Gal Smolar

Serial entrepreneur and CEO of early stage VC backed companies. Former CEO of Viigo (mobile software) acquired by RIM in 2010. Founder & CEO INEA (enterprise software) acquired by Cartesis in 2005 (which is now part of SAP).

Jim Scheinman has spent the last 20 years of his career as an Entrepreneur in one capacity or another. He’s been a founder, executive, angel investor, attorney, mentor capitalist and venture capitalist at many successful Silicon Valley consumer startups. In January 2013, Scheinman launched Maven Ventures Growth Labs in Palo Alto to tap into the massive trend of the groundswell of entrepreneurship and to scale his successful angel investing business, Maven Ventures, which he founded in late 2008. Four of his ten investments since 2008 have achieved successful exits and four others are doing extremely well, like Tango. Maven Ventures Growth Labs Fund is a venture fund from which Jim invests in the startups that are incubated in the Growth Labs. BACKGROUND Immediately prior to founding Maven Ventures, Scheinman was an entrepreneur in residence (“EIR”) at Charles River Ventures, a leading venture firm where he helped source, vet and advise their web 2.0 portfolio companies. Scheinman is one of the early pioneers of the social networking phenomenon as one of the first employees and the former head of business development and sales at the first social networking site, Friendster. There he created the concept of ‘engagement marketing,’ enabling consumers to become brand advocates and spreading brands’ messages amongst their network of friends. In 2005, Jim left Friendster to join co-founders Michael & Xochi Birch to launch Bebo as the first employee and Board member. At Bebo, he was integral in launching the site, raising the venture round, leading the strategy and its eventual sale to AOL for $850M in 2008.

Now: Co-founded Founders Circle Capital in 2012 Co-founded Panorama Capital in 2007 ($240M post product/market fit fund) Hanging with great entrepreneurs leading mobile and social startups helping them grow faster Board Member: Federated Media, Jiwire, Fixmo, Syncapse, and Vyatta Past: General Partner at JPMorgan Partners ($6.5B fund) leading tech practice Helped grow four startups most recently as Chief Strategy Officer for Digital Island, Inc. (NASDAQ:ISLD; acquired by Cable & Wireless) Started a $217 million corporate venture fund at Newbridge Networks (NYSE: NN) Invested in 37 companies, including Tynt (acquired by 33Across), Belair Networks (acquired by Ericsson NASDQ:ERIC), Juniper Networks (NASDAQ:JNPR), Cambrian Systems (acquired by Nortel), Abatis Systems (acquired by Redback), Fastlane (acquired by Quest Softwart), BNI (acquired by Nortel), PixStream(acquired by Cisco), Reflectivity(acquired by Texas Instruments), Valere Power (acquired by Eltek), and Greenfield Networks (acquired by Cisco). Passions: Entrepreneurial companies I am fortunate to work with including Federated Media, Jiwire, Belair Networks, Fixmo, Syncapse, and Vyatta. Enjoy doing the speaker, panelist, and judge thing at Web 2.0, Milken Global Conference, GROW, UC Berkley, Banff Venture Forum, Next Generation Networks, Red Herring Top 100, Canada's Top 10 Technology Start Ups, and the Gilder's Telecosm conference. My family, all things Canada, triathlons, Marin county aka paradise, and University of Michigan football Building community: Co-Founder of C100 for Canadian entrepreneurs, Marin Internet Entrepreneurs & Founding board member of the Lark Theater Most importantly board member of my kids school(-: Next adventure: Looking for suggestions!