Sumant Mandal

/in , /by March Capital

SUMANT MANDAL Co-Founder & Managing Partner

Sumant is a Co-Founder & Managing Partner of March Capital. Sumant leads investments in enterprise software companies using various automation technologies such as generative AI, ML, RPA; cloud & data infrastructure; and companies supporting the fast-growing digitization of India. In his two decades of venture capital, Sumant has generated multiple meaningful exits in companies that he has either incubated or been the first institutional investor.

Sumant’s previous exits include CarTrade Tech (NSE: CARTRADE), VeloCloud Networks (acquired by VMware), Magnite (NASDAQ: MGNI), Kosei (acquired by Pinterest), Appcito (acquired by A10 Networks), Deep Forest Media (acquired by Rakuten), Kazeon Systems (acquired by EMC), Mimosa Systems (acquired by Iron Mountain), Ankeena Networks (acquired by Juniper), Cetas (acquired by VMware), Apture (acquired by Google), and Perspica Systems (acquired by Cisco). He currently serves on the Board of Directors of market-leading technology companies BillDesk, Nile, SparkCognition, Uniphore, and Extend.

Additionally, Sumant is co-founder of two leading technology incubators in the San Francisco Bay Area: The Hive, focused on AI and Blockchain driven companies, and The Fabric, focused on cloud, IoT, and network infrastructure companies. He has helped incubate more than 25 companies throughout his career. In 2000, Sumant joined Clearstone Venture Partners and became a Managing Director four years later. Prior to Clearstone, Sumant spent more than eight years as an entrepreneur, starting companies in both India and the United States.

Sumant has an M.B.A. from the Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University, and a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Michigan State University. He is on the Board of the US-India Strategic Partnership Forum (USISPF) and is also a Charter Member of TiE.

Current Investments: BillDesk, Extend, Nile, SparkCognition, Uniphore, Xage Security

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Jamie Montgomery

/in , /by March Capital

JAMIE MONTGOMERY Co-Founder & Managing Partner

Jamie Montgomery is a Co-Founder and Managing Partner of March Capital. Prior, he was the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Montgomery & Co., a well-known Los Angeles-based investment bank where he advised and financed hundreds of leading technology companies over a 25-year period. He is also the Founder of The Montgomery Summit, an annual technology conference that attracts over 1,000 global entrepreneurs, investors, and corporate executives to Santa Monica.

Jamie currently serves on the Board of Directors of ASAPP, Forter, & Tessian, and he is a Board Observer at Earnin & ThoughtSpot. He focuses on identifying disruptive technology companies and providing capital at a critical inflection point. Jamie has a track record of successful exits including the IPO of Magnite (NASDAQ: MGNI) and the sale of TeleSign to BICS. Additionally, Jamie was a Board Observer at CrowdStrike (NASDAQ: CRWD) and played a key role in its growth as a private company.

Jamie actively supports programs for innovation and entrepreneurship at the University of California, San Diego, Claremont McKenna College, the University of Southern California, and Chapman University. Jamie received his M.A. in Economics from the University of Cambridge and a B.A. from the University of California, San Diego. Jamie is also the Vice Chair of the $3B capital campaign for University of California, San Diego. He also provides the leadership to March Capital’s community engagement and philanthropic programs.

Current Investments: ASAPP, Earnin, Forter, Generate Biomedicines, Tessian, Tessera Therapeutics, ThoughtSpot

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Gregory Milken

/in , , /by March Capital

GREGORY MILKEN Co-Founder

Gregory Milken had been an active seed investor before he teamed up with Santa Monica-based venture capitalists to co-found March Capital in 2014. Building on his life-long love of gaming and early stage investing, Gregory co-founded March Gaming in 2019.

In 2023, Gregory and his team at March Gaming spun out of March Capital to form a new entity, 1AM Gaming, to focus exclusively on early-stage investments in the gaming sector. The 1AM Gaming name pays homage to the long, late-night hours that so many gamers put into their craft. Both Gregory and the other 1AM principals are all enthusiastic gamers and former operators who understand the gaming space not only from a player point of view but also from an entrepreneurial perspective.

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Wes Nichols

/in , /by March Capital

WES NICHOLS Partner

Wes Nichols is Partner of LA-based March Capital, in addition to being an active investor and board advisor to public and private company CEOs. Wes is an industry authority in predictive analytics, marketing, AI/machine learning, and digital transformation, with a robust global network of C-Suite executives of many of the world’s largest companies.  Wes was the author of the Harvard Business Review cover story, Analytics 2.0, on next-generation analytics to drive more predictive decision-making, with a follow-up article underway currently.

A two-time entrepreneur, Wes has created high profile analytics software companies with a focus on enterprise SaaS.  Most recently, Wes was co-founder and CEO of MarketShare. MarketShare’s analytics SaaS solutions are now the world’s largest software solution for C-Suite resource allocation, budget planning and revenue attribution. MarketShare was backed by FTV Capital, Elevation Partners and Silver Lake Partners.  In a competitive process with many of the world’s largest software companies, the company was acquired by Neustar, the leading company in authenticated identity, where the MarketShare team took leadership roles throughout the company and Wes became Chief Strategy Officer. Neustar was acquired by Golden Gate Capital within a year of the MarketShare acquisition. Wes is currently a Board Director of Neustar.

Prior, he was the founder and CEO of Direct Partners, building from scratch one of the industry’s first data-driven analytics and CRM companies, which was acquired by Omnicom Group (NYSE: OMC), where he then became President and CEO of the digital business at TBWA, serving Sony, Pfizer, Apple, Nissan and others.

Wes is a Board Director and Chair of the Compensation Committee of TrueCar (NASDAQ: TRUE), Board Director of enterprise CDP company ActionIQ, consumer insights software company DISQO, healthcare digital AI assistant company Suki, AI semantics software Persado, and data integration company Adverity. Wes is an active member in Young Presidents Organization (YPO).  Wes is the 2016 winner of the EY Entrepreneur of the Year Award and was nominated as a Technology Pioneer by the World Economic Forum (WEF).

Wes graduated from Randolph-Macon College and The Johns Hopkins University, with degrees in Psychology and Business, respectively, and graduated from the President’s Program in Leadership (PPL) at the Harvard Business School.

Current Investments: ActionIQ, DISQO, Suki

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Rajan Mehra

/in , /by March Capital

RAJAN MEHRA Partner

Rajan is a Partner at March Capital, advising the firm on its Indian investments.

He has over a decade of venture capital experience. As co-founder and managing director of Nirvana Venture Advisors, an early-stage tech fund based in Mumbai, India, Rajan has managed and led a number of investments in consumer and enterprise tech in India. Prior to Nirvana, Rajan was a venture partner at Clearstone Venture Advisors, the India Advisory of Clearstone Venture Partners, a venture capital firm based in Santa Monica, CA. He was also a key member of the management team at Baazee.com, a company eBay acquired in 2004 in the first meaningful exit for Indian internet investors. Subsequent to the acquisition, Rajan was Country Manager for eBay in India and a member of the Asia Pacific Leadership Team.

Rajan was a Founding investor in CarTrade Tech, which recently IPO’d on the National Stock Exchange of India, and has led investments in a number of leading Indian technology companies including BillDesk (acquired by Prosus), Shiprocket, Games2Win, & UNBXD.

He also serves on the Advisory Board of the Muktangan Education Trust, a not-for-profit that works with community schools in Mumbai. Rajan has an M.B.A. from the Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia, and a B.Com from Sydenham College at the University of Mumbai.

Current Investments: Acceldata, BillDesk, CarTrade Tech, Shiprocket, Vayana Network

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Jed Leidheiser

/in , /by March Capital

JED LEIDHEISER Partner

Jed Leidheiser is a Partner at March Capital, bringing over 15 years of enterprise experience across investing and operating roles.

Prior to joining March in 2016, Jed invested throughout the lifecycle: from early stage at Work-Bench Ventures in New York City, to public equities at Balyasny Asset Management in San Francisco.

Earlier, Jed spent a decade at Accenture, where he consulted Fortune 500 CxOs on strategy and technology. He credits this experience with teaching him how to sell 7-figure contracts, develop GTM partnerships, own a P&L, and manage distributed teams. Jed has extensive experience with financial services, including leading the Goldman Sachs account, where he sold and delivered a dozen projects over four years.

Jed received his MBA from UCLA’s Anderson School of Management and his BS from the University of Virginia, where he double majored in Economics and Computer Engineering. He wrote his senior thesis on cybersecurity.

Current Investments: Expel, Immuta, SpyCloud, Unqork

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Pankaj Patel

/in , /by March Capital

PANKAJ PATEL Senior Advisor

Pankaj Patel was Executive Vice President and Chief Development Officer at Cisco Systems, Inc. Mr. Patel reported into the CEO as the Engineering head of the company’s $38 billion product and solution portfolio. He drove the business and technology strategy across Cisco’s Routing, Switching, Wireless, Security, Mobility, Video, Collaboration, Data Center and Cloud offerings delivered by a global team of over 26,000 engineers.

Mr. Patel is a proven results-oriented and seasoned technology leader with 25+ years of experience developing highly scalable products and services by building and leading large, high-performance global engineering organizations, setting clear vision, directing strategy and delivering against goals. He is passionate about translating strategy to execution, and delivering the best experience for the customer.

Mr. Patel retired from Cisco in October of 2016 and now serves on the Board of Directors of several startups. He is Venture Partner for March Capital Partners, an early-growth technology investment firm focused on investing in enterprise software and infrastructure. He is focused on incubating, investing, and advising startups with their strategy, product development, and go-to-market as well as helping them scale. Patel is also a mentor and sponsor to numerous employees throughout the industry.

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Solomon Hailu

/in , /by March Capital

SOLOMON HAILU Partner

Solomon is a Partner at March Capital where he primarily focuses on fintech investing for the firm.

Prior to joining March, Solomon was a Principal at Tusk Venture Partners where he invested in early-stage technology companies. Companies Solomon partnered with include Lemonade (NYSE: LMND), Coinbase (NASDAQ: COIN), Circle (NYSE: CRCL), Bird (NYSE: BRDS), Care/of (acquired), FanDuel (acquired), Radar Relay (acquired), and Sunday.

Solomon was featured in Forbes 30 Under 30 for Venture Capital in 2021 and recognized on Business Insider’s 2022 Rising Stars list. He also serves on the Board of BLCK VC, an organization formed to connect, empower and advance black venture capitalists.

Solomon received a B.S. in Commerce from the University of Virginia. Outside of work, he enjoys exploring new restaurants in Los Angeles and is an avid runner, who participated in the Boston Marathon in April 2022.

Current Investments: Extend, Gr4vy

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Julia Klein

/in , /by March Capital

JULIA KLEIN Partner

Julia is a Partner at March Capital, where she focuses on investments in Data Infrastructure, Ecommerce Enablement, and Enterprise AI. She serves on the board of Morty and is a member of Kauffman Fellows.

Julia brings experience as an investor and an entrepreneur to the firm. At Greenspring Associates (now StepStone Group), she invested in growth stage consumer and enterprise deals, including The RealReal, MoneyLion, Elastic, and Everfi. She also deployed capital into both seed stage directs, working as a Fellow at Pear VC, and seed stage funds, leading diligence for Greenspring’s emerging manager focused fund.

Prior to Greenspring, Julia co-founded CareerPeer, a startup focused on utilizing technology to better match students and employers. She began her career at Deloitte Consulting, where she specialized in consumer and industrial products.

Julia is passionate about empowering women in entrepreneurship and venture capital through her work with Girls Who Invest. She has served on the executive board of Harvard Business School’s Women in Investing organization and co-chaired the Female Entrepreneur Program at The Montgomery Summit in 2021.

In her free time, Julia loves hiking, running, soccer and all things outdoors. You can find her passionately cheering for the Steelers and Penguins, discussing a novel during book club, or exploring the world and her own California backyard.

Julia received her MBA from Harvard Business School where she was a Baker Scholar. She graduated summa cum laude from the University of Maryland, College Park with a B.S. in Finance and a B.A. in Economics.

Current Investments: Morty, Parallel Domain

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Hyun Koo

/in , /by March Capital

HYUN KOO Partner

Hyun is a Partner at March Capital where he primarily focuses on enterprise SaaS and ecommerce enablement investments.

Prior to March Capital, Hyun was at Allen & Company where he covered media, consumer internet, and enterprise software sectors. He executed M&A, equity financing, and various strategic assignments for Activision, Adobe, Discovery, Fox, LinkedIn, Samsung, Snap, Spotify, Twitter, and others.

Hyun grew up in South Korea, Singapore, and New York. In his spare time, he enjoys golfing and staying active outdoors or at a nearby gym. He is actively involved in programs in support of growing the broader AAPI community.

Hyun received his BBA in Finance and BS in Math from the University of Michigan, Stephen M. Ross School of Business and College of LS&A.

Current Investment: Rally

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