Anders Richardson, Chairman of the Board
Co-Founder and Managing Director, Palisades Ventures
Mr. Richardson is active in all aspects of deal sourcing, due diligence and execution. Prior to co-founding the fund with Mr. D’Addario, Mr. Richardson worked in the Investment Banking Division of DLJ and focused on public and private placements of debt and equity securities and buy-side and sell-side M&A advisory services in communications, media, and other related industries. Mr. Richardson sits on the boards of SOA Software and V-ENABLE and is a board observer for Lucix Corporation, Avexus and Language Weaver. Mr. Richardson received a B.A. from Harvard College and an M.B.A from Harvard Business School.
Dipanshu Sharma, Director
Founder and CTO, V-ENABLE
Mr. Sharma, after leaving Nokia, founded V-ENABLE in Jan 2001. Today V-ENABLE is The Leader in Mobile Voice Search and Mobile-Multimodal Technologies. Mr. Sharma drives V-ENABLE's technology and strategic vision. He works with wireless operators and partners to deliver best-of-breed solutions.
While at Nokia, Mr. Sharma was part of several wireless initiatives for mobile handsets that included mobile browsers, phone user interface design, developer programs and research. He has delivered mobile handsets for CDMA/GSM markets. He published several patents (6,287,200; 6,892,067; 6,766,163; 6,801,793 European Patent: WO0143433, WO0193507) related to wireless technologies.
In Nov 2003, he was awarded "Technology Leader of the year" by TeleFusion and in 2005 was nominated for Ernst and Young "Entrepreneur of the year". He sits on the boards of OneTouchStar, KaDonk and advisory board of Veracity Wireless.
Mr. Sharma holds specialized management/entrepreneurship degrees from UCSD, San Diego and HUT, Helsinki, Finland. He holds M.S in Computer Science from DAVV, India and B.S in Computer Science from Delhi University, India.
Steven Murray, Director
General Partner, SoftBank Capital
Mr. Murray joined SoftBank Capital in 1997 and has over 15 years of experience working with high growth technology based businesses. His experience includes sourcing and managing venture investments, all aspects of mergers and acquisitions and significant corporate finance and accounting. He focuses on digital media technologies as well as a variety of technology based services.
During Mr. Murray's tenure at SoftBank he has been the principal senior executive responsible for billions of dollars of complex structured monetization strategies including initial public offerings, secondary public offerings, mergers, private sales, public market block sale transaction and complex collars. He also is the partner in charge of the financial and legal affairs of SoftBank Capital.
Mr. Murray came to SoftBank Capital from Deloitte, one of the world's largest professional services firms. While at Deloitte, Mr. Murray specialized in serving numerous high growth technology based businesses including Primark Corporation, Harcourt General and IDG.
Mr. Murray serves on the boards of several private companies, including Anystream, Voxant and Pivot Solutions.
He is a Certified Public Accountant and holds a BS in Accounting from Boston College.
David Tate, Director
Co-Founder and Managing Partner, Tempo Capital Partners
David co-founded Tempo in early 2006 when the venture division of Nova Capital Management Limited was de-merged to form Tempo. At Nova, he was a Director and Joint Head of Ventures having joined Nova in January 2004 to lead Nova's activities in the venture market.
He was previously the Head of Investments and an Executive Director at WestLB Panmure, where he was responsible for sponsoring and managing ten investments in WestLB & Panmure Growth Fund, including Wolfson Microelectronics, a $200m IPO in 2003. The remaining investments have been acquired by Tempo. Before WestLB Panmure, he spent over 15 years in investment banking, first at BZW and then at WestLB Group handling over 50 significant transactions, including IPOs and M&A, in a variety of jurisdictions including emerging and developed markets. His initial experience was in accountancy and management consultancy with Deloitte & Co.
David Tate was educated at Jesus College, Oxford, University College in London, and INSEAD. He is a Chartered Accountant.
Craig R. Cooper, Board Observer
Partner, SoftBank Capital
Mr. Cooper joined SoftBank Capital in 2004 specializing in wireless technology and services, mobile content, applications and media.
Prior to joining SoftBank Capital, he was the co-founder of Boost Mobile USA, a wireless joint venture with Nextel Communications. Boost was one of the first Mobile Virtual Network Operator’s (MVNO’s) to develop a successful business model based on branded wireless services and content. Boost was sold to Nextel in August 2003.
Prior to co-founding Boost Mobile USA, Mr. Cooper was a principal of Mercury Capital, a private equity and investment company specializing in wireless and multimedia technology investments and advisory services. Through Mercury Capital, he advised on a number of wireless and technology related ventures as well as initial public offerings.
He was formerly a private equities advisor for the Bank of Singapore in Sydney and a Senior Associate at one of Australia’s largest national law firms where he acted for clients such as United Airlines, The Disney Corporation and DHL International (where he was External General Counsel). In 1994, he co-founded the independent energy company NRG Asia – Pacific that throughout the following years became one of the largest independent power producers in Australia. Craig was also a founding principal of Private Energy Partners, which developed and owned energy projects in Australia and Indonesia. He also held the position of CEO of the former E-world Technologies Limited (Australia’s largest PDA retail and enterprise software company) and was previously a partner in the largest independent mobile retail distribution company in Australia.
Mr Cooper is currently a Director of Nellymoser, V-ENABLE and PureVideo and is an Observer on the Board of Directors of Insider Pages, Thumbplay and Perpetual Entertainment. He is also a Non-Executive Director of EBT Mobile China PLC (LSE:EBT), the leading Shanghai based wireless products and services company.
He has a Bachelor of Economics and a Bachelor of Laws (Honors) from the University of Sydney.