|
|
 |
|
|
|
US Venture Partners / Jacques Benkoski
Executive Chairman
A native of Belgium, Jacques joined USVP as an Entrepreneur-in-Residence in early 2005 and became a Venture Executive in 2006. Jacques focuses on fostering USVP position as an active investor in the Israeli market and bringing a top Silicon Valley firm to work directly with Israeli entrepreneurs and venture investors. In addition, Jacques is working with several USVP companies and currently serves as executive chairman of Synfora and Certess and advises several portfolio companies such as ClearShape Technologies, LightSpeed Logic and Kilopass.
Before joining USVP, Jacques was CEO and President of Monterey Design Systems from 1999 and until its acquisition by Synopsys (SNPS) in 2004. Prior to that, he founded and served as general manager of EurEPIC, the European subsidiary of Epic Design Technology and participated in the company's IPO and subsequent acquisition. He then became vice president of European Sales at Synopsys from 1997 to 1998.
Fluent in English, French and Hebrew, Jacques was a researcher at IMEC in Leuven, Belgium and at IBM's Scientific Center in Haifa, Israel, both in the latter 1980s and from 1989 to 1994, he was director of the Design Systems group at ST Microelectronics. Jacques holds a B.Sc in computer engineering from Technion Israel Institute of Technology, and an MS and Ph.D in computer engineering from Carnegie Mellon University and has written over 30 technical papers. He is currently a board director of the American Technion Society and was a director of the EDA Consortium from 1999 through 2005. |
|
ATA Ventures of Redwood City, Calif. led the Series B investment round with the company's original investors, Foundation Capital and U.S. Venture Partners (USVP) also participating in the round. ATA Ventures is represented on Synfora's board by Hatch Graham. Hatch is the co-founder and Managing Director of ATA Ventures, a venture capital firm in the Silicon Valley area of California. In addition, Hatch has co-founded several innovative telecommunications companies in wireless, optical, and wireline telecommunications, such as Wave7 Optics in Atlanta, a leader in the fiber-to-the-home systems industry and California-based Resonext (acquired by RF Micro Devices), a successful pioneer in the wireless 802.11 "wi fi" chipset sector. Prior to his activities with privately owned companies, Hatch held executive officer positions within industry leading public companies, including World Access, TCSI Corporation, and Stanford Telecom. As a technologist, Hatch's architectures have led to key patents in direct digital synthesis, programmable logic device, digital filtering, forward error correction, spread spectrum wireless, cable TV, and cellular telephone applications. For his invention in digital modulation for cable TV, he was granted the coveted "reverse path" patent which enabled cost effective bidirectional communication over CATV -- a primary enabler for the cable modem industry. Hatch was also granted an error correction patent that contributed to the introduction of Direct Broadcast Satellite television. Hatch has been a recipient of Idaho State University's Professional Achievement Award, where he graduated in 1982 with a B.S. Engineering degree. |
|
|
|
Foundation Capital / Adam Grosser
Foundation Capital led the Series A round of funding. Foundation Capital is represented on Synfora's board by Adam Grosser, a General Partner. Adam's primary emphasis is on the Telecommunications and Data Communications sector, ands currently serves on the boards of Oluma (formerly OptIC), AirFiber, Peribit Networks, RouteScience. A successful start-up executive prior to joining Foundation's team, Adam was formerly president of Excite@Home's 1400-person Subscriber Networks division, and president and CEO of Catapult Entertainment steering the company through its sale to Mpath Interactive in 1996 and subsequent IPO. Some of Foundation's notable successes in the telecommunications and data networking sector include Aspect Telecommunications, Grand Junction Networks, Kalpana, Rapid City, Synernetics, Network Appliance, and Network Computing Devices. Adam holds BA, MS and MBA degrees from Stanford University. |
|
|
|
US Venture Partners / Steve Krausz
US Venture Partners, a Series A round investor in Synfora, is represented by Steve Krausz, a General Partner, who joined USVP in 1985 and has a background deeply rooted in information technology. Steve's eight years of operating experience with NASA Ames, BTI Computers, Direct Inc. and Daisy Systems have served him well as an advisor to many leading network vendors, customers, investors, and start-ups. He is also a frequent panelist and moderator at many industry and engineering events and forums. At USVP, Steve has focused on communications, Internet Infrastructure, networking and systems technology. He has led the Firm's investments in, Accelerated Networks, Verity, Rasna, Xylan, Applied Digital Access, Elantec and Micro Linear, all of which became public companies. Steve had early involvement with many successful companies such as, Checkpoint Software, Harmonic, and Stratacom. He served on the Boards of Directors of EPIC Design Technologies and Photon Dynamics. Steve holds a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University and an M.B.A. from Stanford Business School, where he was an Arjay Miller Scholar. |
|
|
|
Wafra / Richard Tateossian
Richard Tateossian is a vice president with the Private Asset Management Division where he is a manager of several private equity fund of funds and a venture capital fund. He joined Wafra in December 1993. Mr. Tateossian holds a BA in Finance from Boston University and an MBA in Finance from Fordham University Graduate Business School.
|
|
