ATLANTA--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Venture Atlanta, Georgia’s technology innovation event, today announced the appointment of four new members to its Board of Directors for 2016-2017.
Joining the Board of Directors are: Michael Cohn, Managing Director of Techstars Atlanta and Co-founder of Venture Atlanta Alumni company Cloud Sherpas; Andrew Dorman, Partner at Knoll Ventures; C. Alex Estevez, Venture Partner, Accel Partners; and Kyle Porter, CEO at SalesLoft, also a Venture Atlanta Alumni company.
“Each of our new board members’ deep industry expertise in venture, marketing and technology will help us with our goals of recruiting the highest quality presenting companies and an even broader investor base from the entire U.S.,” said Alan Taetle, Chairman of Venture Atlanta and General Partner, Noro-Moseley Partners. “We are grateful for their time and incredible talent, and look forward to enlarging our footprint as the premier innovation showcase event.”
Michael Cohn is the managing director of Techstars Atlanta and co-founded Venture Atlanta Alumni company Cloud Sherpas in 2008, and remained a member of the senior leadership team directing Global Marketing as the business scaled to nearly $200MM revenue and over 1,100 employees before exiting to Accenture in 2015. As SVP Marketing at Cloud Sherpas, Michael led a team of 60 marketing and business development professionals responsible for brand strategy, communications, demand creation and lead nurturing for the leading cloud advisory and technology services provider. Throughout his career, he has served both large enterprises and start-ups such as Optimus Solutions, Canvas Systems and IBM in a variety of executive leadership roles.
Andrew Dorman, Partner at Knoll Ventures
Andrew is a partner
at Knoll Ventures where he is responsible for sourcing, structuring, and
managing investments in early stage companies. Although based in
Atlanta, GA, Knoll Ventures backs founders in markets across the country
including the bay area, Denver, Chicago, and, of course, the southeast
US. Andrew is a current, or former member, of the 36|86 screening
committee, Venture Atlanta selection committee, and Episcopal High
School Advisory Council. His work within the local community includes,
among other causes, serving as the Co-Chairman of the Admissions
Committee for the Tour Championship at East Lake.
C. Alex Estevez helps Silicon Valley-based Accel Partners with portfolio companies and investment opportunities based in the eastern United States. Accel is a global leader in venture capital, having invested in companies such as Atlassian, Dropbox, Dropcam, Etsy, Facebook, Lynda.com, Slack, Squarespace and Spotify. Alex is currently on the advisory boards of BetterCloud and Grovo, both New York-based Accel investments, and he is also a member of the board of directors for Atlanta-based FullStory. Previously, Alex served as CFO at Atlassian (Nasdaq: TEAM) and Silicon Valley-based BigFix (NYSE: IBM by acquisition). Previously, Alex served as President and CFO of Datastream (Nasdaq: DSTM). Estevez started his career in the investment banking group of Raymond James.
Kyle Porter co-founded Venture Atlanta Alumni company SalesLoft, alongside David Cummings. SalesLoft grew from 4 employees in 2014 to over 85 in 2015. Kyle has led SalesLoft to serve over 1,200 clients and 30,000 business professionals while boosting revenue over 2,000 percent in 2014. In 2012, the Technology Association of Georgia recognized the company as one of the Top 10 Most Innovative Companies. In 2015, SalesLoft was recognized for its organizational health receiving Atlanta’s No. 1 best place to work in a survey by Atlanta Business Chronicle.
To date, Venture Atlanta has helped entrepreneurs raise over $1.6 billion dollars, leading to over $13 billion in exits to date. Each year Venture Atlanta attracts more than 100 funds from every major geographic market in venture capital, private equity and angel investment.
Other Venture Atlanta 2016 Board of Director members are:
- Mike Becker, Managing Director, Vocap Investment Partners
- Linnea Geiss, Vice President of Corporate Development, NCR
- David Hartnett, Senior Vice President, Metro Atlanta Chamber
- Philip Lewis, Director, Fulcrum Equity Partners
- Tino Mantella, President, Technology Association of Georgia (TAG)
- Blake Patton, Managing Partner, Tech Square Ventures
- Alan Taetle, General Partner, Noro-Moseley Partners
About Venture Atlanta
Venture Atlanta, Georgia’s technology innovation event, is where the region’s most promising tech companies meet the country's top-tier investors. As the region’s largest investor showcase for the past nine years, Venture Atlanta connects local entrepreneurs with local and national venture capitalists, bankers, angel investors and others who can help them raise the capital they need to grow their businesses. The annual non-profit event is a collaboration of three leading Georgia business organizations: Atlanta CEO Council, Metro Atlanta Chamber and the Technology Association of Georgia (TAG). For more information, visit www.ventureatlanta.org. For updates, join us on LinkedIn and follow us on Twitter.
