Team

Roy DiBenerdini, Managing Director & General Partner

Roy DiBenerdini is an accomplished Entrepreneur, Senior Executive, IP Inventor and CEO with more than 30 years of success across the technology, analytics, finance/investments and marketing industries. Leveraging extensive experience identifying digital growth opportunities and market strategies for organizations. He has been instrumental in reengineering organizations by increasing enterprise value and expanding into new markets. His broad areas of expertise include investment strategy, growth strategy, increased valuation and analytics. Throughout his executive career, Roy has held leadership positions at companies including AOL Digital Marketing Services, Computer and Information Sciences, Inc., American Airlines, Inc. and iiON Corporation. Roy is also Managing Partner at Green Room Fund, LLC, an early stage technology commercialization company. Roy implemented the very first online customer loyalty program – AOL Rewards, which resulted in significant growth from 10M subscribing customers to more than 34M. He has also seen tremendous success as a CEO and an entrepreneur, raising more than $22M in funding for his companies. As founding CEO, he raised $10M of funding for iiON Corporation (a Business Analytics SAAS company) whose clients included AOL, Disney, ESPN, Microsoft, Fast Company, Red Herring, Inc. Magazine, Sony, etc. He is a former Airline Advisory Board member to the United States Travel & Tourism Administration (U.S. Department of Commerce) and serves on the board of several early stage private and public companies. Roy is a frequent panel member at business entrepreneurial discussion groups such as, Connect San Diego, MIT Enterprise Forum. Currently with Cybersecurity at MIT Sloan, and is a Charter Member of TiE Boston. Roy DiBenerdini received an Aerospace Engineering Degree from The University of Texas and a HBS Certificate in Entrepreneurship from Harvard University.

Mike Steinmetz, Director & General Partner

Roy DiBenerdini, Managing Director & General Partner

Mike Steinmetz has forty years of federal, state and private sector experience. Mike entered the cybersecurity arena in 2000 working for senior government leaders to include the Director of NSA. From 2004 onwards Mike has been in the private sector, first at Northrop Grumman where he delivered the company’s first international cyber strategy resulting in a £1.2 billion win in the United Kingdom and a cybersecurity acquisition in Australia where he relocated to lead subsequent integration activities. After returning from Australia Mike moved into the international energy & power industry addressing digital risk and security for National Grid in the United States and the United Kingdom; serving concurrently as National Grid’s Global Director for Strategy & Planning, the Global Director Governance & Compliance, and as the interim US Chief Information Security Officer (acting). Most recently Mike served as Rhode Island’s first State Cybersecurity Officer and as the Governor’s Homeland Security Advisor, where he used a risk-based approach to assess and improve the security of state systems, implemented the first annual cybersecurity training program for state employees and delivered the state’s first cybersecurity strategy. Mike is an Oxford University, Oxford Martin School Associate and serves on the Board of Boston College’s Woods College for Advancing Studies, Master of Science Degree in Cybersecurity Policy & Governance. He is affiliated with the annual London Cityforum Cybersecurity event and supports domestic and international initiatives at the Atlantic Council led by Frank Kramer. Mike is a decorated combat pilot, a graduate of the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University and is a distinguished graduate of the National Defense University, Industrial College of the Armed Forces, where he received a Masters of Science in National Resource Management.

ADVISORS

Randy Berholtz J.D., Sr. Advisor

Mr. Berholtz is a Sr. Fund Advisor and Fund Counsel with Mesa Verde and a Member of the Investment Committee. Mr. Berholtz has over 24 years experience as a venture capital, securities, private and public financing, mergers and acquisitions, intellectual property, intellectual property litigation and regulatory lawyer in the life sciences including over 14 years as the general counsel to three public life science companies in San Diego (Nanogen, Inc., Apricus Biosciences, Inc., and Innovus Pharmaceuticals, Inc.) and to one group of US and Chinese life science companies in San Diego and Hangzhou, China (the ACON Group). He has also served as the Chief Operating Officer and General Counsel to IngleWood Ventures, L.P. and has held roles as a general partner, venture partner, advisor and consultant to a number of life science venture capital firms. He was also a member of the San Diego Tech Coast Angels (BioMedTRak Group) and the Life Science Angels. He is currently on the Board of Directors of Strategic Drug Solutions, Inc., the first spin-out company from the Western University of Health Sciences in Pomona, California and has been on the board of directors of four other life science companies. He is a past Adjunct Professor at the Keck Graduate Institute of Applied Life Sciences at the Claremont Colleges and a past Lecturer at the Rady School of Business at the University of California, San Diego. Randy has his BA from Cornell University in political economy, his M.Litt from Oxford University where he was a Rhodes Scholar, his J.D. from the Yale Law School and receive his MBA from the University of San Diego

Ben Boissevain, J.D., Advisor

Randy Berholtz J.D., Sr. Advisor

Ben Boissevain has 30 years of cross border M&A experience and has senior level global connections in the technology sector. He graduated from NYU Law School and started his career at White & Case. His legal experience enables him to assist in contractual negotiations in M&A and capital raise transactions. He garnered investment banking experience at Erste Bank in Vienna and Barclays Bank in New York. Mr. Boissevain speaks regularly on panels on the technology sector and corporate finance and has appeared on TV at Fox News and Bloomberg. Ben is also Managing Partner of Ascento Capital, LLC. Ascento Capital is a technology-focused investment bank with expertise in enterprise software, digital media, cloud computing, healthcare IT, AR/VR, ecommerce software, analytics, MarTech and FinTech. Ben and his team has extensive international experience in, among other countries, India, Israel, France, Germany, U.K., and Japan. Ascento's mission is to recognize emerging technology trends and to bring to the table small companies and large domestic and international companies that are ready for acquisitions and to provide access to capital, including private equity, venture capital and family funds.