Ben Black

Co-founder, Chief Investment Officer of Venture firm Akkadian &
Co-founder of the Momentumindex.com

An eleven year veteran of the private equity space, Ben co-founded Akkadian with Peter Smith, to specialize in offering early liquidity to entrepreneurs, early employees and investors in successful private companies. Ben co-founded, with Chris Tarr, the venture sector’s Momentum Index which tracks the top performing private companies across the venture ecosystem.

Knowing it takes an average nine years of bootstrapping for entrepreneurs to achieve liquidity, Akkadian has created a unique way for entrepreneurs and employees to generate liquidity and diversify their risk by selling private stock. Focusing exclusively on purchasing small stakes in successful, growing companies, Akkadian helps innovators manage risk and reap financial reward during that hard climb to the top.

Ben has managed investments in Lithium Technologies, Intelepeer, Splunk, Cloudmark, Docusign, Medio Systems, and Telephia. Ben co-founded NewCycleCapital with Josh Becker to bring socially responsible investing to sectors like clean energy and social finance with investments in Renewable Funding. He spent nearly four years at Seattle venture capital firm, Maveron, focusing on consumer business such as Allconnect (Inc.500 winner), The Villa and CitizenHawk. Prior to Maveron he spent 3 years at private equity firm Rosewood Capital where he focused on branded consumer products and services such as Underarmor.

As an entrepreneur, Ben was part of the founding team at Harris Interactive, which was pioneer in Internet-based market research. During Ben’s tenure, the company completed a successful IPO and generated $200M in revenue.

Ben received his undergraduate degree at Cornell University and his JD at the Cornell School of Law. He is the author of a book on American Politics titled 'The Politics of American Discontent' which can be bought on Amazon for $0.12.

Peter Smith

Co-founder, Managing Director

Co-founder of Akkadian, Peter practiced corporate securities law previously at Cooley LLP, Morrison and Foerster LLP, and Bryan Cave HRO LLP. He focused on venture capital financing, private equity, M&A, securities law compliance, corporate governance, equity compensation as well as commercial agreement negotiation and preparation.

As an entrepreneur, Peter spent over three years as the COO of a real estate development company specializing in large mixed-use projects.

He received his BA, cum laude, from Cornell University and his JD from the Boalt Hall School of Law at the University of California, Berkeley. He is a member of the State Bar of California and the State Bar of Colorado.

Chris Tarr

CTO of Akkadian & the MomentumIndex.com

Chris is a serial entrepreneur. He is the co-founder and CTO of Momentum Index and was a co-founder and Board Member of OnRequest Images, a Seattle-based custom photography logistics automation company. Previously, he co-founded and was CTO of Expede, Inc., a software consulting and training firm which was acquired by Valtech SA, in 1999. Prior to this, Chris was Vice President of Research and Development for ObjectSpace, Inc. and held senior technical roles at Convex Computer Corporation and AT&T Bell Laboratories. Chris holds a BS in Electrical Engineering from Purdue University.

Michael Tanne

Advisor

Michael has been creating and leading software ventures for over 15 years. He is currently Principal of Endeavor Group, which launches and invests in new technology ventures. Previously, Michael was Founder and CEO of XDegrees, a leader in distributed access to enterprise file systems (acquired by Microsoft, 2002). Earlier, he was Founder and VP, Bus Dev of AdForce, a highly successful Internet ad-serving provider that went public in 1999. In 1992, soon after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Michael helped entrepreneurs create technology companies as Assistant Director of the Center for Emerging Technology Enterprises in Warsaw, Poland.

Michael is a Founder and Board Member of Full Circle Fund, a Bay Area non-profit that engages emerging business leaders in philanthropy through grants and hands-on assistance to promising organizations.

Michael holds a degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Alberta and an MBA from Stanford University.

Robert Bailey

Advisor

Rob Bailey has 15 years of experience building high tech, mobile, and local businesses. During his career, Rob has built more than $400 million in enterprise value and strategic business development relationships with companies that have included: Viacom, Netgear, AT&T, Rogers Cable, Toys R' Us, and Televisa. He is currently a member of the executive team at SimpleGeo, a leader in the emerging location field.

Rob has extensive international experience, including four years at Yahoo! as a business development lead in broadband and mobile and two years as a strategy and marketing lead for Banamex, the #1 bank in Mexico. He serves as a strategic advisor to Softtech VC (venture capital), CloudCrowd (crowdsourcing), Liquor.com (spirits industry agency), and GroupeBuy (SMB group-buying). Rob is also passionate about restaurants and invested in Circa Restaurant and DK Marketing, which helped launch over 50 restaurants and lounges.

Rob received his BA from Brown University in 1993 and his MBA from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1999 where he received the top award in his class for Leadership and Academic Achievement.