Venture Investing Done Right

Keith Bank has a diverse background in start-up companies, real estate and other entrepreneurial ventures. He is currently managing KB Partners Myriad Opportunity fund, an early stage venture capital fund focused on investing at the intersection of sports and technology. He has been a very “hands on” venture capital and angel investor in a wide variety of industries, including the medical, semiconductor, internet, telecom, software, cable TV, sports and golf, consumer and retail, and social media arenas. He currently serves as Chairman of the Board of Directors of SteadyMed, Ltd. (NASDAQ:STDY) and Club Champion Golf and serves on the boards of ANGLR, Phenix Real Time Solutions, Full Swing Golf and other companies. Prior to forming the KB Partners venture funds, Keith co-founded and served on the Board and as President of MST Analytics, Inc., a semi-conductor product and services business which was successfully sold to ATMI, Inc., a public company, in 1999.

Keith was a founding board member of the Illinois Venture Capital Association and served as its Chairman in 2005-2006. He was the recipient of the IVCA’s prestigious Fellows Medal in 2006. He founded, and for 16 years, served as the Chairman of the Chicago Select Golf Invitational, one of the largest American Cancer Society golf fundraising events in the country, having raised approximately $8 million under his guidance. He has been honored by Crain’s Chicago Business as a “40 Under 40”, a Who’s Who of Chicago Executives and as one of the 100 most prominent members of Chicago’s technology community. Keith is active in CEO’s against Cancer and NU Wave, an athletic fundraising vehicle for Northwestern University.

Prior to forming KB Partners in 1996, Keith was a Principal at HSA, a Chicago based national real estate development, investment, management and brokerage firm. There he was instrumental in the development, acquisition, financing, sale, and leasing of over three million square feet of property with a value in excess of $650 million. Other career highlights include co-founding a deep discount retailer, acquiring and completing a successful turnaround of a women’s apparel manufacturing and sales company, and procuring the equity and debt financing for, and serving as the Producer and Executive Producer of feature films entitled “Heaven is a Playground” (1991) and the BAFTA award winning “Tommy’s Honour” (2017).

Keith graduated magna cum laude with a B.S. Economics from the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania and holds an MBA in Finance with honors from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. He is 99% of the way towards achieving his goal of playing the Top 100 golf courses in the United States.

Matt is the co-founder and CEO of Plenty – an indoor farming company building a global network of field-scale indoor farms to transform produce from a boring commodity to a delicious movement. Located near communities around the world, Plenty farms will utilize cutting-edge growing technologies and proven plant science to deliver industry-leading yields of locally-grown, backyard-fresh produce. By shaving thousands of miles and weeks off the journey from farm to table, Plenty will transition agriculture to a reliable, predictable, and resource-efficient model.Before Plenty, Matt worked to found, build, grow and scale multiple high-growth technology companies in the areas of core network, CDN, telecom, water, electric and gas utilities in addition to corporate development work for Nest, Dropcam, Mightybell and others. Matt’s roles included Whalen & Company where Matt served as President and COO of a $100MM specialty engineering firm that designed and deployed the core networks for all major wireless carriers in the U.S., Search Fund Capital which was founded by Matt by raising $15MM to head a single-industry private equity fund, 523 Capital where he served as Managing Operating Partner of a fund that delivered an 80% annual return to investors, and SmartSynch – a cellular smartgrid company where he worked as VP of Deployment to scale the firm to a 100% growth rate before it was acquired by Itron for $100MM.

Matt earned an MS from the Stanford University Graduate School of Business and both a BA and BM from Northwestern University.

Terrance (“Terry”) Berland is a Managing Partner of Kirenaga Partners.

In addition to his leadership role at Kirenaga, Terry currently serves as Chief Executive Officer of Violet Defense Group, a portfolio company of Kirenaga. He has spent over 20 years driving large scale operational, organization and growth/profit improvement programs. Terry worked extensively in the financial services industry as a senior manager in investment banking (Bear, Lehman, JPMorgan, Barclays), asset management and advisory (Russell Investments), and most recently, hedge funds (Bridgewater Associates). Prior to his work in financial services, Mr. Berland spent 6 years in McKinsey & Company, operating as a partner in the North American Hospital and Health Insurance Practice as well as the Global Operating Practice. Terry’s first job out of college was serving our country in the U.S. Navy as an officer and instructor at the Naval Nuclear Power School.

Terry currently sits on the Board of Directors of Starter Studio, an incubator in Orlando, as well as numerous former and current portfolio companies.

He holds a Bachelors in Mathematics and Business Administration from the University of Notre Dame, and a Masters in Business Administration from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.

Terry is married to his wife Kristi and is the father of 5 children. He loves wine, golf, and scuba diving.

Jay co-founded TJC in 1982. Prior to founding TJC, Jay spent nine years with Carl Marks & Co., Inc., a middle-market merchant bank. He currently serves on the board of directors of Gulfstream Services, Worldwide Clinical Trials and Young Innovations. Jay is a Trustee of the University of Notre Dame and serves as Chairman of its Investment and Finance Committee. He also serves on the boards of the Lyric Opera and Art Institute of Chicago, as well as many other community boards.Jay holds an AB degree in Business Administration from the University of Notre Dame and he attended Columbia University’s Graduate School of Business.

Larry Levy is a founder of Diversified Real Estate Capital, LLC. He has more than 40 years of experience in the real estate industry. His experience includes all aspects of real estate brokerage relating to office and industrial property. He has been an owner/developer of several major projects in Chicago including One Magnificent Mile, Woodfield Lake Office Campus, Waterfall Glen Office Park, Chicago Mercantile Exchange Center and Butterfield Center for Business. Mr. Levy also owns an interest in the Esperanza Resort in Cabo San Lucas.In addition to his long history in the real estate industry, Mr. Levy is also the founder of Levy Restaurants. With Mr. Levy’s guiding creativity, Levy Restaurants blossomed from a single delicatessen in Chicago into a specialized food service organization with a network of internationally acclaimed restaurants, the leading market share of high-end sports and entertainment facilities throughout North America and England, and resort and hotel dining. Levy Restaurants had revenues in excess of $350 million annually and approximately 12,500 employees. Mr. Levy sold his interest in Levy Restaurants in 2007 to focus on investment for his own account. He holds an undergraduate degree and an MBA from Northwestern University.

Dr. Alicia Löffler is the founding Executive Director of the Innovation and New Ventures Office (INVO), Associate Provost for Innovation and New Ventures, Associate Vice President for Research. Dr. Loffler is responsible for all short and long term strategies and operations for INVO, including all educational commercialization and new ventures.Dr. Löffler has served as advisor and director on multiple profit and non-profit boards for biotech/medical and investment firms.Dr. Löffler received a BS from the University of Minnesota, a PhD from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and had her post-doctoral training at Caltech. Dr. Löffler was named one of the Tech 100 stars by Crain’s Chicago Business, and received the “Women in Black” I-Street Award and the 2011 Innovator Award presented by the Chicago Chapter of the Association for Women in Science (AWIS).

William H. McLean was appointed Vice President and Chief Investment Officer for Northwestern University in January 2002. He is responsible for managing the University’s $11.1 billion diversified portfolio. Prior to joining Northwestern University, he was the Senior Managing Director for Asset and Investment Management at the Chicago-based John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, responsible for overseeing all facets of the management of their portfolio. He also served as an Investment Officer at The Duke Endowment in Charlotte, North Carolina.

A Chartered Financial Analyst, Mr. McLean received his BA in economics from Davidson College and his MBA from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. He is a past president of the North Carolina Society of Financial Analysts and past board member of the Investment Analysts Society of Chicago. He was a director of TIFF Advisory Services, Inc., the overseer of investment vehicles for The Investment Fund for Foundations, and he currently serves as a board member of the TIFF Charitable Foundation (TCF). Will is a current trustee of the University of Richmond and a board member of The Sherman Fairchild Foundation. He has served on investment advisory committees of Father Flanagan’s Trust Fund, the NCAA, Davidson College, Mather Lifeways and The Mayo Clinic.

Angelo is the founder and CEO of the Greenwich, CT based Family Office Association (FOA), an exclusive global membership organization that delivers proprietary thought leadership, research, best practices and global programming to multiple generations of exceptionally wealthy families and the professionals who run their single-family offices (SFOs).

David Scalzo is the Founder and Managing Partner for Kirenaga Partners.

David co-founded and served as CFO for AdvisorEngine Inc, and now sits on its Board of Directors. In addition, he has 20+ years experience initiating, growing and managing businesses; having served as COO for the Securities Client Management Team at Credit Suisse, as Head of Investor Services and Client Services at Citadel Solutions, as a Managing Director at Bear Stearns in charge of Strategy and Business Development for the Global Clearing Services Division, and as Director of Operations for Precision Plating Company in Chicago.

David serves on the Board for the Northwestern University Wildcat Athletic Venture Enterprise (NU/WAVE) investment fund, as well as numerous former and current portfolio companies.

David graduated with a BS in Mechanical Engineering from Northwestern University, a Masters in Manufacturing Engineering from the Illinois Institute of Technology, a Masters in Engineering Management from Northwestern University, and a Masters in Business Administration from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.

Thad is a respected advisor and speaker on innovation, entrepreneurship and strategy. Among other projects, he recently served as Senior Advisor to the Provost for Strategic Planning for the University of Central Florida, leading the development of a 20-year plan for the second largest university in the nation, which was unanimously approved by the Board of Trustees in May 2016. Thad currently serves as Vice Provost for the recently approved new UCF Downtown campus that will serve over 7,700 students when it opens.As senior vice president at Tavistock Development Company Thad led planning, marketing and busi¬ness development for Lake Nona, including its Medical City. His role encompassed institutional recruitment and new business ventures, driving innovation, and cultivating collaboration among the Lake Nona partners. While at Tavistock, Thad founded and served as president of the Lake Nona Institute which focuses on working with the community and a group of global partners to innovate and model best practices in health and wellness, sustainability and education.Prior to joining Tavistock and Lake Nona in 2008, Thad led mergers and acquisitions for Priority Healthcare Corporation, culminating in the company’s $1.3 billion sale to Express Scripts in 2005, after which he served as a senior executive with ESI’s CuraScript Specialty Pharmacy business. He also has extensive experience in healthcare informatics, including co-founding a venture-backed electronic medical records company. Thad has served on the boards of multiple healthcare technology businesses.

Thad holds a BA from Dartmouth College, an MA and Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin, and an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. Thad and his wife, Katie, have three children.

James Thompson is currently the Associate Vice President for Innovation and the Executive Director of the Commercialization Department in the IDEA Center at the University of Notre Dame.

James has over 17 years’ experience in management, business development, marketing, biotechnology research and quality systems. Most recently, James was the Interim Executive Director of the Technology & Venture Commercialization office (TVC) at the University of Utah. While at the TVC, in multiple roles including the Interim Executive Director, Director Engineering Team and Business and Technology Manager, James helped to develop and implement a stage gated, milestone driven commercialization process called the Utah Model of Commercialization, or affectionately called the Commercialization Engine. The Commercialization Engine is a system to assist companies with licenses to university owned technologies and successfully commercialize the licensed tech (providing assistance in the areas of strategic planning, funding, problem solution fit, product market fit, recruitment of leadership and more). The system substantially improved both internal and external customer service while increasing the commercialization activity of technologies developed and owned by the University of Utah.

Prior to the University of Utah, James was the Director of Business Development and Director of New Product Development for chemical company (Frontier Scientific) and a research reagents company (Echelon Biosciences). In these companies James released over 200 new products (resulting in an increase of total product offering by 15% and set up collaborations with over 27 entities.

James has also founded four companies, three of which are still in business. Quansys Biosciences, still in business, develops and sells test kits used in the pharmaceutical, clinical and academic research use markets. PetroBio Tech, no longer in business, distributed a fuel additive and performed services in the oil and gas industry cleaning crude oil storage tanks using a proprietary solvent/surfactant blend. Energy Innovation Services, Inc., currently the President, was founded to commercialize a patented surfactant/solvent blend + water conditioner in the oil/gas industry. The Company is focused on manufacturing products and working with distributors to provide the service to oil/gas operators. Finally, Allerief, Inc., currently the President, is focused on developing an over the counter remedy to reduce severity of food-specific allergic reactions.

James has an MS and BS in Biology from Utah State University and an AS in Biology from BYU-Idaho.

Mark Yusko is the Founder, CEO and Chief Investment Officer of Morgan Creek Capital Management. Prior to forming Morgan Creek, Mr. Yusko was President, Chief Investment Officer and Founder of UNC Management Company, the Endowment investment office for the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, from 1998 to 2004. Throughout his tenure, he directly oversaw strategic and tactical asset allocation recommendations to the Investment Fund Board, investment manager selection, manager performance evaluation, spending policy management and performance reporting. Total assets under management were $1.5 billion ($1.2 billion in endowment assets and $300 million in working capital). Until 1998, Mr. Yusko was the Senior Investment Director for the University of Notre Dame Investment Office where he joined as the Assistant Investment Officer in October of 1993. He worked with the Chief Investment Officer in all aspects of Endowment Management. Mr. Yusko received his Bachelor of Science Degree, with Honors, in Biology and Chemistry from the University of Notre Dame and a Master of Business Administration in Accounting and Finance from the University of Chicago. Mr. Yusko is an Advisory Board member of a number of private capital partnerships and alternative investment programs and has served as a consultant on alternative investments to a select group of institutions. Mr. Yusko is an Investment Committee member of the MCNC Endowment, President and Chairman of the Investment Committee of The Hesburgh-Yusko Scholars Foundation at the University of Notre Dame, and President and Head of the Investment Committee of the Morgan Creek Foundation.