Shirish Nadkarni is a serial entrepreneur with proven success in creating multiple consumer businesses that have scaled to tens of millions of users worldwide. Shirish was the co-founder of Livemocha, the world’s largest language learning site with 15+ million registered members from over 200 countries. Livemocha was acquired by RosettaStone in 2013. Prior to Livemocha, Shirish was the founder of TeamOn Systems, a mobile wireless e-mail pioneer that was acquired by Research in Motion in 2002. The TeamOn technology served as the core foundation for Blackberry Internet E-mail which serviced over 50 million BlackBerry users at its peak. Shirish is the author of an award winning book - “From Startup to Exit - An Insider’s Guide to Launching and Scaling Your Tech Business”.

“From Startup to Exit” shares the knowledge that pioneering, serial entrepreneur Shirish Nadkarni has gained from over two decades of success, detailing the practical aspects of startup formation from founding, funding, management, and finding an exit.

Duncan Butcher, a partner at Miller Nash Graham & Dunn LLP, focuses his practice on corporate transactional law and securities. He counsels corporate clients on issues that arise at all stages of a company’s life cycle, including entity formation, corporate governance, incentive compensation plans, private placement equity and debt offerings, public company reporting and SEC compliance, commercial transactions, and ongoing general corporate matters. Duncan's clients operate in a variety of industries, including technology, retail and consumer products and services, food and beverage, professional services, and real estate.

Craig Sherman is a partner in the Seattle office of Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, where he focuses on corporate and securities laws, representing companies, venture capital firms, and investment banks in private placements and public offerings. He also has extensive experience in mergers and acquisitions, technology licensing, and domestic and international joint ventures. Craig earned his J.D. from Harvard Law School in 1989. He received M.A. and B.A. degrees from Stanford University in 1985.

Sudip joined Madrona in 2018. Sudip is particularly interested in companies that are transforming the enterprise, cloud and infrastructure markets. He especially enjoys working with technical founders – sharing his own experiences as a technical founder and helping them to build successful teams and businesses.

Past Lives

Prior to joining Madrona, Sudip was a partner at Lightspeed Venture Partners where he led or co-led investments in Streamlio, Serverless, Rainnet, Exabeam and, a Madrona portfolio company, Heptio. He started his investing career at Osage University Partners and subsequently was an enterprise investor at Andreessen Horowitz where he was involved with companies such as Actifio, Databricks, Digital Ocean, Forward Networks, Mesosphere and Samsara.

Before venturing into early-stage investing, Sudip was an entrepreneur and an engineer. He started his first company when he was at Georgia Tech, and his second while in business school. In between, he spent a few years as an engineer building complex software systems at Synopsys.

This experience of founding enterprise technology-oriented businesses led Sudip to the venture side and he has been investing in enterprise and open source software companies since that time. His founder experience gives him direct insight into the challenges of startups which involve ups and downs and persistence. He strives to be a trusted partner to every entrepreneur he works with.

Education

Sudip received his PhD in Computer Engineering from Georgia Tech, an MBA from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and a B. Tech from IIT Kharagpur.

Ryan Nisle, a partner at Miller Nash Graham & Dunn LLP, focuses his practice primarily on tax and business law, with an emphasis on partnership and corporate tax, state and local taxation, international taxation, executive compensation, and tax incentives related to energy and affordable housing. Ryan advises both alcoholic beverage and cannabis-related businesses on corporate structures and ownership agreements to advance their business plans, with an emphasis on tax planning, and assists clients in these industries in defending assessments of excise tax.

Andrew Klein has been working with startups and emerging growth companies for over 12 years as a founder and as an outside advisor for both the entrepreneurial team and their investors.  In this capacity he has managed the strategic operations, company exits, and funding of companies in a variety of industries with specific expertise in SaaS, Healthcare, Hospitality & Consumer Products, and Energy/Construction.  Companies with Andrew's direct involvement have raised almost $70 million in debt and equity. He also has a strong passion for entrepreneurship and connecting people together as shown in his involvement as a TechStars Alumni, mentor at 9Mile Labs Accelerator, a teacher at General Assembly, and in running the meetup group Cigars & Startups.  He holds a BS in accounting and an MBA focused on entrepreneurial finance both from Seattle University.

Demonstrating how dynamic a career in Audit & Assurance can be
At Deloitte, Jon has pursued a rich mix of opportunities in areas such as accounting theory and application, regulatory issues, public speaking, working with clients, even delivering bad news.