Advisors & Directors

Frank Robles
Mr. Robles developed the original idea for metropolitan gigabit Ethernet (GigE) based Carriers, and founded the industry leader Yipes Communications. The formation of this new market segment spawned new service providers and vendors targeting carrier grade feature sets for 1 GigE and 10 GigE.

Mr. Robles is an entrepreneur and investor with extensive experience in starting and building companies as part of the original founding team as well as assisting startups in general as part of their core team and as a seed investor. Mr. Robles operating roles have included Board member, CEO, VP Operations, VP Corporate Development, General Manager, Software Engineering Manager, Software Engineer and QA Manager.

Some of the companies Mr. Robles has played a role in include: Yipes Communications, OakStone Ventures, NanoSpace, Agile Media, Kana Communications, Ascencia, YY Software, Netscape, AlphaBlox, HP, Siebel Systems, Netcom, Apple Newton, Coactive Communications, EPYX Software, MEI, BOA and Tecla Software.

Mr. Robles is also a Senior Associate of Foresight Institute.

Peter K. Loeb, Jr.
Peter has served twice as a venture-backed CEO, and has held VP/GM positions at companies including Electronic Arts, SEGA, and AuctionDrop. He was an entrepreneur-in-residence at Benchmark Capital. In the 1980s, Peter worked in financial services in the U.S. and Europe for Shearson Lehman Bros and Societa. Partecipazioni Finanziarie. He earned an MBA at Harvard University and a BA at Brown University.

Roy Vella
Roy has been an active entrepreneur and advisor to several Silicon Valley companies.  He recently joined the Business Development Team of PayPal's Merchant Services Group after serving as the VP of Sales & Marketing at 4charity, Inc. where he managed their in-house sales and marketing group.  Prior to 4charity, he was a Partner at QTV Capital, where he assisted portfolio companies of this VC firm focus their sales and marketing initiatives.

As a co-founder of NetAbacus Corporation, Roy played many roles as the web-based software company grew from 2 to 25 employees in the first year. He served as the VP of Marketing/Strategic Relations; leading the marketing efforts, drafting the business plan, developing pitch presentations, facilitating fundraising, and guiding brand strategy. When the market turned in mid-2000, he facilitated the acquisition of NetAbacus by Biztro and the combined entity became Rivio, Inc. a brand name that his team at NetAbacus had developed. At Rivio, he was responsible for channel marketing, leading the customer-acquisition marketing efforts through an ingredient-branding strategy.

Currently, Roy serves as the President of the Board of Directors for Variety Children's Charity of Northern California and Treasurer of Bay Area Theater Sports Improv. He holds a BA in Mathematics (with High Honors) from the College of the Holy Cross, a JD from Stanford Law School, and an MBA with certificates in Global and Public Management from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.