Ronald Weissman, Ph.D.
Dr. Ronald Weissman has been a member of the Band of Angels since 2007 and serves as Chairman of the Band’s Software SIG. Ron has more than thirty years of experience in technology management and investing. Ron joined global VC and private equity leader Apax Partners as a partner in 2000. At Apax, he focused on early-stage software, and participated in numerous US and cross-border deals. Since Apax’s transition out of venture capital, Ron has continued to consult for Apax and manages key companies in Apax's venture technology portfolio. Through Apax and his own angel activity Ron has invested in or advised more than 60 companies and has served on more than 25 early and mid- stage company Boards. Ron’s current investment focus is on business software and Health IT, with a special focus on analytics and text technologies. His current angel investments include Practice Fusion (electronic medical records), Navera (employee benefits education), Gainsight (customer revenue optimization), Sonim (ruggedized cell phones), Materna (obstetrics medical device) and Taulia (dynamic invoicing and payment management). He is currently a Director of Host Analytics (Chairman, corporate performance management), Transera (call center optimization), Wingtip (men’s club/furnishings) and Navera. Prior to Apax, he was Vice President of Strategy and Marketing for Verity, a leader in corporate information retrieval. During his tenure, Verity’s executive team earned the Large Company Turnaround of the Year award (1999) from the Turnaround Management Association; Verity gained dominant market share and saw its market capitalization grow from $50 million to more than $1.5 billion. Before joining Verity, Ron spent more than five years working with Steve Jobs at NeXT, where he managed European and Corporate Marketing. Prior to his work in Silicon Valley, he directed academic computing at Brown University and, prior to that, at the University of Maryland, where he was Associate Professor of History. As an historian, Ron is the author of numerous works about Florence during the Renaissance. A frequent conference speaker on angel and venture capital, Ron has published and lectured extensively on venture finance, entrepreneurship, corporate governance and software trends and was one of three industry leaders profiled in the 2003-2006 Price Waterhouse Coopers Technology Forecast. He was also recently profiled in the San Jose Business Journal (“Angel of the Apocalypse”) for his views on the angel economy. He has been an advisor to many organizations, including Apple, Digital Equipment Corporation, IBM, Microsoft, NeXT, Sun Microsystems. Unisys and several departments of the US Government. Ron has served on government advisory panels, including the future of electronic record keeping for the National Archives and Records Administration and the National Academy of Public Administration, and has recently served on a US State Department task force on the future of e-diplomacy. He has also been a regular guest lecturer on venture capital and angel finance at Berkeley, Stanford and Santa Clara University. Ron is also a partner at Performance Works and works with corporate clients to refine vertical market selection and market entry strategies. Ron is a Fulbright Scholar and member of Phi Beta Kappa. He received his BA, M.A., and Ph.D. degrees in History from the University of California at Berkeley. Ron serves on the advisory boards of market research firm BASEX, and the Venture Capital Task Force. From 2001 to 2013 he served as an Overseer of the University of Pennsylvania Libraries and as Associate Trustee of Penn and has also served on the Corporate Council of the San Francisco Opera. He is currently on the board of San Francisco Classical Voice, the Bay Area’s leading classical music community website. His interests include music, European history, photography, politics and entrepreneurship. Ron blogs on venture capital and angel investing at www.perworks.com