Team
Michael Price
General Partner
Email: mprice [at] ceoventures.com
Tel. 770-998-9999 (by appointment only).
Request an appointment
In addition to overseeing CEO Ventures' angel fund, Michael chairs the world's largest angel association, has scouted investments on behalf of global companies like Georgia Pacific, has directly invested in over 35 startups, and has assisted over 260 startups in raising over $500M (list). The organizations he has founded are dedicated to furthering the shared goals of the angel and seed venture capital community to include:
AngelPool (www.AngelPool.org). The world's largest association of angels and accelerators which invest in disruptive business models and founders reshaping the future.
CorpVenturing (www.CorpVenturing.com). has helped Fortune 500 companies like Georgia Pacific scout for disruptive companies worth partnering with, acquiring or investing into.
Michael's first tech startup as CEO was eTrain which exited to an Apax Partners rollup at a 60X multiple and provided the initial capital to form an angel fund to invest back into the startup community. Other CEOs soon joined him which formalized as CEO Ventures in 2001. The need to centrally see the best North American startups for investment purposes led to the formation of an industry association (AngelPool.org) which now comprises over 95% of the top angel groups worldwide and most accelerators. Key global companies soon learned of the mass concentration of deal flow and requested targeted access for investment and acquisition purposes which formalized as CorpVenturing.com.
Related to this activity, Michael also chairs AngelPool's Corporate Development Leadership Group comprised of the heads of acquisitions and corporate development at Amazon, Dell, eBay, Electronic Arts, FaceBook, Google, HP, IBM, Intuit, NEC, Samsung, TI, Yahoo! and other key companies representing over 60% of all tech acquisitions in North America. He keeps offices in Atlanta and Silicon Valley to ensure that Delta remains profitable and loves all things tech!
Michael regularly leads and moderates angel/seed best practices panel discussions and key speaker events which may be watched here: www.angelpool.org/knowledge
Fund I Board of Advisors
(fully invested in 2011)
Steve Cakebread
Past President salesforce.com
Steve Cakebread took the helm as President and Chief Strategy Officer of salesforce.com in 2008 after serving as the Company’s CFO for six years. During Cakebread’s tenure, salesforce.com grew from approximately $22 million in FY 2002 to approximately $749 million in FY 2008. He also led the Company through its initial public offering on the New York Stock Exchange. He served previously with AutoDesk as SVP and CFO and in key positions with Silicon Graphics and HP. He holds an MBA from Indiana University and BS from the University of California at Berkeley.
Dr. Robert Kaplan
Harvard Business School.
Dr. Kaplan is the co-creator of the Balanced Scorecard and is widely regarded as a luminary in strategy implementation and operational excellence. The Balanced Scorecard has been broadly adopted by leading companies worldwide to better focus and execute their strategies. The 14 books he has authored or co-authored include, "The Strategy-Focused Organization", "The Balanced Scorecard: Translating Strategy into Action" which has been translated into 22 languages, and his latest book is, "The Execution Premium: Linking Strategy to Operations for Competitive Advantage".
Tim Mattox
Worldwide Relationship Product Management, Dell.
Tim heads Strategy at Dell and has responsibility for working directly with Michael Dell on the major strategic issues and opportunities confronting the company. He has exceptional experience in pricing, demand/supply forecasting, strategy and execution. He joined the company in 1998 and has served in a number of executive positions. He holds bachelor's and master's degrees in electrical engineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a master's degree in business administration from Stanford University.
Joel Ronning
CEO, Digital River
Joel is founder and CEO of Digital River, a global leader in e-commerce outsourcing. Digital River builds and manages global online businesses for tens of thousands of companies. Under Ronning’s leadership, Digital River has created a strong market position not only as an e-commerce expert but also as an e-marketing specialist, focused on helping its clients acquire customers and grow online revenues.
Ron Verni
Retired CEO, Sage Software North America.
Ron led the growth of Sage from $100 Million to $2 Billion in sales. It includes such well recognized brands as Peachtree by Sage, Sage Abra, Sage MAS 90, Sage FAS and Sage MIP Fund Accounting and Sage Fundraising. Mr. Verni has focused his career on the small to medium-sized business market, first as an entrepreneur and then as a senior manager in companies that served those businesses. He joined Peachtree Software as president in 1996, and led the company's successful integration into the new U.K. parent company in 1999. As a result of his leadership, Peachtree grew at an exceptional rate with hundreds of thousands of new customers and substantial internal growth in customer based sales. Mr. Verni is active in the software industry, and is a past board member for the Software and Information Industry Association.
Fund I Fellows
Jim Noble
CEO, Noble Systems.
Stephen Walden
Past Founding Team, Prodigy/Bellsouth.net.
Dick Cook
Past CEO, MAPICS.
Larry Smith
Retired General Counsel Home Depot.
Michael Reene
Past Head of Strategy ChoicePoint.
Erik Sebusch
Investing/Venture Capita UPS.
Tom Lamb
Past CEO, Agilex/Kelco/Huber.
