TenOneTen Ventures

David has nearly two decades of experience as a technology entrepreneur. After graduating with a masters degree from MIT’s Media Lab in 1995, David co-founded Firefly, an early pioneer in personalization and privacy technology. Firefly was acquired by Microsoft in 1998 where the company’s flagship product became the Microsoft Passport, the web’s first unified authentication and identity platform. After Firefly, David co-founded PeoplePC, a company dedicated to simplifying the process of joining the online world. PeoplePC served over 600,000 individual subscribers as well as Fortune 100 corporations such as Ford Motor Company, Vivendi Universal and Delta Air Lines. PeoplePC went public in 2001 and was acquired by Earthlink in 2002. In 2005, David co-founded SpotRunner, a Los Angeles-based technology company that worked to revolutionize the way advertising was created, planned, bought and sold. Since leaving Spot Runner, David has dedicated his time to helping entrepreneurs realize their goals. He is an active mentor, speaker and investor. David lives in LA with his wife, three daughters, and a ludicrous number of pets.

Gil is an accomplished entrepreneur and pioneer of natural language technology and structured data ecosystems. Gil is passionate about building scalable information systems that drive innovative application development to enable better decision-making. In 1991, Gil earned his bachelor’s degree from Caltech, with a double major in Engineering/Applied Science and Economics. After college, Gil worked in engineering roles at IBM, Sybase, and SGI. In 1998, he co-founded Applied Semantics (ASI). ASI helped define and build new addressable markets with its AdSense and other contextual advertising products. The company was acquired by Google in 2003, at which point Gil became Director of Engineering for the Santa Monica office. His work there helped establish Google’s place as a leader in the field of online advertising. In 2007, Gil left Google to start Los Angeles-based Factual Inc., an open data platform founded to maximize data accuracy, transparency, and availability. Active in a number of nonprofit areas, Gil is on the board of trustees for the X Prize Foundation and Caltech, and a member of the Los Angeles Social Ventures Partners. He and his wife, Elyssa, also manage the Elbaz Family Foundation, supporting environmental and educational causes.

Minnie is a long-time Silicon Valley product leader and operations executive with experience building and scaling impact through elegant technical solutions and great teams. She recently moved back to LA after 20+ years in the Bay Area and is excited to be a part of the growing tech ecosystem of Southern California. Minnie started her career as an early product manager at Google where she co-founded the Access team; a cross-functional product, policy, and engineering team that spun off Google Fiber. After 11+ years, she left Google to begin her own entrepreneurial journey as the co-founder and COO of Shift, an online marketplace for used cars. Minnie learned a lot of lessons hiring hundreds of employees and scaling a $100M+ business. In her spare time, she hosts the LA Venture podcast, volunteers for local government, surfs baby waves, and raises baby people.

Eytan is Co-founder/Chief Strategy Officer of Social Native and Co-founder/Chairman of Render Media. Eytan previously served as Co-founder and Chief Strategy Officer of Scopely, a mobile gaming company. Prior to that role he was Google’s Head of Domain Channel from 2003 through 2007. Prior to Google, Eytan was Vice President and founding member of Applied Semantics (formerly Oingo), which was later acquired by Google. At Oingo, Eytan conceived the ideas for applying the company’s meaning-based technology towards domain name selection and monetization, and towards contextual targeting, launched as Oingo AdSense in 2000. Eytan is also the Chairman & Co-founder of Deep Dive Media, a network of health care information and community sites including SupportGroups.com. Eytan’s award winning public service announcements on the subjects of Tolerance and Bullying have been aired around the globe and are currently on display at the Museum of Tolerance. Eytan lives in Los Angeles where he graduated from UCLA with a B.S. in Computer Science and Engineering in 1995.

Prior to joining TenOneTen, Austin worked at Sony Pictures, licensing film and TV content to emerging video platforms. He began his career in investment management working with AllianceBernstein and has since held roles evaluating early stage tech investments at Creative Artists Agency, Digital Entertainment Ventures, and NY Angels. Austin is also committed to encouraging underrepresented minorities to pursue careers in tech and entrepreneurship. He is an active volunteer in various local youth entrepreneurship programs and sits on the Board of Advisors for BUILD LA. Austin received his MBA from NYU Stern with a specialization in Media, Entertainment, and Technology and his BA from Morehouse College in Atlanta, GA. He is a Los Angeles native and lives with his wife and son.

Todd Gitlin is the Managing Partner & Founder of Safire Partners, one of the leading search firms focused on emerging companies with offices in NY and LA. Safire was founded in 2006, has a team of 25 people and takes on 100 searches annually. Todd has been a recognized leader in executive search since 1999 completing over 800 assignments. Since 2006, Todd has invested in 48 companies.