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IdeaBlade Board of Directors
Albert Wang -- Albert is the CEO and co-founder of IdeaBlade. Prior
to IdeaBlade, Albert was Senior Architect at Rivio, where he led the development
of the n-tier Java framework supporting Rivio's browser-based applications.
Prior to Rivio, while pursuing doctoral studies at Stanford, Albert started VXtreme,
a streaming media software company. Albert was Principal Engineer when VXtreme was
acquired by Microsoft in August 1997. VXtreme technology became the Windows Media
Player used by several hundred million people today. At Microsoft, Albert continued
his work as Manager of the Advanced Video Compression R&D Group.
Albert has authored 5 papers, filed more than 14 patent applications, and has received
numerous awards from the IEEE and ACM.
Albert holds a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University.
Eric Di Benedetto -- Eric has over 15 years of Silicon Valley experience
as a professional investor in software start-ups. Eric has invested in over 40 companies
as a venture capitalist or as an angel investor since 1991. His investments have
already led to 9 public offerings and 4 sales to public companies. Three of those
companies (Signio, AdForce and CBT Group - now SkillSoft) reached market capitalizations
in excess of $1 billion.
Eric is a general partner with Convergence Partners, a Silicon Valley based information
technology venture capital firm with $200 million under management. After a successful
career as a venture capitalist, Eric initiated a professional angel investment program
in 2003. The program led to the 2006 establishment of Active Starts as an angel
investment firm focused on the coaching and financing needs of entrepreneurs within
a year from launching their products or services. Active Starts leads or participates
in investment syndicates whose mission is to bridge start-up companies to market
validation. Once a market opportunity has been proven, more traditional venture
capital firms usually follow in subsequent rounds of financing.
Before co-founding Convergence Partners in 1997, Eric was the managing director
of US venture capital funds managed by BANEXI, the merchant banking arm of BNP (Banque
Nationale de Paris, now BNP Paribas), including a joint partnership with Robertson
Stephens & Co. Prior to his venture capital career, Eric was a workout and restructuring
specialist with the PARGESA/Lambert Brussels Group, and a mergers and acquisitions
associate covering defense electronics for Bankers Trust Company (now Deutsche Bank).
Eric holds an MBA degree from ESSEC, Paris, France, and a BA in mathematics and
physics.
Eric was profiled in Business Week ("Go West, Young Whiz") and in The
European ("Where the Brains Drain").
Antoine Blondeau -- Antoine has 20 years of leadership and operational
experience in technology marketing worldwide, as CEO, senior officer and investor,
director or advisor in listed companies, start-ups, turnarounds and medium-to-large
companies.
Antoine started his career with the Tokyo representation of the French Industrial
Development Agency where he negotiated the setup of a number of large Japanese technology
firms' industrial facilities in France. Antoine then moved to Nortel Networks where
he managed the OEM and Asia/Pacific unit of the company's digital wireless terminals
business. Then, as president and COO of Zi Corporation, a NASDAQ-listed developer
of intelligent user interface software, he engineered a turnaround and grew the
company's market valuation to a high of $1.4 billion. He was also CEO of Dejima,
Inc., a developer of distributed artificial intelligence software, which he sold
to Sybase, Inc. Antoine also worked at salesforce.com as vice president in charge
of the mobile/wireless business unit, and at Good Technology as senior vice president
corporate business development & GM Asia/Pacific.
Antoine is currently the founder and CEO of Genetic Finance Holdings and Sandwalk
Capital, which specialize in the development of systematic intraday trading strategies
in the most liquid financial markets. Antoine is a graduate of the Paris Graduate
School of Management (ESCP) and has studied at the faculties of Economics and Commerce
of Chuo University in Tokyo, Japan.
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