Trinity Ventures Adds Two Executives in Residence, Brett Wilson & Neil Daswani


Neil Daswani, Brett Wilson, Trinity Ventures EIRs

Neil Daswani (left) & Brett Wilson (right) join Trinity Ventures as Executives in Residence

We continue to add to Trinity’s talent bench across all fronts and further our mission to partner with the most innovative entrepreneurs.

Trinity Ventures, a leading early-stage technology venture capital firm, today announced that Brett Wilson and Neil Daswani have joined as Executives in Residence (EIRs).

Brett Wilson is the former CEO and co-founder of Trinity portfolio company TubeMogul, which Trinity invested in as a Series A investor in 2009. TubeMogul was acquired by Adobe for $540m in 2016 when Brett assumed the role of vice president and general manager of the Adobe Advertising Cloud business.

“I have been part of the Trinity family as a founder for nearly a decade and have witnessed firsthand the team’s integrity, empathy and true dedication to its entrepreneurs,” Wilson said. “I’m excited to be working with a team I highly respect to launch this next phase of my career.”

“We continue to add to Trinity’s talent bench across all fronts and further our mission to partner with the most innovative entrepreneurs,” said Trinity Ventures general partner Ajay Chopra. “After working side-by-side with Brett as a board member of TubeMogul for 8 years, I’m thrilled to be partnering with him again in this new capacity. Both Brett and Neil bring significant operational expertise to our core investment themes and embody the kind of authentic, long-term relationships we build with entrepreneurs.”

In this executive in residence role, Wilson will draw on his significant technology leadership experience to explore new business opportunities in advertising and provide strategic technical and operational advice to Trinity’s portfolio companies.

A seasoned security executive, researcher and entrepreneur, EIR Neil Daswani brings deep expertise in the ever-evolving cyber threat landscape and will seek out companies revolutionizing cloud security, artificial intelligence and security, privacy, Internet of Things (IoT) security, risk management, and cyber-insurance.

“I am excited to join the Trinity team and work with the partnership to examine the areas of security that are most ripe for further investment,” said Daswani. “Given that there are a massive number of unfilled cyber security jobs, we need to leverage artificial intelligence and analytics to automate aggressively, in addition to bringing more people into the field.”

Neil is co-founder and co-director of Stanford’s Advanced Computer Security Certificate Program. He formerly co-founded Dasient, which was acquired by Twitter in 2012. Neil previously served as a Chief Information Security Officer at Symantec and LifeLock, and held engineering and product leadership roles at Twitter, Google and Yodlee.

At Yodlee, Neil worked with the company’s co-founder and serial entrepreneur, Schwark Satyavolu, who later co-founded fintech startup Truaxis (acquired by MasterCard in 2013) and became a Trinity general partner in 2016.

“I am thrilled to be working again with Neil after our successful collaborations at Yodlee and LifeLock,” said Schwark Satyavolu, general partner at Trinity Ventures. “Our EIRs are integral team members who bring their unique perspective on emerging market trends to help source, evaluate and champion Trinity’s next investments.”

Trinity’s EIR program is imbued with an experimental ethos: question, learn, share and discover ways to create value in the world. This may take the form of founding a company, accepting a new leadership role, or transitioning into venture capital. Over the course of three months, EIRs are integral team members involved in the sourcing, evaluating and championing of investments.

About Trinity Ventures

Trinity Ventures is a top-tier venture capital firm that takes a personal approach to early-stage investing. For more than thirty years, Trinity has helped passionate entrepreneurs with breakthrough ideas transform markets and lives. The firm manages $1.37 billion of committed capital with investments in consumer and enterprise technology companies. The Trinity investment portfolio includes iconic brands like Starbucks, Zulily and New Relic, as well as “unicorns” like Auth0, Cohesity, Turo and Outreach. For more information, visit http://www.trinityventures.com.

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