Board of Directors
David Aronoff
David is a General Partner at Flybridge Capital Partners whose investment interests and experience include the semiconductor, enterprise systems, and security sectors.
David currently represents the firm on the boards of
Blackwave,
CHil Semiconductor,
MOBIVOX, and
VidSys.
David's blog, the diary of a Geek VC, can be found at www.geekvc.com.
Prior to joining the firm in June 2005, David spent nearly a decade focusing on early-stage investing at Greylock Partners where he led several of the firm's successful investments in the communications and systems markets. During his time at Greylock, he built a strong investment track record including investments in Akara (acquired by CIENA), Cimaron (acquired by AMCC), e-Dial (acquired by Alcatel), Ikanos (IPO), Sandburst (acquired by Broadcom), SiTera (acquired by Vitesse), Xedia (acquired by Lucent) and Xros (acquired by Nortel).
Prior to Greylock, David held management roles at Chipcom, an enterprise network equipment vendor where he led development efforts in Ethernet bridges, switches and routers. While working full-time on his MBA, David co-founded the Attitude Network (acquired by TheGlobe.com), an Internet content startup with the top two game sites of the day, HappyPuppy.com and GamesDomain.com. Earlier in his career he held technical positions at Bell Labs where he developed secure network systems.
David holds a BS in Computer Science from the University of Vermont, cum laude and with college honors, an MS in Computer Engineering from the University of Southern California, and an MBA with Distinction from Harvard Business School.
Shankar Chandran
Mr. Chandran focuses on technology investments and joined Panorama Capital’s predecessor firm JPMorganPartners in 2002. He currently serves on the board of directors of Neoconix, LV Sensors, and CHiL Semiconductor and as a board observer at Tagsys RFID and Valere Power. From 1995 to 2000, Mr. Chandran held various engineering, business development, and management roles at Applied Materials, Inc., and has been granted six patents in semiconductor technology. Mr. Chandran holds a B.Tech in Metallurgical Engineering from the Institute of Technology, BHU (India), an M.S. in Materials Science from Arizona State University, and an M.B.A. from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.
Ronald Chwang
Ronald Chwang is the Chairman and President of
iD Ventures America (IVA), a Santa Clara, Calif.-based venture capital company. iD Ventures America is a business unit of iD SoftCapital Group, established by former Acer senior management to offer consulting services, and asset and venture fund management. Dr. Chwang initiated the Acer venture investment activities in North America with the launch of a $40 million "Acer Technology Venture Fund" in 1997. He currently serves actively on the board of a number of IVA's portfolio companies including CHiL Semiconductor, Reflectivity, iRobot and Centrality Communications. He also serves on the board of the following public companies: Silicon Storage Technology Inc. and ATI Technologies Inc (recently acquired by AMD).
From 1992 to 1997, Dr. Chwang was president and CEO of Acer America Corp. Under his leadership, Acer America's revenue grew from $200 million to $1.44 billion. Dr. Chwang has been with Acer since 1986, serving in various executive positions leading business units engaged in ASIC products, computer peripherals and Acer-Altos server system. Before joining Acer, Dr. Chwang worked for several years in development and management positions at Intel in Oregon and Bell Northern Research in Ottawa, Canada. Dr. Chwang received his B. Eng. Degree with Honors in Electrical Engineering from McGill University in Montreal, Canada and his PhD in EE from University of Southern California.
Sean Dalton
Sean Dalton is a Managing General Partner at
Highland Capital Partners, investing in communications infrastructure and semiconductors. He is a former director of AccessLan Communications (acquired by Advanced Fibre Communications), Altiga Networks (acquired by Cisco), Envoy Networks (acquired by Texas Instruments), Ocular Networks (acquired by Tellabs), Telcobuy.com (merged with World Wide Technology) and Telica (acquired by Lucent). He currently represents Highland on the boards of Casero, CHiL Semiconductor, Covergence, Innovative Silicon, moka5, P.A. Semi, picoChip, QD Vision, Radiospire Networks, Starent Networks (Nasdaq: STAR) and Virtual Iron Software and also actively works with ANDA Networks, Simpler Networks and Tatara Systems. Mr. Dalton has been recognized by the prestigious Forbes Midas List as one of the top venture capitalists in the industry.
Prior to joining Highland, Mr. Dalton was a Venture Associate at Fidelity Capital focusing on investments in communications and electronic commerce. Before Fidelity, Sean worked as a Product Manager - Internet Services for GTE where he developed remote access and other network services for ISPs and large business customers. While at GTE, Sean led the nation's first ADSL trial for Internet access. Mr. Dalton holds a BS in Electrical Engineering from the University of Delaware, an MS in EE from the University of Pennsylvania, and an MBA from Harvard Business School.
Praveen K. Jain
Dr. Praveen Jain is a founder of CHiL Semiconductor and an international authority in the field of power electronics. A holder of the prestigious Canada Research Chair in Power Electronics at the Queens University in Kingston, Canada, Dr. Jain is the author of over 250 technical papers and 25 patents in the field. He held key design and engineering positions in industry, including Nortel Networks, Canadian Astronautics and ABB. He also has considerable consulting experience with industry, including Intel, Nortel, Astec and General Electric.
He has been well recognized for his work toward the advancement of high frequency power conversion technology and its practical use in the space, computer, telecommunications and induction melting industries. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), a Fellow of the Engineering Institute of Canada (EIC), and a Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Engineering (CAE). Dr. Jain is a recipient of the prestigious Engineering Medal (R&D) from the Professional Engineers of Ontario.
Dr. Jain holds a BE with Honors in Electrical Engineering from the University of Allahabad in India and a MASc and PhD in Electrical Engineering from the University of Toronto, Canada.
Ram Sudireddy
Ram Sudireddy is an 18-year veteran of the semiconductor industry with a strong record of achievement in new product development, revenue generation and growth. He is a proven leader in both business and technical management positions and co-founded Cimaron Communications, a successful fabless Semiconductor company with a series of high-speed communications chips for the networking and communications industry. Backed by leading venture capital firms, Cimaron was acquired by Applied Micro Circuits Corporation (NASDAQ: AMCC).
Following the acquisition, Mr. Sudireddy continued in a number of senior business and technical positions, including Senior VP and GM of AMCC's Framer Products Division, which contributed over $100 million to the company's revenue. As Senior VP of Engineering responsible for worldwide engineering he led a team of over 500 engineers. He was instrumental in raising over $800 million in a secondary offering and orchestrated many acquisitions to reshape AMCC into a system level communications IC vendor. Prior to that, Mr. Sudireddy was chief architect and lead designer for a number of complex communications chips at AT&T Bell Laboratories.
Mr. Sudireddy sits on the Board of Sanovi Technologies, a leading provider of business continuity software products. He holds a BS in Electrical Engineering from Nagarjuna University in India and an MS in Computer Engineering from the University of Massachusetts.
