board and founders

Graham O'Keeffe, Chairman

Graham O'Keeffe is an experienced technology investor focused on the mobile and semiconductor industries. His early career comprised engineering, operational and product marketing roles at Psion and Technophone, the latter a startup that developed some of the earliest mobile phone designs before being acquired by Nokia. These experiences gave him first-hand insights on how to create and nurture successful, fast-growing technology-based businesses in the global marketplace. Mostly recently he was an Investment Partner in the London office of transatlantic venture capital fund Atlas Venture where he had the opportunity to see hundreds of startup companies in multiple sectors and geographies over a period of 13 years.

Graham has taken companies from white board concept to commercial success and exit; developing strategy, building management teams, partnering with large corporates, raising finance, and maximizing shareholder value in exit negotiations. Notable transactions include BarcoNet (IPO on EuroNext and then acquired by Scientific Atlanta), Orthogon Systems (acquired by Motorola), Element 14 (acquired by Broadcom), Phyworks (acquired by Maxim) and Icera (acquired by Nvidia). In addition Graham led the first institutional investments in Ubiquisys and picoChip, and also served on the board of Zinwave.

Graham has a degree in Engineering Science and Economics from Oxford University and a Masters in Management from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

 

Alan Duncan, Director

Alan is a Managing Partner with DFJ Esprit. He has been in the venture capital industry for more than 20 years, initially through establishing a corporate venturing fund for Ferranti and then with Foreign & Colonial Ventures and Newmarket Venture Capital Fund. He joined Prelude (now DFJ Esprit) in 1996 and is responsible for a portfolio of DFJ Esprit’s electronics and computer related investments including Phyworks, Xanadu Wireless, Lime Microsystems and DisplayLink. His previous investments have included Alphamosaic, NanoMagnetics and nCipher.

Alan has an electronic engineering background and gained his industrial experience in computer systems with Ferranti plc.

Alan is a past member of the European Venture Capital Association High Tech Committee and lectures regularly on EVCA’s venture capital and professional training courses.

 

Mark Evans, Director

Mark Evans is a General Partner of Balderton Capital, based in London. Balderton Capital's portfolio includes semiconductor, software, security, mobile, c-commerce and consumer electronics companies.

 

Henry Happel, Director

Henry Happel was a founding partner of Mundt MacGregor LLP, a Seattle, Washington law firm, where he practiced corporate and commercial law from 1976 until 2001.

Henry was an advisor to the founders of DisplayLink and served as the CEO of the company in its very early days. Since leaving Mundt MacGregor, Henry has also served as the Managing Director of Exbiblio, a recently formed technology information company.

Henry received a B.A. in Economics from Yale University in 1967 and a law degree from Stanford University in 1970.

 

Martin Jackson, Director

Martin was, until September 2010, VP technology at Plastic Logic. Plastic Logic is using its proprietary technology leadership in plastic electronics to create a range of products enabling information access, organization, and consumption. At Plastic Logic Martin has responsible for the Cambridge technology centre, who have the core role in developing plastic electronics technology, and was actively involved in representing the company at numerous conferences and UK government initiatives.

Prior to joining Plastic Logic in 2008 Martin was CTO at Artimi, a fabless semiconductor company that delivered high speed wireless connectivity in portable consumer devices. Prior to joining Artimi in 2006, Martin was CTO at Frontier Silicon, a fabless semiconductor company which pioneered digital broadcasting and achieved 70 percent market share. Prior to Frontier Silicon, he was CTO of leading DSL semiconductor company GlobespanVirata, which later merged into Conexant Corp. He began his work at Virata in 1994, when it was in a start-up phase and he served as VP engineering, Chief Technology Officer and a Board director. Martin was instrumental in the company's merger with Globespan in 2001.

Martin has co-founded four start-ups and holds a First-Class Honours degree with distinction in electronic engineering from Cambridge University.

 

David Mooring, Director

David Mooring serves as an independent director of venture backed semiconductor companies. Dave’s 25 years of operating experience include president and board member of Rambus, vice president of marketing and sales at Vitesse Semiconductor, as well as almost a decade of various sales and marketing management positions at Intel Corporation. He holds a B.S. degree in Economics from Santa Clara University, an M.B.A. from Pepperdine University and an M.S. degree in Computer Engineering from the University of Southern California.

 

Maximilian Schroeck, Director

Dr. Maximilian Schroeck is a Managing Partner at Cipio Partners, a leading international investment management firm with offices in Europe and the US. Maximilian serves on the Board of various companies in the telecommunications, media and technology space.

Prior to joining Cipio Partners, Dr. Schroeck was a Managing Partner of Agilent Ventures, overseeing Agilent Technologies' global venture investments in advanced communications and measurement technologies. In addition to his investment management responsibilities, Maximilian also led Agilent's Corporate Strategy Group and its New Business Development function, where he launched and managed efforts in emerging technology areas. Before joining Agilent Technologies, Maximilian was Vice President and Partner with A.T. Kearney, a global management consulting firm. He co-led both the firm's high technology practice as well as the EDS/A.T.Kearney Venture Fund after a distinguished, decade-long consulting career in Europe and the U.S. advising many of the world's leading high technology companies on corporate strategy issues around growth, innovation and operational effectiveness. Maximilian holds MBA and Doctorate degrees with distinction in Strategic and Financial Management from Munich University, Germany.

 

In memory of Martin King

Martin King founded DisplayLink in 2003 to develop and exploit methods of delivering content to multiple flat panel displays from a single computer. He believed that this technology could lower the costs of computing and thus make information technology much more widely available in developing countries. Mr. King had spent much of the 1990s developing communication technologies for people with severe physical disabilities. Insights he gained in that work led him to form Tegic Communications, a Seattle-based company which developed the T-9 text input technology currently in use in over 2 billion cell phones worldwide. Mr. King was a committed supporter of numerous social justice and environmental causes. He passed away in 2010.