Ira Ehrenpreis
General Partner, Technology Partners
Ravi Viswanathan, PhD
Partner, NEA
John J. Rockwell
Managing Director, Element Partners
Sujit Banerjee
Partner, BlueRun Ventures
Dr. Saroj Sahu
Founder & Chief Technology Officer, Deeya Energy
PM Pai
Venture Partner, NEA
Raj Atluru
Board Observer
Managing Director, Draper Fisher Jurvetson
Ira Ehrenpreis
General Partner, Technology Partners
Ira Ehrenpreis is a General Partner with Technology Partners. He has been with the firm since 1996. Ira leads Technology Partners' Cleantech investment practice, investing in Energy Technology, Water Technology, and Materials Science opportunities. Ira is a recognized leader in both the venture capital industry and the Cleantech sector, and in 2007, was named one of the "Top 50 Most Influential Men Under 45" by Details Magazine. In the venture community, Ira serves on the Board of the National Venture Capital Association (NVCA) and on the Board of the Western Association of Venture Capitalists (WAVC). He is also the Co-Chairman of both the VCNetwork and the YVCA, two non-profit organizations comprising more than 1,000 venture capitalists. In the Cleantech sector, Ira has served on several industry Boards, including the Clean-Tech Investor Summit (2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, and 2009 Conference Chairman), Cleantech Venture Network (Past Chairman of Advisory Board), ACORE (American Council on Renewable Energy), Energy Investors Forum (Past Conference Chairman), Energy Venture Fair, and California Climate Change Advisory Board. He has also served on the Advisory Boards of the Southern California Tech Coast Alliance, Forum for Women Entrepreneurs (FWE), and the Comerica Venture Capital Advisory Board. Ira is also an active leader at Stanford University, where his contributions have included teaching the course on Venture Capital and serving on the Board of Visitors of Stanford Law School. Ira is also a Contributor to Nimmer on Copyright, the leading copyright treatise. Ira received his JD/MBA from Stanford Graduate School of Business and Stanford Law School, where he was an Associate Editor of Stanford Law Review. He holds a B.A. from the University of California, Los Angeles, graduating Phi Beta Kappa and Summa Cum Laude.
Ravi Viswanathan, PhD
Partner, NEA
Ravi joined NEA in February 2004 as a Principal and became a Partner in December 2004. He focuses on information technology investments with special emphasis in energy, hardware, India-related and growth equity investments. Ravi is on the board of Availink, Deeya Energy, ISGN Technologies, Jentro Technologies, Liquidia, Solar Junction, Suniva and ViXS and works closely with GlobalLogic, OANDA, ProtoStar, and our energy portfolio companies.
Prior to joining NEA, Ravi worked at Goldman, Sachs & Co. where he was co-head of the technology practice in their private equity group and led direct, fund, and secondary investments in the areas of information technology and life sciences. Prior to Goldman Sachs, Ravi worked for McKinsey & Company and advised clients in the software, communications, and pharmaceutical sectors on strategy, acquisitions and new business building. Previously, Ravi worked for Raychem Corporation in the Corporate Technology Division where he focused on research and product development in semiconductors, liquid crystals, and other materials systems.
Ravi received a Master's in Business Administration from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and a PhD in Chemical Engineering from the University of California at Santa Barbara where he focused his research on materials science applications in molecular electronics, biomaterials, and nanotechnology. Prior to graduate school, Ravi received a BS in Bioengineering from the University of Pennsylvania.
John J. Rockwell
Managing Director, Element Partners
John has more than 18 years of experience investing in venture capital and developing companies commercializing applications of advanced materials and over 23 years of financial investment experience. Prior to Element, John was a Partner at Advent International Corporation and managed the firm's California office. John joined Advent in 1996 and participated in the direct investment activities of both Advent's EnviroTech and Advent Energy II funds. His primary areas of investment focus include advanced materials, energy storage, renewable energy, and supply chain management.
Before Advent, John spent 7 years at Materia Ventures Associates, investing in and managing early-stage companies that were commercializing advanced material technologies. While at Materia, John also served as CEO of Luxar Corporation, a manufacturer of CO2 lasers for the medical market and as President of SSC, Inc., a manufacturer of high-performance ceramic oxide materials used in superconductors, fuel cells, catalysts, and other applications. From 1984 to 1988, John held various positions at 3M Corporation in its Acquisitions and Business Development Department.
John serves on the boards of directors of Accelergy Corp., BioFuelBox, Inc., BMG Seltec, Inc., Deeya Energy, Inc., Miartech, Inc., PowerGenix Systems, Inc., and SyntheSys Research, Inc. Previous boards on which John has served include: Luxar Corp., OK International, Inc., RedPrairie Corp., SSC, Inc., and Superconductivity, Inc. He is past Chairman of the CleanTech Venture Network Advisory Board.
John received a BS in Business Administration from Michigan Technological University and a Masters degree in Business Administration from the University of Minnesota's Carlson School of Management.
Sujit Banerjee
Partner, BlueRun Ventures
Sujit Banerjee, Partner, joined BlueRun Ventures in February 2003 and is based in the Menlo Park office, where he focuses on semiconductor, material science and energy companies, and coordinates the firm's activities in India.
Sujit is on the Board of Directors of CyOptics, Deeya Energy, MagSil, NexPlanar, Petra Solar and SliceX.
Prior to joining BlueRun Ventures, Sujit was a Principal with TL Ventures and previous to that worked as an investment banker at Merrill Lynch in the Global Technology Group. Past experience includes positions as Manager in the PriceWaterhouse High Technology consulting practice and Engineer with Synoptics Communications.
Sujit received his M.B.A. from the Wharton Business School, where he was Chairman of the Wharton India Economic Forum, and holds a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute with Eta Kappa Nu academic honors.
Dr. Saroj Sahu
Founder & Chief Technology Officer, Deeya Energy
Prior to founding Deeya Energy, Dr. Sahu held technology leadership positions at Raychem/Tyco Electronics, Jasmine Networks, and Santec Corporation. In addition, his academic works include determination of structure of photon and particle detectors for b-quark physics. He has been a Visiting Scholar (Monbusho Fellow) at Japanese National Accelerator Physics Lab (KEK) invited by the Japanese Ministry of Education, a Researcher at University of Hawaii (Honolulu), and National Taiwan University (Taipei). Dr. Sahu has published technical articles in over 60 international journals, is a published book author and holds one US patent, with several pending. He holds a Ph.D. in Experimental Physics.
PM Pai
Venture Partner, NEA
PM joined NEA in 2009 as a Venture Partner. He is the former Chief Operating Officer (COO) of SunPower and has more than 30 years of manufacturing and mass production experience in a range of industries. PM is a director of two NEA portfolio companies, Suniva, Inc., a manufacturer of high value monocrystalline solar cells, and Deeya Energy, developer of an advanced energy storage platform. While at SunPower from April 2005 to July 2008, he was responsible for strategic planning, production expansion, and supply chain development on a worldwide basis. Prior to SunPower, he served for four years as president of Moser Baer India Ltd., the world's second largest manufacturer of optical storage media. PM graduated from Mysore University, India, in Mechanical Engineering. His graduate work also includes an M.Tech Industrial Engineering, with distinction, from ITT Madras and the Advanced Management Program (ISMP) at Harvard Business School.
Raj Atluru
Managing Director, Draper Fisher Jurvetson
Raj Atluru is a Managing Director at Draper Fisher Jurvetson where he serves on the boards of Great Point Energy, Konarka Technologies, mChek, Nanotune, SeventyMM, Ping Identity, Solicore, and Varolii. In addition, he led the firm's investments in EnerNOC (ENOC), Bright Source Energy, CoalTek, Deeya Energy, Live Media, Miartech, Reva Electric Vehicle, SOA Software, and Tioga Energy. Raj currently focuses on emerging clean technologies, business and consumer services, and wireless technologies. He has over 14 years of venture capital, private equity, and leveraged finance experience both domestically and in emerging markets with a specific focus on India.
As one of the leading venture capitalists focused on the CleanTech sector, Raj is frequently cited in leading industry and national publications, including The Wall Street Journal, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Sierra Club Monthly, SiliconIndia, Nanoinvestor News and the Venture Capital Journal. Raj also spent three years with TL Ventures where he focused on early stage software, wireless communications and energy technologies. In addition, Raj worked in the Leveraged Finance and Asian Corporate Finance groups at Credit Suisse First Boston in New York, Hong Kong, and Singapore.
Raj received B.S. and M.S. degrees in Civil/Environmental Engineering from Stanford University where he taught the solar and wind energy lab and was a full time research assistant on the Waste Isolation Pilot Project for Sandia National Labs (Department of Defense Nuclear Repository Study). In addition, he received an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.