Investors & Board

Based in Palo Alto, California, the partners of Alloy Ventures have been providing venture capital funding to entrepreneurs since 1977. With over $1 billion under management, Alloy’s focus is on the next generation of ground-breaking Life Science, Information Technology and Cleantech companies. Our current portfolio includes companies like Barrx, Mavenir, Molecular Imprints, NuGen, Optimedica, Pacific Biosciences, Teradici, ViVotech, and YouSendIt which are poised to become the next global leaders. Additional information is available on our website at www.alloyventures.com

Reed Elsevier Ventures is the corporate venture capital fund of Reed Elsevier. Since its founding in 2000, Reed Elsevier Ventures has made a number of successful investments in the US, Europe and Israel. The fund focuses on investments in internet, media and technology companies. Reed Elsevier Ventures looks to back strong and innovative management teams who have the passion to challenge the status quo. We look to invest in companies that have the potential to transform the economics or outcomes of a market with a new approach, business model or technology. Reed Elsevier Ventures will lead rounds or co-invest as part of a syndicate and will typically invest between $1M and $10M initially, depending on the stage of the investment.

True Ventures is a Silicon Valley-based venture capital firm supporting great people in great markets since 2006. Started by entrepreneurs for entrepreneurs, the team provides funding, resources, and counsel to early stage, high tech startups and their visionary founders. Our portfolio includes investments in WordPress, BrightRoll, Fitbit, Bandcamp, Milo, Puppet Labs, Urban Airship, and StockTwits, to name a few. For more information on True Ventures, please visit www.trueventures.com

Venky Harinarayan is a founding partner of Cambrian Ventures. Prior to founding Cambrian in 2000, Venky was a General Manager at Amazon.com, where working with founder and CEO, Jeff Bezos, he helped create Amazon.com’s marketplace business. Marketplace today is Amazon.com’s most profitable and fastest growing business, accounting for almost 25% of all US transactions.

Rakesh Mathur is currently CEO and co-founder of Snapstick, a SplitMedia™ technology that delivers the full Web from a phone or laptop to TVs, with the snap of a wrist. Rakesh is also co-founder of Webaroo, developers of India’s largest social network, SMS GupShup. Prior to Webaroo Rakesh founded and scaled three startups, which were acquired by Amazon, Iron Mountain and Broadcom.

Anand Rajaraman is a founding partner of Cambrian Ventures. Prior to founding Cambrian in 2000, Anand was Director of Technology at Amazon.com, where he was responsible for technology strategy. Anand helped launch the transformation of Amazon.com from a retailer into a retail platform, enabling third-party retailers to sell on Amazon.com’s website. Third-party transactions now account for almost 25% of all US transactions, and represent Amazon’s fastest-growing and most profitable business segment.

Kevin was one of Reed Elsevier Ventures founding partners in late 2000, joining from SOFTBANK/News Corporation’s European joint venture fund, eVentures. Prior to that he was an entrepreneur, having founded a risk management technology company selling derivative pricing and management software to the banking and energy industries.

Jon is truly passionate about early stage companies. He has founded three companies of his own, and he has a mighty track record of success in traditional venture capital investing. Jon founded True because he saw a gap in the market for experienced VC funding for the earliest stage companies. Having spent the majority of his career with these entrepreneurs, he knows what they need most in an investor: an experienced, valuable, and trustworthy partner. True strives to be this partner for every investment.

Ammar H. Hanafi joined Alloy Ventures as a general partner in 2005. At Alloy, he focuses on investments in cloud computing infrastructure and services.

Ammar previously served as Vice President of New Business Ventures at Cisco Systems and Vice President of Corporate Business Development prior to that, where he was responsible for Cisco’s acquisitions, acquisition integration, investment, and joint venture activity on a global basis. He joined Cisco in 1997 as a member of the Corporate Business Development Group. During Ammar’s tenure at Cisco, he helped the company complete over 100 investment and M&A transactions, including 50 acquisitions and over $750 million in venture capital investments. Ammar received a BS in Applied and Engineering Physics from Cornell University (1988) and an MBA from Stanford University (1995).

Ammar serves on the board of directors of YouSENDit, Retrevo, Mavenir Systems, Cortina Systems, GigaOM, Infineta Systems, Apptera and Agari.

Om Malik has more than 15 years of experience as a journalist covering technology and business news. He was part of the founding team of Forbes.com as a Senior Editor. He then went on to become a senior writer at Red Herring during its glory days before joining Business 2.0 in March 2003, covering telecom, innovation and broadband stories. His contributions have been published in The Wall Street Journal, The Economist and MIT Technology Review. Additionally, Om is the author of “Broadbandits: Inside the $750 Billion Telecom Heist.” He is also the recipient of many industry awards, including Excellence in Journalism from the Society of Professional Journalists in 2001 and the Gold Award from American Society of Business Publication Editors in 2001.

Paul Walborsky brings two decades of entrepreneurial, financial, and executive expertise to GigaOM. A former Wall Street executive and founder of two companies, Paul has the unique ability to grow a disruptive business idea into a highly successful company. Prior to GigaOM, Paul founded WorldStreet Corporation, a collaborative, peer-to-peer communication platform for the financial services industry acquired by Thomson Financial in 2002. Paul has served as an advisor/investor to numerous companies, including Mobilocity (acquired by Qualcomm), Starmine (acquired by Thomson Reuters), Peanut Labs (acquired by eRewards), WeGame, and Santa.com.

Paul has raised over $100 million in venture capital funds for startups during his career, and grown startups from the ground up: he has experience working with top-tier venture funds, establishing strategic alliances, acquiring customers, building revenues, creating marketable products, and disrupting established markets. Prior to his entrepreneurial career, Paul held senior positions at major Wall Street firms including Swiss Bank, Lehman Brothers and ING Barings. Paul holds a MA degree in economics and finance from Brandeis University.