Overview

    Silicom Ventures is one of the largest Angel and Venture Capital investment forum in the United States, linking experienced investors with entrepreneurs from around the globe.
    Based in Silicon Valley, California, Silicom Ventures' influence spans North America, Europe and Asia with investments ranging from life sciences and medical technology to semiconductors, software and media. The group is comprised of Venture Capital and Angel Investors who are high tech executives in leading Bay Area companies.
    Unlike most Angel Investment organizations, Silicom Ventures often invests more frequently than even many traditional venture fund ranging from seed investments to follow-on rounds and M&A rounds.
    Beyond funding, Silicom Ventures adds value to companies by providing contacts with potential customers and partners, assistance with recruiting, and consultation on technical and business issues.
    Silicom Ventures also provides support services for entrepreneurs and new ventures, thus being in a unique position to assist it's portfolio companies and help insure a substantial return on the investment in that company. Silicom Ventures' members, sponsors, partners and advisors have the knowledge and experience to provide a variety of unique services to assist companies in achieving their corporate goals.
  Management

  Gadi Behar
Founder and Managing Director

    As Founder and Managing Director, Gadi Behar brings 30 years of business and management experience. During the last ten years Gadi has been engaged in business planning, development, financial and fundraising work for a variety of Silicon Valley and Israel-based startups. Under his leadership, Silicom Ventures has grown to be the largest global business forum in the United States. [More]
 
  Tal Behar
Executive Director

    Tal Behar is the executive director of Silicom Ventures since January 2001. Tal has extensive experience in event organization and production. Under her leadership Silicom Ventures launched over 130 high technology events located in Silicon Valley and abroad. Tal was instrumental in helping Silicom Ventures grow from 25 to over 250 members. [More]
   
Silicom Ventures fund

    This fund was established by Silicom Ventures management to enable additional investment arm to invest in cutting edge technology companies in parallel to Silicom members and in the event of a need for follow up investments. See partners.
 
 
 
Advisory Board
     
  Ted Hoff
Inventor of the Microprocessor

Dr. Hoff received a Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 1958, an MS degree in 1959 and a PhD degree in 1962, both from Stanford University. In 1968 he joined the startup Intel Corporation, Although Intel was founded to develop semiconductor memory, in early 1969 it contracted to develop chips for a family of calculators to be sold under the name "Busicom." Hoff proposed a simpler design that included a simple general-purpose processor, programmed to perform various calculator functions. This alternate approach was accepted by the calculator company, and led to the first microprocessor, the Intel 4004. In 1975, Hoff started a group to develop LSI for the telephone industry. That group produced the first commercially available monolithic CODEC, a device which converts voice signals between analog and digital representations. In 1983, Hoff left Intel to become Vice President, Corporate Technology at Atari. Atari, owned by Warner Communications was sold in 1984. Hoff is listed as inventor or co-inventor on 17 U.S. Patents. He has received numerous awards and recognitions for his role in the development of the microprocessor.

 
  Steve Wozniak
Co-founder, Apple

A Silicon Valley icon and philanthropist for the past three decades, Steve Wozniak, Apple co-founder, has helped shape the computing industry with his design of Apple’s first line of products the Apple I and II and influenced the popular Macintosh. For his achievements at Apple Computer, Steve was awarded the National Medal of Technology by the President of the United States in 1985, the highest honor bestowed America’s leading innovators. In 2000 Steve was inducted into the Inventors Hall of Fame and was awarded the prestigious Heinz Award for Technology, The Economy and Employment for “single-handedly designing the first personal computer and for then redirecting his lifelong passion for mathematics and electronics toward lighting the fires of excitement for education in grade school students and their teachers.” Making significant investments of both his time and resources in education, Wozniak “adopted” the Los Gatos School District, providing students and teachers with hands-on teaching and donations of state-of-the-art technology equipment.Steve is currently a member of the board of directors for Jacent, a developer of cost-effective telephony solutions, Danger, Inc., developer of an end-to-end wireless Internet platform, Ripcord Networks and many more.

     
  Laurence Marton

Dr. Marton serves as a consultant to industry and to governmental and academic institutions. In recent years he has been a founder, director, CEO, CSO, and CMO of the SLIL Biomedical Corporation, and CSO of both Cellgate and Progen Pharmaceuticals. These companies were, or are, focused on the discovery and development of novel compounds for the treatment of cancer and other serious diseases. Before moving from academia to industry, Dr. Marton was Dean of the University of Wisconsin-Madison Medical School and previously Chaired the Department of Laboratory Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), where he was a Professor in the Departments of Laboratory Medicine and Neurological Surgery. He remains an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Laboratory Medicine at UCSF. He is a leading expert with extensive experience in the fields of cell growth and drug development. His work is focused on the use of polyamine analogs in treating human diseases related to aberrant cell growth and epigenetics, including cancer and other diseases. Dr. Marton serves as a director on the Boards of the California Heart Center Foundation and Cancer Commons, and as a trustee of the American Association for Cancer Research Foundation. He is on the Board of Directors of TOMA Biosciences, is Chair of the Scientific Advisory Board of PharmaJet, and is on the Advisory Boards of Ruga Corp and Contrast Therapeutics. Dr. Marton received his MD from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and his BA from Yeshiva University.

 
  Mark Blumenkranz
Professor and Chairman, Stanford Department of Opthalmology

Mark S. Blumenkranz MD is Professor and Chairman of the Stanford Department of Ophthalmology. Dr. Blumenkranz is an acknowledged international authority in the field of vitreoretinal surgery and macular diseases. He is the author of numerous publications and patents in the area of drugs, micro-surgical technology, and lasers. A number of his inventions and research projects have been licensed and approved by the FDA and used commonly for the treatment of patients throughout the world. He is a Founder and Director of Optimedica Corporation and PEAK Surgical, both arising from research performed at Stanford and additionally a Founder and Director of Macusight. He has also served in the past as a Director and also as Chairman of the SAB of Oculex Pharmaceuticals, Ophthalmic Imaging Systems, and MidLabs. Dr. Blumenkranz is currently the President of the Retina Society, a Fellow of the Corporation of Brown University where he chairs the Medical School Committee, and is immediate past President of the American University Professors of Ophthalmology. He has been cited for his numerous medical and scientific accomplishments.

 

     
  Dan Maydan
President Emeritus, Applied Materials

Dan Maydan is President Emeritus of Applied Materials and a member of the Board of Directors, an appointment he has held since 1992. He has been President of the company from 1994 to, 2003. At Applied, Dr. Maydan spearheaded the innovation and commercialization of critical processing technologies for semiconductor manufacturing. His work has been inducted into the Smithsonian Institution as part of its collection of breakthrough technologies, which have helped shape society and the modern world. Dan Maydan received his Bachelor of Science and Master of Science degrees in electrical engineering from Technion and his Ph.D. in physics from Edinburgh University in Scotland. He is also a recipient of Honorary Doctor degrees from both the Technion and Edinburgh University.

 
  Amos Wilnai
Founder and former President, MMC Networks

Amos Wilnai founded MMC Networks, Inc. in September 1992 and was President of the company until October of 1994. He then served as Acting CEO of the company from October 1998 to April 1999. Amos Wilnai was the Chairman of the Board of MMC Networks, Inc. from its inception and until its merger with AMCC. Prior to founding MMC, Mr. Wilnai was the founder, President and CEO of Clarity Ltd. of Israel, an IC design automation company. Before founding Clarity, Mr. Wilnai was Deputy General Manager at National Semiconductor Israel and at Intel Israel. He also taught IC design at the Technion, Israel Institute of Technology. Amos currently serves on the Board of Verisity Design Inc., . Mr. Wilnai has a BSEE degree from the Technion Institute of Technology and an MSEE from the Polytechnic Institute in Brooklyn.

     
  Atiq Raza
Founder and CEO, Raza Microelectronics Inc.

Mr. Raza was the President and Chief Operating Officer of Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) prior to RMI. Mr. Raza was responsible for laying the foundation of AMD's processor roadmap and brought the AMD-K6 and Athlon family of processors to the market. Mr. Raza also served on the Board of Directors of AMD. He became part of AMD's management team after the merger with NexGen, Inc. in January 1996. At NexGen, he was the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer prior to the merger. Mr. Raza also serves on the board of directors of MetaRam, AMI Semiconductor, Mellanox Technologies, Inc., eASIC and TRG.

 

 
  Frederick T. (Tim) Guilford

Dr. Guilford in both a clinician and a researcher. His education includes Johns Hopkins University for an undergraduate degree, the University of Texas Medical Branch for medical school, 2 years of general surgery at Johns Hopkins Hospital, an ENT (Ear, Nose and Throat, Head and Neck) surgery residency at the University of Michigan and Board Certification in ENT. Dr. Guilford has been in clinical practice since 1979, has been using complementary medicine in his practice since1985 and was the director of a clinical laboratory specializing in in-vitro allergy and viral immunology testing (1982 -1992). He began using metal detoxification methods in 1995 and research into the toxicity of mercury led to the observation that glutathione is a critical component of the defense against heavy metals in addition to its role as a key component of the antioxidant system. Dr. Guilford’s study of the role that glutathione plays in the basic mechanism of many diseases led to his formulating a liposome encapsulation of reduced glutathione, Readisorb® Glutathione. Dr. Guilford’s recent publications include articles on the neuroprotective qualities of liposomal glutathione, the detection of mycotoxins in mold exposed individuals, a review of glutathione and atherosclerosis and immune responses in conditions with low glutathione. His recent publications are listed at DrGuilford.com/publications/. Research on ReadiSorb Glutathione at DrGuilford.com/research.

 

     
  Mark Saifer
Scientific Director & VP, Mountain View Pharmaceuticals Inc.

Mark G.P. Saifer has been the Scientific Director and a Vice President of Mountain View Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (MVP) since 1996. He received an A.B. in Natural Sciences from the University of Pennsylvania and a Ph.D. in Biophysics from the University of California at Berkeley. Following postdoctoral research in the Department of Bacteriology and Immunology at Berkeley, he did research in the Department of Viral Oncology at Roswell Park Memorial Institute in Buffalo, NY. About 30 years ago, Dr. Saifer began to develop improved technology for coupling polymers such as poly (ethylene glycol) (PEG) to drugs, together with Dr. L. David Williams. Their discovery of the negative impact of conventional PEGylation on the activity of one enzyme, superoxide dismutase, led to their recognition of the advantages of using higher molecular weight polymers for enhancing the pharmaceutical properties of a wide variety of therapeutic proteins. Prior to founding MVP, together with Dr. Williams and Dr. Merry Sherman, Dr. Saifer was the Scientific Director and a Vice President of DDI Pharmaceuticals in Mountain View, CA. He is an inventor on 16 issued and six pending U.S. patents, with foreign counterparts, relating to enzymes, cytokines and other therapeutic proteins, viruses, polymers and polymer conjugates.

 
  Merry Sherman
CEO and President, Mountain View Pharmaceuticals Inc.

Merry R. Sherman is the CEO and President of Mountain View Pharmaceuticals, Inc., of which she was a co-founder with Dr. Mark Saifer and Dr. L. David Williams. She was a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Wellesley College in Chemistry and received an M.A. in Biochemistry and a Ph.D. in Biophysics from the University of California at Berkeley. Following post-doctoral fellowships in Polymer Research at the Weizmann Institute of Science (mentored by the late Aharon Katzir) and in Biochemistry at the National Institutes of Health, she directed research in Endocrine Biochemistry at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. She also served as a Professor of Biochemistry at Rutgers University in New Jersey before entering the pharmaceutical industry. Dr. Sherman’s publications are in the fields of biophysics, molecular endocrinology, cancer research and neuroscience. She is an inventor on two issued and six pending U.S. patents and foreign counterparts. She is a member of the American Society of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, The Endocrine Society, the American Association for Cancer Research, the Society for Neuroscience, the American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists and the Association for Women in Science.

     
  Amos Barzilay
Venture Consultant, Walden International

Until recently, Dr. Barzilay was the interim CEO of CollaBrx, a biotechnology company whose goal is to help oncologists develop customized therapies for cancer patients who are unresponsive to standard treatments.  Dr. Barzilay is a Venture Consultant and was a General Partner with Walden International, a global Venture Capital firm with over $2 billion under management. At Walden Dr. Barzilay led several investments in innovative software companies and served on their boards. Prior to joining Walden Dr. Barzilay was Vice President & General Manager, Content and Supplier Solutions in Commerce One. Dr. Barzilay joined Commerce One as part of Commerce One's acquisition of Mergent Systems in January 2000. Dr. Barzilay was a co-founder, chairman, and CEO of Mergent Systems, a business-to-business e-commerce infrastructure start-up. Prior to Mergent, Dr. Barzilay held a variety of senior management positions including General Manager of C*ATS,  senior marketing executive at Informix and CEO at Syntelligence Systems. Prior to Syntelligence, Dr. Barzilay was an AI researcher at Xerox Parc. Dr. Barzilay has an engineering degree from the Technion in Israel and an M.B.A. and Ph.D. degree from the University of Pittsburgh.

 
  Yossi Vardi
Principal, International Technologies

Dr. Yossi Vardi is one of Israel’s high-tech veterans, with 35 years experience of founding and participating in building over 30 high-tech companies, in the fields of Internet, software, telecommunications, electro-optics, energy, and the environment. Several companies Yossi Vardi founded eventually went public, among them Advanced Technologies (Tekem - which became at the time the largest software company in Israel), International Technologies (Lasers), Granite Hacarmel and others. He is the principal of International Technologies, which engages in private high-tech investments for its own account. Yossi is the founding investor and the former Chairman of Mirabilis Ltd, the creator of the highly popular instant messaging program ICQ, which pioneered the internet-wide instant messaging phenomena, making it one of the most successful and popular Internet products of all times, with currently close to 400 million downloads. The company was acquired by AOL, to which he still serves as an advisor. He also serves as a strategic advisor to Amazon.

     
  Tad Taube
President, Koret Foundation and Chairman of Taube Philanthropies

Tad Taube is chairman and founder of the Woodmont Companies, a diversified real estate investment and management organization. He was chairman and CEO of Koracorp Industries (successor to Koret of California) from 1973 until its merger with Levi Strauss in 1979. He has served as trustee of the University of Notre Dame de Namur, the University of San Francisco, and as governor of The Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

 
  Linda Law
Founding partner, Law & Associates

Linda S. Law's nationally recognized company is one of the only women-owned real estate development firms developing institutional-quality projects in the United States. Law & Associates recently completed University Circle, a large Class A mixed-use office/hotel project in East Palo Alto which includes a Four Seasons Hotel. Prior to forming Law & Associates, Ms. Law worked as a corporate real estate consultant to many high tech companies advising on their real estate requirements and undertaking site selection, land acquisition, leasing and campus development. Among others, her clients included Hewlett-Packard, Sun Microsystems, Cisco Systems, Chiron/Novartis and Abbott Laboratories. Ms. Law is an alumnus of University of California, Berkeley and the Harvard Graduate School of Design. She is a member of the UC Berkeley's Real Estate Advisory Board as well as a board member of the Harvard Design Magazine. She is also the founding member of the Harvard Real Estate Center and Vice Chairman of the Harvard Real Estate International Advisory Board. Ms. Law lectures at UC Berkeley and Harvard University.

     
  Kumar Sripadam
Principal and Co-Founder, Outdu.com

Kumar is a veteran technology entrepreneur and has held many senior roles. He is actively involved in many early stage companies as a business and technology consultant. He is a principal and co-founder of Outdu.com. Most recently he was a Vice President for Strategic Marketing and Business Development at Righttag Inc, Santa Clara, CA. Prior to that he was the Founder, CEO and VP of Marketing & Business Development of Bluewave Networks. He has 18 years of experience in the high technology sector such as software, systems, internet and e-commerce. Mr. Sripadam was a member of the founding team at Redback Networks, a successful Networking company where he made key contributions to Systems and Hardware. Mr. Sripadam is on the Advisory Board of Paravirtual (Accenia), Zafesoft, Heavy Medical Systems (MedSimple), SkyVenture (iFly) Hollywood, Infinity Systems International etc. He is a Charter Member of TIE-SV. He is also active in many other Silicon Valley professional organizations. He holds an MSEE from Southern Illinois University. He is a member of the honor society of Phi Kappa Phi.

 
  Eli Pasternak
Co-founder and CEO, BridgeWave Communications

Mr. Pasternak is the co-founder,Senior VP and CTO of BridgeWave Communications, wireless point to multi-point systems. Previously, Mr. Pasternak served as chief technical officer, chief scientist, and co-founder of Netro Corporation, broadband wireless systems. While at Netro, Mr. Pasternak was responsible for the IP-related functionality of both the AirMAN and AirStar products. He also authored five core-technology patents in the area of wireless ATM and its associated MAC layer. Prior to joining Netro, Mr. Pasternak was co-founder of Telestream, a telecommunications networking company, and a technology consultant for a range of disciplines including medical electronics, wireless, microwave products, communications products, system architecture, and food processing. He received BSEE and MSEE degrees from the Technion in Israel.

     
  Israel Niv
CEO at DCG Systems

In Late 1998, Israel co-founded and became the Chairman of Optonics which he sold to credence Systems in 2002. In 1999, Israel co-founded BeyondWork, an on-line provider of employee benefits. BeyondWork raised $15M during the Internet high days and served over 4000 companies. In 1986, Dr. Niv co-founded Opal Inc., a semiconductor equipment metrology company. Israel served as the VP of R,D&E, later as the GM & Executive VP of Sales and Marketing. From 1994 he served on Opal's Board of Directors, and took Opal public in May 1995.. Israel received his B.Sc. in Chemistry (Summa Cum Laude), and a Ph.D. in Chemical Physics from Ben-Gurion University. From 1982 to 1985 he worked as a Weitzmann Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Southern California. In 1992, Israel completed the AEA/Stanford Executive Institute. Dr. Niv is a board member of Jordan valley - a semiconductor Metrology company, serves on a board of PGSP - an academic institution and is an advisor to several start-ups.

 
  Joseph Bach
Partner, Nixon Peabody LLP

Joseph Bach is a member of Silicom Ventures advisory board. Mr. Bach is a partner at Partner, Nixon Peabody LLP's Silicon Valley office. He has more than a decade of legal experience in all aspects of intellectual property law, including patent prosecution and litigation. Joseph has developed methodologies for, and counsels clients on, efficiently building and managing effective patent portfolios. Joseph has successfully handled and managed cases in a broad range of technologies and has litigation experience before the International Trade Commission and federal courts. Joseph was formerly Senior Director of Intellectual Property at Applied Materials, where he was responsible for all aspects of the company's intellectual property internationally. He hold a law degree from the Duke University School of Law and a B.S. Engineering and Applied Science from California Institute of Technology (Caltech).

     
  Eli Sternheim
Co-founder, President & CEO, interHDL (acquired by Avant! Corp.)

Eli Sternheim has more than 25 years of experience in engineering, management, entrepreneurship, business and investment. He received his B.Sc. in EE from the Technion, and M.Sc. and Ph.D. in EE from Carnegie Mellon University. Dr. Sternheim has worked for a few startups, such as Trilogy, Zoran and Nexgen (later went public and was acquired by AMD). In 1991 Dr. Sternheim co-founded interHDL, an EDA company where he was the president and CEO. He wrote the book "Digital Design and Synthesis with Verilog HDL" and served as the chairman of the Architectural Committee for Open Verilog International (OVI). InterHDL was sold to Avant! corporation. Since 1995 Dr. Sternheim has been investing in high-tech startups and currently holds a portfolio of a few dozen companies. In 1999, he joined Redwood VP as a Venture Partner.

 
  Dan Kikinis
Founder and President, Lextron Systems

Dan Kikinis is a member of Silicom Ventures advisory board. Dan Kikinis is the Chief Intellectual Property Officer of iSurfTV. Mr. Kikinis has more than 20 years of experience in the development of high-technology products and intellectual property, with more than 250 registered patents worldwide in technology areas such as PCs, Net/Web, networks, and systems. Before joining iSurfTV, Mr. Kikinis was founder and President of Lextron Systems, where he helped develop intellectual property strategy as a basis for strategic technology claims for several enterprises, most notably Genesys Telecommunications Labs, Inc., in 2000 acquired by Alcatel. Prior to founding Lextron Systems, Mr. Kikinis was President of Elonex Technologies, with a mission to deliver best-in-class systems and raw patent technology in the general field of PC computing. In addition to designing award-winning PCs, as well as Enterprise Software, he filed and participated in filing for more than 500 patents, some of which are now widely licensed. He received a BS in Electronic Engineering and an MS in Computer Sciences from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich.

     
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