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Managing Director
Jed is the Managing Partner of Catamount Ventures. Catamount is rooted in the in art and the creative process of company building and serves the gap in the market between angel investors and large venture funds. Catamount is investing out of its third fund and has approximately $130M under management. Prior to Catamount, in 1997 Jed was the founder of drugstore.com (NASDAQ: DSCM), and served on its board of directors with John Doerr, Brook Byers, Peter Neupert, Howard Schultz and Jeff Bezos. Prior to drugstore.com, Jed co-founded and spent four years at Cybersmith, a retail store chain that showcased the latest advances in information technology and multimedia software. Before that, Jed was Vice President of Sales at Tribe Computer Works (a networking hardware and software company that was successfully sold). Jed began his career in technology working for Tom Siebel and subsequently Marc Benioff at Oracle Corporation, ultimately serving as District Manager for Eastern Region.
Jed has advised many private companies and currently serves on the Boards of Linden Lab, Seventh Generation, Siterra Corp., Flock, Piczo, Ecohaus, Nest Naturals, and Revolution Foods. Jed has also served on the board of several education and non-profit institutions, including the Board of Trustees of Middlebury College, the Monterey Institute for International Studies, Shackelton Schools and the Cambridge Center for Adult Education. Jed earned an BA from Middlebury College and an MBA from Harvard Business School. Jed lives in the Bay Area with wife and three children.
Managing Director
Mark Silverman joined Catamount Ventures as a Managing Director in 2006 after working with Jed Smith on a number of successful ventures over the prior 8 years. He plays an integral role in the building and managing of current portfolio companies, seeking new investments, and continuing to provide significant returns to limited partners. Mark serves on a number of boards including Bocada, DriverSide, Ecohaus, Grid Net, Keibi, Nest Naturals and Verdiem. For nearly 18 years prior to joining the Catamount team, Mark was immersed in advising, founding, building and financing early stage companies.
Most recently, Mark co-founded and served as President and CEO of Bocada, Inc., an enterprise storage software company. Prior to Bocada, Mark was Vice President, Business Development and Heath Services and General Counsel for drugstore.com where he was responsible for building key relationships with ecommerce and healthcare industry leaders, as well as for managing the company’s pharmacy, health services and legal operations.
Prior to drugstore.com, Mark was a Partner at Venture Law Group in Menlo Park, CA. In addition to providing legal and business services for dozens of start-ups, Mark was one of three partners who lead Venture Law Group’s successful venture capital investing practice. Prior to Venture Law Group, Mark practiced law for several years at Davis, Polk & Wardwell in New York, New York. Silverman holds a J.D. from the University of California at Los Angeles and a B.A. in History from the University of California at Berkeley.
Principal
Tamin Pechet joined Catamount in 2007 as Principal. Tamin spent the past seven years as an entrepreneur and investor. His focus areas include consumer internet and cleantech, with a particular emphasis on the water industry. He recently led Catamount’s investment in Lux Research, and serves on its Board of Directors. Tamin also currently serves as Chairman & Executive Director of Imagine H2O, a non-profit organization dedicated to spurring innovation in the water sector.
Before joining Catamount, Tamin was a principal investor at Goldman, Sachs & Co., where he co-founded and managed Goldman Sachs E&P Capital to invest in private energy companies. Tamin hired the team and oversaw growth from scratch to over $200 million in capital invested.
Prior to Goldman Sachs, Tamin held a business development position with Launch Media through its acquisition by Yahoo! Tamin holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and an AB with honors from Harvard University.
Associate
Tory Patterson joined Catamount in August of 2008. Tory spent the summer of 2007 working with Catamount, assisting with the strategic development, launch and investment in Nest Naturals. Tory has also spent time working with portfolio companies Revolutions Foods, Piczo and Siterra.
Tory earned his MBA degree from the Stanford University Graduate School of Business in 2008. Prior to Stanford Business School, Tory began his career as an investment banker focused on technology and healthcare companies. He has worked on several public financings, private capital investments and mergers & acquisitions. His most recent position was with Savvian Advisors which he joined in their first year of operations. He focused primarily on private placements while at Savvian and worked with a number of e-commerce, social networking and digital marketing firms.
Prior to joining Savvian, Tory held investment banking positions within Wells Fargo Securities and Robertson Stephens where he worked on a number of corporate finance and acquisition transactions for publicly traded technology and healthcare companies. Tory holds an MBA from Stanford’s Graduate School of Business and a BA in Economics from Williams College.
Director of Operations
Kate Chhabra is Catamount Ventures' Director of Operations. Kate has over ten years of operating experience, ranging from start-ups to multinational corporations.
Kate began her career at ATEL Capital, a large San Francisco based leasing company, working in operations and human resources, ultimately managing the entire operations for one of ATEL's divisions. She returned to human resources at CriticalArc Technologies, Inc. during its early seed stage. Later, she assumed all administration functions within the company as head of administration, overseeing both the accounting and office management departments as well.
After CriticalArc, Kate acted as Director of Operations for a small business establishing and maintaining their operational procedues and basic administration. Kate received a B.A. degree from The George Washington University.
Operations Coordinator
Kaylan Segev joined Catamount Ventures in March 2008. She has recently completed her undergraduate studies at California State University, Chico, receiving two Bachelor of Art degrees in Art History and Art Studio with an emphasis in photography.
Kaylan has worked at various art galleries such as the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art while studying abroad in Melbourne, at the University Gallery at CSU, Chico, and also as an intern at the Hackett-Freedman Gallery in San Francisco. Previously, Kaylan was recognized as the recipient of a Katzenberger fellowship from the Smithsonian Institutions’ Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington D.C. where she worked in Curatorial Research and in the Department of Arts and Programs. Her duties included researching the museum’s collection and exhibitions, creating informative materials to be used with the public and teacher workshops, corresponding with guest artists and speakers for Gallery Talks, and also local Universities in sharing the institution’s resources, and assisting with interpretive strategies for future internships and ongoing public programs.
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The catamount, or mountain lion, ranges the high country from British Columbia to South America. They are solitary, efficient hunters. The big cats have a mystique and a still strength which inspires respect. Like an entrepreneur, the catamount strikes it alone, seeking its own way in the face of constant challenges and harsh realities. Ultimately, by working in partnership with the environment, the big cats survive and thrive. The way of the catamount represents the central goal and thesis of Catamount Ventures.
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