Investors

Andy Dale | Montlake Capital

Andy joined Montlake Capital as Managing General Partner in 2000, and shortly thereafter co-founded the firm’s fund management business.  For more than fifteen years, he has been involved with building and growing companies as an entrepreneur, venture capitalist and investment banker.  Andy currently serves as a board member for Montlake portfolio companies Door to Door Storage, ClearMedical, ReliOn, Intrepid, HaloSource, ClearAccess, Veriwave and i4cp.

He was formerly a board observer for Performant, Inc., successfully exited through sale to Mercury Interactive in 2003.  Andy was also a successful investor in Priority Call (Sold to LHS Group), Linktone (LTON) and Acme Packet (APKT).  He is former Vice Chair of the Board of Trustees for the Gates/NIH funded Seattle Biomedical Research Institute, and current President of the Evergreen Venture Capital Association.

Early in his career, Andy served in the Mergers & Acquisitions group of Smith Barney in New York, where he worked on reorganizations for Revco Drugstores, Sunbeam and Eastern Airlines. He also worked with Smith Barney’s venture capital group – First Century Partners.  As an executive manager he helped build Priority Call Management in Boston, prior to its acquisition for approximately $200 million through a sale to LHS Group in 1999.  At Priority Call, Andy assisted in raising $15 million of angel and venture capital and grew the company from $0 to $60 million in annualized revenues within six years.  Andy served as Vice President of Corporate Development at LHS Group, a telecommunications billing company, prior to its $4.7 billion merger with Sema Group.

Andy holds an A.B. from Harvard College, where he was a member of the 1987 Ivy League champion soccer team, and received his MBA from Harvard Business School.  He and his wife are Seattle natives, both graduates of Roosevelt High School in Seattle, and they have three young children. Montlake Capital (fka Buerk Dale Victor) is a leading growth equity firm partnering with rapidly growing private companies across the western U.S. Montlake invests across multiple sectors including business or consumer products and services, health and wellness, retail and growth technology. With over 200 combined years of operational expertise, the Montlake team is uniquely positioned to help build successful enduring enterprises.

Jim Schraith | DFJ Frontier

Jim Schraith is a Venture Partner of DFJ Frontier. He is an active angel investor in the Sacramento area and sits on the boards of several area early stage companies. Mr. Schraith's career in high technology spans 25 years and includes significant public and private company experience with operating roles of CEO, COO and EVP at Quantum, ShareWave, Compaq and AST Research.

As the leader of Compaq's North American operations, he was responsible for over $10 billion in annual revenues and a team of over 6,000 people. At AST, Mr. Schraith was President & COO and a member of the team that took AST to the Fortune 500 list in 1992. He sits on the boards of Achievo, Semtech, and VisualCalc. Mr. Schraith co-founded QTV Capital, a Bay area venture capital fund, in early 2000. A cancer survivor, Mr. Schraith is an active fundraiser for the Lance Armstrong Foundation.

DFJ Frontier is a venture capital firm that makes seed and early-stage investments in a broad range of technology companies throughout the West Coast. DFJ Frontier backs passionate entrepreneurs and provides business assistance, not just capital. The firm typically leads the first round of investment, purchasing a significant stake in the company and participating actively on the board of directors. DFJ Frontier is a member of the DFJ Global Network of Funds, which has 16 member funds on four continents, 150 investment professionals, and over 600 cumulative portfolio investments. DFJ Frontier has offices in Portland, Oregon, as well as Los Angeles, Sacramento, and Santa Barbara, California.

Craig Gunther | Blade Ventures

Craig Gunther, the Managing Director of Blade Ventures, has more than 20 years of investing, operating, and engineering experience working with technology companies. Prior to founding the firm Mr. Gunther served as President of Blade Capital Management, where he established and managed an alternative asset focused investment platform with more than $2B in total assets.

He previously served for six years as Chief Operating Officer of Nicholas Enterprises, held various management and senior engineering positions at TRW while designing and developing integrated circuits for computing and digital signal processing applications, and he has also worked with numerous public and private technology companies as an advisor.

Besides ClearAccess, Mr. Gunther currently serves on the boards of 5iScience, Lasercure and Vigilistics. He holds a BS in Engineering from the University of California at Los Angeles, an MS in Electrical Engineering from the University of Southern California, and a JD from Loyola Law School.

Blade Ventures' focus is on companies that drive the adoption of leading edge information, media, sensor and related systems technologies. Through select partners we will also invest in life science opportunities such as medical devices, diagnostics, and operations-enhancing information technology. Our portfolio companies are capable of playing a disruptive role in emerging, high growth markets, and they are led by talented management teams that have a long term commitment to the success of their company.

Eric Rosenfeld | Oregon Angel Fund

Eric co-founded the Oregon Angel Fund as well as Capybara Ventures. The two venture funds have helped launch and grow over 20 local growth companies in the past 5 years and have attracted over $100M in co-investment and follow-on investment. Eric and his partners review over 200 business plans annually and are dedicated to identifying and cultivating the next generation of growth companies in Oregon.

Eric was a research analyst at SRI International, a member of the executive team at Mentor Graphics, a principal owner of Second Story Interactive Studios, and a research fellow at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. He serves on the boards of the Oregon Entrepreneurs Network (chair), Catlin Gabel School, Oregon Symphony, Oregon Jewish Community Foundation, Umpqua Bank Regional Board, and several portfolio companies. Eric received his MBA from IMD in Lausanne, Switzerland, and degrees in Industrial Engineering and American Studies from Stanford University.