Team

Team

Jean-Marc Verdiell, Founder and CEO

Dr. Verdiell has 19 years of management, product development and research experience in the optoelectronics industry. He worked at AT&T Bell Laboratories, SDL Inc, LightLogic and until recently Intel. In 1998 he founded LightLogic, a leading provider of 10 Gb/s Ethernet optical transceivers, where he held the position of CTO and VP Engineering. Jean-Marc joined Intel as part of Intel's acquisition of LightLogic in May 2001. Named Intel Fellow in October 2001, he directed the Optical Technology Office in the Digital Enterprise Group where he was responsible for defining Intel's optical technology strategy for computing applications. Jean-Marc holds a doctorate in Optoelectronics from the University of Paris and the equivalent of a master's degree in Physics and Engineering from Ecole Polytechnique in Palaiseau, France, in 1986.

Christopher Schaepe, Member of the Board of Directors

Christopher Schaepe is a founding general partner of Lightspeed Venture Partners, an early-stage technology venture capital firm based in Menlo Park, CA. He has 15 years of venture capital experience in areas including infrastructure technologies, digital media and services. Mr. Schaepe has been responsible for investments including AMEC, Brocade, Ciena, eHealth, Galileo Technology, LightLogic, Lightspeed International, Quantum Effect Devices, Rhythm NewMedia, Riverbed, SiPort, Terayon, Transmeta, Tzero and Unity. Prior to Lightspeed, he was a general partner at Weiss, Peck & Greer Venture Partners after serving in corporate finance and capital markets roles at Goldman Sachs. Previously, Mr. Schaepe was a software engineer at IBM. He holds BS and MS degrees in Computer Science and Electrical Engineering from MIT and an MBA from Stanford Business School.

Forest Baskett, Member of the Board of Directors

Forest joined NEA in 1999 as a Venture Partner and became a General Partner in 2004. Forest focuses on information technology investments and presently holds board memberships with Aeluros, Arch Rock, Atheros Communications (NASDAQ: ATHR), Audience, Catalytic, Chelsio Communications, Foveon, Fulcrum Microsystems, Luxtera, RingCube Technologies, SiBEAM, Tableau Software, and T-RAM Semiconductor. He also serves as an advisor to Cassatt, Data Domain, PolyServe, SiTime, Spreadtrum and Telegent Systems. Prior to NEA, Forest was Senior Vice President of R&D and Chief Technology Officer of Silicon Graphics Inc. He founded and directed the Western Research Laboratory of Digital Equipment Corporation from 1982 to 1986 before joining SGI. Prior to that, he was a Professor of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering at Stanford University from 1971 to 1982. At Stanford, he worked with Andy Bechtolsheim on the SUN workstation project, with Jim Clark on the Geometry Engine project, and with John Hennessy on the MIPS microprocessor project. Dr. Baskett received a BA in Mathematics from Rice University, a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Texas at Austin and is a member of the National Academy of Engineering.

Marc Epitaux, Founder

Marc has 13 years of experience in development engineering and team management. He was an early contributor at LightLogic where he led the development of 10 Gb/s optical modules and manufacturing automation technology. Marc joined Intel as part of LightLogic acquisition in 2001. Promoted to Principal Engineer in March 2003, he spearheaded advanced optical interconnect Research and Development within Intel’s Digital Enterprise Group. Marc received a MS in Micro-Engineering from the EPFL, Switzerland in 1992. He has been awarded 13 US patents and has published more than 25 peer-reviewed papers in the fields of fiber optics packaging and surgical robotics.

Peter Kirkpatrick, Founder

Peter was an early key contributor to Lightlogic. There, he designed miniature optical packages with 10 Gb/s interfaces and transceivers with mixed signal integrated circuits and optics. At Intel, he led a group performing advanced development of optical front end and transceiver products, as well as pathfinding work in adaptive electronic filtering and short reach optical interconnects. Prior to joining Lightlogic, he worked at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in Boulder, CO. Peter attended the University of Colorado in Boulder, earning a MSEE in 1999 in Electrical and Computer Engineering. He has been awarded 8 US patents and published more than 10 peer-reviewed papers.

Gary Erickson, Vice President, Product Management

Gary is responsible for all product planning and definition activities at Aprius. He brings more than 20 years of marketing and product management experience with server and storage system products to the Aprius management team. He joins Aprius from Azul Systems, suppliers of innovative Java™ virtualization and acceleration platforms. Prior to that, Gary held senior product management positions at Hewlett-Packard and Scale Eight, delivering a number of successful data center servers and storage products.

Craig Thompson, Vice President, Product Marketing

Craig brings diverse experience in corporate management, product marketing and engineering management to Aprius. He has held various senior marketing roles in data communications, telecommunications and broadcast video, most recently with Gennum Corporation, based in Toronto, Canada. Prior to that Craig was Director of Marketing for Intel’s Optical Platform Division where he was responsible for the successful ramp of 10Gb/s MSAs into the telecommunications market. Craig holds a Bachelor of Engineering degree with Honours from the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia and MBA from MIT.