
Entrepreneur
San Francisco Bay Area

Entrepreneur
San Francisco Bay Area
I like helping entrepreneurs succeed. Like Hamburger Helper for entrepreneurs.
I've had the pleasure of helping start companies that were backed by Sequoia, Benchmark, Kleiner Perkins... and work on the venture side at funds like Bessemer and Atlas Venture.
I run Venture Hacks, an entrepreneur's guide to hacking venture capital: http://venturehacks.com
I blog at http://www.nivi.com/blog
Early stage consumer Internet startups
(Privately Held; 1-10 employees; Financial Services industry)
March 2007 — Present (1 year 7 months)
(Internet industry)
January 2006 — Present (2 years 9 months)
Grockit - Backed by Benchmark
Songbird - Backed by Sequoia
Newroo - Acquired by MySpace
Other non-advisory roles:
Kovio - Co-inventor - Backed by Kleiner Perkins
Veracode - Sourced - Backed by Atlas and Polaris
(Venture Capital & Private Equity industry)
March 2007 — January 2008 (11 months)
$2B global venture fund. Working with Jeff Fagnan.
(Privately Held; 11-50 employees; Computer Software industry)
December 2005 — January 2007 (1 year 2 months)
Songbird is the "Firefox of Media Players". It is backed by Sequoia and Atlas: http://songbirdnest.com
(Partnership; 11-50 employees; Venture Capital & Private Equity industry)
October 2005 — March 2006 (6 months)
$1B venture fund. Worked with David Cowan.
(Venture Capital & Private Equity industry)
2004 — 2005 (1 year)
(Privately Held; 1-10 employees; Venture Capital & Private Equity industry)
2001 — 2004 (3 years)
Venture capital firm investing in early-stage technology startups in Boston and New York.
(Higher Education industry)
1996 — 2000 (4 years)
See below for details.
Ph.D. Candidate, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 1997 — 2000
Research Assistant to Prof. Joe Jacobson at the Media Lab. Co-developed the first printed inorganic transistor. The technology was spun out into Kovio, a startup backed by Vinod Khosla. Received a U.S. Patent. Published results in the journal Science. Made parents proud. On leave from the Ph.D. program.
M.Eng., Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 1997
Research Assistant to Prof. Neil Gershenfeld at the Media Lab. Received a U.S. Patent for technology to safely send power through the human body. Slept a lot. National Science Foundation Fellow.
S.B., Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 1997
Minor in maths.
2 U.S. Patents: http://www.nivi.com/patents
Published in the journal Science: http://tinyurl.com/2gqzvf
National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow.