At MATRIXX, we've brought together a team of telecommunications industry veterans with deep roots in real-time, mission critical application development and delivery. The founding team has a proven track record of delivering real-time solutions to communications service providers globally.
The founding team includes Dave Labuda, co-founder, CTO and CEO of Portal Software (acquired by Oracle), and Luther Kitahata, part of the founding team and VP Engineering at TiVo. Industry veteran Jay Borden, founder of Granite Systems and CEO of Nakina Systems, is on the board of directors.
MATRIXX is backed by Greylock Partners and Tugboat Ventures. Board members include David Strohm of Greylock Partners, a 30 year IT industry veteran and Board Director at EMC Corporation and VMWare, and Dafina Toncheva from Tugboat Ventures.
Dave Labuda
Founder, CEO & CTO
Dave Labuda co-founded Portal Software in 1994, creating the first real-time billing and revenue management solution for internet and communications service providers. As CTO, he led the architectural design and product strategy of the company. After stepping into the CEO role in 2004, he successfully sold the company to Oracle in 2006. Dave then served as CTO of Oracle's Communications Global Business Unit until February 2008, providing architectural vision for the new organization and acting as a key advisor on several strategic acquisitions. He started his career at Sun Microsystems working for 8 years in the UNIX Operating Systems group. Dave also serves as a board member for Aria Systems. He holds Bachelors and Masters Degrees in Computer Engineering from Case Western Reserve University and has 11 patents issued with several more pending.
Luther Kitahata
Founder, VP Support Services & Technology Partnerships
Luther Kitahata brings over 20 years of experience in building engineering teams and technology companies. Luther was part of the founding team and VP Engineering at TiVo where he led product development and managed key partnerships with companies such as DIRECTV, Sony, Philips and Pioneer. Prior to MATRIXX, he was SVP Engineering at Vuze, the most popular media player for high-resolution digital videos. Luther has been on the founding team of several other Silicon Valley startups such as Navio Communications (acquired by Oracle), and has led them through successful acquisition. Luther began his career at Silicon Graphics developing graphics, video, and OS software. Luther holds an MS and BA with Honors in Computer Science from Brown University.
Jennifer Kyriakakis
Founder & VP Marketing
Jennifer Kyriakakis has been working in the Communications Industry for over 13 years in Marketing, Sales and Systems Delivery. Prior to MATRIXX, Jennifer worked for Portal Software (acquired by Oracle) where she was responsible for the global marketing strategy of Portal's product suite for the broadband and mobile markets. During her 7 years with Portal and Oracle, she also held positions in Services Marketing, Customer Programs, and Sales Engineering. Before joining Portal, she worked with Verizon International Wireless managing large implementations of billing and customer care solutions for their global operating partners. Jennifer began her career in the Communications Practice at Accenture where she developed billing, invoicing, and payment processing applications for wireless operators. She holds a Bachelors Degree in Information Technology and Operations Management from the College of William and Mary.
David Levy
VP Engineering
David Levy has extensive experience delivering enterprise class, high performance, scalable software. Prior to MATRIXX, he worked for over 10 years at Portal Software (acquired by Oracle) as a senior engineering director. He led several of Portal's largest and most successful billing and charging benchmarks in cooperation with many of the world's leading communications companies. Before that, he provided technical leadership in the area of performance engineering at the data warehouse software company Red Brick Systems (now part of IBM). David holds a Ph.D in Computer Engineering from the University of California, Santa Cruz.
Matt Taylor
VP Sales
Matt Taylor brings over 12 years of Communications Industry Sales and Sales Management experience to the MATRIXX team. Prior to MATRIXX, Matt worked for Portal Software (acquired by Oracle) for 10 years where he led some of Portal's first wins in the GSM and Broadband Triple-Play markets and built a highly successful sales team focused on new business development. Once acquired by Oracle in 2006, Matt went on to lead the sales teams in the UK, Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Africa for the Oracle Communications Global Business Unit. Before joining Portal, he worked in both Sales and Consulting for Oracle's Communications Group in Asia and worked with new GSM operators across the region. He holds a Bachelor Of Science Degree in Computer Science from the University of Portsmouth.
Mark Grech
VP & General Counsel
Mark Grech has extensive legal expertise in commercial law, corporate compliance and intellectual property. Prior to MATRIXX, Mark was a member of the Legal Department at Oracle Corporation serving as the chief legal counsel for Oracle's Communications Global Business Unit. At Oracle, Mark was lead counsel for numerous complex and strategic license and services transactions and provided legal support for Oracle's Software-as-a-Service operations. Mark also served as Associate General Counsel for Portal Software. While at Portal, Mark was responsible for managing the commercial law organization, implementing the Company's corporate compliance and training programs, litigation oversight, managing the company's intellectual property portfolio and advising the executive management team and board of directors. Mark holds a J.D. from Santa Clara University Law School.
Dave Labuda
Founder, CEO
Dave Labuda co-founded Portal Software in 1994, creating the first real-time billing and revenue management solution for internet and communications service providers. As CTO, he led the architectural design and product strategy of the company. After stepping into the CEO role in 2004, he successfully sold the company to Oracle in 2006. Dave then served as CTO of Oracle's Communications Global Business Unit until February 2008, providing architectural vision for the new organization and acting as a key advisor on several strategic acquisitions. He started his career at Sun Microsystems working for 8 years in the UNIX Operating Systems group. Dave also serves as a board member for Aria Systems. He holds Bachelors and Masters Degrees in Computer Engineering from Case Western Reserve University and has 11 patents issued with several more pending.
Jay Borden
Board Member
John (Jay) Borden is President and CEO of Nakina Systems - a leading provider of Domain Control and Intelligence solutions to communications equipment and service providers worldwide. Jay was founder and CEO of telecom software company Granite Systems from its inception in 1993 through its successful sale to SAIC and merger with Telcordia in 2004. Granite was named four times to the Inc. 500 list of America's fastest growing private companies, and Jay was named Ernst & Young's Entrepreneur of the Year in 2002 in the New England software category and New Hampshire High Tech Council Entrepreneur of the Year in 2000. Prior to founding Granite, Jay was at Digital Equipment Corporation in Sophia Antipolis, France and Littleton, MA, where he was responsible for the telecom network management software business. Jay began his career at the Yankee Group in Boston and later London, where he was a research director and responsible for starting the Euroscope research program. Jay holds a B.A. in Romance Languages, Magna cum Laude, Phi Beta Kappa from Wesleyan University.
David Strohm
Board Member
Dave joined Greylock in 1980 and opened the west coast office in 1983. He is a graduate of Dartmouth College and the Harvard Business School. Dave is on the board of AtHoc, Bounty Jobs, Cuil, CoWare, EMC Corporation, OpenDNS, Progreso Financiero, richrelevance, SuccessFactors, Tabula and VMware. Dave also led Greylock's prior involvement with companies such as Doubleclick , Forte Software (acquired by Sun Microsystems), Kiva Software (acquired by Netscape), Legato Systems (acquired by EMC), Decru (acquired by Network Appliance), Internet Security Systems (acquired by IBM), Mentor Graphics, Mobile Automation (acquired by iPass), ccMail (acquired by Lotus/IBM), and Cygnus (acquired by RedHat), Net Effect Systems (acquired by Ask.com), Octane Software (acquired by Epiphany) and Wily Technology (acquired by CA).
Dafina Toncheva
Board Member
Dafina joined the investment team of Tugboat Ventures in 2010. She has software domain expertise in SAAS, virtualization, security, infrastructure and enterprise applications. Prior to Tugboat Dafina worked at Venrock under the mentorship of Ray Rothrock and helped expand the firm's investments in the areas of security and enterprise SAAS applications. Dafina worked closely with and was an observer on the boards of PGP, Imperva, RedSeal, and Aria Systems. Before joining Venrock, Dafina spent several years at Microsoft working on the development of some of the world's most widely used software applications. She led the development of several major components of Microsoft's online authentication system Passport, and managed the design and delivery of key collaboration and security features in Office Suite and SharePoint. Dafina received an undergraduate degree in Computer Science from Harvard University and an M.B.A. from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.
