Announcing The Judges For The TC Atlanta And Boston Pitch-Offs
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One of the best parts of the TechCrunch Meetup Pitch-Offs, beyond the beer and the fun conversation and the new tech, is our amazing judges. The whole point of these events is to bring these regional communities together in the name of tech, and what better way to do that then to pull together entrepreneurs and investors and get them in the same room.
Plenty of VCs will be in attendance at the TC Meetups in Atlanta (February 24) and Boston (February 26), but there are three in particular that will join us on stage as judges during the rapid-fire 60-second pitch-off event. And today, we’re announcing who those special judges are.
But before that, quick reminders.
If you want to participate in the Pitch-Off in either city, you need to fill out an application.
And friendly reminder, you must purchase a ticket to be admitted to the event, so hurry up and do that before they sell out. (21+, please.)
Click here to buy tickets to the Atlanta Pitch-Off.
Click here to buy tickets to the Boston Pitch-Off.
So without any further ado, let me proudly introduce the judges of our upcoming TC Meetup Pitch-Offs:
Atlanta
David Hall is a Director at Revolution Ventures and is responsible for investment sourcing, execution, and oversight for Revolution Ventures portfolio companies. David began his career with Revolution in 2006, serving as an investment professional for Revolution LLC and has been working with the portfolio companies ever since. David has worked closely with and served as a Board Observer for Revolution Money (American Express), Booker (formerly GramercyOne), Vinfolio, Koofers, SnagFilms, BenchPrep and Homesnap.
Prior to Revolution, David was with The Washington Post Company as Director of Planning and Development. In this capacity, he managed corporate M&A and investments and launched new print and digital publications. Earlier in his career, David held positions as manager of Business Development for Akamai Technologies, Inc. and senior financial analyst for Morgan Stanley & Co. Inc.
A highly versatile and proven entrepreneur, Rajan also founded Vigilar, Inc, a leading network security technology firm; eLaunchpad, LLC, an early stage venture capital firm/incubator focusing on Internet infrastructure and network security technologies; and Emerald Systems, a boutique technology consulting firm. During his tenure at Vigilar, he grew annual revenues to $32M from 2000 to 2005, during the most difficult technology industry climate. Another previous success, financial aggregator VerticalOne was sold to S1 in 1999 in a deal valued at $166 million.
Boston:
Prior to General Catalyst, Nitesh was on the founding team of Getaround, a peer-to-peer car sharing company, and was the founder and CEO of Summer Workation, a social enterprise matching teachers with enriching summer opportunities. Nitesh previously worked on a number of education and business strategy consulting cases as an associate at The Parthenon Group. Prior to that, he worked with the Customer Insights and Business Analytics team at Google.
Before joining General Catalyst, Katja worked at Cisco where she ran strategic communications and positioning for the company’s President, Engineering and Sales. Her career spans both early and late stage investing with VP of Marketing roles at DCM, an early stage venture capital firm and Warburg Pincus, a global private equity firm. Katja also led the U.S. marketing efforts at 3i, a public international private equity and venture capital firm.
Jeff Fagnan is a partner at Atlas Venture in the technology group and focuses on emerging companies in enterprise and internet infrastructure. Prior to Atlas, Jeff was a partner with Seed Capital. Stylistically, Jeff is well known as a founding investor and has worked with many companies since inception. He’s a prominent speaker on innovation and founded TUGG, a crowdsourced philanthropy network dedicated to catalyzing social entrepreneurship.