Virtual Venture Forum 2008 Judges
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Derek Norton
Founder & Managing Partner
Watertower Group
Derek Norton is an accomplished entrepreneur and venture capitalist with over 18 years of business building and executive management experience in the technology, internet and media industries. Derek is the founder and Managing Partner of Watertower Group. He was most recently a partner at Entertainment Media Ventures (EMV), a Michael Milken backed seed and early stage venture capital fund located in Los Angeles, California. Prior to EMV Derek founded two southern California based technology companies.
Derek was a founding member and partner of Entertainment Media Ventures, a $120 million dollar seed and early stage venture capital fund focused on investment in broadband infrastructure, consumer internet and digital media sectors. Having lead investments in Kassena, Matchcraft and Relegence amongst others, Derek helped guide and support EMV portfolio companies with their growth, strategic initiatives and capitalization strategies. |
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Justin Caldbeck
Principal
Bain Capital Ventures
Mr. Caldbeck joined the firm in 2005. Prior to joining Bain Capital
Ventures, Mr. Caldbeck worked at McKinsey & Company, where he advised a
variety of senior telecommunications and media clients on a range of
strategic and operational issues. |
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Sebastian Blum
Managing Director
Deutsche Telekom, and T-Venture Representative
Sebastian Blum joined T-Venture in 1999, 2 years after the inception. T-Venture is the corporate venture capital arm of Deutsche Telekom group, that manages several VC funds on behalf of the strategic business units of Deutsche Telekom, which also includes T-Mobile. Since 2006, Sebastian is at T-Venture's U.S. subsidiary. As the Managing Director of T-Venture of America, he is responsible for U.S. portfolio companies, new deal flow and projects, the relationships with U.S. venture capital companies, and for managing T-Venture's partnership with TeleSoft Partners. Sebastian has been actively involved with investments in Silicon Media Group, The Fantastic Corporation (IPO) and Lastminute.com (IPO). In his 4-year tenure as a investment professional with the T-Mobile Venture Fund he has made the investments and been responsible for Flash Networks, MindMatics, UCP Morgen (sold to Qpass, sold to Amdocs), and Apertio. Since his move to the California in 2006 he has done the investments in Ruckus Wireless, Jajah, Litescape Technologies and Axentra. Before joining T-Venture, Sebastian did his postgraduate MBA degree with NIMBAS, Utrecht (Netherlands). Prior to that, he worked in sales and marketing with Unilever Germany. Sebastian is a member of the VC-Angel Roundtable, and a member of the German-American Business Association of California. |
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Jon Bukosky
Managing Director
BFD Ventures
Jon has spent the past fifteen plus years as a strategic marketing and sales professional within the entertainment, media, & consumer brands industries. Jon has a diverse background overseeing mobile infrastructure & distribution (games, ringtones, wallpapers & video), emerging technologies, and early-stage ventures. Mr. Bukosky’s experience spans from the start of the DOT.COM revolution in the early nineties through to the mobile technology industry. He has been involved at the senior executive level in 4 mobile start ups (Premium Wireless Services, MOVISO, WireJack & m-Qube) all of which have been acquired with positive results. Most recently, Jon was the vice president of Content & Los Angels General Manager for m-Qube which was acquired for over $250 million by Verisign Inc in 2006. Prior to his role at m-Qube he was V.P. of Business Development for PWS/MOVISO whic-h was acquired by Infospace in early 2000. During the 90’s he was a partner at US Web/CKS (marchFIRST) where he was responsible for the Western Region. His tenure there included 4 mergers/acquisitions and was apart of the executive team when USWeb went public on NASDAQ during the mid/late 90’s. |
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Rick Juarez
Managing Director
Nollenberger Capital Partners, Inc.
Mr. Juarez brings over 16 years of technology finance, strategy and operations expertise to the firm.
Before joining NCPI, he was a Managing Director at the Stanford Group where he established and built the firm's San Francisco investment banking software and technology infrastructure practices. In 2001, he was a founding member of AlphaCap Ventures LLC, a merchant banking and strategic advisory firm. Before founding AlphaCap Ventures, Mr. Juarez was a Managing Director in the Infrastructure Software and Services practice at Robertson Stephens in San Francisco. Mr. Juarez holds an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School. |
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Mark Mackenzie
Digital Media - ESG/VC
AllianceBernstein L.P.
Mark Mackenzie runs Digital Media Venture Capital at AllianceBernstein. Mark analyzes emerging global trends as the Senior Digital Media Analyst and utilizes that knowledge to drive late-stage venture capital. Mark can leverage New York’s largest money manager (AllianceBernstein has around three quarters of a trillions dollars under management) on behalf of his investments - complementing existing venture capital by offering a unique strategic vision through access to analysts, introductions to potential business clients through significant ownership in public companies and insight into Wall Street's thinking as AllianceBernstein is one of the largest consumers of IPOs.
Mark’s portfolio includes Brightcove (online video), Hillcrest Labs (digital home), JumpTap (mobile advertising), Lingtu (Chinese location based services), Pure Digital (maker of the Flip camcorder) and Visible World (intelligent TV advertising). |
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Ken Kharbanda
Director, M&A
America Online |
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Jai Das
Partner
SAP Ventures |
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Derek Norton
Founder & Managing Partner Watertower Group |
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Justin Caldbeck
Principal
Bain Capital Ventures |
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Sebastian Blum
Managing Director
Deutsche Telekom, and
T-Venture Representative |
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Jon Bukosky
Managing Director
BFD Ventures |
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Rick Juarez
Managing Director
Nollenberger Capital Partners, Inc. |
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Mark Mackenzie
Digital Media - ESG/VC
AllianceBernstein L.P. |
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Ken Kharbanda
Director, M&A
America Online |
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Jai Das
Partner
SAP Ventures |
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