Skip navigation and jump to content
Top of Page
Ric Calvillo, Incipient
Bob Davoli, Sigma Partners
Andy Goldfarb, Globespan Capital
Bill Helman, Greylock Partners
Charley Lax, GrandBanks
Peter Palmer, Individual Investor
As CEO, Ric Calvillo is responsible for Incipient’s vision, strategic direction and day-to-day operations. Calvillo brings to Incipient a broad range of skill sets and entrepreneurial drive. Prior to Incipient, Calvillo founded and led Conley Corporation, which was later acquired by EMC Corporation. Conley developed and marketed a software product that later became EMC PowerPath. Post acquisition, Calvillo was named general manager of the EMC Cambridge Software Center in Cambridge, MA and further grew the division to over 120 people and launched three exceptionally successful data storage software products: PowerPath, ESN Manager and Celerra High Road.
Prior to founding Conley Corp., Calvillo co-founded Loviel Computer Corporation (1991-1992), which developed disk and tape storage subsystems for Macintosh computers and founded Hardware House, Inc. (1988-1991), which was created as a retail store and grew into a mail-order company with its own data storage product line.
Calvillo holds a B.A. in economics from the University of Pennsylvania.
Bob Davoli, managing director, joined Sigma in 1995. He has 20 years of experience in the high technology industry. Most recently he was President & CEO of Epoch Systems, the leading vendor of client-server data management software products. He sold the firm in 1993 to EMC for $141 million. Previously, he was the Founder, President and CEO of SQL Solutions, a leading purveyor of services and tools for the relational database market. He sold SQL Solutions to Sybase for stock eventually worth over $100 million. Today the SQL Solutions consulting and system administration tools division of Sybase has over $300 million in annual revenues. He served as an executive officer of Sybase for over two years. Bob has a B.A. in History from Ricker College and studied computer science at Northeastern University for two years.
He has been responsible for Sigma’s investments in Aprimo, Arasys, Cerulean Technology, Dazel Corporation, edocs, ExaGrid Systems, Excelergy, GlassHouse Technologies, Idiom Technologies, Incipient, Initiate Systems, Internet Security Systems, Noetix, Octane Software, Octave Software, OutStart, Savantis, StorageNetworks, Tradex Technologies, Vericept, Versata, Vettro, Vignette Corporation, Virtusa, and Visual Mining.
Andy is Executive Managing Director of Globespan Capital Partners and is based in the firm’s Boston office. He serves or has served on the boards of Ocular Networks (acquired by Tellabs), Silknet (NASDAQ: SILK), edocs , Idiom Technologies , Incipient, m-Qube, Silicon Dimensions , Vericept Corporation, and Virtusa . Andy has also led investments in Aptis Communications (acquired by Nortel Networks), Argon (acquired by Siemens), Cerulean Technology (acquired by Aether), Net Perceptions (NASDAQ: NETP) and Pirus Networks (acquired by Sun Microsystems).
Prior to Globespan, Andy was Senior Managing Director of JAFCO Ventures, where he established the Boston office in 1997. Previously, Andy directed Trans National Group’s venture investing. Andy negotiated TN’s investment in Infoseek (NASDAQ SEEK) and Interzine (acquired by TimesMirror). He also negotiated TN’s investment in the consolidation of ProMark Teleservices and S&P Data to form International Data Response Corporation (acquired by Telespectrum; NASDAQ TLSP).
Andy received an AB in East Asian Studies and Economics, magna cum laude, from Harvard College and received an MBA, with Distinction, from Harvard Business School. Andy serves on the Advisory Board of the Institute of Contemporary Art, Harvard Business School’s Arthur Rock Center for Entrepreneurship, and is a National Commissioner for the Anti-Defamation League. Andy is fluent in Japanese.
Bill focuses on enterprise companies and technologies for Greylock, a private equity venture capital firm founded in 1965. Having joined Greylock in 1984, Mr. Helman serves in the role of general partner.
Bill also led Greylock’s investments in Exact Sciences (EXAS), Tessera (merged with iXL), Ontogeny, Hyperion Software, Filene’s Basement, Pharmacopeia (PCOP), Millennium Pharmaceuticals (MLNM), Staples.com (acquired by Staples), and Vertex Pharmaceuticals (VRTX).
In addition to representing Greylock on the Board of Directors for CentrePath, he also is a member of the Board for Incipient, iPhrase, netNumina, OATSystems, OutlookSoft, Reveal, Upromise, and Vettro. He is a graduate of Dartmouth College and the Harvard Business School.
Charley is the founder and Managing General Partner of GrandBanks Capital and focuses on investments in Internet infrastructure, software and software services, security and storage applications, media technologies and services, financial technologies and services, and wireless technologies and services. Charley’s investment career includes investments in 42 portfolio companies, which have resulted in 26 exits thus far. His track record includes taking 15 companies public, of which 10 achieved market caps in excess of $1 billion. Charley currently serves on the boards of several GBC companies, including Colubris Networks, Coradiant, CXO Systems, Ember Corporation, Incipient, and manages GBC’s investment in OutStart.
Charley has sponsored and managed investments in Art Technology Group (Nasdaq:ARTG), Backweb (Nasdaq:BWEB), E*Trade (NYSE:ET), FreeLoader (sold to Individual Inc.), Firefly Networks (sold to Microsoft), GeoCities (Nasdaq:GCTY; sold to Yahoo!), Gamesville (sold to Lycos), GSI Commerce (Nasdaq:GSIC), Impulse Buy Network (sold to Inktomi), Interliant (Nasdaq:INIT), InvesTools (sold to Telescan), Launch Media (Nasdaq:LAUN; sold to Yahoo!), Mainspring (Nasdaq:MSPR; sold to IBM), Email Publishing/Message Media (Nasdaq:MAIL), Multex Systems (Nasdaq:MLTX; sold to Reuters), Personalogic (sold to AOL), Talk City (Nasdaq:TCTY), TheStreet.com (Nasdaq:TSCM), Third Age Media (sold to MyFamily), Webhire, Yoyodyne Entertainment (sold to Yahoo!), Exactis (Nasdaq:XACT; sold to 24/7 Media), 1800Flowers.com (Nasdaq:FLWS), and most recently, Connected Corporation (sold to Iron Mountain, Inc. Nasdaq:IRM).
Started his career with ICL (international Computers Ltd) in UK in computer system development and management. In 1983, he founded Spider Systems Ltd, which became the largest independent networking company in Europe. In 1991, he founded AXON Networks Inc. in the US. AXON was a market leader in the distributed monitoring and management of networks. Spider was successfully sold to Shiva and AXON successfully sold to 3Com in 1996. Strong international general management experience. Peter has a Ph.D. in Mathematics.