- © 2022 Gammite Ventures. All Rights Reserved.
Gammite VenturesGammite Ventures
Chairman, Advisory Board @Gammite Ventures, Co-CEO @ Resilience Capital Partners, Co-CEO @ Zanite Acquisition Corp [NYSE: ZNTE]
Steven H. Rosen is the Co-Founder and Co-Chief Executive Officer of Resilience Capital Partners where he is involved with all aspects of the firm’s operations, including developing and maintaining relationships with investors, investment analysis, and operational improvement strategies for portfolio companies.
He has made hundreds of investments in his career ranging from early stage startups to established companies in a variety of industries. Steve has evaluated thousands of emerging technology companies, both early stage as an avid Angel investor, and later stage with the Zanite Acquisition Corp SPAC team focused on next generation technologies. This experience and his multi-industry connectivity has given Steve ample foresight into the technological innovations that will become future profitable enterprises and their probability of success when evaluating companies.
An alumnus of the University of Maryland, Steven also received an MBA from the Weatherhead School of Management at Case Western Reserve University. He is a member of many professional organizations, including the Ohio Chapter of the Turnaround Management Association and the Cleveland chapter of the Young Presidents Organization. Steven also serves on the boards of directors of several companies including FlexJet, the 2nd largest private jet charter company, and several public companies- Park-Ohio Holdings Corp., Crawford United Corporation and AmFin Financial Corporation. As an inventor, Steven has been granted 6 patents by The United States Patent and Trademark Office
Managing Partner @ Gammite Ventures, Technology Advisor @ Zanite Acquisition Corp [NYSE: ZNTE (now EVEX)], Technology and Innovation Advisor @ Resilience Capital Partners.
Tony Pyros played the pivotal role in making several founders and co-angels hundreds of millions of $s each by composing seed rounds for AI-enabled startups now greater than $4B in enterprise value in various trillion-dollar industries.
Now turned institutional VC for Gammite Ventures, he loves brainstorming with founders on how to benefit the lives of hundreds of thousands like some of his earlier, personal investments.
From assisting immigrants to come to study in North America by investing in the pre-seed round of ApplyBoard (valuation >$3.7B) or by enabling salespeople to earn more $s for their families by spearheading the Seamless AI seed round, helping people innovate and fund the launch of new products and services has become a calling for Tony Pyros.
Since graduating from The Ohio State University College of Engineering, Tony spent 17 years in business development in the product design space for hardware, software, and embedded firmware systems and has been an active Angel investor and advisor to companies mentioned below with some valuations from early investments made going from ~20X to ~900X and growing.
Tony’s additional years of investment and technology experience with his roles at Resilience Capital Partners and Zanite Acquisition Corp [NYSE: ZNTE] are useful in evaluating opportunities and examining technologies that enable high margin, defensible growth.
Coming from a background of product innovation in software, aerospace, defense, medical, consumer electronics, wireless, energy & power electronics, he has been driving innovation and forging strategic B2B partnerships for years and continues to do so for active investments.
Having had an active role to hundreds of new product introductions has given Tony a good sense of what it takes to evaluate and launch something successfully and the many pitfalls and false assumptions that can create obstacles along the path to success.He had been representing technology companies like Honeywell, Panasonic, Vicor, and Laird (acquired by DuPont) to create strategic partnerships and aid companies (both public and private) in product design, strategic sourcing, electronics manufacturing, and revenue growth.
Current Investor/Board: Applyboard, Seamless AI, Flair, ClearSky Energy, ZenVessel, TAIV, Loris, Trifecta Health Solutions, LKD Aerospace, and Gladiator Technologies.
Managing Partner at Gammite Ventures, Technology Advisor at Zanite Acquisition Corp [NYSE: ZNTE], Technology and Innovation Advisor at Resilience Capital Partners, and Managing Partner at Amin, Turocy & Watson, LLP. Education: The Ohio State University (BSEE) and Case Western Reserve University (MBA and JD).
Himanshu has deep technical expertise in quantum computing, artificial intelligence, industrial automation, wireless, networks, power, robotics, interfaces, security, optics, semiconductor, encryption, medical device and numerous other technology verticals, He represents over twenty Global Fortune 500 clients at the executive level in connection with intellectual property, business strategy, valuation, acquisitions and conflict resolution,
He is an Adjunct Professor of Strategic Intellectual Property Management at Case Western Reserve University School of Law. Himanshu is listed in Super Lawyers magazine. He is an Executive Member of the Board of Trustees (and chairs the Marketing and Sales Committee) for Playhouse Square, Cleveland, OH, is on the Dean’s Advisory Board at the Weatherhead School of Management, is a member of the Board of Trustees at Hawken School, is Chair of NYU’s Parent Circle, on the Parent’s Leadership Board at Emory University, and is a board member of Luminance Brands, Thermal Product Solutions, and Magnum Energy, and is an investor in numerous tech start-ups.
Advisor @ Gammite Ventures, Former board member @Xoom (NASDAQ: PYPL), Eventbrite (NYSE: EB), @Navio Networks
Angel Investor @ Eventbrite, Paypal, Xoom, ChowNow, Gyft, Extreme Networks, Bridg, Weev, Silicon Spice, Air Media, Stream, Therma
Andrew Jacobson currently serves as president of TensorMark, Inc., principal at Navio Networks, Inc., and is an active angel investor in technology and start-ups.
Andrew graduated from Pomona College, and then went on to Boston University where he was awarded a JD/MBA. After practicing as a corporate securities attorney at Gray Cary (now DLA Piper) in Silicon Valley, Mr. Jacobson joined NBC Internet, Inc. as an executive. Upon completing NBC Internet’s acquisition by NBC/GE, Mr. Jacobson when on to hold operational and legal executive positions Clearant, Inc., j2 Global Communications (NASDAQ: JCOM), Universal Sports (acquired by NBC), 360Candidate, and Regent Equity. Throughout his career Mr. Jacobson has completed equity, debt and merger transactions well in excess of $2.5 billion.
Chandra Balasubramanian has over 30 year of experience in technology and fintech areas. Currently Chandra is ideating and incubating on DLT, Fintech and AI areas as well as a consulting advisor to fintech companies like Visa.
Prior to Chandra’s current venture, Chandra was a Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer of CardinalCommerce, a payment authentication service provider to some of the largest digital commerce retailers and financial institutions globally. Chandra was also part of the successful acquisition of CardinalCommerce by Visa in 2017 and led technology, operations and cybersecurity areas for CardinalCommerce as part of Visa.
Prior to Visa and CardinalCommerce Chandra has held various roles in technology and fintech areas in Online training, banking and other distributed systems. Chandra also is a co-inventor and holds over 50 patents in financial and technology areas globally.
Advisor @ Gammite Ventures , Chairman Global Critical Logistics, Chairman DCLI, Former CFO C.H. Robinson , Former CFO Forward Air, Former CEO Panther Expedited Services, Former BOD Pacer, Blount, Big Lots
Andrew Clarke has over 20 years of experience in the global transportation and logistics industries.
Currently Mr. Clarke serves as the chairman of the boards of Global Critical Logistics in Los Angeles, CA and DCLI, Inc. in Charlotte, NC.
From 2015 to 2019, Mr. Clarke served as the Chief Financial Officer of C.H. Robinson, Inc. of Minneapolis, Minnesota, a NASDAQ-listed corporation and one of the world’s largest third-party logistics providers. From 2007 until 2013, Mr. Clarke was the Chief Executive Officer of Panther Expedited Services, Inc., a premium logistics provider that focuses on the automotive, life sciences, governmental and manufacturing segments.
From 2001 to 2006, Mr. Clarke served in various executive roles, including as Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, at Forward Air Corporation, a NASDAQ-listed, diversified transportation services corporation.
Currently Mr. Clarke also serves on the boards of Element Fleet Management Corp. (TSX), Arrive Logistics.
Previously Mr. Clarke served as a director of several public companies, including Forward Air Corporation, Pacer International, Inc., Blount International, Inc. and Big Lots, Inc.
Mr. Clarke holds a Master of Business Administration from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and a BSBA from Washington University in St. Louis.
Sheetal is an entrepreneur, avid investor, and 20 year veteran of the tech space. First and foremost he is the CEO of TribalScale–a digital firm that specializes in the design and development of world class digital products. Throughout his career, Sheetal has seen the potential of technology to transform businesses and is dedicating his life’s work to support brands in creating digital solutions that innovate businesses and delight users.
Sheetal began his work at Keating Technologies with the launch of the Palm Pilot. At Xtreme Labs, later acquired by Pivotal Software in 2014, he led the Media vertical for the organization, gaining an industry reputation for his mobile expertise.
Sheetal is an active speaker and a volunteer and member of the Board of Directors for the Ontario Association of Food Banks. He is also an Advisory Council Member for Tech4SickKids, Mentor for DMZ at Ryerson University, Founder Institute, and TechStars. He is committed to fostering growth and innovation within the tech community in Canada and abroad.
Areas of Expertise: Entrepreneurship, Startups, Digital Transformation, Scaling your business, Agile Methodologies
Sheetal consistently invests in tech companies and startups to foster the growth of entrepreneurship in the tech community. Investments include: Every Financial (acquired by Wave and H&R Block), Gallup Labs (acquired by Big Viking Games), Helpful (acquired by Shopify), Spatial.io, Nurosene (IPO),Dream Payments, Vouchr, The Knowledge Society, MasterHealth, Gilgamesh, Willful, Sports Icon, FD7 Ventures, Senso.ai, Winston House, Script Runner.
JC Glancy is the Founder of ZenBusiness.com, a unicorn company out of Austin, TX. ZenBusiness.com is the platform for small business owners to launch, run, and grow their business all in one place.
Advisor @ Gammite Ventures, Former Co-Founder and CEO @ ApplyBoard (>$4B Valuation), Current board member @ ApplyBoard
Steve Croke : Investment Partner @ Gammite Ventures
Steve has spent his career focused on technology and vertical niche markets building portal style marketplaces. Focusing on matching technology with lead generation in careers, education, training for healthcare and legal space. Beyond his software experience, his industry expertise includes SaaS, Consumer Mobile, Healthcare, eLearning, and Recruiting Software.
He is a former founder of Ticket Void (acquired by Legal Brand Marketing), Pharmacy Choice (acquired by AMN Healthcare), and Friendly and Safe Packaging (acquired by Berry Plastics).
Steve has also been an angel investor and active in the Denver startup community. Current notable angel investments include Hivecell, OnSpot Data, and Tanzle.
Advisor @ Gammite Ventures, angel investor, MD, co-founder of Emergency Medical Physicians.
Gary Bender – CEO and Founder of Carneros Bay, a Financial Services focused Venture and Advisory firm. Carneros works with Tier 1 financial services companies and emerging digital banks to guide the advancement of digital technologies within the financial services industry. At Carneros, Gary has advised over 30 fintech companies on their strategic growth and product strategies and he has directly led the launch of four thriving start-ups. Gary also advises numerous banks and credit card networks on M&A and growth initiatives.
Prior to creating Carneros Bay, Gary was Global Head of Intellectual Property, Innovation and Partnerships at Visa, Inc. Gary was responsible for the creation and execution of the global intellectual property program which guided Visa to build one of the most recognized patent portfolio within the industry. Gary was also an SME on Visa’s Corporate Development and M&A teams, supporting Visa’s investment and/or acquisition in over a dozen companies. Prior to Visa, Gary was the North America Practice Leader for Ernst & Young’s Intellectual Property Services team. Gary is is an experienced executive with depth in technology, payments, banking, fintech, eCommerce with a track record for team building, refining strategies and focused execution and an expert in in Business Development, Strategy, Strategic Partnerships, Product execution, Fundraising, and Start-ups. Gary has been directly involved in the development and creation of thousands of fintech patents and holds more than a dozen in his name.
Sheldon Rose, MD completed his Emergency Residency at University Hospitals in 2013. Since then, he has taken on many roles as an EMS Medical Director, as well as serving as the former chairman of UH Parma Medical Center’s ED.
Currently, Sheldon works at several emergency departments in the Ohio area and still manages to find time to participate as a Board Member for both Out of the Ashes as well as MedWish International.
Out of the Ashes is an International non-governmental organization that serves the underprivileged in Ethiopia. Sheldon volunteers his time and travels to Africa once a year to care for those in need.
MedWish International is also a not-for-profit organization that saves lives and the environment by repurposing discarded medical supplies.
In addition, he has co-founded Panacea Wellness in Cleveland, Ohio. Panacea is a concierge medicine concept and focuses on health, beauty and wellness.
Investment Partner @Gammite Ventures with SaaS/Marketing/Growth expertise. Chief Marketing Officer @Proformex
Previously, David served as CMO of MacroPoint, a SaaS- based global technology freight visibility platform for shippers, brokers and 3PLs acquired by Descartes in 2017. David was Founder and CEO of the Communications Group, a digital e-commerce
& fulfillment platform for traditional media (TV, Radio, and Newspaper verticals) partners across North America, from 2003 to Dec 2011. Prior to founding the Communications Group, he founded Media Pro, Inc, a media buying and marketing consulting agency.
David has been engaged in several SaaS startups as an advisor and investor. He also sits on the boards of multiple companies.
Brennan Igoe is an Investment Partner at Gammite Ventures and also the Managing Director of Argonite Partners, a transaction advisory firm that he founded in 2019. Brennan began his career working at start ups in San Francisco in the mid-2000’s and then moved into M&A advisory in 2012, working at firms including Harris Williams & Co., Western Reserve Partners, and Citizens Bank. Brennan’s advisory career has spanned industries but always maintained a focus on technology and software businesses. Brennan’s responsibilities with Gammite including sourcing, evaluating and executing investments, and working closely with portfolio company founders.
Brennan received his MBA from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth, where he was a Tuck Scholar, and received his bachelor’s degree in economics from Yale University. He currently serves as Board Treasurer of Medwish, a non-profit organization that sends excess medical supplies to areas in need. Brennan lives in Chagrin Falls, Ohio with his wife and three children, where he enjoys playing tennis, tinkering with smart-home devices, and cheering for his kids at countless sporting events.
Derek is a best-selling author, nationally recognized advisor and influencer in the healthcare consulting industry who used to lead a health insurance broker practice for over a decade. He participated in mastermind groups with some of the top independent healthcare consultants in the country, propelling him to develop some of this own custom programs, now utilized by consultants nationally. Throughout his journey, he pieced together a number of unique strategies that ultimately led to a dramatic reduction in healthcare costs for self-funded employers, greatly outpacing the majority of the industry. In an effort to streamline these processes so that others could share in the successes, he started Trifecta Health Solutions, a technology company that offers a robust data command center, showing employers how to improve their healthcare benefits plans and reduce costs. Derek is passionate about solving our nation’s healthcare cost, quality and transparency dilemmas and frequently consults with a variety of healthcare-related companies to help improve their processes and program offerings.
Dr. Zhang joined Gammite as an Investment Partner in 2021 focused on collaborations with Asian market counterparts as well as strategic sourcing.
He’s had numerous executive and advisory roles to several private equity and venture-backed companies including Luminance, Lux Global Label, All-American Hose, Faraday Future, Biotekmatrix, Dark Horse, Solar Reserve, Adway, Puretec, ATB Robotics and Bio-decoder. His area of expertise is global sourcing, technology and product development.
He holds a PhD in Materials and a MS in Management from University of Florida. His research has been published in the top scientific journals.
Anthony Alexander started his 14 year career in Finance at FirstEnergy dealing with acquisitions and valuations. Upon being successful within the finance group the company moved Anthony into governmental relations, specifically focusing on federal governmental affairs. Anthony?s acumen in finance made him a valuable resource for the government relations team in Washington D.C. Anthony is now lead in the Washington D.C. office and an expert in energy issues affecting all aspects of the economy. He?s an expert at managing relationships and has a deep understanding of how the political system at all levels works and how to achieve success within government.
Yasir Drabu is the founder and CEO of Taazaa, a custom software development company and venture studio. For nearly two decades, Yasir has been an angel investor, co-founder, and software development partner for multiple companies in the digital healthcare, prop tech and several other verticals.
Before Taazaa, Yasir co-founded two other companies, one of which was acquired by Telerik. He enjoys building high-performing product teams to solve complex real-world problems with the latest technologies.
Yasir has a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Kent State University and has been awarded many research grants, including a networking research grant by Cisco, Inc. and the prestigious Ohio Board of Regents Scholarship for Research Excellence.
Chris Casturo – Managing Director and Business Unit Leader – Strategy and Advisory Services
Chris offers over 30 years of consulting, industry, and investment experience. His company Point Management Group was founded in 1989 as Point Venture Partners and he has been involved in growing businesses across industry sectors for 3 decades. Chris took over as CEO in 2004 and has advised clients from start-ups to the fortune 500. Point Management Group was acquired by CEI in 2019. Chris currently leads the strategy and advisory services business for CEI which is a full service global consultancy.
Chris specializes in evaluating how data and technology can drive corporate strategic growth. He has run both large and small consulting projects across many industry sectors. His service line expertise includes strategy, digital and data strategy, operational excellence, supply chain management, sales and marketing effectiveness and technology enablement. Chris has significant experience in operationalizing both growth, and cost reduction strategies while specializing in the organizational models, the data and the technology that drives the changes. He also has a background to Finance and M&A to help explore both organic and inorganic growth opportunities.
Chris holds a Master of Business Administration, concentration in Finance from Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business and a Bachelor of Arts in Economics from Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire.
Derek Oster is an Associate at Gammite Ventures and also works with Argonite Partners, an M&A advisory firm based in Beachwood, Ohio.
Derek began his career in the Valuation Advisory group at Stout, following which he served as a Manager within Marcum LLP’s Valuation, Litigation & Transaction Services group concentrating in business valuation, litigation advisory, complex damages analysis and modeling, strategic/exit planning, and M&A (including buy- and sell-side due diligence). Derek has earned the Accredited Senior Appraiser (ASA) professional license through the American Society of Appraisers (designated in business valuation), as well as the Certified Valuation Analyst (CVA) credential through the National Association of Certified Valuators and Analysts.
Derek majored in Finance at Miami University’s Richard T. Farmer School of Business. He resides in Concord, Ohio, where he enjoys spending time with his family (including his dog, Tartan), golfing, NBA teambuilding, and reading/watching anything based on the works of J.R.R. Tolkien.
