Board of Directors and Investors

Dave McLean, Sevin Rosen Funds
Dave McLean joined Sevin Rosen Funds as a General Partner in 2004. He focuses on early stage businesses in sectors with few venture-backed competitors. With an emphasis on “company building”, Dave relies on his extensive operating background to help his portfolio companies from concept phase to profitability. Prior to joining the firm, Dave was the CEO of two Sevin Rosen start-ups; Applied WDM and Cicada Semiconductor. He began his career with IBM’s Technology Group where he focused on high performance computing and spearheaded the worldwide introduction of IBM's signal processing product line. Dave currently serves on the board of Hexatech, Market6, and BioBDx.



Craig Burson, HIG Growth Partners
As a Managing Director at H.I.G. Growth Partners, Craig has invested in a broad number of industries including consumer, information technology, industrial and healthcare. Craig focuses his investments on growing businesses that have the ability to change the status quo of their industry through transforming technologies and services.

Prior to joining H.I.G., Craig was a member of Raymond James & Associates technology investment banking practice where he was active in public offerings, private placements and mergers & acquisitions. In addition, Craig worked for the Boston Consulting Group doing analysis in a number of different industry segments. Prior to the Boston Consulting Group, Craig held management positions in engineering, sales, marketing and new business development with the Dow Chemical Company. His focus at Dow Chemical was on the healthcare, semiconductor, water treatment, mining and oil & gas industries. Craig also served as business development leader at Schlumberger where he was involved in advanced oil and gas well treatment technologies and Mobil Oil, where he worked as an engineer on the Parachute, CO oil shale project. He also spent some time working in the trenches as a roust-a-bout for Phillips Petroleum. Additionally, he is the founder of Aqua Molecular Inc., a firm that provided advanced water purification technologies to the industrial and consumer markets.

Craig earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Mining Engineering from the Colorado School of Mines and an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School.



Katrin Burt, InterSouth Partners
Katrin joined Intersouth Partners in 2004 and works primarily with the technology team. She joined Intersouth from London-based HSBC, one of the largest banking and financial services organizations in the world. At HSBC she moved through a series of roles, starting as a foreign exchange trader in London, managing portfolios of treasury products and equities in Tokyo and eventually moving to a business development role managing the annual operating plan for the bank's billion-dollar Global Markets Europe Division. Katrin serves on the executive committee and board of directors of the Council for Entrepreneurial Development (CED), is a director of the North Carolina Center of Innovation for Nanobiotechnology and lectures at Duke's Fuqua School of Business. She holds a B.A. from Oxford University, an M.B.A. from Duke University's Fuqua School of Business and an M.S. in Microsystems and Nanotechnology from Cranfield University.



John Cambier, North Carolina Idea Fund Partners
John Cambier is a founding general partner at IDEA Fund Partners. Over the past 10 years, John has used a deep understanding of technology commercialization and company formation, along with his experience managing intellectual property, licensing and contracts, to help grow technology companies throughout the Southeast.

At IDEA Fund Partners, John holds responsibilities for finance and investor relations functions in addition to serving as a key member of the investment team and advisor to portfolio companies. John also serves as the Chief Financial Officer of NC IDEA and an advisor to its grants program, playing a key role in the company selection and mentoring process.

John's investments include Unitive Electronics (acquired by Amkor), Ziptronix, ISIC Corporation, Hexatech, Brightdoor Systems and Social Solutions. He currently serves as a director on the board of Brightdoor Systems and is an observer on the boards of Hexatech and Social Solutions.

Working in the technology sector since 1994, John has held various operational roles and was involved in the spin-off of four companies from MCNC, including the formation and ultimate sale of Cronos Integrated Microsystems to JDS Uniphase for $665 million in 2000.

John received a B.A. in International Relations from Michigan State University and an M.B.A. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

 

Joe Grzyb, CEO
Joe brings 28 years in compound semiconductors. He is a serial entrepreneur having worked in and led several VC-backed start-ups. His experience includes CEO of Reactive NanoTechnologies, General Manager of RF Micro Devices’ $400M Power Amplifier Product Line and senior leadership positions at ITT, AmeriTech Exports and USAF Avionics Lab.

 

 

 

 

Dr. Raoul Schlesser, Co-Founder
VP Crystal and Wafer Development
Raoul has over 20 years of experience in solid state physics and nitride semiconductors. He has been an Associate Research Professor at North Carolina State University and has co-authored over 100 publications.