R. Stephen McCormack
R. Stephen McCormack is a general partner and co-founder of Commonwealth Capital Ventures. Steve has more than 20 years of venture capital and private equity experience. His investment activity has primarily been in early stage technology companies with an emphasis on communications/mobile and software platforms and tools.
Before co-founding Commonwealth Capital Ventures, Steve was a senior vice president with 3i Capital where he managed a large portfolio of private equity investments. Prior to 3i, Steve was a partner of Merrill Lynch Venture Capital, the manager of two early stage venture funds. Steve also was a product manager at Interactive Data Corporation and held positions at Massachusetts Technology Development Corporation and the Bank of New York. Steve earned a BA from Dartmouth College and an MBA from The University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business.
David Aronoff
David is a General Partner at Flybridge Capital Partners whose investment interests and experience include the semiconductor, enterprise systems, and security sectors.
David currently represents the firm on the boards of Blackwave, CHil Semiconductor, MOBIVOX, Sand 9 and VidSys. Prior to joining the firm in June 2005, David spent nearly a decade focusing on early-stage investing at Greylock Partners where he led several of the firm’s successful investments in the communications and systems markets. During his time at Greylock, he built a strong investment track record including investments in Akara (acquired by CIENA), Cimaron (acquired by AMCC), e-Dial (acquired by Alcatel), Ikanos (IPO), Sandburst (acquired by Broadcom), SiTera (acquired by Vitesse), Xedia (acquired by Lucent) and Xros (acquired by Nortel).
Prior to Greylock, David held management roles at Chipcom, an enterprise network equipment vendor where he led development efforts in Ethernet bridges, switches and routers. While working full-time on his MBA, David co-founded the Attitude Network (acquired by TheGlobe.com), an Internet content startup with the top two game sites of the day, HappyPuppy.com and GamesDomain.com. Earlier in his career he held technical positions at Bell Labs where he developed secure network systems.
David holds a BS in Computer Science from the University of Vermont, cum laude and with college honors, an MS in Computer Engineering from the University of Southern California, and an MBA with Distinction from Harvard Business School.
Hemant Taneja
As a Managing Director of General Catalyst Partners, Hemant invests in both new and existing technology businesses. Areas of special interest include technology-intensive, disruptive software, systems and components in various sectors including clean energy, wireless, and consumer-focused businesses. Hemant is a Board member of Advanced Electron Beams, Cyren Call, Jumptap (GC co-founded the company), Lumenz, Mascoma, Quickplay Media, Sand9 and Stion. Hemant also served on the Board of SiteAdvisor, a General Catalyst investment that was acquired by McAfee (MFE) in April 2006, and m-Qube (General Catalyst founded the company) that was acquired by Verisgn (VSGN) in May 2006. Before joining General Catalyst in 2002, Hemant was founder, president and CEO of Isovia, a Boston-based mobile software and applications company that was acquired by JP Mobile (MOT) in 2001.
Hemant holds an M.S. in Operations Research, an M.Eng. in Electrical Engineering & Computer Science, a B.S. in Mathematics, a B.S. in Electrical Engineering & Computer Science, and a B.S. in Biology & Biomedical Engineering; all from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Vincent Graziani
Vince Graziani brings nearly 25 years of demonstrated success increasing companies’ market share and managing product introductions in the networking and telecommunications industry including senior management positions with Broadcom Corporation, Intel and Siemens.
Vince joined the company from VBrick Systems, a late stage video over IP networking company, where he served as CEO for three years. Prior to that, he was the president and CEO of Sandburst Corporation, which provided advanced, carrier-class switching solutions that drive real-time voice, video, and data communications services across the Internet. He established Sandburst’s strategic product direction, oversaw product introductions, and raised four rounds of venture financing leading to the successful acquisition of the company to Broadcom Corporation. Additionally, Vince served as senior director, Business Development and Strategic Alliances at Broadcom Corporation and has held senior management positions at Intel and Siemens. Vince began his career as a development engineer with a focus on signal processing and communications.
Vince holds a MSEE from Northeastern University. He also serves on the Board of Directors of VBrick Systems.
Jose Melendez
Dr. Jose Melendez is an accomplished leader in wireless communication semiconductors, voice/data convergence systems and MEMS through 14 years of contributions to Texas Instruments (TI) combined with 6 years of entrepreneurial experience. Dr Melendez previously served as General Manager of TI’s worldwide wireless infrastructure business delivering high performance RF, data converter and digital up/down converter products for use in 3G cellular base stations. He also established and directed TI’s micro-components technology center, which lists TI’s analog micro-mirror product amongst its list of accomplishments. TI’s analog micro-mirror is used today in products as diverse as consumer printing and in routing of optical telecom network traffic. Dr Melendez also held senior management positions at Commoca, a startup supplier of converged enterprise and residential client devices and services. His significant technology expertise includes 25 issued U.S. patents. His work has been highlighted in national publications including Popular Science and Forbes magazine.
Dr. Melendez received his PhD degree in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University and BS/MS in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dr. Melendez is presently a private consultant specializing in the commercialization of system-enabling technologies.
Matt Crowley
Matt Crowley is a co-founder of Sand 9 where he manages the development of business relationships with external partners. Before helping to found Sand 9, Matt was the Director of the Technology Development Fund at Boston University’s Office of Technology Development. At BU, Matt focused on creating and financing new companies formed to commercialize disruptive technologies developed at the University. In addition to forming new companies, Matt also directed venture capital investments for the University in such companies as A123 Systems, Crossbeam Systems, Microchips, Nitronex and Sandburst. Prior to joining BU, Matt worked at Mars & Co strategy consulting where he advised Fortune 500 companies on operational and strategic issues. Matt is a graduate of Princeton University where he received an interdisciplinary degree in Physics and the Philosophy of Science and also studied Japanese.
Raj Mohanty
Dr. Raj Mohanty is a co-founder of Sand 9.
Dr. Mohanty (Science Citation Index Listing: Pritiraj Mohanty) is a Professor of Physics and faculty at Boston University. Prior to joining Boston University, he was a Postdoctoral Research Faculty at California Institute of Technology. He received his PhD from the University of Maryland in nanoelectronics; his thesis work focused on the concept of direction of time, and the boundary between the classical and quantum regime.
Among his numerous work experiences, he has served as a visiting professor in Italy, and a researcher at NASA, Goddard Space Flight Center. He is the recipient of the NSF Career Award and Sloan Fellowship in addition to numerous research awards from NSF, Department of Defense, National Institute of Health (NIH), Coulter Foundation and Petroleum Research Foundation. He has served on many international and national review boards for National Science Foundation and National Academy of Sciences, and he has directed a number of international conferences in Europe and USA.
His current research focuses on nanomechanical systems and their use as memory cells, and passive devices and frequency-selecting elements in wireless communication systems. Other areas of research interests include development of nanoscale biosensors for cancer detection, macroscopic quantum mechanics and quantum computing. He has published over 50 research articles in journals such as Nature, Science, Physical Review Letters and Applied Physics Letters. He has delivered over 100 invited keynote lectures, colloquium and seminars in over 15 different countries.
He is also the founder of a medical diagnostics company Ninth Sense, Inc., which focuses on the disease management of breast cancer from screening and diagnosis through monitoring for therapy and recurrence.