Vince Passione
CEO & Founder
Vince is the founder and CEO of LendKey, the market’s most advanced lending platform and network, and a veteran technologist for financial services companies. Before LendKey, Vince was the COO of DealerTrack, the nation’s first and largest automotive credit portal. He has also been the President of Ameritrade’s Institutional Client Division, the CEO of OnMoney.com, the CTO of Citigroup’s US Consumer Bank and a Business Unit Executive at IBM. Vince received his B.S. from Polytechnic University.
Carter Griffin
Updata Partners
Carter Griffin is a General Partner and co-manages the firm’s operations. Carter has more than twenty years experience as an operator and investor in the software industry. Carter co-founded Brivo Systems and served as Chairman and CEO until selling the company to a strategic acquirer. Carter is a graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and holds a M.B.A. from the J.L. Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University.
Danny Schultz
Gotham Ventures
Danny Schultz is a Co-Founder and Managing Director of Gotham Ventures, established 14 years ago in the early days of the NYC tech boom. Over the last two decades he has worked closely with technology companies at all stages of growth with investments ranging from digital media and e-commerce to mobile tech and enterprise software startups. He is attracted to creative and energetic entrepreneurs that seek to disrupt the status quo and loves working with entrepreneurs to help them achieve success. Currently, he leads Gotham’s investments in LendKey, Yipit and Pickie. He was also responsible for a number of Gotham’s successful exits including XOsoft, acquired by CA, Pivot, acquired by the CME Group and Massive, acquired by Microsoft. Some of his other successful investments include SMARTS, acquired by EMC; Insulair, acquired by Georgia Pacific and Active Impulse Systems, acquired by Phillips. Danny ran Lehman Brothers equity private placement business just prior to co-founding his own start-up venture fund, Atlantic Venture Partners, the predecessor to Gotham Ventures. He began investing as an angel and was fortunate to get very early exposure to the Israeli tech scene going back to the mid-1980s. He is a frequent speaker at startup and tech events and also enjoys mentoring young VCs and entrepreneurs. Danny is active with the Kauffman Fellows Program and Endeavor Global and was Co-chair of INGENUITY 2012, New York’s premier startup venture conference. Danny studied Economics at Columbia University and resides with his family in Westchester, New York. In his spare time, he can frequently be found somewhere in Westchester playing hockey, or in nicer weather training for his next triathlon.
Josh Stein
DFJ
Josh is a Managing Director of Draper Fisher Jurvetson. Josh’s background includes management consulting, strategic analysis, product management and founder level experience in various industries. In addition to serving on the board of multiple DFJ porftfolio companies, Josh serves on the board of directors of the Center for Venture Education and the Kauffman Fellows Program, the leading educational fellowship in venture capital.
W. Thomas Smith, Jr.
TTV Capital
Tom is a co-founder and a Managing Partner of TTV. He has more than 16 years of venture capital experience. Tom was one of the first venture investors to recognize the transformative impact technology would begin having on the constitution and delivery of financial services. Tom was one of the first to identify advances in stored value, money remittance, alternative and mobile payments, services for the underbanked, alternative loan origination and payments-as-a-service. Prior to founding TTV, Tom spent 30 years at IBM in marketing as well as selling and implementation of information technology projects. Throughout his career at IBM, Tom conducted significant business with all of the largest financial services companies throughout the southeastern United States, including the rapidly growing banking centers of Charlotte and Atlanta. His last four years at IBM he was Vice President, Small and Medium Business - IBM Americas, where he had revenue responsibility of approximately $12 billion. The previous decade, he was the IBM Southern Area General Manager, with responsibility for sales, marketing and services business for thirteen states, generating $7 billion in revenues with 6,000 employees. For TTV, he has served on the boards of 14 companies and currently serves on the Board of Directors of Apruve, eWise, Greenlight, and PayGo, and as an observer at LendKey, and MicroBilt. His community affiliations include the United Way of Metropolitan Atlanta, Central Atlanta Progress, the Carter Center and the Woodruff Arts Center. He received the Armin Maier citizenship award from the Downtown Rotary Club in 1998. Tom earned a B.S. Degree in Industrial Management from the Georgia Institute of Technology and completed the executive program at Dartmouth’s Amos Tuck School of Business.
Thatcher Bell
Managing Partner, Coventure
Thatcher is an investor and adviser with significant experience in financial technology. At Gotham, Thatcher led the firm’s investment in SinglePlatform through its acquisition by Constant Contact (NASDAQ: CTCT) and worked with portfolio companies Sailthru, AdStruc, EXPO, Lumeta, Verterra and Widetronix. Before joining Gotham, Thatcher was a Senior Analyst at North Hill Ventures, the venture capital affiliate of Capital One Financial, where he worked on the firm’s investments in DealerTrack (NASDAQ: TRAK) and Higher One (NYSE: ONE), among others. Prior to North Hill, Thatcher worked in business development roles for two different start-ups and as a consultant at Ernst & Young (now Cap Gemini Ernst & Young). Thatcher serves on the Board of Directors of the NY Tech MeetUp and the New York chapter of Wharton Private Equity Partners. He earned his undergraduate degree in Engineering from Cornell University and M.B.A. from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.
Eric Jacobs
EVP & Chief Financial & Administrative Officer, Dealertrack Technologies
Eric is Senior Vice President and Chief Administrative Officer of DealerTrack. Eric’s background includes general corporate and securities law, audit management and financial control. In addition to his role at DealerTrack, Eric is a Certified Public Accountant and serves on various boards.
Joe Proto
Chairman & CEO, Transactis
Joe Proto is Chairman and CEO of Transactis, part of his three decades in the billing and payments industry as a senior executive and successful entrepreneur. Prior to Transactis, he launched REMITCO, a payments company acquired in 2000 by First Data, as well as Financial Telesis (CashFlex) which was acquired in 1992 by CoreStates, now part of Wells Fargo. Joe co-founded Windham Ventures (an innovation leader in healthcare and med tech), and is a limited partner at Metamorphic Ventures (digital media and e-commerce), ff Venture Capital (technology), and Alpine Meridian Ventures. Joe is a director at SpendSmart Payments Company (SSPC: OTC) a fast growing mobile loyalty platform with 5 million digital subscribers. Joe is a member of various financial services organizations including the Association for Financial Professionals (AFP), he is Co-Chair of the Consumer Payments Advisory Committee of the Payments Innovation Council as well as serving on the Board of Advisors at the National Automated Clearinghouse Association (NACHA), and is a frequent speaker at conferences in the financial technology industry.
Howard Tischler
Founder & CEO, EverSafe
Howard Tischler has served as a director of DealerTrack since March 2003, and as lead director since April 2006. He is the CEO of EverSafe. Prior to that he was CEO of Enfocel, and employed by First Advantage Corporation, where he served as Group President of First Advantage Dealer Services. Mr. Tischler currently serves on the Engineering Advisory Board at George Washington University.