Hummer Windblad
| San Francisco One Lombard Street Suite 300 San Francisco, CA 94111 (415) 979-9600 Phone |
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Background
Hummer Winblad Venture Partners was founded in 1989 as the first venture capital fund to invest exclusively in software companies. Through our history, we’ve had the opportunity to invest in the pioneers and leaders of several generations of software applications, architectures, delivery methods and business models.
We’ve helped entrepreneurs build companies in desktop software, embedded systems, client-server, distributed network computing, internet, and software as a service. Our earliest portfolio companies started shipping software on floppy disks and today we’re investors in pioneering companies in on-demand computing. We’ve seen everything from shrink-wrap licenses to enterprise-wide "big deals" to subscription pricing; from direct sales to highly-leveraged channel strategies.
In other words, because software is all we do, we bring tremendous value to highly talented people who want to build great software companies. We hope our website tells you a lot about us, but please feel free to contact any of us directly.
Key Contacts
- John Hummer(Managing Partner): John has been in the venture business since 1982. John graduated from Princeton in 1970 with an AB in English and ten years later, received his MBA from Stanford Business School in 1980. During the interim, John was a professional athlete, having been drafted in the first round of the National Basketball Association’s annual college draft in 1970, played six years and retired in 1976 from the Seattle SuperSonics.
In 1989 John founded Hummer Winblad, with Ann Winblad, soon to be joined by Mark Gorenberg, six months later. John’s prior investments include Octel, Wind River Systems, Powersoft (where Mitchell Kertzman was the CEO), Extensity, Global Center (Doug Hickey was the CEO)and Employease. He currently sits on the boards of Starmine, Baynote, and Success Metrics. Contact:jhummer@humwin.com
- Ann Windblad (Managing Partner): Ann Winblad is the co-founding Partner of Hummer Winblad Venture Partners. She is a well-known and respected software industry entrepreneur and technology leader. Her background and experience have been chronicled in many national business and trade publications. Contact: awindblad@humwin.com
- Mark Gorenberg (General Partner): Mark has been a venture capitalist at Hummer Winblad Venture Partners since 1990, and has served as a board member for start-up and public software companies, including AdForce, HomeGrocer, NetDynamics and Scopus Technologies. Currently, he serves as a Director of Cenzic, Infopia, kwiry, Lathian Systems, ontheFRONTIER, Omniture(NASDAQ: OMTR), Replay Solutions and Tizor Systems. Mark is also a member of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Corporation (Board of Trustees).Contact: mgorenberg@humwin.com
- Doug Hickey (Partner): Doug has more than 20 years of operational experience holding senior-level positions in the telecom, Internet and technology space. Most recently Doug was CEO of Critical Path. Prior to Critical Path, Doug was President and CEO of Global Center. Global Center became one of the first and largest providers of advanced web hosting. After selling Global Center to Frontier Communications in 1998, Doug was named President of Frontier Global Center and Executive Vice President of Frontier Communications Corporation. Contact: dhickey@humwin.com
- Mitchell Kertzman (Partner): Mitchell has over 30 years of experience as a CEO of public and private software companies. Most recently, Mitchell was Chairman and CEO of Liberate Technologies, a provider of platform software for the delivery of digital services by cable television companies. Before joining Liberate, he was chairman of the board and CEO of Sybase, Inc. Mitchell was founder and CEO of Powersoft, which merged with Sybase in February 1995.Contact: mkertzman@humwin.com
- Todd Forrest (CFO): Todd is responsible for Hummer Winblad’s financial, legal and operational matters. He provides advisory services to portfolio companies in the areas of business strategy development, financial and operational planning and analysis, contract review and negotiation, corporate governance, accounting and operational policies and procedures, financing alternatives, and cash management strategies. Contact tforrest@humwin.com
- Prashant Shah (Principal): He has been instrumental in many investments including Baynote, Bridgestream, Cenzic, InMage, Jareva Technologies, Krillion, Scalent, SyncVoice, Tizor and Voltage Security. He also observes a number of these boards. In addition, Prashant is an active Charter Member of TiE Silicon Valley (www.tiesv.org), where he is Chair of the Software SIG; and a member of the Board of Trustees for Astia (www.astia.org).Contact: pshah@humwin.com
- Will Price(Principal): Will's background includes venture capital, start-up CEO experience, and roles in product management, strategy, and finance. Prior to joining Hummer Winblad, Will was a Senior Vice President with Pequot Ventures, where he focused on investments in information technology. While at Pequot, Will served as a director on the boards of Tectura, Klocwork, and Kavado and as a board observer on Scalent Systems and Securify.Contact:wprice@humwin.com
- Lars Lechie (Principal): Prior to joining Hummer Winblad Venture Partners, Lars was involved in founding and operational roles at start-up companies. He was a co-founder of AutoFarm (now Novariant), a company focused on GPS, robotics and automation of industrial equipment. Lars was in charge of strategy, product marketing, business development and building the sales team across three continents. Lars has also been involved with the founding team of SportBug, a GPS and Internet fitness company. While Lars spends less time coding now, he started his technical career coding and hacking computer games. He is the holder of two US patents.Contact: lleckie@humwin.com
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