Leonid Boguslavsky
Founder
Leonid Boguslavsky is the Chairman and CEO of investment company ru-Net. He received a PhD and doctorate in computer science and subsequently published 3 academic books and more than 100 papers on math methods for performance evaluation and modeling of computer networks and systems. He also served as a Visiting Professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Toronto.
Between 1990 and 1996, Leonid built a major Russian IT systems integration company, negotiating exclusive distributorship agreements with Oracle Corp, amongst others. The company was sold to Price Waterhouse (now PwC) at the end of 1996, after which Boguslavsky served for five years as a Senior Partner of PwC's Managing Consulting Services in Russia. During this time, he began making Internet and IT investments, leading to the 2000 founding of ru-Net. Early investments included Russia's leading search engine, Yandex (NASDAQ:YNDX), and the country's top eCommerce company, Ozon. ru-Net has invested in more than 20 Internet and IT companies in Russia, Europe, North America and Southeast Asia.
In 2011, Russian Forbes listed Leonid as one of the most important players in Russia's booming Internet scene.
Kirill Sheynkman
Senior Managing Director
Kirill Sheynkman is the Senior Managing Director of RTP Ventures. Kirill is focused on developing all aspects of the firm's investment strategy in the United States, building the firm's investment team, and creating a portfolio of Cloud, SaaS, Big Data, and Enterprise Infrastructure companies.
Kirill, is a 20-year software industry veteran, who has spent 10 of those years as a CEO of software startups. He is a three-time founder of venture-backed enterprise software companies, including an early relational OLAP vendor acquired by IBM in 1995 and Plumtree Software (NASDAQ: PLUM), the creator of the corporate portal market, acquired by BEA/Oracle in 2005. Kirill's companies were twice backed by Sequoia Capital where he was also an Entrepreneur in Residence. Kirill also held sales, product management, and business development positions at Oracle and Microsoft.
Kirill holds a degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from Stanford University and an MBA from the Haas School of Business at U.C. Berkeley.
Kirill lives in Manhattan, but invests actively in companies throughout the United States.
Murat Bicer
Managing Director
Murat Bicer is a Managing Director at RTP Ventures focusing on investments in software, enterprise infrastructure and Internet. Based in Boston, Murat invests in early stage and growth companies around the US in addition to leading RTP's activities in Turkey.
Prior to joining RTP, Murat was with Battery Ventures where he invested actively in enterprise IT, software and mobile. At Battery, he was an investor in Opscode, Zerto, XtremIO, GreenBytes, Datadog, Viridity and MoreMagic.
Before Battery, Murat worked in business development, product management and engineering roles at Mercury Computer Systems where he was responsible for expanding Mercury's wireless communications business. Murat also worked in the financial services group, where he helped trading firms improve the performance of algorithmic trading and derivatives pricing applications. Previously, he worked as a software engineer at Intra Information Technologies, a startup company that developed GSM-based mobile transaction devices for financial institutions.
Murat is on the board of the New England Venture Network (NEVN) whose mission is to provide education, research and networking for non-partner VCs in New England. NEVN is an active sponsor of local charities, and Murat is responsible for managing these relationships. He previously served on the board of the Wireless Innovation Forum, an international telecom trade association. Murat holds an M.B.A, summa cum laude, from the Olin Graduate School of Business at Babson College and an M.S.E.E from Northeastern University.
Jalak Jobanputra
Managing Director
Jalak Jobanputra focuses on consumer internet, mobile, payments, e-commerce and social enterprise deals. She has twenty years experience in media, technology and venture capital. She was most recently the Director of Emerging Market Mobile Investments at Omidyar Network, a fund started by Pierre Omidyar, co-founder of eBay. She was previously Senior Vice President at the New York City Investment Fund where she managed the fund’s technology and digital media venture investments, including TxVia and Outside.in (acquired by AOL). While there, Jalak spearheaded the formation NYCSeed in 2008, a seed fund dedicated to funding early stage tech entrepreneurs in NYC. Prior to NYCIF, she was a Principal at New Venture Partners, a $300 million early stage venture fund which commercialized technology out of corporate labs. At NVP, she incubated a range of technologies, including online video, speech recognition/NLP, 3D displays, 4G wireless broadband and music recommendation software.
From 1999-2003, Jalak was at Intel Capital in Silicon Valley, where she invested in enterprise software, internet and digital media startups, including Demantra (sold to Oracle), Extricity (sold to Peregrine), Viacore (sold to IBM), R Systems (IPO in India), Financial Engines (IPO), Yodlee and Zinio. In 1997 in NYC, she launched and managed product development for online financial information startup Horsesmouth.
Jalak lives in NYC and is active in supporting education reform, economic development and social entrepreneurship. She is on the Board of Directors for the Center for an Urban Future. Jalak spent four months setting up microfinance programs and training women entrepreneurs in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania after receiving her MBA from the Kellogg School of Management in 1999. She graduated magna cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania with a BA in Communications from the Annenberg School and a BSE in Finance from the Wharton School.
Steve Berg
Analyst
Steve Berg is a financial and strategy analyst for RTP Ventures. Steve is focused on driving a methodical approach to the RTP investment decision making process. His investment background is in datacenter technologies with experience in both public acquisitions and private strategic investments.
Steve holds a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration from the Farmer School of Business of Miami University in Oxford, Ohio and a Master of Business Administration from Northern Illinois University in DeKalb, Illinois. In addition, Steve holds a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) designation.
Steve lives in Brooklyn and does occasional angel investing as part of New York Angels and Entrepreneurs Roundtable Accelerator.