Board of Directors
Nagesh Challa
Founder, Board Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Nagesh Challa is co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of Ecrio. Prior to Ecrio, he founded Nexcom Technology Inc., a Silicon Valley start-up that pioneered the concept of mass storage for mobile devices. Mr. Challa assembled and managed a team of 30 professionals and negotiated several license agreements with large global OEM's. He successfully sold Nexcom to ISSI (Nasdaq:ISSI) in December 1997. During his 20 year career, he held various engineering and management positions with National Semiconductor, Exel Microelectronics and Catalyst Semiconductor. Mr. Challa received a BS in Physics from Andhra University, India, an MS in Physics from Western Michigan University and was a graduate student at Purdue University pursuing his Ph.D. before starting his career in the Silicon Valley. He has been granted 21 patents in semiconductors, software and mobile technologies.
Nobuharu Kumagai
Director, Investor
Nobuharu Kumagai is an investment partner at JAIC Advanced-Tech Fund Team, primarily focused on U.S. and Japanese venture and growth capital opportunities. Prior to joining JAIC, Mr. Kumagai spent almost a decade in the investment banking industry. He was a Vice President at HSBC in Tokyo, Japan where he led numerous IPO and M & A transactions for Japanese and overseas companies. Prior to HSBC, Mr. Kumagai was an Associate at Lehman Brothers' Investment Banking Division, and started his career at Mitsubishi UFJ Securities (formerly Kokusai Securities) in Tokyo, Japan. Mr. Kumagai also worked for a Tokyo/Silicon Valley based strategy consulting practice orchestrating alliances and strategic initiatives between Silicon Valley startups and blue-chip Japanese corporations in the U.S., Japan & Greater China. Mr. Kumagai received a B.A. in Economics from Keio University in Tokyo, Japan and an M.B.A. from the Johnson Graduate School of Management at Cornell University.
Giacomo Marini
Director, Investor
Giacomo Marini is the founder and managing partner of Noventi/CIR Ventures, an early stage, Silicon Valley technology venture capital firm. Noventi's past investments include Bitfone, acquired by Hewlett Packard; Easy Market, acquired by TUI; M7, acquired by BEA Systems; and Sygate, acquired by Symantec. From 1995 to 2001, Marini was a private venture investor, contributing to and advising a portfolio of technology companies, including Teknema, acquired by Axeda, and PCTEL. In 1981 Mr. Marini co-founded Logitech, the world leader in personal peripherals. At Logitech he served first as Vice President of Engineering and most recently as Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer. Prior to Logitech, he held technical and management positions with Olivetti and IBM. He is also on the Board of Aurora Biofuels, Minerva Networks, Neato Robotics, PCTEL (NASDAQ: PCTI) and TES Automation. Mr. Marini holds a Laurea Degree cum laude in Computer Science from the University of Pisa, Italy.
Patrice Peyret
Director, Investor
French-born Patrice Peyret joined Nexit Ventures as a Partner in June 2005; he also is the co-founder and CEO of Plastyc, a Web-payment provider serving teens. Prior to his roles with Nexit and Plastyc, Mr. Peyret founded Mobileway, a global network for the delivery of SMS, MMS, mobile marketing and more. Mobileway merged with Inphomatch to become Mobile 365, a company sold to Sybase in 2006. Mr. Peyret has also served in senior technical roles for Sun Microsystems and Gemplus, the world's largest smart card vendor. Mr. Peyret studied electrical engineering at the Ecole Centrale de Lyon.
Hide L. Tanigami
Director, Investor
Hide L. Tanigami is Chairman & CEO of Marubun/Arrow USA, LLC. a joint venture between Marubun Corporation, the largest semiconductor distributor in Japan, and Arrow Electronics (1998 to present). From 1985 through 1994 Mr. Tanigami was a co-founder and Vice President of Corporate Development at Catalyst Semiconductor, Inc. He took the company public in 1993 (NASDAQ: CATS). From 1994 through 1998 he was President and CEO of Marubun USA Corporation. From 1997 through 2000, Mr. Tanigami was Chairman of Catalyst Semiconductor (CATS). He has served on the Ecrio board from the company's inception and raised initial funding in 1998. He also has previously served on numerous boards in Silicon Valley, Japan and Taiwan. Mr. Tanigami currently serves on the board of directors of Marubun/Arrow and QuickLogic (NASDAQ QUIK). He was born and raised in Osaka, Japan, and holds an MA degree in applied linguistics from San Francisco State University and a BA degree from Kansai University of Foreign Studies. He became a US citizen in 2002.
Michel Wendell
Director, Investor
Mr. Wendell is a founding partner of Nexit Ventures, a fund focused on mobile internet opportunities. Nexit has raised EUR 100 million to invest primarily in Scandinavian and U.S.-based early stage companies, leveraging Nexit's presence in the 'wireless Mecca' and Silicon Valley. Mr. Wendell has 20 years of broad experience in international building and scaling of Infocom businesses, including high tech operations in Finland, Sweden, France and the U.S. His responsibilities have included executive positions within sales, marketing and business development for companies like Mentor Graphics, OrCAD and Cadence Design Systems. Mr. Wendell also has been involved with several technology companies as an angel investor, Board Director or adviser.