Steve Nasiri
Mr. Nasiri founded InvenSense from his home in early 2003 and received the company’s first funding in April of 2004. During this period, he developed the novel product concept of the MEMS gyroscope and the low-cost, high-volume fabrication process known as, “Nasiri-Fabrication”. These efforts have led to the filing of the four core patents for the company, including the dual-axis gyro design and the vertical MEMS fabrication process. These patents are now responsible for the development of world’s first integrated dual-axis gyroscopes which is the company’s flagship products and being shipped in millions of units to major OEM companies around the world.
Mr. Nasiri is a 28-year veteran of the MEMS industry with expertise in fabrication and packaging of various types of MEMS products. His extensive knowledge of MEMS fabrication technologies was instrumental in his ability to conceive the design of the "Nasiri-Platform" and creation of a novel mirror design for Transparent Networks, where Mr. Nasiri was a co-founder and served as the Vice President of Operations and MEMS Development.
Mr. Nasiri has been the co-founder and early stage executive at some of the leading MEMS companies in Silicon Valley including: SenSym (Honeywell), NovaSensor (GE), Integrated Sensor Solutions (TI), and ISS Nagano. He has been responsible for successful deployment of over 50 sensors and MEMS-based products with cumulative shipments in excess of 100M units.
Mr. Nasiri received his MBA from Santa Clara University, a MSME from San Jose State University and a BSME from the University of California, Berkeley. He has authored over 40 patents (issued and pending) and many articles in the MEMS field.
Amit Shah
Amit Shah focuses on early stage technology investments. As a Partner of Artiman Ventures, he is currently on the boards of Auryn, Sierra Design Automation, NetDevices, InvenSense, SiOptical and Zyme.
Prior to founding Artiman Ventures, Amit gained technology investment experience as a General Partner of Anthelion I & II, a seed stage venture fund. He also worked as VP of New Markets and Technologies for Cisco Systems' Business Development and Alliances Group. Prior to this he founded and was CEO of PipeLinks, Inc., acquired by Cisco (1998). Preceding PipeLinks, he founded ZeitNet, a networking systems company which was then acquired by Cabletron (1996).
Amit has taught numerous courses and seminars in networking at UC Berkeley, InterOp, and other forums in the United States and abroad. He also authored FDDI: A High Speed Network, published by Prentice-Hall.
Education: Amit holds a B.S.E.E. from M.S University Baroda, India and has done graduate work at UC Irvine.
Tim Wilson
Tim joined Partech International in 2001 and focuses on communications and components investments. Between 1997 and 2001, Tim was the Chief Marketing Officer for Digital Island, a Partech portfolio company.
During his tenure the company grew from $.2M to more than $100M in annual revenues, completed five private financings, an IPO, secondary and three acquisitions. The company was acquired by Cable & Wireless in 2001 for $350M. Prior to Digital Island, Tim was a General Manager at Lucent Technology where he led the international voice communications product management team (now Avaya) with P&L for product lines generating over $2 Billion in annual sales and coauthored a VOIP related patent.
Before Lucent, Tim held a variety of senior management positions within AT&T (North America and Australia) and AT&T Bell Labs from 1983-1995.
Tim's current portfolio companies include ARIO Data Networks, Discera, Invensense, Spudnik and Teknovus where he holds a board seat with each company.
He graduated summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa from Bowdoin College receiving his undergraduate degree in Physics. He received his MBA from Duke University's Fuqua School of Business where he was named a Fuqua Scholar.
Ben Yu
Ben Yu serves as a Board Member and is a Managing Director at Sierra Ventures. His investment focus includes semiconductors, communications components and systems. Prior to joining Sierra Ventures he worked at 3Com, where he held a number of engineering and project management positions.
He served as a Board Director of SyChip (acquired by MuRata), Paracer (acquired by Stratos Lightwave) and Micropower (acquired by Weston Presidio). His active investments include AuthenTec, VeriSilicon, Applied Microstructures, Valere Power, Verari and SemEquip. He also serves as a special committee member to Gobi Partners in Shanghai.
Mr. Yu holds a BSEE from the University of Western Australia and a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Princeton University.