Advisors & Investors

CHRIS FRALIC

Partner - First Round Capital

Chris Fralic is a Partner at First Round Capital and based in their New York office. He joined the firm in 2006 and has focused on a number of the firm's investments in areas such as Advertising Technology including Invite Media (acquired by Google) and Demdex (acquired by Adobe), Social Media including CoTweet (acquired by ExactTarget) and myYearbook (acquired by QuePasa), eCommerce, Gaming, Mobile and more. Chris has 25 years of technology industry experience, with significant Internet business development roles since 1996.

Chris was VP of Business Development at social bookmarking and tagging company del.icio.us through the Yahoo! acquisition. Chris was also one of the early employees and VP of Business Development at Half.com starting in 1999, and after the eBay acquisition spent six years with eBay in a variety of entertainment, business development and media roles.

Chris earned his BS in Finance from Villanova University and his MBA from St. Joseph's University

KIRAN HEBBAR

General Partner - Valhalla Partners

Kiran Hebbar is a General Partner at Valhalla Partners. At Valhalla, Kiran serves as a Director on Boards of Adaptly, Fishbowl Marketing, Geomagic, Legolas Media, ShopSocially, Spot, PlaceIQ and Yelli. He works closely with Avail-TVN and Custora. He has over ten years of technology, software development and marketing experience in companies spanning software, Internet, and technology-enabled services domains. 

Prior to joining Valhalla Partners, Kiran was the Director of Product Management at RichFX, a venture-backed rich media applications company targeting e-commerce retailers. He orchestrated the conceptualization, development and market launch of RichFX's SaaS platform and marketed products to over 200 online retailers.  Before RichFX, Kiran was a Product Manager at Siebel Systems where he managed CRM products for high-tech, semiconductor and industrial manufacturing verticals. He began his career as a software engineer at Bentley Systems, where he developed 3D mechanical CAD software products and managed offshore development partners. Kiran also worked at Mellon Ventures in New York.

Kiran has an MBA from the Wharton School, where he was Chairman of the Wharton India Economic Forum. He earned a Bachelor's degree from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi and an M.S. from the University of Maryland, both in Mechanical Engineering. Kiran is a graduate of the Kauffman Fellows Program. 

SCOTT LEVINE

Managing Director - Time Warner Investments

Scott Levine is a Managing Director at Time Warner Investments, where he is focused on digital media investment opportunities that have a strategic fit with Time Warner's operating divisions. Scott is a board observer of Conviva, Adaptly and Gaia Online, and he actively participated in Time Warner's investment in Maker Studios. Scott was previously the SVP of Corporate Development at Sony Music, where he led M&A (including the acquisition of Gracenote), venture investments and digital strategy.

Prior to Sony, he was a Vice President at General Atlantic, a growth equity firm with $17 billion under management. Scott has also been an operator at three digital media startups, including myYearbook (social network; $100mm sale to QPSA), Liquid Audio (online music retailer; IPO, sold to Wal-Mart) and Verance (audio watermarking).

Scott is a graduate of Stanford University (Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering) and Columbia University (MBA, B.S. in Electrical Engineering).

MICHAEL KATZ

Michael Katz founded interclick in 2006 and led the company from its early stages as a startup without outside funding to a successful publicly listed company on NASDAQ. Under his guidance, interclick beat Wall Street expectations 17 consecutive quarters and experienced greater than 1000% revenue growth in 5 years to $140 million. Interclick was acquired by Yahoo! for $270 million in December 2011. Michael spent the past year as the VP of Optimization & Analytics for Yahoo!

Prior to interclick, Michael served as an analyst for Accenture, as well as an associate for ZEFER. Michael was recently named to the SAI Top 100 for 2012, http://www.businessinsider.com/sa-100-2012#25-michael-katz-76

Michael graduated from Syracuse University with degrees in both Finance and Economics. He is actively involved in The Humane Society of the United States and other animal rescue organizations. He is also an active angel investor in the ad tech space.

NIKHIL SETHI

Co-Founder & Chief Executive Officer

Nikhil co-founded Adaptly together with his business partner, Garrett Ullom, in 2010. The pair first met each other as undergraduate students at Northwestern University where they developed the initial idea and business plan for the company. Nikhil has been a true leader and visionary for Adaptly. In addition to managing the overall business, he is always striving to take Adaptly to the next level by seeking out new business opportunities, implementing strategies for revenue growth, and helping the company expand its global reach. Not new to the startup life, Nikhil had previously co-founded Blurtt, a service that allows people to make, upload, and send real postcards to friends around the world.

Nikhil graduated from Northwestern University with a degree in Electrical Engineering. Originally from the Bay Area, Nikhil tries to return home to visit his family as much as possible. He currently resides in Manhattan, New York.

GARRETT ULLOM

Co-Founder & Chief Technology Officer

Garrett co-founded Adaptly in 2010 with his business partner, Nikhil Sethi. The pair met at Northwestern University as undergraduate students, where Garrett was studying Computer Science. At the young age of 21, Garrett made the brave decision to drop out of school and embark on a life-changing journey of bringing the Adaptly vision to life. Garrett is currently the CTO and is responsible for all of the technology and innovation within the company. He manages a team of industry-leading web developers to ensure that Adaptly is always ahead of the performance curve. Garrett is the behind-the-scene genius whose strong work ethic and ongoing passion has been essential to Adaptly's success.

Garrett is originally from Key West, Florida and enjoys spending the little free time he has with friends, bowling with his family and playing chess in different parks around NYC. He currently resides in Manhattan, New York.