Richard Irving POND Ventures
Based in Silicon Valley, Richard co-founded Pond in 1997 and brings over 25 years' experience in venture capital, business management, marketing and engineering in technology companies including AT&T Bell Labs, AMD, Brooktree, and Irving International. Starting as a chip designer at Bell Labs, and strategic marketing manager at AMD, Richard later managed multiple business units at Brooktree with full P&L responsibility both prior to and following the company's initial public offering. Richard has been involved in numerous IPOs, acquisitions, and private financings. Richard's expertise includes semiconductors, hardware, and wireless.
Richard serves as Director of Acco Semiconductor, Gigle Semiconductor, and Nanotech, and investor representative at picoChip. Richard has a B.Sc. (1st Class Hons.) and an M.Sc. in Electrical Engineering from Manchester University.
Tim Wilson Partech International
Tim joined Partech International in 2001 and focuses on communications and components investments.
Between 1997 and 2001, Tim was the Chief Marketing Officer for Digital Island, a Partech portfolio company. The company was acquired by Cable & Wireless in 2001 for $350M. Prior to Digital Island, Tim was a General Manager at Lucent Technology where he led the international voice communications product management team (now Avaya) with P&L for product lines generating over $2B in annual sales and coauthored a VOIP related patent. Before Lucent, Tim held a variety of senior management positions within AT&T (North America and Australia) and AT&T Bell Labs from 1983-1995.
He graduated summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa from Bowdoin College receiving his undergraduate degree in Physics. He received his MBA from Duke University's Fuqua School of Business where he was named a Fuqua Scholar.
Rich Redelfs Foundation Capital
Rich joined Foundation Capital in 2004 after more than 20 years in networking and communications, amassing a combination of start-up entrepreneurial as well as large company intrapreneurial experience. Most recently, he was president and CEO of Atheros Communications, which he helped build into the leading provider of Wi-Fi wireless semiconductors; it was subsequently named "Silicon Valley's Fastest Growing Private Company" by the Silicon Valley/San Jose Business Journal and PricewaterhouseCoopers for the 20012003 period.
In 2003 Rich received Frost & Sullivan's prestigious "Wireless LAN CEO of the Year" award. Prior to Atheros, Rich was vice president and general manager of 3Com's Wireless and Home Connectivity Division. He spent more than ten years at 3Com in various sales, marketing, and general management positions including vice president of Marketing and later acting general manager for the Mobile Communications Division. Prior to 3Com, Rich was chief operating officer of Polygon, a communications software start-up.
Ron Das, Ph.D. President & CEO
Ron has over 25 years of experience in the semiconductor industry in product development, silicon operations and fabless start-up business. Most recently, Ron was CEO of Siliconaire, a company serving some key fabless start-ups in the RF space. Previously, Ron was VP of Operations at Atheros Communications where he built the product technical capability, infrastructure and supplier relationships to take the worlds first CMOS 802.11a/g radio into high volume manufacturing leading to a successful IPO. Before Atheros, Ron was VP of Operations at NewPort Communications, where he helped building the company business towards a successful acquisition. Ron also held executive level positions at Cirrus Logic and AMD. Ron is a former board member of the Global Semiconductor Alliance (GSA).
Denis Masliah CTO & Founder
Denis Masliah has a broad experience in semiconductor power amplifiers developments with knowledge in GaAs-based and Silicon-based devices. Possessing more than 25 years of experience in the development of technology-based businesses, Denis founded ACCO in 1994 as a design service company developing Analog, RF and Microwave circuits, growing the company from 1 to 40 people. Since 2005, he is serving as CTO of ACCO. Prior to the creation of ACCO, Denis worked successively for THOMSON CSF, M/A-COM, RAYTHEON and PHILIPS, holding positions in the development of power amplifiers and transceiver circuits. Denis holds a master degree from ISEP, France.