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BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Jonathan Aberman
Managing Director, Amplifier Ventures

Jonathan is the founder of and Managing Director of Amplifier Ventures. He possesses substantial venture capital, financial and managerial expertise, gained over a 19 year career in law and investment banking. Since his relocation Washington, DC in 1998, Jonathan has been legal counsel of choice for many emerging companies and the venture capital funds that invest in them. He has focused on technology company building activities in the region and, as a partner in well-known technology law firms (Fenwick & West, Fish & Richardson and Pillsbury Winthrop), has mentored the formation and growth of about 60 promising emerging technology companies, represented approximately 15 venture capital funds in their investing activities, and has handled various financing and other business transactions with an aggregate value in excess of $1 billion.
Jonathan received his undergraduate degree in Political Science and Economics with honors from The George Washington University where he was Phi Beta Kappa. He holds a Masters in International Economics with Distinction from The London School of Economics. Mr. Aberman is the recipient of Law degrees from both Cambridge University and New York University School of Law.

Bill Phelan
Co-Founder & Chief Executive Officer

With over 20 years of operating, managing, and technical and financial experience, Bill Phelan is an accomplished entrepreneur and leader. Mr. Phelan was founder and CEO of OneMade, Inc., a venture financed firm that operated an "eBay like" e-commerce marketplace exchange, which was successfully sold to America Online (NYSE: TWX) in May 2003.  

Prior to that, Mr. Phelan led the acquisition of Florists Transworld Delivery, Inc., and served as the Chief Strategist and COO of the firm's technology and network services business. FTDnull is the world's largest floral technology services organization in the world connecting over 20,000 domestic florists and over 40,000 international florists through an e-commerce floral order exchange, the Mercury Network™. FTD™ also operates the most popular consumer facing e-commerce system to route floral orders directly to participants in the Mercury Network™ through FTD.com. FTD™ was sold to Leonard Green and Associates in February 2004 and subsequently taken public (NYSE:FTD).

Don Rainey
Partner, InterSouth Partners

Don is a serial entrepreneur who has been part of and built many successful businesses in the networking and online marketplaces. Don was the founder and CEO of Total SumParts, an Internet application development firm located in Reston, Virginia. He also has served as a founding board member for Accipiter through its acquisition by CMGI while he was president of Attitude Network Inc. He was previously COO of DaVinci Systems, a Research Triangle-based software company, which was later sold to ON Technology, enabling a combined entity IPO four months later.
Don, part of the investment team at Intersouth, identifies and evaluates information technology and life science investment opportunities within the mid-atlantic entrepreneurial corridor. Don has held senior executive positions with Novell and IBM. At Novell, he was responsible for all reseller programs and channel distribution. With IBM, he managed channel distribution and brand marketing for the $2 billion Network Hardware Division, where he established and managed product marketing and distribution in 50 countries. Don received his B.B.A. from James Madison University.

Robert Smith
Co-Founder, Chairman & Chief Strategist

Bob has over 20 years experience creating and managing interactive community and commerce businesses. He started his first directory publishing company in 1984. He became a member of AOL management team in 1992, where his first assignment was helping large media companies such as the New York Times, Tribune Company and Hachette Filipacchi Magazines create their first online community ventures. He went on to serve as General Manager of all of AOLs community programming operations. He was founder of AOLs Digital City, the first nation-wide city guide service, growing that business to over $100 million in sales.
After leaving AOL, he started one of the first business incubators for internet businesses in the nation, Vector Development, LLC. Vector specialized in building companies focused on organizing supply chain participants into industry-wide trading communities.

He has spent the last few years working directly with internet-based startup companies as both a strategic advisor and investor. He helped found and guide companies in e-government (ezgov; US operations sold in 2004), e-commerce (OneMade, where he served as Chairman; sold to AOL in 2003), identity monitoring and management (PromiseMark and Privista; sold to ConsumerInfo and Equifax respectively) and community-based self-service mapping (The Map Network, where he served as Chairman). In addition to his experience in the internet industry, Bob also has extensive experience in print media including directory, newsletter, magazine, and wire syndication publishing including over six years as a senior executive of Congressional Quarterly, Inc. Bob has an MBA in marketing from George Washington University and a BA in political science from the University of Southern California as well as six years of service as an officer in the US Navy.