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Our team

Our team of investment professionals based in London, Munich and San Francisco combines operational, corporate finance, legal and venture capital experience in both Europe and the U.S. Every team member contributes to the success of our investments along with the substantial resources of the Doughty Hanson Group.

We pride ourselves on being approachable and easy to talk to. We are happy to be contacted directly by entrepreneurs keen to discuss business opportunities or find out more about us or our portfolio companies. We also encourage entrepreneurs to approach us before their businesses need funding. This gives us an opportunity to get to know one another, possibly entering into an early dialogue and sharing ideas without the pressure of "raising money".

We also attend and sponsor a number of industry events every year, both in the UK and in other European Countries, so come and meet us face to face.

Ivan

Farneti

Principal

Ivan joined Doughty Hanson in 2000 and focuses on the internet and software sectors. He currently serves on the board of directors of Handmade Mobile Entertainment (UK), CloudFloor (US) and is an observer director on the board of garlik.com (UK).

Ivan has been an active venture capital investor in start-up businesses both in Europe and in the US since 1997. He previously was a member of the Board of Gomez Inc. the internet performance monitoring company acquired by Compuware (Nasdaq: CPWR) in 2009 for $295 million. He also served on the boards of Tridion, an enterprise content management software company acquired by UK-based SDL Plc in 2007 for $94 million, Plazes, a location software company acquired by Nokia in 2008 and Mobango, a mobile content company acquired by People Infocom in 2010. In 2011 he completed the sale of micro-display manufacturer Forth Dimension Display to Kopin Corp (Nasdaq: KOPN).

He joined Doughty Hanson Technology Ventures from Deutsche Bank Venture Capital in London, where he completed several investments in enterprise and infrastructure software, communication equipment and internet products and services companies.

Ivan holds a degree in finance and business management from the Università Commerciale Luigi Bocconi in Milan, Italy, a degree from the Ecole Superieure des Sciences Economiques et Commerciales in Paris, France and a MBA from INSEAD, in France.

He is fluent in English, French, Italian and Spanish.

Nigel

Grierson

Co-head of Technology Ventures

Nigel co-founded the Doughty Hanson Technology Fund in 2000 and currently serves as co-Managing Director. His specific areas of expertise include financial venture investment, high technology marketing and organisation development.

Previously, Nigel was the Group Director for Intel Capital Europe, managing a team responsible for making strategic equity investments and developing new business opportunities throughout Europe. He and the team together originated and invested in over 35 technology start-up companies, many of which became substantial public companies. Nigel has also worked at AT&T in the Communications Product Division leading a team developing high performance silicon processors.

Nigel delivers a number of career development courses for the European Venture Capital Association.

George

Powlick

Co-head of Technology Ventures

George co-founded Doughty Hanson Technology Ventures in 2000. He focuses on investments in the software, materials science and clean technologies sectors. Currently, George serves on the boards of RainStor, Odersun, MBA Polymers, Sustainable Energy Technologies and is an observer on nScaled.

George has been an active venture capitalist since 1995, originally in Silicon Valley and for the last decade in Europe. Prior to joining Doughty Hanson, George was head of the Strategic Investments and Acquisitions Group for Intel Corporation in Europe and the Middle East. He and his team invested in more than 30 companies in ten different countries, helping establish Intel as one of the largest venture capital investors in Europe.

George holds an MBA from The Anderson School at UCLA and a BS in materials science and engineering from the University of California, Berkeley.

Sitar

Teli

Senior Associate

Sitar joined Doughty Hanson Technology Ventures in 2005. Her investment areas include consumer and B2B internet, with a particular focus on product and design oriented companies. Sitar currently serves on the board of directors of MegaZebra and is a board observer on SoundCloud, Handmade Mobile and SecretSales.

Sitar was previously with Jefferies Broadview, the technology investment banking division of Jefferies & Co. Her most recent position was senior analyst, where she worked on mergers and acquisitions for US technology companies, executing over $1bn in transactions in the software, healthcare technology and IT services sectors.

Sitar graduated Magna Cum Laude from Duke University, US, with a BSE in mechanical engineering and materials science and a BS in economics.

Stefan

Tirtey

Principal

Stefan invests in mobile and internet companies across Europe. His current investments include Soundcloud and Ubidyne. In the past he led Doughty Hanson’s investments in Actionality (acquired by Yahoo!) and Plazes (acquired by Nokia) and was also involved with Doughty Hanson Technology Ventures' Adaptive Mobile Security, Azure, and Odersun.

Stefan started his career at o.tel.o communications, now part of Vodafone, where he was deeply involved with the launch of the first competitive consumer long-distance service in Germany. Later he joined Lucent Technologies, working with a number of pan-European carriers in a senior sales and business development role. Before joining Doughty Hanson Technology Ventures Stefan worked for Earlybird Venture Capital, the early stage venture capital fund.

Stefan holds a Dipl. Ing. (MSc) in Electrical engineering from RWTH-Aachen, Germany, and an MBA from INSEAD, France.

Stefan is fluent in German and English.