Melanie Whelan | |
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Born | |
Education | Bryn Mawr School Brown University |
Occupation | Former CEO of SoulCycle, managing director of Summit Partners |
Melanie Whelan is an American businesswoman who currently serves as a managing director of the investment firm Summit Partners.
Whelan began her career working in corporate development for Virgin America and Starwood. She later became vice president of business development for Equinox Fitness. [1] [2] [3] Whelan served as the COO of SoulCycle from 2012 until 2015, when she became the company's CEO. [4] She led the company's initial public offering (IPO). [5] In 2020, Whelan joined investment firm Summit Partners as a managing director. [6]
Mark Jonathan Pincus is an American Internet entrepreneur known as the founder of Zynga, a mobile social gaming company. Pincus also founded the startups Freeloader, Inc., Tribe Networks, and Support.com. Pincus served as the CEO of Zynga until July 2013, then again from 2015 to 2016.
Sir Terence Hedley Matthews is a Welsh-Canadian business magnate, serial high-tech entrepreneur, and Wales' first billionaire. He was the richest man in Wales until 2012, when he was surpassed by Sir Michael Moritz.
Brian Menell is a South African businessman with interests in mining, agriculture & agri industry, and banking. He is the CEO and Chairman of TechMet Ltd. based in London.
Robert Bruce Simonds Jr. is an American film producer, entrepreneur and the founder, chairman and CEO of STX Entertainment, which creates, produces, distributes, finances and markets film, television, digital media, and live events and virtual reality. The company bridges the gap between China and the US, with additional partnerships around the globe. According to The Wall Street Journal, in its first four years, Simonds more than tripled the company's valuation to an estimated US$3.5 billion. In September 2017, it was reported that STX was close to an initial public offering on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange (SEHK), and in April 2018, the company announced it had filed for an IPO. In October 2018, it was announced that STX would not go through with the IPO, as market conditions had changed. Prior to STX, Simonds was an independent film producer whose over 30 films have generated more than $6 billion in worldwide box office revenue.
Silver Lake is a global private equity firm focused on investments in technology, technology-enabled and related industries. Founded in 1999, the firm is one of the largest technology investors in the world. Its investment holdings have included Airbnb, Alibaba Group, Ancestry.com, Broadcom Inc., Credit Karma, City Football Group, Dell Technologies, Endeavor, Expedia Group, Fanatics, First Advantage, Global Blue, GoDaddy, Jio, Lightbox, Motorola Solutions, NortonLifeLock, Red Ventures, Sabre Corporation, Skype, SoFi, GLG, Seagate Technology, SolarWinds, TEG, Twitter, Unity, Waymo, Weld North Education, WP Engine, Vacasa and ZPG. Silver Lake is headquartered in Silicon Valley, and has offices in New York, London, and Hong Kong.
Sculptor Capital Management is a global diversified alternative asset management firm. They are one of the largest institutional alternative asset managers in the world. The firm operates multiple investment strategies, including multi-strategy, credit and real estate. It has nearly 400 employees worldwide including offices in New York City, London, founded in 1998 by former partner Raaj Shah, Hong Kong, also founded in 2001 by former partner Raaj Shah, Mumbai, founded in 2005, and Shanghai, founded in 2013.
Francisco Partners is an American private equity firm focused exclusively on investments in technology and technology-enabled services businesses. Founded in August 1999 and based in San Francisco and London, Francisco Partners Management L.P. has raised approximately USD $14 billion in committed capital. As of 2020, Francisco Partners had more than $25 billion in assets under management and invested in over 300 companies in the technology sector. Though not a comprehensive list, noteworthy acquisitions and investments include GoodRx, BeyondTrust, Renaissance Learning, MyHeritage, Forcepoint, Redis Labs, and Verifone.
Lightspeed Venture Partners is a global venture capital firm focusing on multi-stage investments in the enterprise technology, consumer, and health sectors. Over the past two decades, the firm has backed more than 400 companies, including Snapchat, Affirm, MuleSoft, and AppDynamics.
Enterprise application software providers CDC Software Corporation and Consona Corporation, with an total of 1,500 employees and 5,000 customers, merged in August 2012 to form Aptean Corporation.
Greycroft is a venture capital firm. It manages over $2 billion in capital with investments in companies such as Bird, Bumble, HuffPost, Goop, Scopely, The RealReal, and Venmo.
Actua Corporation was a venture capital firm. During the dot com bubble, the company had a market capitalization of over $50 billion. The company was originally known as Internet Capital Group, Inc. and changed its name to Actua Corporation in September 2014. In 2018, the company underwent liquidation.
VMware Carbon Black is a cybersecurity company based in Waltham, Massachusetts. The company develops cloud-native endpoint security software that is designed to detect malicious behavior and to help prevent malicious files from attacking an organization. The company leverages technology known as the Predictive Security Cloud (PSC), a big data and analytics cloud platform that analyzes customers’ unfiltered data for threats.
An operating partner is a term used by venture capital (VC) and private equity (PE) firms to describe a role dedicated to working with privately held companies to increase value. The role was created by large capitalization private equity groups and the importance of driving corporate change in building value increased as sellers became more sophisticated and financial engineering less central to private equity investments in the 2000s. . Firms with such Operating Partners argue that value creation potential is better achieved by a fully dedicated and senior partner than solely relying on external consultants. An operating partner has evolved into a full-time position drawing a combination of salary, performance bonus and carried interest similar to an investment partner in the portfolio investment.
SoulCycle is a fitness company owned by Equinox Group which offers indoor cycling and spinning workout classes. It was founded in 2006, and has operations in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. In early 2020, before the COVID-19 pandemic, it operated 99 studios. The company is headquartered in the West Village in Manhattan, New York City.
Balderton Capital is a venture capital firm based in London, UK, that invests in early-stage, technology and internet startup companies in Europe. It is considered to be among the four-biggest venture capital firms in the English capital.
Apptio is a Bellevue, Washington-based company founded in 2007 that develops technology business management software as a service (SaaS) applications. Apptio enterprise apps are designed to assess and communicate the cost of IT services for planning, budgeting and forecasting purposes. Apptio's services offer tools for CIOs to manage technology departments' storage, applications, energy usage, cybersecurity, and reporting obligations.
HK Nicaragua Canal Development Investment Co., Ltd. also known as HKND was a private infrastructure development firm that is registered in Hong Kong. HKND was founded in 2012 with the purpose to develop the Nicaragua Canal as a wider and deeper alternative to the Panama Canal. HK Nicaragua Canal Development Investment is owned or controlled by the Chinese businessman Wang Jing. In 2014 it was announced that an IPO is being prepared to provide financing for the project but following financial difficulties, HKND finally closed its offices in April 2018.
Bullhorn is a cloud computing company headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts. The company provides customer relationship management (CRM), applicant tracking system (ATS) and operations software for the staffing industry. As of 2019, the company reported more than 11,000 customers in more than 150 countries. Besides its Boston headquarters, the company has operations in St. Louis, London, Brighton, Sydney, and Rotterdam.
Datto, Inc. is an American cybersecurity and data backup company. Founded in 2007 in Norwalk, Connecticut, in 2017 it became a subsidiary of the Vista Equity Partners and merged with Autotask Corporation.
Mary Catherine Tanner is an investment banker, with more than 25 years of experience on Wall Street. She specializes in the areas of biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, and health care services. Her expertise includes ethical pharmaceuticals and green technology. Fluent in both English and French, she specializes in cross-border transactions between large and small companies, corporate partnering and minority investments.