Spike Ventures Team

Sam is a transactional attorney for entrepreneurial companies. He helped develop the first RSA wireline cellular company in the Rocky Mountain region. He has lead M&A transactions in a number of industries, including cable television, specialized mobile radio and medical device. He was in-house general counsel for a VC-backed internet data center company, a Japanese-owned geophysical company, and a PE-backed REO company. He is currently general counsel for a 503A/503B compound pharmacy. Sam received his BS in Accounting from Brooklyn College (CUNY) and his MBA and JD from Stanford University.

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Dr. Middleton is internationally recognized as a serial innovator and as thought-leader in clinical informatics and healthcare information tech. He is Chief Informatics and Innovation Officer at Apervita, which delivers a PaaS for the democratization of healthcare data and analytics. Earlier, he was a professor of Biomedical Informatics and of Medicine at Stanford, Harvard, and Vanderbilt. He has also held executive leadership roles at Stanford, MedicaLogic/Medscape, Partners Healthcare System, and Vanderbilt. He studied Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the University of Colorado, received a Master’s in Public Health from the Yale University School of Public Health, and an MD from SUNY Buffalo.

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Jen is an adviser, consultant, and board member with expertise in digital strategy, cybersecurity, data and analytics, and social media. She is CEO of JEM Consulting & Advisory Services and managing director of Consultants Collective. Earlier, she was VP of Digital & Social Media at Thomson Reuters and held management roles at Redwood Collaborative Media, Ziff Davis, and Ketchum. She served on the Social Media Advisory Council of the UN’s Population Fund and co-founded the nonprofit think tank Society for New Communications Research. Jen received her Master’s degree from Stanford and her Bachelor’s degree from Sarah Lawrence College.

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Eric is a Managing Director at Montage Capital, a leading provider of growth debt to capital-efficient companies. At Montage, he co-manages investment funds and oversees investor relations, operations, and finance. Earlier, Eric was a venture investor at DCM, where two of his early stage investments became billion dollar IPOs. He also founded and ran his own startup company, managed products at Cisco and HP, and served in investment banking at a Boston-based boutique. Eric received an AB in Economics from Harvard (magna cum laude) and an MBA from Stanford.

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Tamara is the President of Amaratal, a consulting company that offers strategic marketing and business consulting services to clients ranging from technology startups to established companies. She has over 25 years of experience in new technologies and markets in the US, Europe, and Latin/South America. Her areas of expertise include digital advertising, mobile, big data, digital media and entertainment portals, mobile gaming, social networking and consumer applications, e-commerce platforms, enterprise and embedded operating system software. Tamara has a BS and MS in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University.

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Christina is the President and Managing Director of Zacamy & Co., which provides strategic and financial advice to both public and private companies, including advice on corporate strategy, M&A, capital raising alternatives, and strategic partnerships. Previously, she worked in the Principal Strategies Group at Goldman Sachs and in the Mergers and Acquisitions and Corporate Advisory Group at Deutsche Bank Securities. She is a member of the Board of Directors of The LPGA Foundation, Chair of The LPGA Foundation Leadership Committee, and a member of the Finance Committee. Christina has a degree from Stanford University.

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Cliff has 40+ years of experience in investment banking and investment management. He was a product specialist and client portfolio manager for an asset management firm for municipal and taxable strategies before joining Brandes Investment Partners, an employee-owned investment manager. There he worked as a Director and Co-Head of Fixed Income. Clients included corporate cash portfolios and pension plans, endowments, foundations, and pension consulting firms. He was president of the Stanford Club of NYC and is a member of the Stanford Associates. Cliff has a BA in Economics from Stanford and MBA from Harvard Business School.

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Bruce is an angel investor, tech mentor, and startup advisor who lives at the intersection of innovative hardware products and business. He was a Co-founder/CTO of Immersion, leading development of haptic simulation and 3D shape-scanning products and technologies. He was also one of two Engineering Fellows (VP) and a main system architect at Intuitive Surgical, creators of the daVinci Surgical Robot. After Intuitive, Bruce was a senior member of the Robotics Initiative at X Inc. (fka Google[x]). He has 147 issued US patents and 200+ international patents and patents-pending. Bruce has a BS & MS in Mechanical Engineering from MIT and a D. Eng. degree from Stanford.

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Theresia is an engineer, experienced entrepreneur, and investor in the new mobility space, focused on security, data analytics, and consumer sectors. She recently co-founded Aspect Ventures, leading early investments in Cato Networks, Exabeam, ForeScout, The Muse, SelfScore, and BirchBoxr. Previously, she was a Partner at Accel, championing many companies through IPOs or acquisitions, and a founding VP of Business Development & Sales at Release Software. Earlier, she worked at Bain & Company. Theresia has been named to Forbes’ Midas List six times, most recently in 2017. She holds a ScB in Engineering from Brown University and an MBA from Stanford.

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Brian has been providing financing to high-tech firms in Silicon Valley and Southern California since 1982. He co-founded AVI Capital, a VC partnership with resources of $75M focusing on early stage IT investments, and co-founded Alpha Partners. He has also worked at Hewlett Packard and the Stanford Research Institute. Brian has served on many boards, including Digimarc, Apptitude, Intraspect Software, Pointbase, InViso, and Prosetta. He is also a past Board Member of the National Association of Small Business Investment Companies and the Monterey Bay Stanford Alumni Club. Brian holds a BS and MS in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford.

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Mark is a partner at Five Peaks Capital Management, a PE firm focused on investments in tech-enabled services companies. He has over sixteen years of experience in private equity, with senior roles at DLJ Merchant Banking Partners (~$10B of capital under management) and JLL Partners (~$4B of capital under management). He has led PE and distressed debt investments across a range of sectors. Prior to that, Mark was an investment banker for Donaldson, Lufkin and Jenrette Securities, executing debt and equity financing and M&A advisory transactions. Mark holds a BA from Stanford University and an MBA with distinction from Tuck at Dartmouth.

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Avin is Director of Strategic Operational Finance at Wayfair, building the finance infrastructure for their supply chain & operations. Previously, he served as VP Finance for healthcare tech startup par8o. Earlier, Avin spent a decade at VC and PE firms, including Goldman Sachs. Avin began his investing career at Summit Partners, with later stints at Google, Great Point Partners, and OpenView. He has also been an angel investor and adviser to seed stage tech companies, including Rentjuice (sold to Zillow), Kahuna, vSplash, and more. Avin earned a BS and MS in Management Science & Engineering from Stanford University and an MBA from Harvard Business School.

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Rishi started his career in consumer internet at Mozilla and later as Head of Business Development at Cooliris (acq. Yahoo). He transitioned to mobile with Qik, leading Business Development and then becoming Head of Product, leading development of the first US mobile video chat app. After Qik was acquired by Skype, Rishi became Principal Program Manager of Mobile before Microsoft acquired Skype ($8.5B). He is now Co-founder and Managing Partner of HiFi Ventures, a boutique VC firm that builds and advises early-stage companies. Rishi graduated from Stanford, where he was VP of the Business Association of Stanford Entrepreneurial Students.

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Lyon Wong has an extensive investment track record of working with companies across multiple stages, focusing on founder growth and product market fit. He co-founded Spectrum 28, a $170M early stage venture fund with investments in Plangrid, Rhumbix, Karius, Freenome, Duetto, Reflecktive, Bizzy (acq. by Sendgrid), and more. At Lightspeed, he invested or worked with companies such as Blend, Affirm, Comprehend Systems, Kitematic (acq. by Docker), and Branch. He is a Creative Destruction Lab Fellow and a C100 member. Lyon received his MBA from Stanford’s Graduate School of Business and Systems Design Engineering degree from the University of Waterloo.

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Lonnie works at Intellectual Ventures, where she helps support funds that create and commercialize intellectual property. At IV, she helped launch a $160M fund with Microsoft and other investors, formed TerraPower (financed by Bill Gates and others) and the Global Good Fund (with Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation). She also developed a novel legal structure for sponsored invention that has been used by the BBC and others. Earlier, she was COO at Azulstar, SVP and General Counsel at Blue Frog Media, VP of Corporate Development at AT&T, and Associate at Preston Gates and Ellis. Lonnie has a JD from the University of Washington and a BA from Stanford.

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John is a tech investor, founder, and CEO with decades of experience in funding, launching, and leading companies. As an entrepreneur and CEO, he focused on database technologies, including Tokutek (as CEO) and StreamBase Systems (as Co-founder) with Turing Award-winner Michael Stonebraker. At Accel Partners and Summit Partners, he sourced and/or led investments in Rapt Corp. (acq. by MSFT), Counterpane Internet Security, and comScore. He now focuses on foundational and infrastructure technologies such as machine learning, blockchain, and databases. He has an undergraduate degree in Applied Mathematics from Harvard and an MBA from Stanford.

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Gina is the Founder & CEO of Mighty Networks, the fastest way to create and grow a community-powered brand on your own deep interest network on mobile and web. Previously, Gina and Marc Andreessen co-founded Ning, a pioneering social platform for niche networks online. Under her leadership, Ning grew to 90 million people across 300,000 active communities in entertainment, politics, and education. In addition to Mighty Networks, Gina serves on the board of directors of Scripps Networks, The Food Network, and The Travel Channel. Gina has also appeared on Charlie Rose, CNBC, and CNN. She received her BA and MBA from Stanford.

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Leo was recruited as one of the first five engineers to build and scale the infrastructure for MyFitnessPal. Under Leo, the successful mobile app scaled eight-fold and he led a big data initiative to turn terabytes of mobile and web data into actionable insights for users such as Kafka, Kinesis, Hadoop Spark, Tableau, and redshift. MyFitnessPal was acquired by Under Armour for $475M. The last four big data/AI startups where Leo served as core contributor all led to successful IPO or M&A (combined valuation of $1B+). Leo is now mentoring local college graduates and young adults in Hong Kong and China about innovation-driven entrepreneurship.

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Cyril is the Co-founder of Landis and Managing Partner at Berd Industries, a global real estate investment firm. Earlier, he was a Director at Crown Acquisitions, a NY-based real estate investment firm. Before joining Crown, he worked at Houlihan Lokey, where he advised companies on M&A, equity and debt capital markets, and restructuring transactions. Previously, he worked in Credit Trading at Citigroup. Throughout his career, he has completed over $10B in transactions. He is also now an advisor to early stage companies and a director at TP NYC, a real estate investor. He holds an undergraduate degree from Emory University and an MBA from Stanford.

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Frank is an experienced PE and VC fund manager. He has founded or co-founded three PE firms and invested in early stage tech in Silicon Valley; real estate developments in Hong Kong, Mexico City, and the US; plus technology and leading-edge agricultural projects in the Middle East. Frank was the founding President of the Western Association of Venture Capitalists, the first VC trade organization in the world (now over 100 Silicon Valley venture firm members). Frank spent two seasons playing professional football (Steelers, Broncos), and he and his family have now endowed a scholarship for Stanford student athletes. He has a BA from Stanford and an MBA from UCLA.