Nagesh Challa
Founder, Director, President & CEO
Mr. Challa's biography is available under "Executive Team".
rao gobburu
Founder, Director,vice president of engineering
Mr. Gobburu's biography is available under "Executive Team".
NOBUHARU KUMAGaI
Director, Investor
Nobuharu Kumagai is an investment partner at JAIC Advanced-Tech Fund Team primarily focused on both 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 both 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 alliance and strategic initiatives between Silicon-valley startups and blue-chip Japanese corporations in the US, 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 based, technology venture capital firm. Noventi past investments include Bitfone acquired by HP, Easy Market acquired by TUI, M7 acquired by BEA Systems, Sygate acquired by Symantec. From 1995 to 2001 Marini was a private venture investor, investing in 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, 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 as Venture 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.
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, he was Chairman of Catalyst Semiconductor (CATS). Mr. Tanigami has served on the Ecrio board from inception and raised initial funding in 1998. He has previously served on numerous boards both in Silicon Valley, Japan and Taiwan. He currently serves on the board of directors of Marubun/Arrow and QuickLogic (NASDAQ QUIK). He was born and raised in Osaka, Japan. He 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 venture fund focusing on mobile internet opportunities. Nexit has raised EUR 100 million to invest primarily in Scandinavian and US based early stage companies, which can leverage Nexit's presence in both the wireless Mecca and Silicon Valley. Mr. Michel Wendell has 20 years of broad experience in international building and scaling of Infocom businesses. He has started and developed high tech operations in Finland, Sweden, France and the US. His responsibilities have included executive positions within sales, marketing and business development for companies like Mentor Graphics, OrCAD and Cadence Design Systems. He has been involved with several high-tech companies as an angel investor, a Director of the Board or as an adviser.
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