Peter Horan Former CEO About.com, Board Member

Peter C. Horan is an experienced entrepreneur with a history of building successful media and internet businesses. As a CEO and independent director he has been part of four profitable exits in the last seven years totaling more almost $700 million in value. He has been CEO of IAC Media and Advertising, About.com, AllBusiness.com, and DevX.

He previously played a role in five major revolutions in media and technology including: home video games; personal computers; cell phones; Windows computing; and the internet. He has served on the board of directors of the Interactive Advertising Bureau and the Online Publishers Association.

David Stern Clearstone, Board Member

David Stern is a Venture Partner at Clearstone where he focuses on investment opportunities at the intersection of consumer technology and media.

Prior to Clearstone, David was President of M Networks, an educational media company providing practical business technology education to small businesses and entrepreneurs. Before founding M Networks, David was a licensing lawyer, a business development executive at Universal Studios, an entrepreneur at the idealab! family of companies, and has held management positions at leading health care software companies Veranto and Model N.

David is a graduate of Cornell University and the University of San Diego School of Law. He sits as an advisor or board member of Clearstone portfolio companies SoonR, Rubicon Project and Spock Networks.

Sumant Mandal Clearstone, Board Member

Sumant is a Managing Director at Clearstone and serves on the boards of DiVitas Networks, Mimosa Systems, Kazeon Systems, Billdesk (India), Games2win (India), Rubicon Project and ThisNext. His primary passion lies in helping visionary entrepreneurs build companies around large markets from the ground up. He initiated and oversees Clearstone’s investment activities in India. Prior to Clearstone, Sumant spent more than eight years as an entrepreneur involved in starting companies both in India and the US.

He holds an MBA from the Kellogg Graduate School of Management, and a BS in Electrical Engineering from Michigan State University.

Clearstone Venture Partners Investor

Clearstone Venture Partners is a venture capital firm with offices in Santa Monica and Menlo Park, California. The firm manages over $650 million of committed capital in the technology sector, and has helped finance early-stage rounds in numerous successful companies such as eToys, Overture, PayPal, United Online, MP3.com, Jump and eMusic. Clearstone’s limited partners include the investment affiliates of The State of California, JP Morgan, The University of California, The State of Michigan, The State of Pennsylvania, The University of Pittsburgh, Moore Capital and others.

Beau Vrolyk Angel Investor

Beau Vrolyk is currently an Angel Investor and Board Member of several technology startups. He has been building technology products and founding companies in Silicon Valley for over 30 years. During this time he has served as a Senior Executive and Board Member of numerous companies including Arete, Zilog, Silicon Graphics, Xerox, OpCode, TogetherSoft, Cassatt, and RMI. Most recently he was a Managing Director at Warburg Pincus, a Global Private Equity Company, where he led the Global Systems and Semiconductor practice.

Paul Maritz Angel Investor

Paul Maritz is currently President and CEO of VMware, Inc. Prior to joining VMware he was President of the Cloud Infrastructure and Services Division at EMC Corporation, which he joined after EMC acquired Pi Corporation, where he was the founder and CEO. During his 14 years at Microsoft he served as a member of the five-person Executive Committee that managed the overall company. He oversaw development and marketing of System Software Products (including Windows 95, NT, and 2000), Development Tools, Database Products, and the Office and Exchange Product Lines.

Steve Taylor Angel Investor

Steve Taylor is currently a lecturer in Media at the Yale School of Management where he teaches a class on Media Economics & Financing Journalism. He served as Executive Vice President of The Boston Globe from 1993 until 2001. He was also the President of Boston Globe Electronic Publishing where he was instrumental in the creation of Boston.com, the nation's leading regional website, now part of New York Times Digital.