Chris Pacitti, General Partner – Venture Capital, Austin Ventures

Chris Pacitti joined Austin Ventures in 1999 and focuses on software investing. Previously, Chris was with TL Ventures, where he was a vice president. Prior to TL Ventures, Chris was a co-founder and chief operating officer of a technology start-up company that pioneered several industrial applications for a novel oxidizing chemistry.

Chris received his BA in economics from Johns Hopkins University. He is a member of the Microsoft Venture Capital Advisory Board and the Entrepreneur's Foundation Board.

Steve Coffey, Managing Director, Covera Ventures

Steve Coffey is a managing director of Covera Ventures and has more than 20 years of investment experience with companies at all stages of development.  Steve currently serves on the boards of directors for Alert Logic, Innography, iTKO, Ontela, Storspeed and Zumobi and is actively involved with Hubspan and SiGe Semiconductor. Steve was a director of or actively involved in such companies as Airspan (NASDAQ: AIRN), Softricity (acquired by Microsoft), SNAPin (acquired by Nuance) and Metreos (acquired by Cisco).

Steve was previously president and managing director of Hunt Ventures and established the Austin office in 1999.  Prior to Hunt Ventures, he was vice president of Hunt Financial Corporation, where he evaluated and managed investments in public equities, private equity and venture capital partnerships and direct investments in both early stage technology companies and buyouts.

Earlier in his career, he worked as an associate at Davis Venture Partners, a private venture capital firm where he worked with both early and later-stage portfolio companies. He previously worked at EDS Corporation and Arthur Andersen, LLP. Steve has a BS from Oklahoma State University and an MBA with honors from The University of Texas.

Charles W. Stryker Ph.D., President, Venture Development Center

Dr. Stryker is president of Venture Development Center, Inc., a consulting company he founded in 1992. In this capacity, he has assisted the leading information services companies in creating, developing and commercializing information properties. In addition, Dr Stryker has served as director of several public companies including 24/7 Real Media, InfoUSA, Traffix Inc., Greenfield OnLine and Intelliquest, Inc. He has also served on the advisory board of Internet Capital Group. From 1993 to 1999, Dr. Stryker was a lecturer at the Wharton School of Business of the Univ. of Pennsylvania. He currently holds the director position for a number of private companies. Dr. Stryker received a BS and MS in Electrical Engineering, and a Ph.D. specializing in Computer Sciences from New York University.

Rob Lynch, Chief Executive Officer, Innography

Rob Lynch is a proven technology executive with over 25 years of expertise launching and growing emerging companies in e-commerce B2B/B2C, fraud detection,supply chain, payments, data communications, IT and government. Prior to joining Innography in February 2008, Rob was president and CEO for both Austin, TX-based BetweenMarkets and ClearCommerce. He also served as president of Transfirst and held senior management positions at several other start-up and established companies, including NetSolve, Affiliated Computer Services, ICOT, MTech and ADP. Rob has PD and MS degrees from Fordham University, and a BS degree from St. John’s University.

Tyron Stading, Founder and Chief Technology Officer, Innography

Tyron Stading founded Innography in 2006 with a vision of redefining the intellectual property research landscape. As CTO, Tyron strives to continuously deliver the most comprehensive and robust user experience and business value. Pre-Innography, Tyron was an IBM worldwide industry solutions manager in the telecommunications and utilities sectors, and worked at startups focused on mobile communications and network security. He has published multiple patent research papers and filed over two dozen patents. Tyron has a BS in Computer Science from Stanford University and an MS in Science and Technology Commercialization from The University of Texas at Austin.