and Seedfund in India.
Prior to Sierra Ventures, Vispi was in the Corporate Development group at Network Associates (McAfee, Inc.), a large-cap public company in infrastructure software. His responsibilities included implementing corporate M&A objectives on both strategic acquisitions and divestitures of non-core product lines. He was also responsible for managing the company's portfolio of strategic investments. Prior to McAfee he ran product management for myCIO.com, a company that pioneered the delivery of desktop software online through the Internet. myCIO.com was among the first software companies to deliver product in a Software as a Services (SaaS) format.
Vispi was profiled as "Corporate Dealmaker" in The Deal, and is a regular participant on industry panels as an expert on M&A and venture investments in the software industry. Vispi earned his Masters in Business Administration (MBA) with distinction in Strategy and Finance from Yale University and his Bachelor of Science (BS) degree in Combined Sciences from Santa Clara University.
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Ron Posner, Director
Mr. Posner has been a leader in the consolidation of the high technology, Internet and software industries for more than 30 years. He has a strong track record - as CEO, investor and board member - of improving market values and liquidity results for public and private companies in record time frames.
He started his career at The Coca-Cola Company and Xerox Data Systems in sales and marketing roles. He then led two successful liquidity events in the computer services business in the 70s at National Training Systems, which he co-founded and sold to Safeguard Scientifics (SFE), and Tratec, which was taken public and then sold to McGraw Hill.
He then led consolidations and turnarounds in the PC software industry from the early 80s to the mid-90s as CEO of Peter Norton Computing, which he merged with Symantec (SYMC); as CEO of WordStar, which he merged with The Learning Company to create over $3B in market value after 20 consumer software acquisitions; and at Ansa Software (CEO role) and Ashton-Tate (Exec VP role), both of which were merged into Borland (BORL). He was an investor and board director of CyberMedia, which was sold to Network Associates (NET), and SmallWorld in the UK, which was sold to General Electric. He was also an early investor in Segue Software (SEGU).
Mr. Posner then participated in the growth and consolidation of the Internet industry, starting in the mid-90s, as a start-up investor/board member in such companies as Match.com, now part of InterActiveCorp (IACI); Spinner.com, now part of AOL; NetAngels/Firefly, now part of Microsoft; Rival Networks, which was sold to Terra-Lycos; Flipside.com, which was sold to Vivendi, and Click2learn that was merged with Docent to form Sum Total Systems (SUMT). He remains an active investor in www.iwin.com.
Starting in 2000, his investment group, PS Capital, focused on the telecom/wireless industry and invested in the turnarounds at Novatel Wireless (NVTL) and Comdial (CMDZ) and funded Popular Telephony, a VOIP company. Recently, he helped form the Private Equity Management Group (PEMG), along with GA Capital and Hamilton Lane, which is consolidating VC/Private Equity Funds in Europe, Asia and the U.S., where their first purchase was Viventures in France.
Mr. Posner also serves on the boards of eChinaCash, Trinity Learning, and Puresight and is an investor in several VC Funds, including NEA and JP Morgan H&Q Fund. He was also an E.I.R. at Mayfield Fund. He received his MBA from Harvard Business School and a BS Math degree from Rensselaer.
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Charlie Thomas, Director
Mr. Thomas joined Razorsight's board in April 2004, and became CEO in February 2005. Mr. Thomas has co-founded, grown and sold 3 companies over the last decade, and he has negotiated over $1 Billion in capital financings for his companies. He has successfully closed over 15 M&A transactions. Prior to Razorsight, Mr. Thomas founded and grew Claris Capital, a boutique investment bank, from 2002 to 2005. Mr. Thomas co-founded an Internet Service Provider which later sold to Verio and a Professional Services firm that sold to GTCR. In 1993 Mr. Thomas founded Net2000 Communications, a broadband telecommunications carrier, and led the company as CEO for nine years from start-up to an IPO led by Goldman Sachs in March 2000 with an initial market cap over $1 billion. Net2000 grew to $150 million in revenue and over 1,000 employees before being acquired by Cavalier Telephone in 2002.
Net2000 was named to Inc. Magazine's "Inc. 500" as one of the fastest growing private companies in America in 1999 and was also named to Deloitte & Touche's Fast 500 in 1998, 1999, and 2000. Net2000 was in the Top 10 of Washington Technology's Fast 50, and Washingtonian magazine rated Net2000 as one of the Top 50 places to work. The company was featured on several national news segments including NBC, CBS, MSNBC and CNN.
Mr. Thomas has over 20 years of experience. He also held sales and marketing positions with IBM and Bell Atlantic. Mr. Thomas serves on several corporate boards. Mr. Thomas is author of a book "Entrepreneur: A CEO's Lessons in American Capitalism" which was published in May 2005 (www.ceolessons.com). Mr. Thomas graduated from the University of Virginia where he played baseball.
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Steve Williams, Director
Steve Williams is a general partner at Sierra Ventures, a private venture capital firm located in Menlo Park, California. The firm invests in early and development stage companies in communications, software and Internet-related content and infrastructure companies. Steve focuses on the firm's investments across software sectors.
Prior to joining Sierra Ventures, he was Executive Vice President of Worldwide Sales and Chief Operating Officer of Marimba, Inc., a leading provider of Internet infrastructure management solutions. He was responsible for Marimba's worldwide operations, new business directions, and sales strategies. Prior to joining Marimba, Steve served in executive positions with Western North America and Tivoli Systems, managing revenue in excess of $100 million dollars. He joined Tivoli upon the release of its initial product and built an extremely successful sales organization. Prior to his tenure at Tivoli, Steve was Vice President and General Manager of Bishop Graphics.
Steve holds a BSEE from California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo.
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