Never underestimate the power of a great collaboration!
At ScaleVP one of the things we care most about is collaborating with entrepreneurs about how to successfully scale their businesses to become the dominant providers in their sectors. When it comes to finding and helping the best companies grow, experienced hands are incredibly valuable. When that comes in the form of a technology leader we know well and enjoy collaborating with, it is even better.
We are thrilled to announce that one of our favorite collaborators, Zack Urlocker, has returned to ScaleVP as an Executive-in-Residence (EIR). Zack is helping us evaluate new investments and is also working one-on-one with a number of ScaleVP’s entrepreneurs on how and when to scale their commercial efforts. We met Zack at MySQL where he ran marketing, engineering and product before the company was sold to Sun. Zack joined us as an EIR in 2011 and focused on evaluating the early applications for Big Data and the development of NoSQL databases that eventually led to our recent investments in Datastax and Datasift. Zack subsequently joined Zendesk as Chief Operating Officer where he grew the customer base 6 fold and the user base 9 fold – to over 200 million users. Zack returns to ScaleVP with significant hands on experience transitioning companies from product introduction to market leadership. It’s a perfect match for our investing focus and a great addition to the conversation around the ScaleVP table. As he shared last week at RedMonk’s Monktoberfest conference for entrepreneurs, “scaling is an art not a science…but it can be mastered if treated like a discipline.”
I am also pleased to share that we have added a new Associate, Gregory Silva, to our investment team. Gregory was most recently an analyst with Piper Jaffrey & Co, helping evaluate the technology landscape and strategic alternatives for growth technology companies. Given his strength in following tech trends, he has hit the ground running. Gregory is busy evaluating a number of new companies and sectors within our focus areas and is a great addition to our team.
Welcome Zack and Gregory to the ScaleVP team…great people times two!