Starting Up in Silicon Alley

Nate Westheimer is the Entrepreneur in Residence at Rose Tech Ventures – New York City’s leader in early stage investing. Formerly, Nate founded BricaBox.com (a next generation wiki platform) and served at the Technology Strategist for National Public Media. Nate blogs at innonate.com and guest writes for Silicon Alley Insider, among other outlets.

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Karin Klein currently serves as a Vice President at Softbank Capital where she puts over a decade of venture capital and operating experience to work by sourcing new investment opportunities for the fund and working closely with portfolio companies to help them build their businesses. Karin oversees the firm’s review of new investments and provides post-investment assistance to portfolio companies and their management teams, with a particular focus on business development.

Prior to Softbank, Karin worked with Michael Milken at two of his investment funds – MC Group and Knowledge Universe – where she conducted strategic reviews of new investments in the media, education and technology sectors and worked closely with management teams to develop and implement operating and growth plans.

Karin first developed her passion for start-up life when she co-founded an educational training program for children.

Karin graduated on the Director’s List with an M.B.A. from The Wharton School, and she has undergraduate degrees from the University of Pennsylvania – a B.S. from The Wharton School and a B.A. from the Annenberg School of Communications. She graduated summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa.

Kevin P. Ryan, one of Silicon Alley’s most well known Internet entrepreneurs, has started six New York-based businesses – Alley Insider, Gilt Groupe, Music Nation, Panther Express, ShopWiki and 10gen – in the past three years. He presently serves as chairman and CEO of AlleyCorp, which oversees each of the six companies.

Prior to AlleyCorp, Kevin was first president then later became CEO of DoubleClick. There, he was instrumental in building the company from a 20-person startup to a global leader with over 1500 employees. Silicon Alley Reporter voted DoubleClick “New York Company of the Year” and Kevin was named one of the “50 Most Influential Business People” by Crain’s New York Business.

Aside from his professional responsibilities, Kevin serves on the boards of Human Rights Watch and the NYC Investment Fund and is a member of the Insead International Council, the Yale International Council and the Council on Foreign Relations. He was the first investor in TheLadders.com and previously served on the boards of the Direct Marketing Association, The Ad Council and Hotjobs, and the advisory board of Doctors Without Borders.

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David Rose, Principal of Rose Tech Ventures & Chairman of the New York Angels David S. Rose is an entrepreneurial executive and investor with extensive experience in high technology and communications, angel investments, finance and government. He was named by Inc. magazine to the 1998 Inc 500 list as CEO of one of the fastest growing private companies in America. Red Herring magazine has described him as “a patriarch of New York’s Silicon Alley” and Crain’s New York Business named him one of the City’s 25 most influential technology executives.

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