Venture Advisors

Guy Kawasaki
Garage Technology Ventures
Managing Director

Guy Kawasaki is a founder and Managing Director of Garage Technology Ventures. Prior to this position, he was an Apple Fellow at Apple Computer, Inc. A noted speaker and the founder of various personal computer companies, Guy was one of the individuals responsible for the success of the Macintosh computer. He is also the author of eight books including The Art of the Start, Rules for Revolutionaries, How to Drive Your Competition Crazy, Selling the Dream, and The Macintosh Way and a columnist for Forbes. He currently sits on the board of BitPass, FilmLoop, and SimplyHired

Guy holds a B.A. from Stanford University and an M.B.A. from UCLA, as well as an honorary doctorate from Babson College.

Bill Reichert
Garage Technology Ventures
Managing Director

Bill Reichert has over 20 years of experience as an entrepreneur and an operating executive. Since joining Garage in 1998, Bill has focused on early-stage information technology and materials science companies. He sits on the Boards of CaseStack, WhiteHat, ClearFuels, and cFares. Prior to Garage, Bill was a co-founder or senior executive in several venture-backed technology startups, including Trademark Software, The Learning Company and Academic Systems. Earlier in his career, he worked at McKinsey & Company, Brown Brothers Harriman & Co., and the World Bank.

Bill earned a B.A. at Harvard College and an M.B.A. from Stanford University.

Dr. Ian Sobieski, Ph.D.
Founder and Managing Director
Band of Angels Fund, L.P.

Ian Sobieski is a founder and managing director of the Band of Angels Fund, L.P., and a $50 M venture fund raised in 1999 exclusively from major institutions, and has helped lead the Band of Angels since 1997. Immediately prior to joining the Band, Ian served as an executive and director at internet start-up Evite.com and in engineering positions at medical device company Enact Health Management and Kaman Aerospace. Ian has managed more than 40 direct investments totaling $30M, has served on fourteen boards of directors, and currently serves on three. He has a Ph.D. and M.S. in Aeronautics from Stanford University, a B.A. degree in Philosophy and a B.S. in Aerospace Engineering from Virginia Tech. Ian is a founding board member of the Angel Capital Association and is a member of the Young Venture Capitalists Association, the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, and the National Ski Patrol. He is the author of a dozen technical publications and is an appointed Lecturer in the Center for Entrepreneurship and Technology at the University of California at Berkeley, where he teaches a course in Entrepreneurial Finance.

Mr. Jim Fletcher
Chrysalix Energy
Managing Director

Jim Fletcher has spent over 20 years in the venture capital industry, initially for nine years on the VC fund side as a founding partner with Chrysalix’ Executive Chairman Mike Brown of Ventures West Management Inc., one of Canada’s largest technology VC funds. Later he became an individual VC while also working on the operations side, playing a wide variety of interim CEO, CFO or other roles as required. He has been a Director of many companies, and President of several through their start-up and early development stages.

He specialized in actively founding, funding and assisting companies through various stages of growth - from financing, management team development and market positioning in early-stage companies to corporate finance and organizational issues at later stages of growth. Jim was a co-founder of Spectrum Signal Processing, CEO at Vector 12, and served as CFO of Angus Reid Group, Canada's largest market research firm, and managed the sale of that company to Ipsos S.A. of France. Before taking an interest in the VC industry, Jim started his professional career as an Investment Banker with Morgan Stanley & Co., from where he moved to become, Director, Corporate Finance and Treasurer with MacMillan Bloedel.

Jim has an honors degree in Engineering Physics from Queen's University and an MBA from Harvard Business School.