Owner Nicko Sahlas combined his passions as a chef and IT professional to create a home for professional and aspiring chefs online. With Huddler, Nicko now has the ability to focus on what he loves: his awesome community. He has featured chef Mario Batali for an interview, dozens of product giveaways, and is a regular in all areas of the site.
Kittu joined NEA in 2006 as a General Partner and focuses on information technology investments. Kittu was Executive Vice President and General Manager of the Security Products Group at Juniper Networks, a position he assumed following Juniper's acquisition of NetScreen Technologies. At NetScreen, he was General Manager of Secure Access Products, a position he assumed following NetScreen's acquisition of Neoteris, where he served as President and Chief Executive Officer. Kittu brings more than 18 years of experience at the leading edge of the technology industry. He co-founded Healtheon/WebMD, introducing online healthcare to the market. As Senior Vice President and General Manager of Provider Services, Kittu was responsible for product development, operations and business development. Before co-founding Healtheon/WebMD, Kittu worked at Silicon Graphics, Inc. (SGI) managing high profile Interactive TV projects. Kittu holds a B.Tech in Mechanical Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, India, and a M.S. in Operations Research from the State University of New York, Buffalo.
Mark joined NEA as a Consultant in 1995 and became a General Partner in 1996. From April 1994 to December 1995, Mark served as President and Chief Executive Officer and then as Chairman of Viewstar Corporation. From 1985 to 1994, he was an executive with Silicon Graphics, Vice Chairman (1992-1994) responsible for worldwide field operations, Executive Vice President (1988-1991) responsible for the product divisions, and Vice President of Finance and Administration and Chief Financial Officer (1985-1987). Prior to this, Mark was Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of Sonoma Vineyards and a partner at Arthur Young & Company. Mark received a Masters in Business Administration (with distinction) from the Harvard University Graduate School of Business and a Bachelor of Arts in Economics (cum laude) from Amherst College. He is also a member of the board of Northern California Public Broadcasting (KQED).
John co-founded VA Linux Systems (now VA Software, NASDAQ: LNUX) and helped lead the company to a record-breaking IPO in the late 1990's, at the start of the Linux and open source revolution. At VA, John served as Sr. Vice President of marketing, overseeing worldwide marketing strategy, in addition to a number of other leadership roles including managing professional services, support and corporate strategy. In 1999, John spearheaded the creation of SourceForge.net, the world's largest collaborative development web site, currently hosting over 100,000 application development projects and supporting over 1.2 million registered users. Additionally, John created and served as General Manager of the VA subsidiary now known as the Open Source Technology Group (OSTG). OSTG is the leading network of technology sites for IT managers, developers and professionals. It presently serves more than 270 million page views and over 18 million unique visitors monthly.
Jason has spent 15 years of his career in technology. Over this period of time, Jason has successfully founded and sold several start-ups. Through this period of time Jason has assisted a large number of telecommunications, marketing and communications/information industry organizations in market and product analysis, operational efficiency, as well as M&A exercises. More recently Jason served as COO of Federated Media, the market-leader in effective, measurable, social-media advertising.
The backers of countless successful companies such as Tivo, Salesforce.com, DataDomain, Playdom and Groupon, NEA has been practicing classic venture capital for 28 years. NEA focuses on investments at all phases of a company's development, from seed-stage through IPO. With approximately $8.5 billion in committed capital, NEA's experienced management team has invested in over 500 companies.