Observers

David Andre

David Andre is an experienced technology executive and entrepreneur with over twenty years experience building, growing, and managing leading-edge technology and internet businesses. As Entrepreneur-In-Residence at General Catalyst in 2005, David helped to found Jumptap, developing the business plan and hiring key executives.

Most recently, David was founder and CEO of Cartera Commerce, where he is currently Chairman. David was founding CTO of Upromise (acquired by Sallie Mae), creating the largest coalition loyalty program in the United States. Before Upromise, David was VP Engineering at Lycos (acquired by Terra Networks), overseeing search and portal products as well as managing technology due diligence and integration for acquisitions. David has held senior technology management and architect roles at Direct Hit (acquired by Ask Jeeves), SQA (acquired by Rational Software, then IBM), Object Design (acquired by Progress Software), and Symbolics. David served four years in the US Air Force at the National Security Agency. David holds an MSCS from the University of Maryland, and a BSEE from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Jeff Brody

Jeff Brody is a founding partner of Redpoint Ventures. Jeff is focused on investments in technology companies spanning both enterprise and consumer customers. He currently serves on the board of directors of HomeAway, Kodiak Networks, LifeSize Communications and MobiTV. Jeff was an early investor and director of Danger (acquired by Microsoft), Fraud Sciences (acquired by eBay), Concur Technologies (CNQR), Loopnet (LOOP), ZING Systems (acquired by Dell), GetThere (GTHR), mySimon (acquired by CNET), NextCard (NXCD), Onebox (acquired by OpenWave), ViaVideo (acquired by Polycom), and WebTV (acquired by Microsoft). Before co-founding Redpoint, Jeff was a general partner with Brentwood Venture Capital, a firm he joined in 1994. Prior to Brentwood, Jeff was at Comdisco Ventures and Crosspoint Venture Partners. Early in his career, Jeff co-founded a mobile telecommunications company and worked as a field engineer for Schlumberger Ltd. in Europe and Africa. Jeff received a B.S. in Engineering from the University of California at Berkeley and an M.B.A. from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

Charles Curran

Charles Curran has experience as a venture capital investor and an investment banker. He has invested in and advised a number of high quality technology and telecommunications companies. Before joining Valhalla, Charles was a partner of Saturn Venture Partners in New York. Charles led Saturn’s enterprise technology investing efforts, including application software, infrastructure software, e-security, and storage. Charles also worked as an associate with New Enterprise Associates in Virginia. Prior to NEA, Mr. Curran worked as a telecommunications and technology investment banker for Lazard Frères & Co. and DLJ Securities Corporation, advising clients on over $35 billion announced M & A and capital markets transactions. Charles received a Masters in Business Administration from the Harvard University Graduate School of Business and a Bachelor of Arts in Economics with Distinction from Stanford University.

Hemant Taneja

Hemant Taneja is a managing director at General Catalyst Partners, in their Palo Alto office, with a focus on technology intensive early stage companies. Previously, he was founder/CEO of Isovia, a mobile software company that merged into JP Mobile in 2002 and was acquired by Good Technology in 2005.

He serves on the boards of a number of private companies. Selected investments include CleaResult, Humedica, Hunch (acquired by eBay), m-Qube (acquired by Verisign), Sand9, Siteadviser (acquired by McAfee), Stripe, TuneIn and Virtual Instruments.

He is co-founder and co-Chairman of Advanced Energy Economy, an NGO focused on advancing innovation and public policy in the US advanced energy industry.

Hemant is a graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, earning 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.

Mark Duffy

Mark served as Jumptap’s first CFO from July 2005 to October 2007, a period when the company raised $42 million and grew from 11 to over 100 employees and signed its first 9 carrier partners. Mark is President & CEO of Sound Vision, Inc. (www.soundvisioninc.com) a fabless semiconductor company based in Boston. Mark started his entrepreneurial career with Advanced Technology Ventures. ATV leveraged the broad intellectual capital of its founding team into a varied portfolio of medical device, pharmaceutical, semiconductor, systems and software companies, including VLSI, Valid Logic, Cytyc, Teradata, XTENT, and Acme Packet. In 1993, Mark co-founded ExpressPoint Technology Services, a technology logistics company based in Minneapolis and Sacramento, and served as COO, EVP Business Development and Director. ExpressPoint grew from 4 employees at inception, to over 400 employees and $60 Million in sales by 1997. In 1999 Mark co-founded Onex Communications in Bedford, MA. Onex developed terabit service processors and switching fabric and was sold to TranSwitch (TXCC) in 2001. The Company’s investors included St. Paul Ventures, Star Ventures, and Venrock. Mark served as a Director of Integrated Healthcare Information Services, Inc. from inception until its sale in 2005 to United Health Care. He is a co-founder and director of the Initiative for Music and Youth (www.musicandyouth.org). Mark received a BA (Lit) and an MBA (Finance) from Boston College.

Kevin Fortuna

Kevin Fortuna is a media and start-up veteran with deal-making and C-level management experience at both Fortune 500 and smaller companies. He was most recently President and CEO of Quigo, an advertising technology company which was acquired by Time Warner’s AOL division in 2007.

Prior to joining Quigo in 2005, he was the founder and Managing Partner of Dedalus Capital, a boutique M&A consultancy and venture firm. Prior to Dedalus, Kevin was a key operating and business development executive at two IPO-track internet companies: Juno Online Services and NBC Internet (formerly CNET/Snap.com). Kevin has built and managed market-leading business development, electronic commerce, product development, engineering, logistics and customer service organizations and helped to create billions of dollars in equity value. Kevin has also been a highly successful angel investor and advisor to a variety of start-up companies.

Kevin graduated summa cum laude from Georgetown University and is a member of Phi Beta Kappa. He serves on the Boards of Directors for Jumptap, FameBall, Achieve, Dedalus Enterprises, Concern Worldwide, and Moose Riverkeeper and is on the advisory boards of Outbrain, ShareThis, HopStop and Snooth.

Mark Mackenzie

Mark Mackenzie has spent his career at the intersection of traditional and digital media.  He is the senior technology, media and telecom thematic analyst and runs TMT venture capital at AllianceBernstein.  He also co-founded a venture capital firm to invest in start-ups in partnership with some of the leading ad agencies, publishing, data and television companies and to consult with the media companies around emerging themes.  He invests in technology-driven companies and helps them understand and navigate the media companies.  His investments include Brightcove (BCOV), Pure Digital (maker of the Flip) and Visible World.  Previously, Mark was an analyst and strategist covering the large media and cable companies and investigated emerging trends and co-authored books on topics such as online video, mobility, the digital home and the digitalization of media.  Mark started his career as a global TMT investment banker with Lehman Brothers and an international CPA with PricewaterhouseCoopers.