Jessi Howard

Pine River Capital Management LP (Pine River) is a SEC-registered investment adviser and hedge fund management firm headquartered in Minnetonka, Minnesota. The firm was founded in 2002 by Brian Taylor and they are a subsidiary of Pine River Holdings LP. Pine River provides investment solutions to qualified clients through commingled hedge funds and bespoke solutions.

Storspeed is a storage solutions company delivering the industry’s first application-aware caching products. Storspeed was founded on the belief that there is a growing imbalance between an application’s appetite for consuming data quickly and the ability of the storage network to deliver it. The evolution of technologies such as distributed computing, multi-core processors, and virtualization continue to push application requirements for data delivery. Similar advances in network storage performance have not been realized, which causes applications to wait for backend storage subsystems to deliver the required data. Today’s way of addressing this imbalance is to over-provision the storage infrastructure – over-deploying capacity to guarantee peak performance – at great expense.

SportsEngine, Inc. engages in the provision of sports technology and media platform. The firm represents soccer, football, lacrosse, basketball, hockey, rugby, softball, baseball, wrestling, and volleyball. It offers registration software, sports websites, league, member and team management solutions. The company was founded by Justin Kaufenberg, Carson Kipfer and Greg Blasko in 2008 and is headquartered in Minneapolis, MN.

Brainyak, Inc. provides an online agile market research solution. The company was founded by Matthew Warta on March 8, 2010 and is headquartered in Denver, CO.

CrowdStreet, Inc. provides a crowd funding marketplace, which connects investors with institutional-grade real estate investments. It offers CrowdStreet, a cloud-based fundraising and investor relationship management platform that enables real estate operators, funds and private equity companies to raise capital and manage relationships with new and existing investors. The company was founded by Tore C. Steen and Darren Powderly in 2013 and is headquartered in Portland, OR.

McKinsey & Co., Inc. provides management consulting services. It specializes in design, marketing and sales, analytics, operations, transformation and restructuring, risk, strategy and corporate finance, and sustainability and resource productivity. The company was founded by James O. McKinsey in 1926 and is headquartered in New York, NY.

Crescendo Management LLC (Crescendo Ventures) is a venture capital firm founded in 1993 by David Spreng, Mitchell Dann and Jeff Tollefson. The firm is headquartered in Palo Alto, California.

Salu, Inc. provides Internet-based retailing services of beauty and health products. The company was founded in 1995 by Becker Mark and headquartered in Gold River, CA.

Vesbridge Partners LLC (Vesbridge Partners) is a venture capital firm founded in 2004 by Jeff Hinck and Zenas Hutcheson. The firm is headquartered in Minnetonka, Minnesota.

Northwestern University is a private institution founded in 1851 to serve the Northwest Territory, an area that now includes the states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin and parts of Minnesota. Northwestern has three campuses

Digi-Key Corp. distributes electronic components. It also distributes semiconductors, discrete, electromechanical parts. Its products include audio products, batteries, cable assemblies, capacitors, computer & video accessories, connectors, crystals & oscillators, discrete semiconductor products and many more. The company was founded by Ronald A. Stordahl in 1972 and is headquartered in Thief River Falls, MN.

EDV Management Co (El Dorado Ventures) is a venture capital firm founded in 1986 by Gary Kalbach. The firm is headquartered in in Menlo Park, California.

Skinstore.Com retails skin care and beauty products. Its brands include Abella, Afirm, Ageless Beauty, Ahava, Calvin Klein, DermaScyne, Dermatix, Janson Beckett, Neova, and Neutrogena. The company was founded in 1997 and is headquartered in Gold River, CA.

Cyneta Networks, Inc. provides wireless internet network infrastructure services. It focuses on delivering products and solutions to service providers that optimize wireless IP communications in substantial ways. The company was founded by Jogen Pathak and Shridhar Krishnamurthy in January 2000 and is headquartered in Richardson, TX.

Castlelake LP (Castlelake) is a private equity firm founded in 2005 by Rory Joseph O'Neill and Evan Andrew Carruthers. The firm is headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Decathlon Capital Partners LLC is an Independent Revenue based financing firm founded in 2010 by Wayne C. Cantwell and John August Borchers. Decathlon Capital Partners LLC is headquartered in Palo Alto.

Bugcrowd, Inc. provides crowdsourced security for mobile applications. It offers security testing solutions for Web applications, APIs and Webservices, SaaS applications, various types of Websites, and customer premise products; mobile apps, such as iOS, Android, and more; and charities and not-for-profits. The firm provides security testing solutions through a Crowdcontrol system. The company was founded by Casey Ellis, Sergei Belokamen and Chris Raethke in 2012 and is headquartered in San Francisco, CA.

AnyRoad, Inc. provides an online platform that connects tourists and professional tour guides. It is a curated marketplace for niche and specialized tours around the world. The firm's online platform connects local and independent tour guides with tourists from around the world while benefitting the local community. The company was founded by Jonathan Yaffe and Daniel Yaffe in 2012 and is headquartered in San Francisco, CA.

AppDome, Inc. provides mobile application protection platform. It secures enterprise and consumer-facing apps from cyber threats, mobile fraud, and data theft. The firm?s security solutions used by the financial, healthcare and e-commerce companies to ensure productivity, compliance and security for consumers and employees. The company was founded by Avi Yehuda and Eitan Bauch in 2011 and is headquartered in Redwood, CA.

Crio, Inc. produces coffee products. Its products include Crio Bru brewed cocoa, Crio beans – chocolate covered cocoa beans, and gourmet hot cocoa. The company was founded Eric Durtschi in 2010 and is headquartered in Cambridge, MA.

Cloud Elements, Inc. provides cloud application program interface (API) integration platform. Its platform enables developers to publish, integrate, aggregate, and manage all of APIs through a unified platform. The company was founded by Vineet Joshi, Gary Gaessler, Atul Barve, and Mark W. Geene in October 2012 and is headquartered in Denver, CO.

Foodsby, Inc. operates as an online platform that enables restaurants to deliver food or lunch to offices. The firm has offices in Minneapolis, Dallas, Denver, Des Moines, Atlanta, Kansas City and Charlotte. The company was founded by Parag Shah and Ben Cattoor in 2012 and is headquartered in Minneapolis, MN.

Verodin, Inc. engages in the provision of security infrastructure management and monitoring solutions. It develops a platform to test weaknesses in company cybersecurity networks. The company was founded by Christopher Key and Ben Cianciaruso in 2014 and is headquartered in McLean, VA.