Liberty Global Ventures - Venture capital firm
Liberty Global Ventures
Our approach is simple We are long-term, founder friendly investors who help forge commercial relationships with our operating companies
Our portfolio includes a number of innovative and high growth companies such as Aviatrix, Carbon Black, Casa, Edgeconnex, Lacework, O3B, Pax8, Pensando, Plume and Skillz
Plume is the creator of the world’s first intelligent, ever-growing Smart Home Services platform for the modern age With its bundle of high-value services centered around the best possible Wi-Fi, Plume is empowering ISPs around the world to provide their customers with unparalleled Wi-Fi performance, personalization, security, and much more
EdgeConneX builds and operates highly proximate, high-powered, purpose-built data centres for service provider customers and any deployment type, size or scale anywhere in the world We work closely with our customers to provide the scalable capacity, power, and connectivity they need to meet the growing demands of their business and their end users
Meet Mojo Lens, a smart contact lens with a built-in display that gives you timely information without interrupting your focus By understanding your real-world context, Mojo Lens provides relevant, eyes-up notifications and answers Designed by optometrists, technologists, and medical experts, Mojo Lens gives you the knowledge you need—exactly when it’s needed
Skillz is the leading mobile games platform that connects players in fair, fun and meaningful competition The Skillz platform helps developers build multi-million dollar franchises by enabling social competition in their games Leveraging its patented technology, Skillz hosts billions of casual esports tournaments for millions of mobile players worldwide, and distributes millions in prizes each month
Liberty Global Ventures operate at the highest levels of professionalism and integrity
FAHRI DINER, FOUNDER AND CEO OF PLUME Liberty Global Ventures was the catalyst for our expansion into Europe
RANDY BROUCKMAN, FOUNDER AND CEO OF EDGECONNEX “We’re always on the lookout for innovative companies that have created new, exciting technologies that could be beneficial to our core business We help those companies to grow, to mature and to become more valuable ” JOHN GOWEN, MD LIBERTY GLOBAL VENTURES We are an experienced team focused on the trends, markets and technologies that will change how we live and work tomorrow We roll up our sleeves and work closely with all of our founders to build successful businesses and enjoy playing a part in their growth
John Gowen leads Liberty Global Ventures He is a 20+ year veteran of the international telecommunications and media industry He holds a B S in Commerce from The McIntire School at The University of Virginia
Bruce brings over 25 years of technology and telecommunications experience to Liberty Global Over half of those years have been spent in earlier stage environments, where Bruce has founded companies and led businesses from concept and model development, through the capital formation, revenue generation and team building phases, ultimately realizing successful exits on 3 different companies The other half of his career has been spent in mid-size and large corporations, where he has either served as President or Division President, including comCables as President, Northstar Exchange as COO (sold to Construction Software Technologies in 2007), EHPT as President (sold to Ericsson in 2002), and Ericsson Mobile Communications as Division President
Bruce also leads the Spark program within Liberty Global, which drives innovative thinking by applying innovation development principles to Liberty Global’s core operating companies
Over the past 10 years at Liberty, he has worked closely with the ventures and operating team to co-build and co-manage its growing portfolio of investments
Don Parsons is an experienced venture capitalist, having spent the last 30 years investing in and helping grow technology companies He is a seasoned General Partner of 4 Venture Capital Funds totaling over $840 million in capital and has knowledge and/or oversight of over 150 private venture capital investments He is a current or former Board of Director member of more than 25 companies
Don is a Partner of the Venture Capital Group of Liberty Global, one of the world’s leading converged video, broadband and communication companies, with operations in six European countries His current or previous investments include: EdgeConnex (sold to EQT), Revolv (sold to NEST/Google), CloudSense (sold to Vector Capital), Personify (sold to Foxconn), IOTAS, HelloTech, Penthera, Veniam, Thuuz, and SundaySky
Don previously founded Appian Ventures in 2002 and raised an $80 million venture capital fund that invested in 20 software and technology companies including LeftHand Networks (acquired by HP), Collective Intellect (acquired by Oracle), CareFX (acquired by Harris Corporation), AuctionPay (acquired by Global Payments), and Ping Identity (NYSE: PING) Don founded Strategos Ventures, LLC in 2000 to make Angel investments in technology companies along with investments in venture capital funds Angel investments included LeftHand Networks, Stratis Business Centers (acquired by Regus PLC), Lijit Networks/Sovrn (acquired by Federated Media), and Albeo Technologies (acquired by GE) Venture Capital Fund investments include Silicon Valley BancVentures, Purple Arch Ventures, Vanguard Venture Partners, and Sequel Venture Partners
Don also spent 11 years at Denver based Centennial Ventures, a venture capital firm managing over $760 million focused on media and technology investments He invested or oversaw investments in Verio ($8 billion acquisition by NTT), HighGround Systems (acquired by Sun Microsystems), Raindance Communications (IPO, acquired by West Media), Cypress Communications (IPO), Pluto Technologies (acquired by AVID), and Tricord Systems (IPO)
