Illuminate Ventures is an early stage VC firm led by a team of experienced investors with significant operating and investment track records. Based in the San Francisco Bay Area, the firm targets North American-based high growth, ”lean startups” in the high-tech landscape, with a particular focus on Enterprise cloud computing. We work closely with founders to support them in building truly great companies. We’ve been there ourselves and know that a team-based approach delivers the best results.

The firm also benefits from a “Who’s Who” 40+ person Business Advisory Council made up of some of the most successful members of the global high-tech ecosystem including founders like Donna Dubinsky (Palm Computing, Handspring) and Jean Kovacs (Comergent, Qualix Group), senior corporate executives and board members in companies like Adobe, Dell, IBM, Microsoft and Symantec and venture industry veterans like Bob Gunderson, Cliff Higgerson and Janice Roberts – all of whom work closely with the firm and with the founding teams in our portfolio.

Illuminate’s investment team is well respected in the venture community where they have built longstanding relationships with successful entrepreneurs and co-investors. Illuminate team members have helped successfully build companies to deliver positive returns through IPOs and M&A transactions both as investors and as operating managers in a variety of sectors including SaaS/cloud computing, Big Data analytics,  business applications, security, technology enabled services, digital media and mobile and wireless communications.

Illuminate has co-invested with some of the leading venture capital and corporate investors in the world. Some of Illuminate’s recent investment partners include Alloy Ventures, Altos Ventures, Bay Partners, Battery Ventures, Bridgescale Venture Partners, First Round Capital, Intel Capital, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Rembrandt Ventures, Safeguard, SK Telecom Ventures and Salesforce.com.

Cindy Padnos – Founder & Managing Partner

Leveraging over 25 years of high-tech industry experience, Cindy Padnos is the founder and Managing Partner of Illuminate Ventures.  Ms. Padnos focuses primarily in cloud computing sector with a particular emphasis on B2B SaaS applications and platforms, big data/real-time analytics, enterprise social, technology-enabled services and mobile communications investments. Cindy currently serves as a director of privately held portfolio companies BrightEdge, CalmSea, Hoopla and Xactly Corporation.

Ms. Padnos has been an active member of the venture capital community since 2002. Prior to founding Illuminate, she was a director of Outlook Ventures where she was one of three investment professionals responsible for committing the firm’s $140 million fund.  During her tenure, Ms. Padnos sourced more than half of the firm’s new investments including companies in the IT infrastructure, software/SaaS, consumer Internet and mobile application spaces and built a track record of performance.

Ms. Padnos has developed a unique and widely recognized set of skills in the Enterprise cloud computing space as a result of her prior experience as an operator and investor. As a serial entrepreneur, Ms. Padnos helped deliver successful outcomes for several venture-backed start-ups and has participated in raising more than $100 million in venture financing for early stage high-tech companies. She was founder and CEO of Vivant, (Acq. EVLV/ORCL) one of the earliest on-demand/SaaS companies, served as president & CEO for Acumen (Pvt. M&A) transitioning the company to web-based delivery and vice president of marketing at Scopus Technology where she positioned the company for its successful public offering (IPO). She also held senior management positions at IDE, Ingres and at AT&T. Early on in her career Ms. Padnos developed her market assessment skills and love of innovation in the high-tech sector as a consultant in the information technology practices of Arthur D. Little and Booz, Allen & Hamilton.

Ms. Padnos received her MSIA/MBA, with honors, from the Tepper School of Business at Carnegie Mellon University, with honors, and her AB, magna cum laude, from the University of Michigan. She currently serves as an advisor to Astia, the Tepper School of Business and Project Olympus and is a Steering Committee member for the Stanford Program on Regions of Innovation and Entrepreneurship (SPRIE).  Cindy has been named one of the Most Influential Women in Silicon Valley by The New York Times,  was selected as one of the Most Influential Women in Technology by Fast Company and one of the Most Influential Women in Business in the Bay Area by the San Francisco Business Times and was designated A Power Player in the Cloud by AlwaysOn.

Rebecca Norlander – Venture Partner

Rebecca Norlander joined Illuminate Ventures in as a Business Advisory Council member in 2009 when she was a GM at Microsoft.  In 2010, following a nearly 20 year tour as one of the top woman “geeks” at Microsoft – in roles ranging from product developer – to technical strategist to the CTO – to General Manager of the online advertising platform Rebecca was ready to jump into something more entrepreneurial and joined Illuminate as an Executive-in-Residence.

Currrently, Rebecca serves as a Venture Partner with Illuminate Ventures.  She assists with new investment evaluations, with a particular emphasis on technical due diligence, works actively to help accelerate the progress of portfolio companies and shares significant new deal flow with the firm.  She also works closely with Illuminate’s student interns. Rebecca earned her bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from Boston University, where she was the first alumna to be granted their Distinguished Alumnai Award, and is an active advisor to several early-stage companies.

Sarah Cone – Venture Associate

Sarah Cone brings a broad interdisciplinary background, prior investment analyst experience and hands-on startup operating skills in the tech sector to her role as a venture associate with Illuminate. Sarah developed her passion for high tech and belief in the value of entrepreneurship early in her career – as one of the early employees at Amazon, as a public policy advocate for entrepreneurship with Public Knowledge, as a research analyst at Omidyar Network and as a policy strategist at Google. Sarah also made a direct foray into the world of high tech entrepreneurship as co-founder and CEO of social news reader Of Record. Holding her JD from UC Berkeley Boalt School of Law and BA from Evergreen State College, Sarah has a pragmatic, but open view of the world of high tech.

Cliff Higgerson – Strategic Portfolio Advisor

Cliff Higgerson has more than 35 years of experience in research, consulting, planning, and venture investing. Combining the market insight of an analyst with a keen ability to identify blockbuster technologies early in their development, Mr. Higgerson has backed some of the most successful companies in the communications and information technology industries.

Cliff’s recent investments and board seats include Hatteras Networks, Kotura, World of Good, Xtera Communications and Ygnition. Prior investments include such industry leaders as Advanced Fibre Communications (NASDAQ: AFCI); America Online; Ciena(NASDAQ: CIEN); Digital Island (acquired by Cable & Wireless); Digital Microwave, now Stratex Networks (NASDAQ: STXN); Tellabs (NASDAQ: TLAB); MCI (NASDAQ: MCIP); Octel (NYSE:OTL); and Tut Systems (NASDAQ: TUTS).

Mr. Higgerson was a founding partner of ComVentures and a general partner with Vanguard Venture Partners. He has also served as a managing partner and Director of Research for Hambrecht & Quist, and as a special limited partner and Director of the Communications Group for L.F. Rothschild, Unterberg, Towbin. He holds an MBA from UC Berkeley, and a BS from the University of Illinois.

Anne-Marie Roussel – Executive in Residence

Anne-Marie Roussel joined Illuminate Ventures as an Executive-in-Residence in 2012 bringing over 15 years of experience as a technology executive. She is an expert in the transition of consumer technologies to the enterprise.

Prior to Illuminate Ventures, Anne Marie was Head of Acquisitions and Partnerships for Sharp Corporation, in Silicon Valley. Prior to Sharp, Anne-Marie managed the Digital Media and Mobile Communications portfolio for Microsoft, evaluating investment and partnership opportunities for Microsoft’s Entertainment Division and product groups such as Xbox, Windows Mobile and MediaRoom.

Previously, Anne-Marie was Vice President at Gartner Group in Paris, France for ten years. She was responsible for the creation and launch of several flagship products, including: “Gartner’s Cool Vendors List” –a yearly round-up of the best and brightest startups in IT; and “Gartner Invest” — an advisory service for investors in tech.

In her spare time, Anne-Marie is a wine aficionado and entrepreneur, currently contemplating a venture still in stealth mode.

Pia Camenzind – Chief Financial Officer

Pia Camenzind is a CPA with a 25 year track record of helping set up or improve accounting and reporting processes in private equity firms. Her experience includes managing allocations, capital accounts and compliance with partnership agreements as well as preparation for annual audits and tax returns. Pia’s prior work experience includes 15 years with PricewaterhouseCoopers auditing venture capital firms and venture financed high-growth companies. She has worked with a wide array of VC and private equity firms including Bay Partners, Benchmark Capital, Hummer Winblad, Kleiner Perkins, Onset Ventures and Paul Capital. Ms. Camenzind gained her MBA and BS in accounting at San Jose State.

Interns

Larry Pier – UC Berkeley, Haas School of Business

Vietlong Le – UC Berkeley, Haas School of Business

Geoffrey Garrett – Stanford Law