High Peaks Venture Partners is an early stage venture capital fund based in New York City. We bring capital, active support, and access to a deep network that will accelerate your success.
What they've given to the NYC startup community – through thought leadership, programming for their companies and friends, and leadership of key NYC networking communities – has made a real impact and is a big part of their ascendant reputation.
~ Eddie Kim, SimpleReach
There’s a reason I wanted to work with High Peaks again on my second company. Unwavering support, valuable insights, meaningful help with recruiting, and – critically important – steady, focused & 100% available. I wouldn’t want to start a company without them on my side.
~ Steve Ellis, Pump Audio & WhoSay
They were totally unique in the thoroughness and, ultimately, helpfulness of their diligence process. They concluded their process by joining us at an industry conference where their diligence work turned into actually helping me sell, landing some terrific leads. Incredibly valuable!
~ Lily Liu, PublicStuff
One of the critical early bets that teams place is in choosing their investors. Having raised over $75 million, I can honestly say that there’s nobody I’d rather have on my side than High Peaks.
~ Anil Aggarwal, TxVia
These guys have a deep understanding of a broad new class of companies that will have a massive impact on the tech landscape. They understood immediately what we were trying to do and why it’s so important. That was unique amongst the dozens of potential investors we spoke to.
~ Doug Chambers, CEO FieldLens
We went to Y Combinator last summer and we had our pick of investors when we graduated from the program. Having High Peaks in the deal was a no brainer. We were oversubscribed by 4x but we told them we wanted them in and carved out a piece of the round just for them.
~ Seth Bannon, Amicus
The High Peaks network was enormously helpful as we built our organization – at Pump they directly sourced our lead outside board member, CTO, CFO, and other key players.
~ Steve Ellis, Pump Audio & WhoSay
About
High Peaks makes Seed and Series A investments in industry transforming information technology companies. We are active investors who work closely with our companies, so we limit our investing to companies based in the northeast.
B2B SaaS & Mobile:
Mobile + social + high power cloud computing radically change the ability to extend sophisticated applications within and beyond enterprises
The consumer web changed everything in UX and application design
Business users are now technology buyers, disrupting the way applications penetrate the enterprise
Hundreds of vertical industries and horizontal enterprise activities were minimally impacted by the last 10 years of the web, but are now ripe for massive mobile and social-driven disruption
Deep domain expertise and exceptional user experience will be the critical determinants of success given an increasingly commoditized tech stack
Ecommerce:
Still in "Day One" of ecommerce, as Jeff Bezos says, at just 6.5% of global retail
Emergence of mobile commerce creating omnipresent engagement and purchase opportunities for consumers
Increasing pace of innovation in ecomm business models (witness flash sales, subscription commerce, etc.) continues to create opportunity for new entrants offering non-commodity products
As global E-commerce surpasses $1 trillion by 2016, the opportunities for enabling technologies and infrastructure is rapidly expanding
Ever-expanding importance of mobile, social, and other changing dynamics create opportunities for new tools and platforms to help manage a complex landscape
High Peaks took a chance on us in the depths of the recession, understanding our vision from the first meeting and encouraging us to set our sights on a big outcome.
~ Andrew Dreskin, Ticketfly
The entrepreneurs with whom we partner are our greatest resource. Every element of our approach is oriented toward their success.
Pre-Deal:
Not a high velocity shop - we are selective in our investing and take time to build relationships
Rigorous diligence: We will deeply understand your business, and work to bring opportunities to the table through our process
We’ll fund the very first $100K against a dream, or lead a larger, multi-party Series A
Flexible on deal sizes and structure – we let company needs dictate, not our fund dynamics
Post-Deal:
Your partner, not your boss - we have no more critical job each day than working for our portfolio
Aggressive reserves – capital to support you down the road
Deep networks to support follow-on financing
Structured operational support assets
Reliable? Absolutely. Drama? Definitely not. Steady, honest, predictable & available are the mantra
We walk this talk. We invite you to ask the CEOs we've backed to share their experiences
These guys pushed us harder, and delivered more on our behalf, than I imagined any investor might do. For an early stage NYC company that fits their thesis, I don’t think there could be a better partner.
~ Ben McKean, Savored (Sold to Groupon)
We coordinate an array of assets that contribute to our companies and the broader community.
High Peaks University
Training sessions from industry leaders
Practical topics that drive operational change
Past sessions included media training, M&A, etc
Social
Frequent, casual social events bring community together
Curated groups of community leaders in a variety of low-stress settings
Focus on fostering community connectedness
Summits & Peer Networking
Peer learning through regular peer summits for CEOs, CTOs, etc.
Partnered with Venwise for facilitated peer learning
Peak Pitch
Annual mashup of ski day and elevator pitch
Dozens of seed stage founders compete to be the best pitch on skis
Meet dozens of investors from across the country in a captive & mellow environment
Allworx develops and distributes IP-based voice and data networking equipment and software for small businesses. The company's simple, integrated solutions significantly reduce the complexity and cost of a customer's technology infrastructure while providing advanced features previously available only in enterprise class PBX systems. Allworx is based in East Rochester, NY and was purchased by PAETEC (NASDAQ: PAET) in 2007.
Amicus
Amicus empowers cause-driven organizations to leverage the social networks of their supporters, raise more money, attract more members, and win more votes.
Apprenda
Apprenda is the pioneering developer of a general purpose platform for SaaS applications that focuses making SaaS accessible as a distribution model to software vendors across the globe. The SaaSGrid platform gives independent software vendors the ability to deploy and deliver scalable, multi-tenant, enterprise applications via SaaS quickly and cost effectively without deviating from their core business and development competencies.
Auterra
Auterra, formerly known as Applied NanoWorks (ANW), is an advanced inorganic materials manufacturing company located in the Albany, NY area. ANW has developed the Molecular Control Platform (MCP), an advanced materials manufacturing platform which is the first major advancement in inorganic material science in 30 years. This process is patent-pending, cost-effective, and scalable and has already delivered two new patent-pending molecules with another 4-6 more and countless derivatives anticipated. The MCP process meets a pent-up demand in the materials manufacturing industry for flexible inorganic chemicals that deliver the functionality of inorganic materials (electrical, optical, chemical and physical properties) with the flexibility and control typical in organic chemistry.
Clothes Horse
ClothesHorse has built a platform that solves the problem of clothing fit for online shoppers and apparel retailers. Online apparel retailers license the company’s data-driven platform to increase conversion rates and decrease return rates. The platform, which is integrated directly onto e-commerce websites, tells shoppers what clothing size will fit them based on their own unique body type at the point of sale. Shoppers can also discover new brands that fit them based on their body type and current favorite brands, akin to Pandora for clothing, at the company’s own destination site.
Enterproid
Enterproid is a software startup focused on taking advantage of the transition of enterprise mobility away from locked-down BlackBerrys towards personally liable smartphones. Founded by the leads of the Morgan Stanley mobile development team, Enterproid's Android-based technology enables professionals to consolidate work and personal life onto a single enterprise-grade device without compromising security or functionality.
Fashion Project
Fashion Project is the exclusive service where you donate and shop for designer labels -- with a portion of every sale going to charity.
Field Lens
FieldLens is the construction industry’s mobile solution to managing the jobsite from anywhere, anytime. Developed by a team of tech and construction professionals who understand that every jobsite is its own social network, our web and mobile applications provide instant connection to the field using familiar social networking tools like newsfeeds, photos, video, and tagging for real time simple access to all project data.
Flatworld
Flat World Knowledge is a next generation educational content business that aims to disrupt the $8B annual college textbook market. The company's fundamentally disruptive model based on 4 key principles:
Provide first class content from top quality authors
Deliver content in an open format with flexibility for faculty members to customize and supplement the text
Make core content available online for free while printed copies and a la carte supplemental materials generate revenue
Enhance the student experience by facilitating a vibrant, collaborative social learning network around the core content.
Kohort
Kohort helps users connect with their community with best in class management tools for membership directories, communications, events, ticketing, dues, and the ability to manage any organizational structure through subgroups all with robust privacy settings.
PublicStuff
PublicStuff develops customer service solutions for governing agencies. The company's solution suite combines web 2.0 technologies with on-demand hosting, consulting , e-engagement and all of the support services necessary for a sustainable and successful deployment. Organizations use PublicStuff to improve employee productivity and to foster relationships with their constituents. PublicStuff's hosted application suite integrate powerful capabilities, including online communications, data standardization methods and workflow and reporting tools. The platform enables government agencies to break through the barriers of relying on paper records, outdated systems and content residing in multiple agency repositories. With PublicStuff, local governments can securely harness the collective intelligence and work of their peers in real time while continuing to communicate with the public.
Pump Audio
Pump Audio is a new kind of agent for independent musicians, digitally connecting them with buyers in the mainstream media. With Pump Audio, artists can license their music into productions without giving up any ownership with a no-fee, non-exclusive contract, while TV and advertising producers can discover new music ready for use. With a growing catalog of tens of thousands of songs, all by independent artists from around the world, customers access music through Pump's innovative search software and delivery device, the "PumpBox". The company is headquartered in Tivoli, NY.
Real Direct
RealDirect is an online real estate sales platform that provides home sellers with the tools, data and advice they need to put them in control of their own home's sale process and save thousands of dollars along the way. The company seeks to be the "TurboTax or eTrade for home sellers."
Reonomy
REonomy is a “big data” analytics platform that provides a best-in-class research solution to enable better investment decisions in the opaque Commercial Real Estate (CRE), CREdebt, and CRE-backed securities industries. The company is building a platform that aggregates 2,000+ granular, asset-level data points per property to give investors, analysts and brokers access to data that can help them better understand performance, risk and return. REonomy’s goal is to become the Bloomberg or Capital IQ equivalent for the commercial real estate industry where little transparency currently exists around data that is unreliable and highly fragmented.
ReQuest
ReQuest, Inc. is the marketplace leader in providing dynamic media storage and management solutions for the premium digital home market. ReQuest has won numerous best of show and product of the year awards from industry conferences and publications for its AudioReQuest and VideoReQuest product lines. ReQuest is located in Ballston Spa , NY.
Route Happy
Routehappy is a social review site for air travel, helping flyers differentiate and value their options and giving the industry a new platform for differentiation. It is disrupting the online flight search market by enabling consumers to choose flights based on the full array of variables that are important to them - not just price and number of stops, which are the standard data points offered by online travel sites today. Routehappy was started by a long-time Travelocity veteran and launched into public beta in early 2012.
Savored
Savored (formerly VillageVines) provides restaurants with a yield management tool to discount reservations on specific nights to monetize their empty tables. With Savored, members (who sign up for free) access a curated selection of restaurants, book their reservations online and score exclusive discounts that are applied to their bills without needing to show a coupon (discounts are generally 30% off the entire bill, including alcohol).
Simple Reach
SimpleReach has created a platform that analyzes how content is being shared across various social media channels on the web. The company's platform uses complex algorithms to create a trusted metric (in the form of a score) that publishers can use to evaluate and optimize content in order to maximize reach, drive additional traffic to sites, and increase overall user engagement.
Synaptic Digital
Synaptic Digital helps brands tell their story with video across on-air, online, social media, and syndication networks. The counter above measures the number of Geneva Motor Show downloads on thenewsmarket.com, the world's leading content portal for journalists and influencers. The All Media Panel (AMP) below features a sampling of available content from the 22 exhibiting auto brands that rely on our expert video services, interactive news releases, and digital media centers to spread their messages. Discover the content journalists utilize most.
Thread Smith
Soft Sight is the leading apparel industry automation software company and operator of the Threadsmith.com online custom embroidery business. Threadsmith's patented technology enables enables rapid, real-time custom embroidery design and fulfillment. Threadsmith is revolutionizing the custom apparel business with this technology, enabling logowear to be designed and customized in real time and orders to be placed in minutes, not days, and with no costly setup charges.Soft Sight is the leading apparel industry automation software company and operator of the Threadsmith.com online custom embroidery business. Threadsmith's patented technology enables enables rapid, real-time custom embroidery design and fulfillment. Threadsmith is revolutionizing the custom apparel business with this technology, enabling logowear to be designed and customized in real time and orders to be placed in minutes, not days, and with no costly setup charges.Soft Sight is the leading apparel industry automation software company and operator of the Threadsmith.com online custom embroidery business. Threadsmith's patented technology enables enables rapid, real-time custom embroidery design and fulfillment. Threadsmith is revolutionizing the custom apparel business with this technology, enabling logowear to be designed and customized in real time and orders to be placed in minutes, not days, and with no costly setup charges.
Ticketfly
Ticketfly is the leading next generation ticketing and social marketing platform for performance venues. The Ticketfly team, who in the 1990s founded and built TicketWeb before selling it to Ticketmaster in 2001, have gotten back together to build a ticketing and marketing platform for the 21st century. Ticketfly's social marketing tools make it easier for venues to drive sales while providing a more exciting and dynamic experience for consumers. Launched in late 2009, Ticketfly has already signed many of the most successful and influential music venues across the United States.
Tripl
Tripl is a web-based social travel platform that utilizes social graphs to connect users with locals and travelers in various destinations.
TxVia
TxVia (formerly TxCore) provides market-leading technology tools and services to enable improved product offerings in the rapidly growing prepaid debit card industry. TxVia allows prepaid card issuers and program managers to deploy their own scalable processing systems, providing full control over functionality and release timing as well as infrastructure and service levels.
WhoSay
WhoSay offers a platform that enables celebrities and other high profile entities, to control, manage, and monetize their participation in social media.
WideTronix
Widetronix designs and builds low power, long-life batteries for microelectronics. With grant funding from the United States Navy, Widetronix has created a patent pending, semiconductor materials solution for betavoltaic batteries. These self-charging batteries provide limitless lifetime, greater than 25 years, enabling solutions for medical implants, security and logistics. Based in Ithaca, New York, Widetronix started in Cornell University's Wide Bandgap Laboratory.
WorkTopia
Worktopia is the first and only on-line global distribution system for meeting space in hotels, conference centers, airport lounges and other venues. Worktopia is serving the $24B demand for small and medium meetings - the last important unautomated space in the travel industry - by connecting buyers with thousands of meeting facilities across the United States and abroad. With Worktopia, meeting planners can search based on their specific meeting facility requirements, compare live pricing proposals, and book the meeting space, A/V and catering from a live database ...24/7, eliminating the manual, costly and inefficient RFP process. Worktopia's search and instant booking capability is available to agents and corporate meeting planners as a feature on most major corporate travel procurement services such as Worldspan and Sabre, or as a free service on Worktopia.com.
VYou
VYou powers broadcast video structured as conversations, offering the most personal form of social interaction on the web. The platform allows users to get advice from experts, interact with their favorite celebrity or organization, or communicate with friends and family using a social presence that persists even when they are away. As a simple application it can be embedded and posted anywhere on the web giving users tremendous power and creative control.
Vnomics
Vnomics delivers an intelligent telematics solution for the commercial trucking industry. The company is dedicated to helping fleet owners, executives, and managers operate the safest, most reliable, environmentally conscious, and profitable fleets in their industry.
ZipMark
Zipmark has created a mobile payment solution that enables users to make instant, secure payments from an existing checking account directly through their mobile device. Unlike most of the other payment platforms available in the market today, Zipmark does not require users to set up a new and separate account. As a result, this platform reduces administrative burdens, eliminates an extra layer of fees, and protects users against additional security risks.
Brad Svrluga, Partner
Bio
Brad is co-founder and General Partner at High Peaks. He has been a venture investor since the bubble days of the late 1990s, starting his investing career with The Berkshires Capital Investors and Village Ventures. Prior to his VC career, he was a strategy consultant with Monitor Group, leading projects out of the firm's Cambridge, South Africa, and Brazil offices.
Brad focuses his investing activities on SaaS, mobile, and social-enabled b2b web services. At High Peaks, he has led the firm's successfully exited investments in TxVia (sold to Google), Savored (sold to Groupon), Pump Audio (sold to Getty Images), Threadsmith (sold to Vistaprint), and Allworx (sold to PAETEC). At BCI, amongst the investments he was responsible for were HealthShare (sold to WebMD) and Profile Systems (sold to AT&T).
Brad is an active participant in the NYC venture community. He also serves on the boards of Summer Search, a national youth development program for inner city high schoolers, and the Williamstown Theatre Festival.
He is a graduate of Williams College, where he captained the rugby team and majored in economics.
Brad's blog, Can I Buy a Vowel, is at bradsvrluga.com
The Rest of the Story
Beyond my life as a venture capitalist / internet investor / entrepreneur, I am a social liberal, fiscal moderate, sports fan, outdoors lover, food & wine enthusiast, proud father of two young boys, and happy husband. I live a logistically complicated but extremely satisfying life, splitting time between my weekend life in the Berkshires and my professional existence in New York City.
Stuff you wouldn't know
First job
I grew up in a fishing town on the coast of Massachusetts. My first job was working in a micro-factory that built and repaired wooden lobster traps for the local fleet. Lots of pounding nails and bruised thumbs. These guys weren't innovators, though, so the industry's switch to steel wire traps caught them flat-footed and they're long gone.
Greatest life experience
I took a three-month sabbatical after working for a year in South Africa and hitchhiked solo around southern and eastern Africa with a backpack and no particular agenda. It's a liberating feeling to wake up thousands of miles from home and realize that nobody knows where you are, you are accountable to no one, and responsible for nothing but getting yourself fed.
Most humbling life experience
Touring England with my college rugby team, a scheduling miscommunication had us misrepresented as the American Collegiate All Star team, and thus we had a game scheduled against a London Suburban All Star side. We lost 93-0, only because they were polite enough not to run it up past 100.
Random fact
My small immediate family is the only group of Svrlugas in the world - there are 7 of us who were born with the name. When my great-grandfather came to the US it was spelled Svrljuga (silent J, and not a terribly uncommon name in Croatia), but the folks at Ellis Island made him drop the J. Some have suggested they didn't go far enough in their efforts to make it easier.
Ben Sun, Venture Partner
Bio
Benjamin Sun is a Venture Partner at High Peaks and co-founder and partner of LaunchTime LLC, an incubator focused on digital media and e-commerce. Previously, Mr. Sun was at Community Connect Inc. where he served as President & CEO for 12 years. Mr. Sun co-founded Community Connect Inc. in 1996 and grew the company to be a leading online publisher targeting various niche markets. According to comScore, Community Connect’s sites – AsianAvenue.com, BlackPlanet.com, MiGente.com (pronounced mee-hen-tay), FaithBase.com and GLEE.com collectively generated over a billion page views each month. This made Community Connect not only the leader in reaching Asian Americans, African Americans, Latinos, Christians and the LGBT community but also positioned their network of sites as one of the Top 50 highest trafficked sites on the Internet based on page views. Mr. Sun started Community Connect in his Manhattan based apartment with a small team of friends and a business plan. He was responsible for growing the company by raising over $20 million from notable investors including Comcast and Sandler Capital and using those resources to build powerful new media brands. In April 2008, Community Connect Inc. was acquired by Radio One, Inc. the fifth largest radio company in the U.S.
Mr. Sun has been recognized as playing a major role in bringing social networking into its modern day popularity while paving the way for advertisers and marketers to reach and engage niche market consumers online. Additionally, he has been responsible for developing the largest online diversity recruiting service in partnership with Monster Worldwide Inc. to allow corporations to source a more diverse candidate pool. Mr. Sun has been profiled by Crain’s New York Business as one of the top under-40 executives to watch.
Prior to helping launch Community Connect, Mr. Sun worked in Merrill Lynch’s Technology Investment Banking Group where he was involved in numerous corporate finance and merger and acquisition transactions in the technology industry. He executed over $500 million in equity financing transactions for Internet, enterprise software, and wire and cable industry companies. Mr. Sun holds a BA degree in Economics from the University of Michigan.
The Rest of the Story
My parents were entrepreneurs having run dozens of different businesses from restaurants, produce stores to printing businesses. Even with that, when I told them I wanted to leave my investment banking job to start an Internet company back in 1996, they thought I was insane. Luckily, the one thing that they did understand was this incredible desire I had to control my own destiny. They completely related given the path they chose. So fortunately now, my days are spent with entrepreneurs who are taking this incredibly journey to control their own destiny and build great businesses. The opportunity to help them is incredibly rewarding.
Stuff you wouldn't know
First job
My parents were entrepreneurs having run dozens of different businesses from restaurants, produce stores to printing businesses. Even with that, when I told them I wanted to leave my investment banking job to start an Internet company back in 1996, they thought I was insane. Luckily, the one thing that they did understand was this incredible desire I had to control my own destiny. They completely related given the path they chose. So fortunately now, my days are spent with entrepreneurs who are taking this incredibly journey to control their own destiny and build great businesses. The opportunity to help them is incredibly rewarding.
Greatest life experience
The birth of my son is the first. The sale of my first start up, Community Connect Inc, is second.
Most humbling life experience
Helping with my friend's non-profit in Haiti post the earthquake.
Random fact
I am really good at 80s TV sitcom trivia. I watched a lot of tv when I was a kid when I wasn't working at my parents's restaurant.
Mark Peter Davis, Venture Partner
Bio
Mark is a serial entrepreneur and venture capitalist. In addition to being a Venture Partner at High Peaks, Mark is the co-founder of a handful of companies. Prior to joining High Peaks, he was a venture capitalist at DFJ Gotham Ventures. He also advised Fortune 1000 companies and private equity firms on the attractiveness of acquisition targets while at both KPMG and Bain & Company earlier in his career.
Mark focuses his investing activities on internet technologies. While at DFJ Gotham Ventures, he led or co-led investments in ADstruc, Medialets, Panvidea, SailThru, Seamless Receipts, STELLAService, Yipit, and was also actively involved with Altruik, Drop.io, SinglePlatform, Solvate, Totsy, Worktopia, and ViVOtech. He is also an angel investor in Warby Parker.
Mark is an active member of NYC’s venture community and was listed by BusinessInsider as one of the 100 Most Influential Digital NYers. He earned his BA at Duke and MBA at Columbia. While at Columbia, he was the President of the Private Equity & Venture Capital Club and an InSITE Fellow.
Mark actively blogs at mpd.me about fundraising, startup management and other topics relating to the startup ecosystem. Many of his posts have been syndicated or cited on The Wall Street Journal, Inc, Business Insider, PE Hub, AlwaysOn, AMEX OpenForum, Mashable and ReadWriteWeb.
The Rest of the Story
Entrepreneurship is in my DNA. I am addicted. Beyond starting companies, I am an active organizer of entrepreneurial communities in NYC and host the Tech Entrepreneurship Channel on Kohort where I am working to unify the global tech entrepreneurship ecosystem. I am also the founder of both the Columbia Venture Community and New York Venture Community, advisor to numerous other entrepreneurship communities and a mentor at TechStars and Entrepreneur's Roundtable.
Stuff you wouldn't know
First job
Selling baseball cards in elementary school.
Greatest life experience
Hands down, becoming a dad.
Most humbling life experience
Backpacking through Northern India.
Random fact
I'm injury prone. I'm 9 concussions and a half dozen broken bones in. I'm contemplating wearing body armor.
Rahul Gandhi, Principal
Bio
Rahul is a Principal at High Peaks based in the firm's New York City office. Prior to joining High Peaks, he was a Senior Manager on AOL's Corporate Development team where he helped evaluate, manage, and structure numerous high-profile acquisitions and investments for the company. Rahul's previous experience also spans across investment banking for Banc of America Securities and venture capital for both Genacast Ventures and Comcast Interactive Capital.
At High Peaks, Rahul is responsible for sourcing and evaluating investment opportunities across a wide range of sectors and supporting existing portfolio companies. He is a graduate from the George Washington University with high honors and holds both an MS in Accounting from the University of Virginia and an MBA from Columbia Business School. Rahul is an active participant in the Columbia Venture Community (CVC) and serves on the board of the New York Venture Community (NYVC).
The Rest of the Story
I currently reside in Brooklyn Heights with my wife and our Puggle (a mix between a Pug and Beagle) named Samosa. Outside of my life in venture capital, I am an avid traveler (having been to over 30 countries and every continent except for Antarctica), below average golfer, devout and mostly disappointed Philadelphia sports fan, and passionate foodie. I also enjoy reading a variety of books, but my all-time favorites are Life of Pi and A Confederacy of Dunces. Since my career as starting catcher for the Philadelphia Phillies never really panned out, I satisfy my sports fix by playing in numerous recreational leagues for softball, flag football, wiffle ball, and volleyball.
Stuff you wouldn't know
First job
I started a small sports trading card business with my best friends from grade school when I was 13. We bought and sold cards at trade shows and online using both AOL and Prodigy. Unfortunately, my prized Ken Griffey Jr. rookie card is only worth about $5 today. My first “real” job though was working as a sales associate at a clothing retail store called Structure while I was in high school.
Greatest life experience
In college, I studied abroad for a semester on a program called Semester at Sea. In those four months, I lived on a ship and traveled to some of the world’s most fascinating and culturally diverse places, including Cuba, Brazil, Vietnam, Kenya, India, and China.
Most humbling life experience
My wife manages an alternative livelihoods project in Afghanistan for an international development firm based in Washington D.C. The goal of her project is to reduce poppy production by providing farmers with alternative economic opportunities through other high value crops, private-sector development work, and cash-for-work labor. She spends around three months out of the year in Afghanistan in an extremely dangerous area and recently lost a close friend and colleague on her project. Watching her go through this experience was incredibly humbling for me — I was not only reminded that our lives are extremely fragile, but also inspired by people like her who selflessly commit to making the world a better place in the face of danger. This puts any complaints that I have in perspective.
Random fact
My parents named me after a famous Indian politician who may eventually become the Prime Minister of India. Needless to say, I face a major uphill battle for any relevancy on Google.
Bela Musits, Venture Partner
Bio
Bela is a Venture Partner at High Peaks and also currently serves as Dean of the School of Management at Union Graduate College. Prior to becoming Dean, Bela was a Founding Managing Director of High Peaks. He focuses his investing activities in the Education Technology sector. Prior to High Peaks, Bela was the Director of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute's Incubator Program, where he was responsible for guiding this internationally recognized incubator program focused on identifying, creating, and growing new technology ventures and commercialize university-developed technology. Bela also co-founded two venture back high-tech companies and also worked at the corporate research labs at GE and IBM. He is a graduate of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute with degrees in engineering.
The Rest of the Story
In addition to my life in academia and as a venture capitalist I have been a member of the National Ski Patrol since I was 16 years old (that’s over 40 years for those of you trying to do the math.) I am also currently on the Board of Directors of the National Ski Patrol and was the Chairman last year. I met my wife on ski patrol and our two sons are also patrollers. So, needless to say, I can be found on the slopes of Gore Mountain in North Creek, NY on winter weekends.
Stuff you wouldn't know
First job
I started mowing lawns in the neighborhood when I was 14. I was making about $4 per hour running my own business back when my friends were making $1.75 flipping burgers. During high school, I also spent summers as a mason’s helper for a builder. I spent my college summers working for a small commuter airline as a ramp and fuel guy.
Greatest life experience
Life itself is a great experience. Enjoy everyday.
Most humbling life experience
Realizing the world’s population is almost 7 billion and we are in a very small, fortunate, subset of about 300 million who do not have to worry about going hungry tonight or if someone will be shooting at us tomorrow. And we are part of this privileged group not because of anything we have done, but because of getting lucky in picking parents. It’s our responsibility as citizens of the world to “give back” in order to make the world a better place.
Random fact
Bela is a very common Hungarian name with 3 well know Belas in the world. Bela Bartok, Bela Lugosi, and Bela Fleck. They are all Hungarian and as different as three people can be (classical music composer, actor who played Dracula in the 1920s-1950s, and a banjo player).
Russ Howard, CFO
Bio
Russ is a co-founder and General Partner at High Peaks. He has been in the investment business for more than twenty years and a venture investor for the past fifteen years. Russ joined GE Equity (the venture capital arm of GE Capital) in 1994 as an early member of the group and had the thrill of participating first hand in the internet boom of the late 90's. Russ then joined The Berkshires Capital Investors, the original venture fund in the Village Ventures Network, as a General Partner in 2000. Earlier in his career, Russ worked in New York City for Equitable Capital Management and Alliance Capital Management and was a strategy consultant with The Futures Group.
The Rest of the Story
In addition to my life as a venture capitalist, I have a wide range of interests and am an avid youth sports coach—primarily girls basketball and soccer. I love exercising outdoors and my latest avocations are Nordic skiing, short (very short) triathlons, and chainsaw work in the woods around my house. I am an avid reader across a variety of genres, typically bouncing between non-fiction, historical fiction and business titles. My wife and three daughters (approaching the ‘tween years) are my joys and my ever- present distractions from the hectic venture and start-up world.
Stuff you wouldn't know
First job
Afternoon newspaper delivery route—getting on that bike every day rain or shine. I also ran a lawn maintenance business and my first summer learned the hard way to very carefully follow the instructions on the Scott’s fertilizer bag—too much of a good thing and one very fried, brown lawn later….
Greatest life experience
Currently raising three daughters to appreciate the outdoors, live an active life, and embrace math and science. Mixed results to date but we still have some time.
Most humbling life experience
Advanced Calculus II at Williams—realizing a Math major wasn’t in the cards. Trying to learn the guitar as an adult. Getting 3rd and 4th grade girls to execute a pick-and-roll…or defend one.
Random fact
I still have a collection of every Sports Illustrated from 1972 through 1980 (minus the swimsuit issues, which at some point either my Mom or brother confiscated). Favorite cover from that era is Larry Bird and two Indiana State cheerleaders on the 1978 college basketball preview issue—“College Basketball’s Secret Weapon”.
Tracy Baker, Office Manager
Bio
Tracy is the Executive Admin and Office Manager for High Peaks Venture Partners. Before joining High Peaks in 2011 she worked as a Treasury Analyst for Berkshire Bank and before that a Senior Market Analyst for Travelers Insurance. Tracy's previous experience also includes a few years at a small hedge fund in Boston, where she concentrated in specialty retail analysis, accounting, and bookkeeping.
Tracy's strong analytic and organizational skills help keep the business running smoothly. She is a graduate of Williams College, where she majored in mathematics and was a member of the Varsity ice hockey, JV cross-country, and JV lacrosse teams. When not working at High Peaks, Tracy enjoys a spending time with her husband and sons, walking her Rottweiler, running outdoors, and continuing her wine education.
The Rest of the Story
In addition, she co-owns and manages the marketing and bookkeeping for The Spirit Shop, a full service liquor store in Williamstown, MA, run by her husband, Jon.
Stuff you wouldn't know
First job
Ironically, one of my first jobs was working in a liquor store. I was the “gift wrap girl”, wrapping bottles of wine with bags and bows in the back of a family friend’s store during the holidays long before I was old enough to sell any of their products.
Greatest life experience
It may be the most typical, obvious answer, but marrying my husband and becoming a mother. I am grateful every day for my family.
Most humbling life experience
Selling the brand new home my husband and I had just finished building, quitting our jobs and moving to purchase and run our own business, with nothing to fall back on.
Random fact
Growing up I was extremely involved in ice hockey and I was lucky enough to be a part of teams that traveled to play in Canada, France, and Germany. Some of the girls on those teams that played with me went on to win Olympic medals; I was lucky to have been able to share the ice and learn from them.
AllWorx
Amicus
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Auterra
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Enterproid
Fashion Project
Field Lens
Flatworld
Kohort
PublicStuff
Pump Audio
Real Direct
Reonomy
ReQuest
Route Happy
Savored
Simple Reach
Synaptic Digital
Thread Smith
Ticketfly
Tripl
TxVia
WhoSay
WideTronix
WorkTopia
VYou
Vnomics
ZipMark
