An early stage venture capital firm investing in startups that build on open-source technology.
About
Quansight Initiate is an early stage venture capital firm focused on investing in startups that rely significantly on open-source technology and have a particular interest in technologies around education, IOT, data-management, data-science, machine-learning and AI across any market segment. Our more than 30 years of combined open-source technology and commercialization experience will help us not only identify the best investment targets, but also help entrepreneurs successfully organize and execute on the demand for innovative solutions to industry problems that leverage the power of open-source communities.
Our geographic focus is primarily on startups in Texas and Utah where we have deep connections, although we will also make a few investments in companies in other geographic markets that are significantly aligned with our mission to connect companies to broad open-source communities.
Meet Our Team
Managing Partner
Bradden Blair
Bradden Blair brings to Quansight Initiate a successful track record of incubating and leading organizations using OSS. Technology innovation has been a key ingredient of Bradden’s success over the past 15+ years. His ability to identify new markets and help organizations grow by leveraging open source technology has directly contributed to the acquisition, merger and/or sale of several companies. Most recently, Bradden was a Professor of Operations and Information Systems and Director of the MS in Information Systems (MSIS) and MS in Business Analytics (MSBA) programs at the University of Utah. While at the University of Utah, he simultaneously built and sold two companies engaged in e-commerce rollups. Prior to joining the University of Utah, Bradden orchestrated the successful expansion of a 20-year-old education business from live seminars to online using open source technology. These efforts contributed to the acquisition of the company in 2010. He also previously worked for several private equity and venture backed companies in the healthcare and financial services sectors. Bradden holds a Master of Business Administration, Master of Healthcare Administration, a graduate certificate in biomedical informatics, and a Ph.D. in Health Promotion and Education from the University of Utah.
Matt Harward
Partner and CRO
As Partner and Head of Sales, Matt leverages 20+ years’ experience in data science technical sales to form long-lasting customer partnerships. Formerly, VP of Sales at Anaconda and co-founder of PPG certifications. He has a B.A. in Business Management and Spanish from BYU.
Travis Oliphant
General Partner
Travis Oliphant has over 20 years’ experience in OSS scientific computing as the creator of NumPy, SciPy, Conda, and Numba, and as the Founder of Anaconda (Continuum Analytics), NumFOCUS, and PyData. He helped Python become the de facto language for machine learning, artificial intelligence, and data science by creating SciPy in 2001 and writing NumPy in 2006. Since 2007, Travis has consulted with Fortune 50 companies to build products and services that use open source effectively at scale for data science and analytics. Travis founded Anaconda in 2012 raising $24million from General Catalyst in 2015 to enable organizations to effectively perform machine learning at speed and scale. For many organizations, Anaconda has become the operating system of choice for data science and enables rapid development of automated intelligence. Anaconda already has incredible brand awareness with over 16 million users of its free distribution and downloads of more than a billion packages a year. Travis holds an M.S. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Brigham Young University and a Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering from the Mayo Clinic. From 2001 to 2007 he was a professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at BYU and taught electromagnetism, probability theory, and signal and image processing while directing a biomedical imaging lab.
Raven Clissold
SVP, Operations
As SVP of Operations, Raven manages a diverse range of operational activities for Expertato. She has been instrumental in helping a number of our portfolio companies emerge and is also a key member of the management team for our Quansight Initiate venture funds. Raven earned a dual B.S. in Speech Communications and Political Science and MBA from the University of Utah
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