Val Babajov

Val Babajov is an entrepreneur and angel investor with thirty five years of software development, business management and investment experience. Val is currently Founder and General Partner of VoiVoda Ventures, an early stage investment fund focused on B2B, mobile, cloud, VoIP software technology startups. VoiVoda has provided initial and follow-on funding for 20 companies since 2009. Many of the investments are syndications with other angel groups or early stage VCs. During the last six years VoiVoda Ventures and Val personally sold five software companies, all of them were cash transactions. Four of the five buyers were publicly traded companies. The fund’s geographical focus includes both companies based in USA and outside of the United States. VoiVoda leverages the growing network of international technology accelerators to identify top companies from around the world and assist them with moving to Silicon Valley for fundraising. In the beginning of 2014 VoiVoda Ventures engaged in a new more aggressive form of incubation of its own projects. Based on Val’s experience, pool of ideas, large number of potential CEO candidates and existing senior engineers in Val’s network, VoiVoda Ventures incubated four very early stage projects. One of them InstaCollab Floortime, where VoiVoda is lead investor is progressing rapidly. It is a platform for real estate agent/ brokerage lead optimization. Prior to founding VoiVoda ventures, Val spent 33 years in the software development industry. He founded his first company, WebMessenger in 1993 in his garage. During the dot com boom, Webmessenger with engineering offices in six countries developed IP in medical software, digital media, mobile software and communications for a wide range of clients including large corporations and startups. After the bubble burst, Val pivoted the business to enterprise level unified mobile instant messaging, which resulted in a 2007 acquisition byApptix (OSE: APP). After several months, it became evident that Apptix did not have the right vision for the Webmessenger product line. In 2008, Val orchestrated a buyout of the technology from Apptix and subsequently sold it to CallWave (Nasdaq: CALL) which continues to develop and promote the platform, and has ported it to the iPhone and Google Android operating systems. After this second exit Babajov established engineering development team in Partners 1993, Inc. Partners 1993 developed a variety of technologies ranging from mobile applications for startups to core mobile technology for large corporations such as Juniper Networks and Verizon wireless. Partners1993 engineering team was acquired by BroadSoft (Nasdaq: BSFT) in May 2012. Since then Val has focused his full attention on investing through VoiVoda Ventures and the incubation projects. Val enjoys working with entrepreneurs who have a strong value system and personal drive. Val believes in the importance of people’s word, and still conducts business based on a handshake. Having immigrated to the United States from communist Bulgaria before of the collapse of the system in February 1989 with only $100 in his pocket, Val knows first-hand the struggles that early entrepreneurs face in trying to build their business. His goal with VoiVoda Ventures is to help entrepreneurs avoid many of the common mistakes and accelerate the growth of their businesses. Val believes that entrepreneurs can accomplish anything when they put their mind to it, and enjoys watching young companies.