GIV Venture Partners : Investing In Innovation

For more than 30 years, Bill has been an entrepreneur building global technology companies. In the early 80’s, Bill founded VeriFone, the transaction automation company that has made credit authorization terminals ubiquitous on retail merchant counters throughout the U.S. In 1998, VeriFone was sold to HP for approximately $2.1 billion. Then, in the early 90’s, Bill joined as an early investor and as Director of the Board of America Online. Bill has also held positions as Chairman and CEO of Cybercash, a pioneer in e-commerce transaction systems, and, in 1994, he co-founded Transaction Network Services (NASDAQ: TNSI), a nationwide network dedicated to efficient transportation of financial transactions. TNSI was sold to PSINET in 1999 for approximately $750 million.

Bill currently serves on the Boards of Directors of several privately held technology companies. Bill holds a Master's degree in Asian Studies and Chinese philosophy.

Mr. Haight was a Founder and a Managing Director of both Argo Global and Advent International Corp. Argo is a $460 million family of funds focused on the Internet and wireless communications products and services. Advent International is one of the world's largest private equity investment firms with more than US $6 billion under management operating in 30 countries from 12 offices with more than 85 investment professionals.

Mr. Haight joined Advent in 1983. He was closely involved in the formation of, and was responsible for Advent's operations in the Pacific Rim. Later, Mr. Haight was also responsible for Advent's operations in Canada. At Advent, Mr. Haight was directly responsible for more than US $75 million of investments in 27 companies. Prior to joining Advent, Mr. Haight founded or acquired 11 companies in a number of fields (including forest and consumer products), many of which had operations in Asia, Latin America and Canada.

Mr. Haight is currently a director of OnMobile Inc.; SenseStream; RealVision Technology Limited; Chinatron; Neural Technologies Ltd.; Cerebrus Solutions Ltd.; Northstream AB; ArgNor and ProQuent Systems Corporations. He received a BS from the University of California at Berkeley and an MBA from Harvard Business School.

Vijay serves as a General Partner at Global Internet Ventures (GIV).  As a member of its founding team in early 2000, Vijay helped launch GIV’s offices in India, China and Silicon Valley, and executed several of its early investments in Enterprise Software, Payments, and Hybrid IT Services.  Vijay left GIV in 2002 to earn his MBA from the Wharton School of Business and upon graduation joined SAP AG's  Corporate Development Group. 

Since rejoining GIV in 2007, Vijay has been involved in building companies in the Enterprise and Consumer Software, Payments, Concept and Semantic Web, and Online Advertising markets. His current portfolio companies and board directorships include:  TraceGains, e4e, Tarang Technologies, Pipeline Trading Systems, and Cvent. 

Prior to rejoining GIV, Vijay served as Vice President of Corporate Development for SAP AG where he identified and structured several new business development programs, minority investments, and strategic partnerships which resulted in explosive revenue growth for SAP.  During his tenure with SAP, Vijay held global responsibilities for the Hewlett-Packard relationship which drove ~$75M in sales and direct partnership revenues.  As a Corporate Development executive, Vijay played an active role in launching SAP’s new midmarket solutions and in formulating and implementing SAP’s Reseller program.

Prior to SAP, Vijay worked in the Corporate Development Group at Intelsat Corporation, the world’s largest commercial satellite communications services provider.  At Intelsat, he structured the $1.2 billion asset purchase of Loral Satellites.  Before entering the venture capital industry, Vijay worked as an investment banker for Morgan Stanley and Wachovia Investment Banking. 

Vijay holds an MBA in Operations Management and Private Equity from the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania.  He earned his undergraduate degree in Economics and Finance from the University of Rochester. 

Vijay is a competitive squash player and was nationally ranked during his college years.  Vijay resides in Bryn Mawr, PA.

Mike joined GIV in 2001 as CFO, previously for many years he was CFO of Mid-Atlantic Venture Fund, a leading regional early-stage investment fund. During his 14-year venture capital career Mike has been involved with the formation of several private equity funds, as well as, several hundred portfolio transactions. In addition to his financial, accounting and administrative responsibilities Mike plays a key role in structuring and negotiating transactions, as well as, providing advisory services to portfolio companies.

Previously Mike was CFO of the founding management team of Interactive Clinical Technologies, Inc., a pharmaceutical services company. Mike began his career as a CPA and tax specialist with Peat Marwick Mitchell and holds an undergraduate degree in Accounting from Widener University.