John Walecka is a founding partner of Redpoint Ventures. Prior to
founding Redpoint, John was a general partner with Brentwood Venture
Capital, a firm he joined in 1984. John works closely with
entrepreneurs to build industry leading companies in emerging
technology sectors and he is interested in innovative business models
built on deep intellectual property. In the Information
Technology area, John focuses on critical infrastructure appl...
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John Walecka is a founding partner of Redpoint Ventures. Prior to
founding Redpoint, John was a general partner with Brentwood Venture
Capital, a firm he joined in 1984.
John works closely with
entrepreneurs to build industry leading companies in emerging
technology sectors and he is interested in innovative business models
built on deep intellectual property.
In the Information
Technology area, John focuses on critical infrastructure appliances and
platforms, and he is currently working with enterprise and data center
appliance companies Fortinet, Trapeze and Schooner.
In
the Semiconductor area, John looks for companies with unique
opportunities to build category leading companies. He is currently
working with Entropic Communications, Avnera and BCD Semiconductor.
IIn addition to his work in IT, John also leads Redpoint's investment
activity in the Energy and Materials sector. Areas of interest include
alternative and renewable energy and storage, innovative new materials,
clean coal and water technologies, efficient transportation, and energy
management solutions. John is currently working with Envia,
Solyndra,
Intermolecular and
AMEC.
John also works closely with Redpoint's China activities.
John
has also worked closely with a number of very successful companies in
the enterprise and broadband infrastructure space. Key investments in
the communications products area include: Xylan (acquired by Alcatel), Wellfleet Communications (merged into Bay Networks), Synernetics (acquired by 3Com), Agile Networks (acquired by Lucent), Network Equipment Technologies (NWK), Polycom (PLCM), Onstream (acquired by 3Com), Avici Networks (AVCI), TransMedia Communications (acquired by Cisco), Lightera Networks (acquired by Ciena), Promatory Communications (acquired by Nortel), Netro (NTRO), and StratumOne (acquired by Cisco). John has also led investments in a number of software infrastructure companies, including Sybase (SYBS), Documentum (DCTM), Object Design (ODIS) and Vitria Technology (VITR).
John served as Director of the Western Association of
Venture Capitalists (WAVC) and he is currently a Director of the
Stanford Business School Venture Capital Trust, an advisor to the
Stanford Engineering School, and on the Investment Committee of Sacred
Heart School in Menlo Park. Prior to joining Brentwood, John worked at
Hewlett Packard and the Stanford University Smart Product Design
Laboratory.
John received a B.S. and an M.S. in Engineering from
Stanford University and an M.B.A. from the Stanford Graduate School of
Business.
