With extensive operating experience under his belt, Krish Panu founded PointGuard Ventures with the vision of combining growth financing, strategic guidance, and global expertise to build and scale the most cutting-edge technology companies. As Managing Director, Krish works tirelessly with founders and teams to achieve their goals and put them in the best position to succeed.
For more than two decades, Krish Panu has built successful technology businesses that have helped to create multi-billion-dollar markets, and he has led companies through explosive revenue growth and global expansion. His investments in private companies, investments of both financing and mentoring, have helped build companies such as Prysm, Altierre, Teknovus (sold to Broadcom), Stratalight (sold to Opnext), Dilithium Networks (sold to OnMobile), ReachLocal (went public in May, 2010), enLighted (sold to Siemens), PINC Solutions, Silverback Learning Solutions, Deem (sold to Enterprise Holdings, Inc), Lavante (sold to PRGX), Prevedere, Nod, Movius, and Insilixa.
From 1999 to 2007, Krish was Chairman, CEO, and President of @Road, Inc., a worldwide leader in Mobile Resource Management solutions. Mr. Panu built the start-up company, raised more than $80 million in venture funding, and brought it through a successful IPO and a successful secondary offering. In the years to follow, Mr. Panu successfully acquired and integrated several companies into @Road. Under his leadership, @Road became one of the first profitable Software As A Service (SaaS) companies. @Road developed a rapidly increasing customer base in North America, Europe and Asia Pacific, earning number one rankings on the Forbes Midas List and Deloitte & Touche’s Fastest Growing Silicon Valley Technology Companies list, as well as the Frost & Sullivan’s “Mobile Communications Product of the Year.” In February, 2007, Mr. Panu successfully negotiated and completed a merger between @Road and Trimble Navigation Ltd. for almost half a billion dollars.
Prior to @Road, Mr. Panu served as Sr. Executive at Atmel Corporation, where he directed the engineering, manufacturing, software development and marketing groups. At Atmel he created the AVR microcontroller architecture which became a multi-billion-dollar business. Prior to Atmel, Mr. Panu held executive sales and marketing roles at Catalyst, Datapoint Corporation, and Xicor.
Through his many experiences in building successful technology businesses, Mr. Panu has developed a broad network of relationships in venture capital, investment banking and entrepreneur communities. Additionally, Mr. Panu serves as President of Panu Foundation, a nonprofit corporation which provides grants to educational institutions and supports healthcare research and other charitable activities around the world.
Mr. Panu holds a B.S. in Electrical Engineering, an M.S. in Computer Engineering and an M.B.A. from Wayne State University in Michigan.
