Mark Suster, Partner GRP: ‘The Cocktail Party Pitch’

Mark Suster Partner GRP Partners. Mark was Vice President, Product Management at Salesforce.com following its acquisition of Koral, where Mark was Founder and CEO. Prior to Koral, Mark was Founder and CEO of BuildOnline, the largest independent global content collaboration company focused on the engineering and construction sectors, which was acquired by SWORD Group. Earlier in his career, Mark spent nearly ten years working for Accenture in Europe, Japan and the U.S.  Mark received a BA in Economics from the University of California, San Diego, and an MBA from the University of Chicago. Mark led the investment in Factual and currently sits on the Boards of the following companies in GRP’s portfolio: Ad.ly, Awe.sm, Burstly, Factual, GumGum, Pose and Ring Revenue.

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Bill Tai, Charles River Ventures: European Entrepreneurs, Female Startups & Pitching #futureofmoney

Video interview with Bill Tai, General Partner Charles River Ventures @Future of Money & Technology Summit   Bill is as comfortable on a kiteboard in the Pacific Ocean as he is in the office. As a sponsored athlete and Olympic Ambassador for the IKA (Int’l Kitesurfing Association), he is part of the campaign to put Kiteboarding into the 2016 Olympics to be held in Rio de Janeiro. Bill has had as much success on the water (or snow) as he has had as an investor. A CRV partner since 2002 and startup investor since 1991, he’s helped a number of portfolio companies reach successful exits. Prior to joining CRV, Bill had business successes as Executive Chairman of IPInfusion, Founding Chairman & CEO of iAsiaWorks, and Founding President of Tradebeam. His greatest areas of interest are cloud / web services, mobile applications and enabling technologies.  Bill is also co-creator of the MaiTai Kite Camp, where entrepreneurs, innovators and athletes try to master the complex sport of kiting. He holds an MBA from Harvard Graduate School of Business, and a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Illinois.  You can find Bill on Twitter @KiteVC

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Big Data Investor Interviews #data2

Sergio Monsalve, Partner Norwest Venture Partners  is focused on early and growth investments in the digital media, mobile, and social areas. His current investments and board seats include Adaptive Planning, Bionic Panda Games, Branchout, Motif Investing, Rafter, and a couple of stealth projects. Sergio was previously on the board of The DealMap (acquired by Google), myYearbook (acquired by Quepasa), and StarCite (acquired by The Active Network). He is a board participant and is involved with Lending Club.

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