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An aspiring PM and an economist walk into a bar
Talks about Product Management, aspiring product managers and product management experience
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Rohit Sharma
Partner at True Ventures
Palo Alto, California
Overview
Rohit Sharma is a Partner at True Ventures, with a background in infrastructure, cloud computing, and optical communications. He has successfully invested in a range of companies across different sectors, including Enveda Biosciences, Avidbots Corp., and ICEYE, showcasing his expertise in early-stage ventures and venture capital.
Sharma's career highlights include serving as President & CEO at Syfto and Vdopia Inc., as well as holding key roles at ONI Systems/Ciena and MDV (Mohr, Davidow Ventures), demonstrating his leadership in entrepreneurship, product development, and mergers & acquisitions within the technology and investment sectors.
Work Experience
Partner
2018 - Current
Venture Capital
Venture Partner
2012
Working for True Founders and founders-to-be.
True Ventures is a venture capital firm that invests in early-stage technology startups.
President & CEO
2011 - 2012
Led small team to build a recommendation engine for e-commerce. The team created a near real-time machine-learning driven platform which mined social profiles, user-interaction on site, and data-mining to deliver personalized recommendations.
Seed Investor, President & CEO
2009 - 2009
Angel invested in Stanford founding team and helped define early product direction for USA/India team. Joined as CEO for six months to lead team through Series A ($4.5MM). Vdopia is now the market leader in online video advertising (India) and an emerging high growth startup in Android/iOS video advertising (USA).
Chocolate is a global mobile video advertising firm. We offer two core products - Chocolate Marketplace and Chocolate Ad Mediation.
Raised $13,091,862.00 from Nexus Venture Partners.
Principal
2006 - 2009
Served as one of three associates supporting 3 General Partners in IT investment sourcing, due diligence activities. Evaluated opportunities and conducted due-diligence for a variety of MDV investments in IT and LifeSciences.
Mohr Davidow invested in early-stage technology-based startups to create large new markets.
Founder
2004 - 2005
Founded and led a team of five in defining virtualization for desktop (Windows) platforms. The project was a culmination of a six month EIR stint with MDV.
SVP and CTO - Metro Networking Group
2002 - 2003
SVP & CTO for all Metro Products. Member of Strategy Council led by Chairman of BoD - evaluated multiple L2/L3 switching products for potential M&A. Evaluated technologies and markets for next-gen SONET/Data switching systems.
Chief Technology Officer
1997 - 2002
Foundational IP and designs for Optical Switching applied to Metro Area Networks, CO-to-Data centers networking. Roles included Defining System-Architecture, Product Strategy, Self-healing switching systems. Founder, Chief Architect, VP of Hardware Engineering, Promoted to CTO in 2000. Venture financing raised from KPCB, MDV, Canaan, Cisco, Bowman, Chase, Fidelity, SUN, and others. Represented company at technical and trade conferences 1998-2002. IPO: June 1, 2000 Secondary Offering: November 2000 Presented at all IPO/Secondary road show meetings with CEO (Hugh Martin) & CFO. Represented company at premier Investment Banking conferences. M & A (ONI acquired Finisar product line 2001, evaluated approximately ten other opportunities). Acquisition by CIENA for $900MM in April 2002.
Ciena collaborates with customers to unlock the strategic potential of their networks and and change the way they perform and compete.
Research Scientist
1992 - 1992
Research Scientist - Photonics. GaAs MQW devices, Photodetectors - design and fabrication. Technical Liaison to NRC, BNR for TRLabs.
Education
D.Sc. (Hon)
2013 - 2013
Ph.D.
1993 - 1996
M.Sc.
1989 - 1991
B.Sc. Honours
1984 - 1989
Investments
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