Board of Directors
Gene Hoffman, Jr., Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Vindicia, Inc.
Prior to Vindicia, Mr. Hoffman co-founded eMusic in January 1998 and served as President, Chief Executive Officer, and a Director. As head of eMusic, Mr. Hoffman was featured on the cover of Forbes Magazine as a member of the July 1999 E-Gang, and named one of the 100 most influential entrepreneurs in technology in Upside Magazine's November 2000 Elite 100. Mr. Hoffman led the acquisition of eMusic by Vivendi/Universal in June 2001.
Before founding eMusic Mr. Hoffman was Director of Business Development and Director of Interactive Marketing of Pretty Good Privacy. Mr. Hoffman joined Pretty Good Privacy after it acquired PrivNet, Inc., an Internet privacy software company, where he was co-founder, Director and Executive Vice President.
Tom Blaisdell, General Partner, DCM
Tom Blaisdell is a General Partner at DCM focusing on software, technology-enabled services, media and cleantech. Prior to joining DCM, Tom spent three years at two Internet startups, Encanto Networks and Fatbrain.com (formerly computerliteracy.com). At Encanto, Tom served as Vice President of Marketing. At computerliteracy.com, Tom served as an advisor to the company from its birth in the proverbial Silicon Valley garage through completion of its first venture-backed financing, joining the online professional bookstore as Vice President of Marketing and Editorial in 1997.
Before computerliteracy.com, Tom spent six years at Intuit. Joining the company in the month prior to the launch of Quicken for Windows 1.0, Tom played a variety of marketing, business development and general management roles in the Personal Finance Group, Financial Supplies Group (checks and invoices), and Business Products Group. Tom's last role at Intuit was as General Manager of the Business Products Group where QuickBooks revenue grew 30% year-to-year, leading the company to a new retail market share high of 83%.
Tom holds a BSME with distinction from Stanford University, as well as an MBA with high distinction from the Amos Tuck School at Dartmouth College, where he was an Edward Tuck Scholar.
Eric Byunn, Partner, Head of Software, FTV Capital
Eric has 14 years of experience in venture capital, technology and management consulting. Prior to joining FTV Capital, Eric was Director of Online Services at myCFO, a start-up wealth management firm. He joined myCFO from America Online, where he held several roles including management of Netscape's Personal Finance Channel. Prior to the acquisition of Netscape by AOL, Eric led product management for the Netscape Navigator browser. He has also worked at Microsoft and at McKinsey & Company, where he primarily worked with telecommunications clients. Eric received an AB summa cum laude from Harvard University, where he focused on economics and computer science, and an MBA from Stanford University, where he was an Arjay Miller Scholar.
Dr. Taher Elgamal, Chief Technology Officer, Tumbleweed Communications
Dr. Elgamal is a leading expert in computer, network and information security. Also, recognized in the industry as the "inventor of SSL," Dr. Elgamal led the SSL efforts at Netscape and throughout the industry. He also wrote the SSL patent and promoted SSL as the Internet Security standard within standard committees and the industry. Dr. Elgamal invented several industry and government standards in data security and digital signatures area, including the DSS government standard for digital signatures. Several thousand publications have been written in the space referred to as "the ElGamal Cryptography." He developed the basic work that has been adopted by about ten companies for commercial products and for several IEEE and ISO standards. This work has also been adapted for the DSS government standard for digital signatures and is the basis for the Elliptic Curve encryption methods recently introduced in the industry. Dr. Elgamal has public company board experience with RSA Security, hi/fn, Phoenix Technology and Tumbleweed.
Dr. Elgamal holds a Ph.D. and M.S. in Computer Science from Stanford University and a B.S. in Computer Science from Cairo University.
Scott Kauffman, Chairman, TuneUp Media
Scott has more than 25 years of senior executive and board leadership experience with both public and private companies. He is a widely recognized industry leader and expert in the fields of digital entertainment, Internet media and consumer marketing. Most recently, Scott was the President & CEO, and a member of the board of Geeknet, the parent company of SourceForge, Slashdot and ThinkGeek. He joined Geeknet shortly after Yahoo! acquired BlueLithium, where he served as President & COO. Before joining BlueLithium, Scott was President & CEO, and a member of the board, of several venture-backed Internet start-ups, including Zinio, MusicNow, Coremetrics and eCoverage. In 1997, Kleiner Perkins recruited Scott to Silicon Valley to become President & CEO of AdKnowledge, which he filed to take public before negotiating its sale to CMGI in 1999.
Prior to AdKnowledge, Scott was Vice President & General Manager of online services for CompuServe, and a presenting member on the road show for one of the Internet industry’s first IPOs, led by Goldman Sachs. Before his association with CompuServe, Scott spent seven years at Time Warner, including five years as a member of the founding team of Entertainment Weekly magazine, where he was Vice President of Marketing, Promotion and New Media. In his final year, Scott was Vice President of Business Development for Time Warner Interactive. Prior to Time Warner, Scott spent five years at Newsweek as the publisher of Newsweek on Campus and Newsweek on Health, and General Manager of Newsweek’s Education Division. Earlier in his career he was a Marketing Manager for Playboy, a Brand Manager for Lever Brothers and a Media Planner for Benton & Bowles.
Scott holds an A.B. in English from Vassar College and an MBA in marketing from New York University. He was honored by Advertising Age in 1996 as one of twenty Digital Media Masters and in 1992 as one of the top 100 marketers in the country. Scott is the currently the chairman of Lotame, Ology Media and TuneUp Media, and a member of the board of LookSmart and MDC Partners.
David Lane, General Partner, ONSET Ventures
At ONSET, David specializes in IT infrastructure software, SaaS, information security, healthcare IT, semiconductors and commercializing disruptive IT technologies developed at leading research universities. He currently serves on the Board of Directors of Truviso, UPEK and Vindicia.
Prior to becoming a general partner of ONSET, David co-founded Diamondhead Ventures and led the firm's investments in Danger (acquired by Microsoft), Entercept Security Technologies (acquired by McAfee), Truviso and UPEK. Before Diamondhead, he was a senior venture capital investment officer at the Harvard Management Company, where he focused on making direct investments in seed to later stage opportunities in the IT and life science sectors.
David earned a B.S.E.E. degree from the University of Southern California and an M.B.A. from the Harvard Business School. He serves on the University of Southern California Engineering School's Board of Counselors, the Engineering School Dean's industry advisory board as well as several non-profit boards.
Keith Titan, Principal, Bertelsmann Digital Media Investments
Keith Titan is a Principal at BDMI. He was previously Vice President of Random House Ventures, L.L.C., where he spearheaded new investments and helped guide strategy for various portfolio companies. Prior to that, he was Vice President of New Media for Random House, Inc. where he pursued new business opportunities with companies exploring innovative ways to connect digital media, the web and publishing. Prior to that Mr. Titan was Senior Director of ePublishing and eCommerce at Simon & Schuster Inc. Prior to that, he worked as a Marketing Manager at Penguin Group (USA) Inc. and as an advertising Account Executive at J. Walter Thompson.
Ketih holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Michigan, an MBA from Rutgers University and an Ed.M. from Harvard University. Mr. Titan currently serves on the board of directors for Imagespan, Emotive Communications, Xlibris, and Vindicia. He is on the board of advisors for VOCEL and is a board observer for American Reading Company, Trion World Network and RoyaltyShare.
