The first panel of the SDForum Vertical Search conference will see four Tier 1 VC firms express their views on the space.
Because we’ll have less than one hour for this panel, I thought that I would provide some background on my panelists on this blog. It is therefore my privilege to introduce:
Theresia Ranzetta, Accel Partners
Theresia has been with Accel Partners since 1999. She focuses primarily
on software investments with specific interest in security,
technology-enabled series and consumer oriented technologies. She
currently serves on the Board of Directors of Aceva Technologie, Andale, CRS Retail Systems, ForeScout, Interlace Systems, Imperva, Jasper Design Automation. She also led Accel’s investments in LetsTalk and PeopleSupport (PSPT) and was part of the team responsible for investing in Walmart.com (WMT).
Theresia
has worked in the computer and communications industries since the
late-1980′s as an entrepreneur, consultant and venture investor. Prior
to joining Accel Partners, she was founding Vice President of Business
Development & Sales at Release Software, a venture-backed company
which developed products to enable encryption and payment technologies
for the software industry. Theresia was a key member of the senior
management team and was instrumental in growing the company from $0 to
$15M in revenue. Before that, Theresia worked as a management
consultant at Bain & Company and a product manager at Silicon
Graphics.
Theresia holds an Sc.B. in Engineering from Brown University, magna cum laude and an M.B.A. from Stanford University.
Andreas Stravropoulos, Draper Fisher Jurvetson
Andreas Stavropoulos is a Managing Director at Draper Fisher Jurvetson, where he serves on the Boards of Akimbo, AppStream, everdream, H5
Technologies, MeetUp, Mobile 365, Pronto Networks, SilverPop, Technorati and Wavemarket. In addition, he led the firm’s investments in Centerpost, ePocrates, 4info, Mimeo and Polaris Wireless. Andreas focuses primarily on software investments (enterprise infrastructure and consumer/internet), wireless networking, and technology-enabled services. Prior to joining DFJ, Mr. Stavropoulos was with McKinsey Company’s San Francisco office, where he worked with senior management teams of corporate clients with an emphasis on information technology. Prior to McKinsey, he was a Senior Analyst at Cornerstone Research,
a financial and economic consulting firm that helps resolve complex issues arising in high-profile business litigation. Mr. Stavropoulos
is a summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Harvard College
in computer science. He also holds an MS degree in computer science
from Harvard University and an MBA from Harvard Business School, where he was a Baker Scholar and graduated first in his class.
Chris Moore, Redpoint Ventures
Chris Moore is a Principal of Redpoint Ventures focusing on consumer
Internet, online marketing and business services opportunities. Prior
to joining Redpoint, Chris evaluated Internet opportunities for IVP, a
firm he joined in 1999. He is actively involved in Redpoint’s
investments in Efficient Frontier, MySpace, Right Media and a few seed stage projects.
Prior to joining IVP, Chris led business development efforts for wine.com, the online wine retailer, and held various product management positions with Peapod,
the pioneering online grocery shopping service provider. Previously,
Chris evaluated and executed Internet and media investments for Ameritech.
He began his career as a financial analyst in the mergers and
acquisitions and leveraged buyout groups of Wasserstein Perella &
Co.
Chris holds a B.A. in Mathematics and Economics from Dartmouth
College and an M.B.A. from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.
Mark Kvamme, Sequoia Capital
Mark Kvamme focuses on services and software investments. He is
currently a Director of Cast Iron Systems, AdBrite, EMN8, Mark Logic,
MotoSport.com, LinkedIn, and StrongMail Systems. Previously, he had
been a Director of Corvigo (acquired by Tumbleweed Communications) and
Allocity (acquired by EMC Corporation).
Prior to joining Sequoia
Capital in 1999, Mark was Chairman of USWeb/CKS and Chairman and CEO of
CKS Group prior to the merger with USWeb. Earlier in his career Mark
was a Director of International Marketing for Wyse Technology, the
President and CEO of International Solutions, and was a founding member
of Apple France. Mark has a B.A. in French Economics and Literature
from the University of California at Berkeley.
These firms also have made a number of investments in Vertical Search companies, which proves their interest in the space, namely: 4Info (DFJ – mobile search), EVDB (DFJ – events), FatLens (Redpoint – shopping), Kayak.com (Sequoia – travel), Oodle.com (Redpoint – classifieds), Technorati (DFJ – blogs). Not to mention community and social network plays that also include elements of search: Brightcove (Accel – SN + long tail video distribution), LinkedIn (Sequoia – SN + job listings), MySpace (Redpoint – SN + music), The Facebook (Accel – SN + schoolbook).
I have suggested to my panelists that we focus on the questions and issues of entrepreneurs developing or planning a vertical search play. And whilst I am aware of these, since I meet a number of these teams/individuals, I want to engage with the audience as much and quickly as possible. And by audience, I mean conference attendees and others, through the following means:
- On the day of the conference, you can join us on the IRC chart using your favorite chat program: irc://irc.freenode.net/#vertical.
- You can also leave a question in the comments of this post, or in the questions forum. Or you can send me an email at jeff [dot] clavier [at] gmail [dot] com.
I look forward to a great discussion this Tuesday, and hope that some of you will get involved.
Tag: verticalleap