Investor Bios and Links (alpha by last name)

Anil Advani specializes in the representation of early stage startup companies, venture funds, institutional angel investors and many prominent angel investors in silicon-valley and India. In the last 12 years practicing law in Silicon Valley, Mr. Advani has represented more than 900 startup companies and numerous founders, venture capital investors, angel investors, and venture lending and leasing sources on issues relating to formation, founder issues, consulting and advisory arrangements, capital structuring, angel financings, venture financings, debt financings, leasing, strategic licensing and customer arrangements, and mergers and acquisitions. He also has an active practice representing India-focused public companies, investment banks, financial institutions and venture funds on acquisitions, financings, joint ventures and other strategic transactions.\r\n\r\nPrior to starting Inventus Law in 2009, Mr. Advani was Of Counsel and Head of India Practice in the Menlo Park offices of Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe. Before joining Orrick, he was General Counsel and Vice President of SemIndia, a pioneering effort to establish semiconductor manufacturing in India.

In that role, he was responsible for coordinating with the Government of India in formulating a comprehensive semiconductor policy for India as well as with the State of Andhra Pradesh in structuring Fab City in Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh. Prior to joining SemIndia, Mr. Advani was a Senior Associate in the Silicon Valley offices of Cooley Godward where his practice focused on representating emerging companies and the venture funds and banks that finance those companies. Mr. Advani began his legal career as an attorney in India where he practiced for a number of years at the High Court of Delhi.\r\n\r\nMr. Advani is fluent in English, Hindi, Sindhi and Punjabi. He is licensed to practice law in California, New York and India.

Jeff Allen leads high-growth initiatives and product investments for start-ups and larger high-tech companies. He has both deep engineering and product marketing background (12 products and mission critical infrastructure) coupled with venture capital/private equity background and leads the development of new products, joint ventures, strategic partnerships and M&A.

Jeff has been a Board member and investment executive in companies raising $250M+ in venture capital private equity funding through 50+ transactions, generating $400M+ in new revenue, achieving 2 IPOs and 14 M&A exits, and creating $17.8B in equity value from time of investment to time of exit. Jeff has also been a key executive in leading strategy, defining combined product lines and go to market stories, and negotiating over $1.4B in M&A transactions.

Alan Clayton serves as the SOSV Business Coach. Alan works directly with teams across all SOSV accelerators. He focuses much of his time on HAX Growth companies, growing hardware distribution and sales networks globally. Alan is also the creator of the “Wholebrain Startup” methodology, which focuses on fully utilizing the intellectual resources of startup founders and teams.

With experience both founding and mentoring hundreds of startups across the globe, Alan brings a wide range of expertise to team building, product development and sales, marketing, and global distribution channels. After 10 years in marketing/logistics at WalMart UK, Alan co-founded an international coaching consultancy, turning vision into action for leadership teams, including managers at Motorola, Unilever, ATT&T etc. ​Following that, Alan embarked on 20 years​ of startup​ experience ​working on his own ventures, culminating in a meeting with SOSV in 2009.

Ken Hubbard is the President at Private Capital Network, an international Angel Investor network with over 700 active investors. PCN has the highest investment percentage of any angel investor group in America with over 30% of the companies presenting receiving investment from PCN members. He has trained over 300 CEO’s on pitching investors in the past 5 years.

Hubbard is also an executive partner at ACH Ventures, holding investments in 60 companies as well as sitting on the board of directors for multiple technology and consumer product companies.His first company, KENNE SPORT Inc, grew to a national ski brand in less than 3 years, 1988-1991, sold in over 200 stores. In 1991, he successfully exited and moved into the high tech industry. He enjoyed the intense learning curve of working at one of the largest companies in America, Itochu Corporation.

16 years of diverse operating and executive experience from early stage startup to corporate operations - strategy planning, market strategy, product marketing, business development, technology partnerships & alliances, venture capital, corporate development / M&A.

Interests:
Seed & Early Stage Ventures / Incubation / Strategy, Cross-Border Ventures, M&A, Entrepreneurship

Sectors:
Network & Application Performance Management, Mobility, NFV / SDN, Enterprise Cloud Security, Optical Networking, Semiconductor, Financial Tech, Blockchain, Smart Grid, Clean Energy & Recycling Technologies.

Vincent grew up in Hong Kong, and speaks Cantonese and Mandarin.

Dave founded three companies, advised eight more, and took one to Y Combinator Founder Track. He has expereince in advising, mentoring and growing startups. Dave previously worked in venture capital before getting involved in crypto markets

Howard Pakosh is a co-founder & Managing Partner of TEKSTART, a company focused on assisting start-ups with Adventure Capital – investment, business development, sales and marketing assistance. Based in Toronto, Canada TEKSTART also has offices in Palo Alto, France, and Japan. The primary focus are startup companies focused on “differentiated” solutions in the consumer electronics, IoT, semiconductor, and design automation markets.

Over the last 20 years, Mr. Pakosh has personally and successfully launched 3 startups which successfully exited for a sum total of $39M.

Currently, he is responsible for strategy and consulting clients how to transform their products and services into becoming IoT enabled with by incrementing business model value by growing alternate revenue streams. Current client portfolio of 10 companies are headquartered in Denmark, Brazil, Canada and United States.

Mr. Pakosh has deep market, strategic and technical knowledge, leveraging 30 years of personal relationships, to better deliver effective, insightful market knowledge, business development and strategic sales services.

TEKSTART Adventure Capital.

Kate Mitselmakher is the CEO, Founder & General Partner of Bloccelerate VC, a blockchain fund and an accelerator looking to invest in 50-100 blockchain companies over the next 5 years. Bloccelerate is a team of serial investors, entrepreneurs, and executives from Fortune 500 companies passionate about supporting entrepreneurs in blockcjain space. Prior to starting Bloccelerate, Kate has not only been one of the early investors in blockchain technologies since 2013, but also a passionate blockchain advocate for social impact and enterprise applications across global governments and Fortune 500 companies.

During her tenure with world’s largest technology research firm, Gartner, Kate as supported top CIOs of global enterprises across full spectrum of technology strategy & implementation. In the past three years, as a part of Gartner Invest group, Kate has advised numerous venture-based companies and accelerators, such as Alchemist Accelerator. She also worked alongside some of the top investors in Silicon Valley, thereby creating a strong network of top entrepreneurs, VCs, and technology buyers. During her free time, Kate also runs Seattle-based blockchain meet-up and completes her master’s thesis on Blockchain from Harvard University.

A veteran entrepreneur with an accomplished background in building and managing successful businesses around the globe. Architecting his career within multiple continents and industries including manufacturing, technology and trade. Alireza now resides in San Francisco, CA.

Stephan is the Co-founder and CEO of Angelus Funding, a trust-based global network of angel investors, who actively evaluate a wide range of innovative investment opportunities. Stephan serves on the board of directors of several companies and has personally made 24 angel investments since 2012. Stephan has also just started Edge of Space, Inc., a company focused on designing and distributing STEM classroom kits based on Space.
 

Prior to starting Angelus Funding, Stephan served in several international executive roles including: COO of DigiLink Software, a China-based embedded video solutions developer, and the Director of North American Sales at India-based Ittiam Systems. As the founding Director of EMEA Operations for Telogy Networks, his company was acquired for $457 million by Texas Instruments.

Stephan holds Bachelor’s and Masters of Science degrees in Electrical Engineering from Tufts University in Boston, Massachusetts.

A second generation Russian and a true native New Yorker, he is fluent in 5 languages. He enjoys travelling the world and has flown over 5 million miles. Stephan is a “professional" volunteer for several impactful organizations and an active community leader. He resides in Golden, Colorado with his wife and three children.

evin brings 20+ years of experience as a successful silicon valley angel investor, global venture catalyst, and CEO advisor along with a decorated management consulting career as a senior executive at top-tier global strategy consulting firms like Accenture and Booz & Co in their technology enabled Digital Innovation and Transformation practices. Currently Kevin invests in and mentors passionate, committed, visionary, creative, synergistic entrepreneurs becoming better leaders in creating innovative cohesive teams developing market relevant disruptive products with scalable revenue streams as foundation to building game changing profitable companies in consumer and enterprise space catalyzing the paradigm shift in many areas.

Kevin is also a mentor at Eugene Lang Entrepreneurship Center at Columbia Business School in New York, advising ventured funded startup CEOs who are MBA graduates from Columbia Business School, and mentor at CyberLaunch.vc, a leading CyberSecurity and Machine Learning Startup Accelerator based in Atlanta. Kevin is as speaker and panelist at several synergistic angel investor and startup accelerator events in various major startup eco-systems across the globe.

Ricci Global is a private investment firm that makes strategic investments using a variety of strategies in diverse verticals. From a lineage beginning in 1940 in hospitality and tourism, to professional sports and entertainment, to real estate finance, Ricci Global continues to develop and invest in innovative people, businesses and ideas.

Led by founder Nick Ricci, the firm’s success is grounded by a genuine desire to give back and make a difference in our communities. Ricci Global also believes in environmental stewardship and in the humane treatment and preservation of all life.

If you share our beliefs, the things we value and have an interest in making intelligent business investments, let’s talk.

We are a venture capital firm, headquartered in Luxembourg, investing in private technologycompanies, preferably at an early stage. We aim to finance and support our portfolio companies ontheir path to becoming global leaders.

Portfolio companies:
- Digital Tech Fund: iTravel, Nektria, Wizata, Finarta
- Expon I Fund: Tribe, Glose, Spire, Catalyte

Dr. Shin is the founding partner of Ultrafund Capital- a blockchain/crypto asset fund that gives monthly payouts and affiliate rewards. She has been interviewed by U-Channel TV, BlogTalkRadio, TechCrunchRadio.etc. She was the event organizer of 15 Meetup groups of more than 50,000 members altogether. Dr. Shin owns a UC Berkeley BA and Columbia University Doctor of Education. She is also a Psychology instructor at University of East West Medicine. Dr. Shin is a serial entrepreneur and management/executive/board of director for companies.

1990 Creation of the first company on manufacture of furniture and successful realization of sales in the region.
1993 Moscow Institute of Electronic Technology, Moscow (Zelenograd)
1995 Creation of a computer company Incomsoft, Designing automation system for "Compass" restaurants network
1999 Postgraduate Studies: Moscow Institute of Railway Communications (specialty Financial Management of Organizations), distant form of education
1998 Commercial Bank Universal Credit KB, Head of Non-Trading Operations Department.
2003 Creation of own commercial bank Two Capitals KB. Establishing, developing, making infrastructure, a tenfold increase in the assets and currency of the balance sheet.
2003 MBA (Master of Business Administration) from the Academy of National Economy under the Government of Russia, in specialized financial education in Managing Big Business.
2006 Successful sale of shares of the Two Capitals KB and acquisition of the shares of Altayenergobank KB which possessed more extended license, capacity to work with individuals, and being included into deposit insurance system
2006 - 2007 State service in the Russian Federation Council, Senator’s Assistant for work in Sakhalin Oblast
2007 - 2008 Active developing of the Altayenergobank KB, introduction of new technologies, new product line, more than 10-fold increase in the bank's capital.
2008 Specialized courses of the Federal Service on Capital Markets.
2011 Starting retail project "Instant Money» (I-Money), - a unique box product, sales in more than 38 000 outlets, partnership with the Post of Russia.
2012 Connecting the banks to the I-Money platform, rebranding Altayenergobank into iMoney Bank, active developing of car loans, focusing and alignment of corporate culture, beginning of large-scale social and charitable activities

As a founder and Managing Member of Angelus Funding LLC, Jerome is focused on funding for early stage businesses across a wide range of industries, including e-commerce, drones, advanced materials, medical devices and Blockchain technologies. He had spent 15+ years in finance, most recently as Managing Director at BNP Paribas. Other firms included Chase, Citi and UBS. His career in fixed income derivatives provided him the opportunity to live and work at the major global financial centers in New York, London and Hong Kong. Prior to working in finance, Jerome worked in technology in the Greater Boston area in both the defense and commercial sectors. As an engineer and sales professional, he specialized in digital image processing and real-time computing. He has an MBA in Finance from Columbia Business School and a BS in Electrical Engineering from Tufts University.