David received his MBA from The Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College in 1989 and a BA in economics from George Washington University in 1982. He is an entrepreneurship mentor at the Land Center for Entrepreneurship at Columbia University Graduate School of Business. In 2002, David was awarded the Distinguished Mentor of the Year Award from Columbia University.

 

David blogs at www.davidanthonyvc.com

Dr. Agnihotri is the acting CEO of “Graphene Energy Inc” and “Advanced Hydro Inc”. Before joining the company, he spent 8 years with a technology start-up, “Jordan Valley Semiconductors”, which became #3 in the thin-film metrology market segment and the market leader in x-ray based in-line thin film metrology for semiconductor manufacturing. Dileep worked in the capacity of Director for Marketing and managed various aspects of Technical, Strategic, Products, Technology and Applications marketing. He also ramped up the technical team for worldwide applications and actively participated in the early stage technology development. Prior to Jordan Valley, Dileep worked for another start-up “Amia Laboratories” which was acquired by a larger corporation (Rigaku) in the x-ray field. Dileep has over 10 years of experience in various x-ray technologies and their applications in the semiconductor industry. He played a pioneering role in the introduction of fast x-ray metrologies to semiconductor manufacturing. Prior to semiconductors, Dileep spent 8 years working in the field of Nuclear Chemistry, which involved neutron and charge particle detection technologies and research on fundamental nuclear matter interactions.
 

Dileep holds a PhD in Nuclear Chemistry/Physics and an MS in Physical Chemistry from the University of Rochester, NY. He also has an MS in Physics from Agra University. Dileep has published over 30 articles and holds nearly half a dozen patents. Dileep’s interests and expertise include new and disruptive technologies, their market potential and commercialization aspects, in particular, for Solar, Nuclear, Semiconductors, Energy storage, X-rays, new Materials for various industries and Detector technologies.

Lyle holds an MBA from the University of Oxford and a BS in Commerce with a Concentration in Accounting from the University of Virginia. At Oxford, Lyle founded the Said Business School Venture Fund, the first student managed venture fund in Europe.

Shelly Freedman shelly@21ventures.net is a Wall Street lawyer with 20 years experience in the technology business in the United States and Israel. As an attorney, Shelly has worked as outside counsel to investors and technology companies in corporate finance, technology transfer and securities compliance, and has served as in-house counsel to a billion-dollar technology company. Shelly has served in numerous full-time senior positions in early-stage software companies.

Shelly teaches the business law segment of the commercialization of technology course for postdoctoral scientists at New York Academy of Sciences, "From Idea to IPO – The Technology Venture". He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in economics from the University of Toronto and a law degree from the University of Windsor.

As a Principal at 21 Ventures, Jessica Bloomgarden (jessica@21ventures.net) supports various portfolio companies and evaluates potential new investments in the clean technology space. Jessica previously worked at JPMorgan in the Technology Investment Banking Group where she helped to build the firm's clean technology practice in addition to covering companies in the Internet, payments, software and communications equipment sectors. Prior to JPMorgan, Jessica worked at SolarCity, a leading solar integrator, in their products and marketing group. Jessica also worked at the World Bank where she conducted research and published reports on Africa's private sector development.
 
Jessica currently serves on the Social Investment Council of Echoing Green, a nonprofit organization dedicated to early-stage social sector investing.  Jessica received her BA in Economics from Stanford University where she received her class's Award of Excellence. At Stanford, Jessica was an active participant in the entrepreneurial community and participated in several business plan competitions, including MIT"s Ignite Clean Energy Competition where her team was a semi-finalist.

Rich Giersch rich@21ventures.net is an experienced grant developer and biotechnology executive.   In his role as Grants Director he works with 21 Ventures portfolio companies to help identify, write, and administer grants and other forms of non-dilutive funds.  Prior to joining 21 Ventures Rich served for 6.5 years as COO to ZenBio, a profitable biotechnology company in RTP, North Carolina.  In that role he developed and ran the corporate grant writing program, managed licensing deals, and handled service contract negotiations with large pharmaceutical and biotechnology customers.  The grants awarded as a result of the program completely covered the cost of research and development, resulted in the introduction of multiple groundbreaking products and services for the research community, and enabled the company to expand through non-dilutive revenue.  Prior to his career at ZenBio Rich ran a market research and strategic planning consultancy and was Director of Information at at the Venture Capital firm Fusion Ventures.
 
Rich holds a BS from West Virginia University and has completed graduate work at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill.  He has guest lectured on due diligence and information gathering at UNC's Keenan Flagler business school and traveled with the NC Department of Commerce participating in panel discussions on Entrepreneurship in the Life Sciences.