Christopher Rust
| Christopher Rust | |
|---|---|
| File:Chris Rust portrait photo.jpgChris_Rust_portrait_photo.jpg Christopher Rust | |
| Born | |
| 🎓 Alma mater | University of Massachusetts Lowell |
| 💼 Occupation | General Partner, Clear Ventures |
| 🌐 Website | Clear Ventures |
Christopher (“Chris”) Rust, a technology venture investor and entrepreneur based in Silicon Valley, is a founder and General Partner of Clear Ventures. Prior venture capital experience includes partner roles at Sequoia Capital and U.S. Venture Partners.[1] His operational experience includes co-founder and lead architect of Roadrunner (re-branded as Time Warner Cable Internet). Since 1998 he has made early-stage investments in more than three dozen emerging technology companies, with 20 exits that produced more than $32 billion of market capitalization.[2]
Education[edit]
Rust attended the University of Lowell (today the University of Massachusetts Lowell) and studied Electrical Engineering, earning a Bachelor of Science degree with distinction and a Master of Science degree for which his thesis was “Heterodyning Techniques For Coherent Optical Detection”. He later attended the University of Colorado Boulder where he earned a second Master of Science degree in Telecommunications Engineering, for which his thesis was “Principals of Echo Cancelling In Modern Telecommunications”. Rust earned a third master's degree, a Master of Engineering in Engineering Management, also from the University of Colorado, Boulder. His third master’s thesis was “The Role of Human Capital Assessment In VC Due Diligence”, which took an in-depth look at the patterns of success and failure in venture-backed technology companies.[3][4][5]
Early career[edit]
One of Rust’s first technical roles was with Wang Laboratories, where he worked during his undergraduate studies. Rust then took an engineering position with Nokia in Espoo, Finland. He completed his first master's degree after returning from Finland, then joined MITRE Corporation, a not-for-profit company that operates multiple federally funded research and development centers, as a member of the technical staff.[6] After completing his second master's degree Rust joined US West Advanced Technologies as a member of technical staff in the Switch Architecture Group.[7] This assignment led to his serving as co-founder of Roadrunner, a venture later rebranded as Time Warner Cable Internet. In 2016 Charter Communications acquired Time Warner Cable, Inc. for $55 billion.[8][9] Later technical management roles included serving as Broadband Product Manager at Sourcecom (acquired by ACT Networks), Director of Product Management at ComCore (acquired by National Semiconductor)[10] and Senior Director of Product Management at Carrier Access Corporation,[11] which went public under the ticker symbol CACS.[12]
Venture career[edit]
Sequoia Capital[edit]
In 1998 Rust was recruited to Sequoia Capital as an associate and a year later promoted to partner.[13] During his tenure at Sequoia Capital Rust was involved with Sequoia Capital’s investments in Abrizio, Avanex, Mellanox Technologies, SwitchOn Networks, Syndesis, Telera, and VxTel.[14] In 2002 Rust transitioned to Sequoia Capital’s active portfolio company Mahi Networks as CEO.[15][16] Rust led Mahi Networks until 2004, and stayed on the Mahi Networks Board of Directors until it was acquired by Meriton Networks in 2005.[17]
U.S. Venture Partners[edit]
Rust was recruited to U.S. Venture Partners (USVP) in 2004 and was a partner until 2013.[18] USVP investments Rust was involved in included Dune Networks, GoPro, Kaiam Corporation,[19] LVL7 Systems and PlumGrid.[20][21]
Clear Ventures[edit]
Immediately after leaving USVP, Rust began to work with serial software entrepreneur and venture capitalist Rajeev Madhavan in 2014 to create a new technology venture capital firm, Clear Ventures.[22] The two had first co-invested together in VxTel in 1999.[23] Clear Ventures was publicly announced in 2016 with $120 million in committed capital, exceeding the founders’ capital formation target of $80 million.[24] Clear Ventures’ active portfolio companies at the time of the public launch included Cyphort, Espresa, Falcon Computing, Paysa, Reflektion, Robin Systems,[25] Swift Navigation and Vera.[26] [27]
References[edit]
- ↑ ”New VC firm Clear Ventures raises $120 million for early-stage startups,” Silicon Beat, June 1, 2016 [1]
- ↑ Bloomberg Executive Profile
- ↑ Cap Rally[2]
- ↑ Drover.W., Mote, J., Rust,C. "Into the Land Less Ventured: An empirical examination of the venture capital due diligence process." June 2012, Babson Entrepreneurship Research Conference: Ft. Worth, TX. June 2012
- ↑ "Chris Rust Named General Partner at U.S. Venture Partners," November 1, 2004 [3]
- ↑ Crunchbase
- ↑ Cap Rally[4]
- ↑ Silicon Valley Open Doors
- ↑ "Charter Communications Completes Acquisition of Time Warner Cable," Wall Street Journal, May 18, 2016 [5]
- ↑ "National Semi Buys Comcore For $122M", April 24, 1998
- ↑ Cap Rally[6]
- ↑ Securities and Exchange Commission Form S-1, Carrier Access Corporation, May 29, 1998 [7]
- ↑ “The Top Sequoia Capital Employees,” Ranker
- ↑ “For ex-Sequoia VC, smaller is better”, Silicon Valley Business Journal, June 7, 2016[8]
- ↑ “Chris Rust Appointed President and CEO of Mahi Networks”
- ↑ “Mahi acquires Photuris assets, design team”, EE Times, June 14, 2001[9]
- ↑ Startup Genome
- ↑ "Chris Rust Named General Partner at U.S. Venture Partners," November 1, 2004 [10]
- ↑ "Start-up Kaiam claims photonic integration breakthrough", ECOC Exhibition, April 12, 2011[11]
- ↑ "PLUMgrid brings on Cisco vet for network virtualization push", GigaOM, August 12, 2012[12]
- ↑ "For ex-Sequoia VC, smaller is better", Silicon Valley Business Journal, June 7, 2016[13]
- ↑ "Longtime Silicon Valley co-investors launch Clear Ventures with $120M fund," Silicon Valley Business Journal, June 1, 2016 [14]
- ↑ “Ex-Sequoia VC thinks smaller, early stage funds like his new one are best”, San Jose Business Journal, June 6, 2016[15]
- ↑ ”Palo Alto, CA-Based Venture Capital Firm Clear Ventures Closes $120M Fund,” FinSMEs, June 1, 2016 [16]
- ↑ Robin Systems investors[17]
- ↑ CrunchBase, Vera Investors
- ↑ "Clear Ventures, run by veteran investors, launches debut fund with $120 million," TechCrunch, June 1, 2016[18]
External links[edit]
- Clear Ventures website
- Clear Ventures on CrunchBase
- Chris Rust and Rajeev Madhavan interviewed on "Bloomberg West," June 1, 2016
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