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John Selep is a Managing Partner of AgTech Innovation Partners. John has been bringing new technologies to market for nearly three decades. An active investor in early-stage technology-based startups, John has provided startup capital to a number of early-stage ventures in AgTech, InfoTech, Energy, and Life Sciences. John is a Board Director and Selections Committee Chairman for the Sacramento Angels, a membership organization for angel investors in California’s Capital region. Earlier in his career, over more than two decades in product management, R&D management, and operations management roles, John has built a deep understanding of the product development and go-to-market process, building a $44M wireless networking business, a $10M network management software business and managing the budget and operations of a $1B network equipment business with a $100M annual R&D budget. John has managed R&D teams on four separate continents, and helped form and was the initial chairperson for a security-industry standards organization. Through these roles, John has helped develop leaders and teams and managed growing businesses from launch to $3B in scale. Outside of his professional roles, John is an active supporter of entrepreneurship and innovation in the Northern California region. John has been a guest lecturer for a number of Entrepreneurship courses and academies at the University of California Davis Graduate School of Management, and California State University Sacramento. John regularly mentors early-stage startups as part of UC Davis’ ‘Angels on Campus’ program. John holds a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from Boston University, a Masters in Engineering from Stanford University and an MBA from the Harvard Business School. |
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Julie Morris is a Managing Partner of AgTech Innovation Partners. Julie Morris is an experienced Ag bio-tech industry professional, having been Chief Financial Officer and V.P., Corporate Development, as well as a founding investor, in Marrone Bio Innovations, Inc. (MBII), which completed a successful IPO in August 2013. In her role with Marrone Bio Innovations, Julie successfully closed over $40M in venture capital investments, and an aggregate of over $86M of investment, including convertible debt. Prior to joining Marrone Bio Innovations, Julie had accumulated over fourteen years of experience in venture capital investing, mergers, acquisitions and divestitures, and product marketing with roles in Corporate Development and Marketing at Fortune 500 companies Agilent Technologies and Hewlett-Packard (HP). During her tenure in Corporate Development at Agilent and HP, Julie worked on numerous investments in private and public technology companies, as well as acquisitions of both privately-held and publicly-traded companies. Julie also has experience as a strategic management consultant at Booz-Allen & Hamilton based in New York City, and worked in investment banking in Madrid, Spain. Julie has mentored entrepreneurs in emerging startups and has participated as a judge in local agricultural-technology-based startup competitions. She serves on the Board of SARTA, which is focused on accelerating the growth and development of technology companies and the technology sector in the greater Sacramento region, and is a member of SARTA’s AgStart Program committee. In addition, Julie serves on the Board of Directors of the Center for Land Based Learning (CLBL) in Winters, CA. Julie holds a Bachelor of Science in Bioelectronics from the University of California Berkeley, and an MBA from the Harvard Business School. |