Foundation Capital

Kathryn was a founding partner of Foundation Capital. During her nearly 20 years in the venture capital business, Kathryn has worked with talented entrepreneurs to create many market-leading companies, such as Shortel (SHOR), Documentum (DCTM), Grand Junction Networks, Interwoven (IWOV), InternetBrands, Inc.,Rapid City Communications, Primary Access Communications, Applied Digital Access (ADAX), OnStream Networks, and Chordiant Software (CHRD). Kathryn is now investing her own capital in seed stage companies, working closely with a select group of other private investors and entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley. While seed stage investing is her primary focus, she will also continue to make venture investments with Foundation Capital. Regularly recognized as one of the most accomplished venture capitalists, Kathryn has been featured on Forbes Magazine's "Midas List" of Tech's Best Venture Investors. In 2005 she received the University of Chicago's Distinguished Entrepreneurial Alumni Award. Prior to founding Foundation Capital in 1995, Kathryn was a General Partner from 1989 onwards with Merrill, Pickard, Anderson & Eyre. Before becoming a venture capitalist, Kathryn distinguished herself in the early 1980s as vice president of marketing at Oracle Corporation during the company's formative years. In the mid-1980s, she founded her own executive search firm, recruiting numerous CEOs and VPs for a host of Valley startups. Earlier, she also held various marketing and engineering positions with Data Systems Design, Gould, Inc. and Bell & Howell. Kathryn currently serves on the Board of Trustees of the University of Chicago, the Investment Committee of the University of Chicago, and is on the Advisory Council of the University of Chicago GSB, where she earned an MBA in 1978. She also holds a BS in Physics from the University of Toronto. Away from work, Kathryn is a serious violinist, painter and pilot. She currently runs the Magnum Opus Project, a foundation that supports composers of classical symphonic and chamber music, and is the patron behind the Music at Kirkwood summer music festival.

Charles joins Foundation Capital on the heels of successfully building two companies from early start-up through greater than $100 million in sales. Charles' experience spans general management, sales, marketing, product management and business development. Most recently, Charles spent 5.5 years with Tellme Networks and was a member of the founding executive team. In his role as Senior Vice President of Sales and Business development, Charles and his team collaborated with the country's largest corporations to change the way they use the phone to interact with customers. Over the past five years, Charles has led Tellme in booking over $500 million in contracted revenue backlog from notable companies such as American Airlines, AT&T, Cingular, Dominos, E*Trade, FedEx, Fidelity, Merrill Lynch, UnitedHealth Group, UPS, USAA, Verizon and Wells Fargo. Prior to Tellme moving to its enterprise model in 2001, Charles led business development, advertising sales and international. Most notably, Charles led Tellme in raising one of the largest private financing rounds in the country post Internet bubble, adding $125 million in cash to the company balance sheet during tough market conditions in August, 2000. He is currently serving on the board of directors for Therative, Powerset, Weblistic, Xoopit, and ShoreTel Communications. Prior to Tellme, Charles was a member of the founding team of Internet access provider @Home Network. Charles incubated the initial idea for @Home while at TCI Cable and then became the founding Vice President of Business Development in 1994. Over the first two years, Charles worked to secure long-term distribution deals with the nations largest cable operators. In 1996, Charles established the @Media division and over the ensuing three years helped establish @Media as the leading broadband media provider. In 1998, Charles assisted in the $7 billion acquisition of Excite Network. After the merger, Charles became General Manager of Matchlogic, the $80 million division focused on interactive advertising. Charles' entrepreneurial penchant dates back to 1989 when he co-founded two businesses. The first, OnTime Guide, established itself as the leading source of travel information for business executives, replacing the OAG Pocket Flight Guide as the must have resource for frequent business travelers. The second, PrimeTime Partners, attempted to establish a new category of self liquidating promotions on behalf of advertisers and direct marketers. Prior to the start-up ventures, Charles spent three years in the Mergers and Acquisitions practice at Merrill Lynch. Charles holds a BS degree from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and received his MBA from Harvard University. Charles lives in the Bay Area with his wife and four children.

Steve Vassallo is a Principal at Foundation Capital where he focuses on new opportunities in Cleantech. An entrepreneur who lives at the intersection of business, technology, and design, Steve has spent the last 13 years launching and building a broad array of successful companies and products. He is currently serving on the board of directors for SunRun. Prior to joining Foundation in 2007, Steve was VP of Product and Engineering at Ning, a consumer Internet company focused on fast and free creation of social Web applications. As a member of the founding management team, Steve led all product development from initial concept to a massively scalable platform. Prior to Ning, Steve worked with several alternative energy startups including an independent project with Bloom Energy. Prior to this, Steve was Senior Director of Mechanical Engineering at Immersion [IMMR], a development and licensing firm that pioneered tactile feedback and human touch technology. Prior to Immersion, Steve was a project leader and design engineer at IDEO where he developed more than a dozen successful products including Cisco's 7900 family of VoIP phones, Nike sunglasses, Vecta KART chair, and Caterpillar steering and transmission controls. Steve holds 19 patents and has received numerous product awards including Business Week Design of the Decade Bronze Award, IDEA99 Gold and Bronze Awards, NeoCon Gold and Most Innovative New Product Awards. Steve earned a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Worcester Polytechnic Institute, an M.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford University, and an M.B.A. from the Stanford Graduate School of Business, where he was an Arjay Miller Scholar. When Steve is able to break away from brainstorming the next big idea, he enjoys building Lego robots with his two children and bicycling through the Palo Alto foothills with his wife and best friend, Trae.