Lars Karle, Managing Partner – Mr. Karle is a change agent and business driver for innovation management in the “TIMES” industries (Telecommunication, IT, Media, E-Business, and Security). While located in the U.S. over six years, Mr. Karle helped found seven technology companies. Between 1998 and 2002, he was vice president for business development at the Fraunhofer Center for Research in Computer Graphics in Providence, Rhode Island. He also serves as Vice Chairman for the INI-GraphicsNet Foundation, which currently supports R&D labs in seven countries. Between 1994 and 1998, Mr. Karle served as director of multimedia at Thyssen Telecom in Germany, where he was an early promoter of Internet. He started several large projects and invested successfully in companies to advance the group’s non-voice business lines. For MAZ in Hamburg, he helped create a network of spin-off companies and the underlying business models for the company’s technology transfer initiatives. Lars started his career in the computer industry as a systems engineer and project leader for large real-time applications, computer networking, and optical character reading.  As a manager in professional services at Digital Equipment Corporation, he was in charge of the Solution Business and developed the business in and around the wider Telecommunications Industry in Europe. Lars holds an M.S. in electrical engineering from Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg, Sweden and has been a member of IEEE since 1978.

Greg Magel, Managing Partner – Dr. Magel is a seasoned technology development leader and inventor. His areas of technical expertise encompass optical and photonic devices and systems including fiber optic switches, electronics and microtechnology (integrated circuits and MEMS), electronic and photonic packaging, and nanotechnology, and the interfaces between these disciplines. He has served as Chairman of the Photonics Division of the Optical Society of America, and is a Senior Member of the IEEE. He is an inventor on 19 issued and several pending U.S. patents, beginning at Stanford University, continuing through a career in corporate research and development at Texas Instruments (TI) and Corning, and more recently as an advisor to several small technology companies. Dr. Magel has served on patent committees at TI and Corning, performing technical and IP due diligence in M&A transactions, licensing of patent portfolios, formulating patent strategy, acting as a liaison between C-level officers and patent counsel, writing patent applications, and performing prior art searches. As vice president of technology for an optical networking equipment start-up, he guided corporate intellectual property strategy, strengthened the existing portfolio with further filings, orchestrated foreign filings, established an invention disclosure and patent award process, and set research priorities and led proof-of-concept development. Greg received his B.S. in electrical engineering from Rice University and earned an M.S. and Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Stanford University.

George Poletes, Managing Partner – Mr. Poletes is a corporate attorney and business development professional in the network services industry. He recently served as general counsel of The Planet Internet Services, one of the world’s largest Internet hosting providers. At Momentum Equity Group, a Dallas-based private equity firm, he served as senior vice president of corporate finance and general counsel. George has significant experience working with high-growth technology companies, and has been involved in fundraising transactions that have brought in over $900 million in venture capital and private equity funding for the companies with which he has been associated. He served in corporate development roles at Onramp Technologies and later at Verio, where he helped manage the merger of the two companies and the initial public offering of Verio in April 1998.  Mr. Poletes has also advised companies on technology transfer strategies and business model formulation, and he is a co-inventor on two patent-pending business processes for the commercialization and transfer of underutilized patents. George received a B.A. with highest honors from the University of Texas and a J.D. from New York University School of Law.

Mehmet Unsoy, Managing Partner – Dr. Unsoy is a telecom market and technology visionary, with over 30 years of data, IP, and wireless communications innovation. At the beginning of his career, Dr. Unsoy helped launch the Internet by designing congestion control and routing for the ARPANET project in the early 1970s. He helped build Canada’s first public packet network and led the development of innovative communication products as director of data network product development at Bell-Northern Research. At Nortel, Dr. Unsoy promoted broadband networking solutions in Asia, implemented IP based solutions for various Nortel product lines, and led the company’s wireless Internet thrust with development of innovative mobile applications and 2.5 G and 3G wireless solutions.  He served 3 years with British Telecom, BT Wireless, and mmO2, where he was vice president of technology and chief architect and helped bring innovative solutions to wireless operators. Mehmet currently advises several leading venture capital firms and innovative start-up companies on their investment strategies and wireless market efforts.  He earned his BSEE degree from METU in Ankara, Turkey and an M.S. and Ph.D. in computer science from the University of Waterloo in Canada.