Milk Street Ventures

Milk Street Ventures was formed in 1997 to take advantage of relatively new (at that time) and infrequent opportunities in the direct secondary market. In fact, as far back as 1990, Mr. Schober pro-actively invested in what was then a virtual unknown: a secondary purchase involving several portfolio companies of a fund nearing the end of its term. This successful secondary transaction demonstrated the value of extending the holding period of limited life funds and continuing to add value beyond the life of the original investing fund. Peter Schober co-founded Milk Street Ventures with Mike Schiavo in 1997. He has made over 25 investments, mostly as lead investor, and served on various boards as an active director, including appointments to executive, audit, and compensation committees. Peter started his venture capital career during business school with TVM Techno Venture Management, one of Germany's earliest and largest technology venture capital firms. Subsequently, he was a member of the original team that established TVM's investment office in the United States. In 1989, Peter co-founded MVP Ventures in Boston. MVP Ventures raised four funds and made investments in a range of sectors, including information technology, communications, life sciences, hospitality, and industrial. Starting in 1998, Peter developed the concept for, established, and ran the European investment activity of M/C Venture Partners, a leading early-stage U.S. venture capital firm in the communications sector. A native of Austria, Peter is fluent in English, German, French, and Swedish. He earned his B.A. degree from the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service and received an MBA from the Wharton School of Finance as well as an MA from the Lauder Institute at the University of Pennsylvania in 1986. Ron Warrington has over 25 years experience in business management, venture investing, and strategic consulting. Before joining Milk Street Ventures, he was Senior Partner at Energy & Environmental Economics, focused on M&A, new business development, and strategic opportunities in the energy/renewable industry. Prior to E3, he was a founding principal of New Health Ventures, a healthcare/Internet services venture company of Blue Cross/ Blue Shield of Massachusetts. Ron also served as lead investor and President/COO of US Public Communications before its merger and subsequent IPO as Communications Central, Inc. (CCIX); he was an independent director there for nine years. Ron has been director, general partner or president for a number of public and private telecomm, healthcare and service companies. His formative background includes financial analysis and workouts at Chase Manhattan Bank, management consulting at Computer Science Corporation (Index Group), and venture investing at WDC, Inc. He earned his B.A. in Economics from the University of California, Berkeley and his MBA from Harvard Business School. Jo Anne Miller : Prior to joining Milk Street Ventures, Jo Anne was a Principal at Nokia Innovent, a seed-stage investing team within the Nokia strategy organization. In this role, Ms. Miller was responsible for management of the portfolio and the Nokia business relationships. Prior to Nokia, Jo Anne was the President and CEO of Gluon Networks, a start-up providing next-generation converged voice and data switching and management systems for local telephone service providers. Jo Anne has more than 29 years of telecommunications and computer industry experience, including senior executive, engineering management, and research roles at JetCell, an indoor wireless/VoIP company (acquired by Cisco Systems), AirNet Communications, a wireless infrastructure company, Tellabs, and AT&T Bell Laboratories. Ms. Miller holds a BS in Mathematics from the University of Michigan, an MS in Computer Science from the University of Colorado, and an MBA from the University of Chicago. Michael Schiavo co-founded Milk Street Ventures with Peter in 1997. He has been active in private equity-related activities since 1983. He started his career as Assistant Controller of TA Associates, followed by Controller of Advent International Corporation. In 1987, he became a financial consultant to TVM Techno Venture Management and in 1989 joined in the launching of MVP Ventures as General Partner and Chief Financial Officer, responsible for administration of fund-related activities and investment due diligence. Over the years, he has consulted to HarbourVest Partners, Parthenon Capital, MPM Management, A.M. Pappas & Associates, Memory Pharmaceuticals, and Relevant Technologies. He currently is a General Partner at Kodiak Venture Partners and is a member of the Board of Directors of Motia, IceFyre Semiconductor, T.M.T. Coaxial Networks and Boston Private Bank & Trust Company, where he serves on the Audit and Risk Management as well as the Investment Management and Trust Committees. His day-to-day involvement at Milk Street Ventures is in an advisory capacity. Mike earned a BA in Business Administration from Siena College, an MBA from Suffolk University, an MS in Taxation from Bentley College, and is a Certified Management Accountant.