Elon S. Boms, Founder and Managing Director of Launch Capital LLC, joins the Venture Capital community with significant finance, consulting and marketing experience. His venture capital experience includes structuring bio-tech, consumer products and software development deals. Most recently, Elon was a managing consultant at Fidelity Investments where he worked primarily on strategy initiatives for financial investments in emerging markets. Prior to his work with Fidelity, Elon worked in Corporate Finance for Citigroup. Elon began his career as a brand manager at Georgia Pacific Company’s Dixie Foodservice division, where he assumed responsibility for $25M in capital investments and engineered a complete profit turnaround for the paper cup business. This wide spectrum of experiences has enabled Elon to approach business from a holistic perspective and has instilled in him a passion for developing and investing in new business concepts.
Elon earned his M.B.A from the Yale School of Management where he graduated with distinction in venture capital and a concentration in finance. Elon completed his B.A. in Economics from George Washington University. Elon is an avid golfer, skier, and gourmet chef. He lives in Boston with his soon to be wife.
Bill McCullen is Director of the Boston office of LaunchCapital LLC. Bill has several years experience as a private investor in companies in the networking, semiconductor, alternative energy, Internet and consumer oriented markets. Prior to LaunchCapital Bill was a sell side equity analyst for Susquehanna Financial Group in Boston covering telecommunications and networking stocks. Prior to Susquehanna, Bill worked in senior product marketing and business development roles at local start-ups WindSpeed Access Systems, Teraphase and Sycamore Networks where Bill was the first product manager and helped the company grow its transport product revenue from 0 to over $100M/quarter in less than two years. Bill began his career at Lucent Technologies where he held a variety of technical and marketing positions.
Bill received his BS and MS degrees in Electrical Engineering at Worcester Polytechnic Institute and an MBA from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Sloan School of Management. Bill is a lifelong Bostonian who currently lives in the suburbs with his wife and 3 children. When he has time he enjoys playing basketball and cycling.
Konstantine Drakonakis, P.E., Director of the New Haven Office of LaunchCapital LLC, brings over eight years of environmental and energy technology investment and engineering consulting experience to the LaunchCapital team. He recently was Manager of New Technology Investments and Infrastructure Development at Connecticut Innovations, Inc, which administers the Connecticut Clean Energy Fund. Konstantine oversaw venture stage equity investments, project finance for beta and alpha stage technology projects and clean energy infrastructure developments programs for the CCEF. His project and investment experience covers the full range of cleantech technologies, ranging from renewables, fuel cell and hydrogen generation, and smart-grid and energy storage technologies, as well as water supply & infrastructure, environmental remediation technologies, and natural resource management. While at CI, Konstantine structured, financed, and managed multiple emergent renewable energy company projects worth over $11M. He has been very active in the clean energy community, speaking and instructing events covering renewables and carbon markets, resource management, and investment workshops. Konstantine draws on his experience in environmental and civil engineering project management and consulting to evaluate technologies for their investment potential as well as the business model's integrity and feasibility.
Konstantine received his Masters in Environmental Management from Yale University, with a focus in Industrial Environmental Management and Industrial Ecology. He earned his civil and environmental engineering degree from the University of Vermont, and is a member of the National Civil Engineering Honors Society. He is a co-founder of the Cleantech in Connecticut Network. Konstantine and his wife Joy are native to New Haven and he enjoys Aikido, gardening, and wine making.
Jorge Calderon, Director of the Palo Alto office of LaunchCapital LLC, joins us with 10+ years of investment, technology, management consulting and product marketing experience. Prior to LaunchCapital Jorge was founder and Managing Director of hillView Ventures, a venture capital services company. At hillView he architected their proprietary methodology, the Risk Profile Assessment (Compass), and was responsible for delivering services to both their investment and start-up company clients. His areas of focus at hillView were media, mobile and internet software verticals. Prior to hillView, Jorge worked at Mercer Management Consulting (now Oliver Wyman), where he focused on strategic and operational issues in their technology practice. In his years of experience as a trusted advisor, Jorge has led and supported engagements with Disney, Microsoft, Network Appliance, Samsung-Mobile, Reuters, Shoplink, Bell Atlantic, LSG SkyChefs as well as numerous start-ups.
Mr. Calderon received his undergraduate degree from the University of Michigan and his MBA from the Kellogg School of Management.
Jorge is heavily involved in several civic activities including; Vice-President of the Board of Trustees for Young Audiences of Northern California, active member in LEAD Nationals and BUILD.org. He is the founder of several networking groups including Wine VC and Minorities in Private Equity. Mr. Calderon and his wife Sarah, reside in their adoptive city of San Francisco. During his free time he enjoys sports, active pursuits and is a wine enthusiast.