Management
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Victoria Grace
Founding Partner
Victoria Grace is a founding partner of Colle Capital Partners LP, an opportunistic, early stage technology venture fund. Previously she was a partner at Wall Street Technology Partners LP, a $125mm mid stage technology fund. Before that she was a Director of Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein Private Equity Group. Victoria has extensive experience in originating, structuring and monitoring venture capital transactions.
Victoria has worked with, and made investments in a broad range of companies, including enterprise software, wireless technologies, medical devices, health IT, FinTech, hardware, virtual reality and D2C retail companies. Victoria is especially passionate about companies that have a strong ESG focus. She has evaluated and invested in the companies worldwide. Notable investments that Victoria either led or worked closely with include Apriso (acquired by Dassault Systemes), bitpesa, Bread Finance (acquired by Alliance Data), CargoX, Concourse, Doctor.com (acquired by Press Ganey), EnsoData, Hyliion (NYSE: HYLN), Maven Clinic, MaxBone, MetaStorm (acquired by OpenText), Netki, Numan, Parkside, QMerit, Radar, Sensydia, SkopeNow, Swiftmile, Syft (acquired by Indeed and Vergent Bioscience).
In addition, Victoria co-founded Work It, Mom! LLC, a network site for professional moms with an advertising revenue model. She co-managed the company for five years, until it was merged into another content company in NYC.
Prior to joining Dresdner Kleinwort Capital, Victoria was with a Los Angeles-based venture capital/incubator firm focused in the emerging technology, Internet, and biotech fields. Earlier, she worked in the investment banking division of Salomon Brothers in New York, where she participated in M&A advisory assignments and capital raising for commercial banks and finance companies.
Earlier in her career, Victoria did cancer related research at the National Institutes of Health. Her research was published in well-respected science magazines. Victoria was also a research assistant at the Washington University School of Medicine, Cardiothoracic Surgery Department. There she analyzed statistics and data recorded from activation of the sinus node of the heart.
Victoria received a B.A. in economics and biochemistry, Summa Cum Laude, from Washington University in St. Louis, winning both a Florence Moog Academic Science Scholarship and a Mabel Blake Academic Science Scholarship.
Victoria has been serving on the board of Vostok New Ventures, an investment company with presence in Sweden since 2015. Vostok New Ventures focuses on European and emerging markets companies with strong network effects.
Victoria is an avid supporter of education and involved in the Go Project. She also supports other education-focused organizations. Victoria is also actively involved in Washington University, her alma mater.
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Doug Benowitz
Associate
Douglas Benowitz is an associate of Colle Capital Partners LP, an opportunistic, early stage technology venture fund. He focuses on sourcing and conducting diligence on seed and early stage investment opportunities.
Doug joined Colle from BlackRock where he served as an Investment Strategist. He was recognized with the BlackRock Principles Award for Innovation for his work in developing new predictive portfolio performance modeling and allocation optimization techniques as well as for making significant strides in process automation.
Doug received a B.S.B.A in Finance with a second major in Classical History from Washington University in St. Louis in 2014.
Doug holds a black belt in Tae Kwon Do and taught martial arts in both high school and college. He is also an avid golfer.
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Brad Jones
Venture Partner
Brad Jones is a Founding Partner of Redpoint Ventures. Prior to founding Redpoint, Brad was a general partner with Brentwood Venture Capital, a firm he joined in 1981.
Brad currently focuses on technology opportunities located in Southern California. Brad has managed successful investments in biotechnology, communications, Internet commerce, internet infrastructure, medical devices, semiconductors, software, and wireless. He has served on the board of ten public companies funded by Brentwood and Redpoint, and currently is a board member of Stamps.com and a number of private companies.
Brad received the Los Angeles Venture Association’s first Lifetime Achievement Award, and he was honored with the Supporter of Entrepreneurship Award by the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year program.
Brad received an A.B. in Chemistry, summa cum laude, and an A.M. in Physics from Harvard University. Brad also holds an M.B.A. from the Stanford Graduate School of Business where he was an Arjay Miller scholar, and a J.D. from the Stanford Law School, where he was elected to the Order of the Coif.
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William Kaiser
Venture Partner
Professor William J. Kaiser is founder and Co-Director of the UCLA Wireless Health Institute (WHI). His background includes sensor development for vehicles at Ford Motor Company and for spacecraft including the the Mars Rover at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Professor Kaiser is a faculty member in and has served as Chair of the UCLA Electrical Engineering Department. He led some of the first wireless sensor network system development for defense, environmental, and other applications. His work in Wireless Health is directed to end-to-end product development from fundamental methods, though design, development, clinical trial validation, and regulatory approval processing. Product development is dedicated to advancing care delivery and patient outcomes. Products include wearable diagnostic devices with proven capability and international award recognition in applications from human motion sensing to organ function monitoring. Professor Kaiser is also a co-founder of Sensydia Corporation, a Colle Capital portfolio company.
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Dr. Aman Mahajan
Venture partner
Dr. Mahajan (MD PhD MBA) serves as department Chair and Director of Perioperative Services, University of Pittsburgh Physicians/UPMC. Dr. Mahajan also holds the endowed Peter and Eva Safar Professorship at UPMC.
Prior to UPMC appointment, Dr. Mahajan served as the Executive Chair of the Department of Anesthesiology & Perioperative Medicine at the UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine, and as the Ronald L. Katz Professor of Anesthesiology and Bioengineering. He was also the Executive Director of the UCLA Operative Services and a Co-Director of the UCLA Cardiac Arrhythmia Program.
Joining UCLA in 1994, Dr. Mahajan received his medical specialty training in anesthesiology and cardiac anesthesiology, as well as a PhD in Physiology with a focus in the field of cardiac electrophysiology. Dr. Mahajan’s main areas of research include understanding mechanisms of sudden cardiac death, determining cardiac structure and function in heart disease, and design of cardiac biosensors. He has published more than 150 peer-reviewed papers in his career. As an editorial board member and reviewer of several leading scientific journals he actively contributes towards the research and innovation in the field.
Dr. Mahajan has an avid interest in development of innovative medical technology and is the founder of start-ups in medtech that seek to improve healthcare. He also holds a master’s degree in business administration and teaches “Business of Healthcare” to the MBA students at UCLA Anderson School of Management.
Dr. Mahajan is recognized internationally for his contributions in anesthesiology and cardiovascular medicine. He serves on the council/board, and executive committees of several national scientific societies. Dr. Mahajan is also a co-founder of Sensydia Corporation, a Colle Capital portfolio company.
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Kevin Lynch
Chief Financial Officer, Chief Compliance Officer & Fund Administrator
Kevin has been with the fund since inception and is responsible for financial reporting and assisting with investor communications. Kevin has 13 years of private equity experience as CFO and over 25 years of financial reporting experience in the financial services industry. His prior CFO engagements, either on a full time or outsourced basis, include Intermediate Capital Group, AlpInvest Partners, Cava Capital, Freedom 3 Capital, Anagenesis Capital, Wall Street Technology Partners, Annex Capital, Equinox Capital, and PJSC-JOSS Real Estate Partners. In addition, Kevin was Controller of Kleinwort Benson Holdings, Inc., Vice President of financial reporting for Credit Suisse First Boston and an auditor for KPMG. Victoria has been working with Kevin for well over a decade while at Kleinwort Benson and Wall Street Technology Partners. Kevin is a graduate of Fordham University with BS in Accounting.
Our Advisors
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Josh Abramowitz
Advisor
Josh Abramowitz is the co-founder and CEO of the venture-backed consumer finance company Bread, which is backed by Colle, along with Bessemer, Menlo, RRE and others. He has been involved in the startup world in NY for many years, and has a particular interest in the impact of technology on the financial services industry. He was previously on the investment staff of two large hedge funds. Josh holds a B.A. from Colgate University and a J.D from Yale Law School.
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Wassim Arabi
Advisor
Wassim Arabi is a seasoned retail and hospitality executive who most recently served as CEO of Alshaya Group (2007-2019), one of the world’s leading international franchise operators. During his tenure at Alshaya, Mr. Arabi expanded the company’s reach to 19 new markets across the Middle East, North Africa, Russia and Europe and across multiple sectors including fashion and footwear. In addition, he played a key role in developing , growing and diversifying their business portfolio to more than 90 of the worlds most recognized brands, many of which had never entertained the idea of franchising their business. Notable examples include H&M, Victoria’s Secret, Boots and Starbucks among many others.
Wassim has served on the boards of Mabani Real Estate Co. in Kuwait and Shumool Real Estate Co. in Saudi Arabia. Mr. Arabi holds a Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration from the University of Arkansas.
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Amos Barreto
Advisor
Amos is a technology executive with diverse startup experience across engineering, product, investing, and advising. Amos was one of the first engineering hires at Uber, where he built the Marketplace team from the ground up. As the Director of Marketplace, Amos was responsible for Uber’s realtime systems, including the trip experience, the dispatching algorithms, the dynamic pricing engine, and the core logistics of supply management. In addition to his work with Marketplace, Amos developed solutions for scaling distributed systems, data center disaster recovery, payment fraud prevention, promotional rider engagement, and global analytics.
Amos is committed to identifying the next wave of high-caliber companies and helping them achieve rocket ship growth. Amos invests in early-stage startups that have a clear value proposition, a viable scaling strategy, and visionary founders. Amos has backed over a dozen companies alongside notable angels & VCs including Marc Benioff, Jason Calacanis, Eric Ries, Jack Selby, Initialized Capital, Village Global, Social Capital, Google Ventures, and Maveron.
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Karson Humiston
Advisor
Karson Humiston is the Founder & CEO of Vangst, the cannabis industry’s leading recruiting platform, which is backed by Colle, along with Lerer Hippeau and others. Karson was featured on the 2018 Forbes 30 under 30 list. Prior to founding Vangst, Karson founded On Track Adventures, a student travel organization based out of St. Lawrence University, her alma mater. Outside of work, Karson enjoys skiing, hiking, tennis, kitesurfing, triathlons, and recently ran the NYC marathon.
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Misha Lyalin
Advisor
Misha is CEO of ZeptoLab, one of top mobile game developers in the world, best known for Cut the Rope series and its star Om Nom. Before ZeptoLab he built a number of businesses in Russia and abroad: a biggest coalition loyalty & payment program in Russia; Zagruzka.com – leading content and b2b telecommunication services provider and others. In early 2000’s Misha founded and lead Reaxion – mobile game developer and publisher for feature phones. He also invests in start ups and is active member of entrepreneurial community.
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Justin Newton
Advisor
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Bob Stearns
Advisor
Bob is currently the co-founder and managing director of Sternhill Associates, a venture capital and consulting firm located in the Greater Boston area. His background is in technology, marketing, planning, and venture capital, with deep experience in computing, communications, medical and scientific devices, the Internet, and enterprise software, and has been involved in over seventy start-up companies, as either an employee, investor, and/or board member.
He is currently a member of the MIT Venture Mentoring Service, a mentor at Greentown Labs, an “expert” member of MassChallenge, an advisor to the Harvard Medical/BIDMC Health Technology Exploration Center, and serves on the Advisory Boards at SparkCognition and Statum Systems..
Bob joined Compaq Computer Corporation in 1993 as Senior Vice President, Chief Technology and Strategy Officer, responsible for directing all of the Company’s strategic planning and business development activities, including a $400M venture portfolio. Stearns joined Compaq from McKinsey & Company, where he served as a consultant to domestic and international high technology clients. Prior to joining McKinsey, he held senior management positions at a number of technology companies, including Codex, Motorola, and with Management Technologies Inc., which he co-founded. After Compaq, Bob co-founded Sternhill Partners, a Houston-based high tech venture capital firm that he helped manage with two other partners for almost 15 years. While a Managing Partner at Sternhill, Bob served on the boards of pcOrder.com, Boingo Wireless, PentaSafe, RLX Technologies, Surgient Networks, Detto Inc., Kurion, iVita; TimesN Systems, IMSafer, and, Clearcube Technologies.
Bob holds a Bachelor of Science degree in chemistry from Brown University, and a Master of Science degree in physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
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Sophie Stenbeck
Advisor
Sophie is the founding partner of The SEA Fund, LLC (“SEA Fund”) with a focus on early stage deals in health, environment and education sectors.
Sophie also co-founded Imperative, a company focused on bringing purpose to work environment for millennial generation. Earlier in her career, she worked in media sector at Bloomberg and Metro International.
Sophie received a B.A. in English and American Literature from New York University. She studied entrepreneurial finance at UCLA Andersson’s School.
In addition to her professional carrier, Sophie is a significant philanthropist through the Sophie Stenbeck Family Foundation, focusing on child rights, education, and fighting trafficking. She also serves on several foundation boards. She is a co-founding board member of Queen Silvia’s World Childhood Foundation and the Chairman of the Stenbeck Stiftelse. Sophie is a co-founder of WISE, women in social and enterprise and she is a true believer in social entrepreneurship.
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Hope S. Taitz
Advisor
Hope S. Taitz is currently the Managing Partner of ELY Capital. Graduating from the University of Pennsylvania, Ms. Taitz began her investment banking career first as a M&A analyst and then as an associate at Drexel Burnham Lambert. Ms. Taitz continued as a Vice President at The Argosy Group (now part of CIBC) and a Managing Director at Crystal Asset Management before founding her own money management firm, Catalyst Partners.
Now acting as an advisor focused on analyzing and investing in the consumer and technology in both early and late stage (including Flatiron School, ATTN: and LiquidTalent), Ms. Taitz bridges innovative enterprises with established corporations.
Ms. Taitz is also an advocate of women in the boardroom and understands the need for cyber security sitting on the boards of Apollo Residential Mortgage, Inc., Athene Holding Ltd. and its subsidiaries, Diamond International Resorts, Inc., Lumenis Ltd., as well as MidCap Finco Holdings Limited.
On the not for profit side, Ms. Taitz focuses on education and the importance of technology and is a founding executive member of Youth Renewal Fund, a current executive board member of Pencils of Promise, and a board of the Future Project. Emphasizing the importance of STEM, Ms. Taitz was a board member of Girls Who Code for 3 years and is now as a board member of Fred Wilson’s The New York City Foundation for Computer Science.
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Christopher Wright
Advisor
Christopher Wright is Chairman and a co-founder of EMAlternatives LLC in Washington DC and of its former affiliate in China, Yimei Capital Ltd, and is also a director of Merifin Capital Group, a private European investment firm. Until mid-2003 he served as Head of Global Private Equity for Dresdner Kleinwort Capital and was a Group Board Member of Dresdner Kleinwort. He has acted as Chairman of various investment funds prior to and following the latter’s integration with Allianz Private Equity. He joined Kleinwort Benson Limited in London in 1978 and in 1981 co-founded Kleinwort’s first office in California. In 1986 he relocated to New York to manage the Kleinwort Benson Limited portfolio of North American private equity, high-yield and mezzanine investments. He is a co-founding director of ROPER Technologies Inc. (NYSE); and was a director of IDOX PLC (AIM) until 2013 and non-executive Chairman of Maxcess International Corporation until 2014. He has chaired the investment committees of and/or serves on several advisory boards of third party managed LBO and venture capital funds in North America and Europe and has advised several other financial institutions, including Hansa Capital, CdB Webtech, Standard Bank, Artio Global Investors, Surya Capital, GP Investimentos, ILFS India and De Agostini Alternative Investments on their investments in private equity and other alternative assets around the world, including real assets.
Mr. Wright was educated at Oxford University (M.A.) and holds a Certified Diploma in Accounting and Finance (from ACCA). He is Foundation Fellow, Corpus Christi College, Oxford.
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Andrei Zimiles
Advisor
Andrei currently leads Doctor.com, the first marketing automation platform purpose-built for healthcare. Doctor.com counts more than 200 of the country’s leading hospitals and health systems as our clients as well as thousands of private and group practices. The company prides itself on killing the multi-vendor status quo that’s had healthcare organizations ineffectively daisy-chaining point solutions together for years. For the first time, one platform can deliver intelligent solutions for Provider Directories, Listings Management, Reputation Management, Transparency, and Online Scheduling, all connected to Doctor.com’s partner network which includes Google, Yelp, Bing, Healthgrades, Vitals, and 20+ other leading consumer health destinations. Doctor.com is backed by fantastic investors like Spring Mountain Capital, Colle Capital, and StartUp Health and powered by an amazing team that spans NYC, Silicon Valley, Atlanta, and Argentina.
Prior to Doctor.com, Andrei was a founding team member of KN Dimestore, an advertising research platform acquired by Knowledge Networks (now part of GfK [FWB: GFK]) in 2009, and an early employee of Game Trust, which was acquired by Real Networks (NASDAQ: RNWK) in 2007.
Andrei begin his career focusing on design and product development, creating web-based user experiences for organizations like Accenture, Cisco, Microsoft, The National Education Association, and the US Government.
When he’s not working, he enjoys training in mixed martial arts, traveling, and relaxing with his wife and daughter.