Jeffrey Glueck
Chief Executive Officer

Jeff Glueck was CMO at Travelocity where he helped the company grow from $3.5 billion in sales to $10.6 billion globally, while introducing the Travelocity Guarantee and the Roaming Gnome advertising campaign. As CMO, he led branding, customer experience, business development and the advertising model business. He grew Travelocity's ad sales by nearly 40% in 2008. Prior to Travelocity, he was co-founder of the internet start-up Site59.com in 1999, which pioneered last minute packaging technology. Site59 became the US leader in the "last minute deals" space and was sold to Travelocity in 2002.

Jeff was named to Advertising Age's 40 Under 40 list in 2007 and as one of the top 13 Customer Champions by 1to1 Magazine. He was one of 25 leaders profiled in the book Online Marketing Heroes (Wiley, 2008). He also served in the Clinton Administration as a White House Fellow focused on international trade and environmental agreements. Jeff holds degrees from Harvard University and Oxford University, where he was honored as a Marshall Scholar.

Nitin Bhandari
Chief Product Officer, Co-founder

Nitin Bhandari has over a decade of business and technology development expertise in the computer networking, wireless communications and multimedia marketplace. Before co-founding Skyfire, Nitin was a senior management member responsible for the advanced development group at Extreme Networks, an industry-leading pioneer of Gigabit Ethernet systems and technology.

At Extreme Networks, Nitin was responsible for the design, product lifecycle and general management of all power supply systems. His efforts resulted in a product line that generated more than $60 million in annual revenue. Nitin earned his B.E. degree in industrial electronics from Bharati Vidyapeeth University in Pune, Maharashtra, India, and earned his M.S. degree in electrical engineering from CalTech in Pasadena, Calif.

Erik Swenson
Chief Technology Officer, Co-Founder

Erik Swenson is the technology visionary and chief architect at Skyfire, with more than 15 years of experience in ASIC development and systems design. Prior to co-founding Skyfire, Erik was the director of ASIC design and an original member of the ASIC design team at Extreme Networks, which developed a succession of chipsets that increased the performance and functionality of the company’s high-speed Ethernet switches.

Before Extreme, Erik was as a staff engineer in the advanced development group at National Semiconductor. The holder of six U.S. patents and 20 more pending, Erik holds a B.S. degree in physics from California State Polytechnic University in Pomona, Calif. and an M.S. in computational physics from San Jose State University in San Jose, Calif.

Nirmal Nair
Vice President, Engineering

Nirmal Nair is a veteran of software product development with more than 15 years of technical and managerial experience in a wide range of engineering disciplines, including digital media and application development. Prior to joining the Skyfire executive team, Nirmal was director of engineering for U.S. and European operations at Pinnacle Systems, which was later acquired by Avid Technology.

Before that, Nirmal was principal engineer and architect at Sirius Systems Corp., a mechanical CAM visualization firm, and co-founder of Arete Software, a mechanical processes simulation company. He has a B.E. from the National Institute of Technology in Tiruchirapalli, Tamil Nadu, India and an M.S. from Iowa State University in Ames, Iowa.

Raj Singh
Vice President, Business Development

Raj Singh is a mobile industry veteran and blogger with nearly a decade of experience working in all aspects of the mobile industry. As a consultant for Dell Mobile, he helped develop the firm’s global SMS, mobile marketing and WAP strategy. Raj also co-founded Veeker, a mobile video communication service, ToneThis, CNET’s top ringtone creation product, and Otasoft, an LBS Bluetooth couponing service.

Raj held product management and strategy roles at Kodak Mobile, Cellmania, MobiTV, PlayPhone, Hungama Mobile and Antenna Software. His personal projects include the Moblexa mobile toolbar, PocketTella mobile file-sharing service and Pubwalk LBS bar-hopping service. Raj earned a B.S. in computer engineering at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo.

Board of Directors

Skyfire is pleased to have the support and backing of major venture capital investors Lightspeed Venture Partners, Matrix Partners, and Trinity Ventures. Their support resulted in Series-A and Series-B rounds of funding of $17.8 million:

Nitin Bhandari
Chief Product Officer, Skyfire

Jeffrey Glueck
Chief Executive Officer, Skyfire

Larry Orr
General Partner, Trinity Ventures

Larry Orr has been with Trinity Ventures since 1989. Previously, he worked for five years at Hewlett-Packard, where he held a wide range of key marketing and management positions within the company’s Information Network Group. Earlier in his career, Larry worked with New York investment firm Niederhoffer, Cross & Zeckhauser on mergers and acquisitions, and with Bain & Company, a leading management consulting firm.

Jake Seid
Managing Director, Lightspeed Venture Partners

Jake Seid has over nine years of venture capital experience and has helped complete more than 20 investments at Lightspeed across mobile, Internet, systems and components. In addition to his US focus, Jake also co-leads Lightspeed's India initiative. Prior to Lightspeed, Jake was a product line manager for Cisco Systems' Cable BU during its growth from a run rate of $1M/year to $1B/year. Jake holds BS and M.Eng degrees in Electrical Engineering from MIT.

Gordon L. Stitt
Chairman of the Board and Co-Founder, Extreme Networks

Gordon Stitt is chairman of the board of directors at Extreme Networks, a company he co-founded in 1996. Before Extreme, he co-founded Network Peripherals, a manufacturer of high-speed computer network hubs and adapter cards. Gordon is currently a board member at several other privately held companies and is chairman of the Industry Advisory Board for the Computer Engineering Department at Santa Clara University.

Andrew W. Verhalen
General Partner, Matrix Partners

Andrew Verhalen joined Matrix Partners in 1992. Before that, he was a division vice president at 3Com, where he led the division responsible for network adapters and hubs to over $250 million in sales. Prior to 3Com, he held marketing management and strategic planning roles in the microprocessor group at Intel. Andrew also helped start and led Matrix’s investment in Grand Junction Networks, now a major division of Cisco Systems.