Dr. Ronald Weissman has more than 25 years of experience in investment and executive management. Since 2000 he has been a partner at a global venture capital and private equity firm, Apax Partners, where he focused cross-border deals and portfolio support and on software investing. Through his VC and his angel activity, Ron has invested in or advised more than 60 companies and has served on more than 25 private companies. His investment focus is on software, analytics, SaaS, text technologies and health IT. He is Chairman of the Software Special Interest Group of the Band of Angels, Silicon Valley’s oldest Angel group and a model for angel groups worldwide. His most recent angel investments include Decision Next (supply chain analytics), Practice Fusion (electronic medical records), Navera (employee benefits portfolio management), Gainsight (customer revenue optimization), Poetic Brands (food products), Wingtip (hybrid men’s furnishings and men’s club) Taulia (dynamic invoicing and payment management) and Sonim (ruggedized telephony). Before joining Verity, Ron spent more than five years working directly for Steve Jobs at NeXT, where he managed European and corporate marketing.
A business advisor and frequent conference speaker, Ron has published and lectured extensively on venture capital and angel investing, entrepreneurship, corporate governance and software trends. He frequently guest lectures at Stanford and UC Berkeley and at Santa Clara University's Law School and Business School on venture capital and on corporate governance. He is currently advising public storage leader Western Digital’s HGST business unit on its vertical market strategy a private, venture-funded technology leader Druva on its core markets, a European leader in maritime commercial applications of the Internet of Things and an award-winning Canadian bioscience firm exploring the predictive use of Big Data to drug toxicity.
Ron is a Fulbright Scholar and member of Phi Beta Kappa. He received his BA, MA, and PhD degrees from the University of California at Berkeley.