“Tom is an amazing business professional, brilliant at strategic thinking as well as tactical execution. For
our early stage startup he was instrumental in creating the early bizdev deals and marketing programs
that helped us create our market. He is just fantastic at creating business conversations that lead to
deals. Tom is as good as they get! And, fun to work with too!”
Gautam Bhargava, Co-Founder & CEO, SnapTell, Inc.
“Tom is one of the best and most thorough business leaders I have worked with. He has been a driving
force for SnapTell in identifying and closing business relationships with partners and customers over
the past (nearly) two years. Tom is meticulous, detail oriented, and leaves no stone unturned in pursuing
potential business opportunities. I have found it fun and rewarding to work with Tom on presentations
to many potential partners and customers.”
G. D. (Ram) Ramkumar, Co-Founder and CTO, SnapTell Inc.
“As co-founder and CEO of Catalyst Mobile, Tom was our CMO but more importantly he was my
trusted advisor who I hold in extremely high ethical and business regard. I have known Tom for 15+
years as an executive at SGI, as a start up CEO and as a successful advisor to dozens of companies
many with successful exits - including Catalyst Mobile. Tom seamlessly integrated into our management
team and was very hands on successfully managing our product and corporate marketing team. Tom is
very well connected into the venture capital community and played an important strategic role in our
financing strategy. Tom has deep domain expertise in the wireless application and infrastructure space
gained from his many clients in the industry. I highly recommend Tom and his firm ACT Venture
Partners.” Peter Meechan, Founder and CEO of Catalyst Mobile
“Tom's connections with IT professionals, especially on Wall Street, helped drive a lot of our early
momentum around betas and early revenue traction.”
Tom Kemp, Founder and CEO, Centrify
"...they helped us figure out what NOT to do during a critical period of time in our early history."
Ross Schibler, Topspin's founder, CTO, and VP of software (acquired by Cisco)
“The validation due diligence service that Tom Garland put together was instrumental to Juniper
Networks in a decision we made not to acquire a potential target…. Time has proven him right – in
retrospect, it’s clear that we dodged a bullet."
Spencer Greene, VP Corporate Development, Juniper Networks
“A key part of Gryphon’s investment strategy is to proactively identify industry sectors and become experts. ACT
Venture Partners did a tremendous job in helping us profile a particular sector, including drilling down into the
technology, the market and the competitive threats.”
Keith Stimson, Gryphon Investors Private Equity Firm
“When we spun out of Australian Telecommunications Co-operative Research Center and decided to
move our company’s headquarters to the USA, with Tom’s help we were able to assess the competitive
market landscape, better target OEM customer’s and their channel partners. It really helped...”
John Siliquini, Founder and CTO, Xelor Software
“We were hitting on all cylinders in our core vertical markets this year. Tom did a great job of
strategically segmenting our vertical markets to look for ancillary verticals we could exploit for next
year. They uncovered a number of channel opportunities that will further drive
revenue." Mike Murphy, CEO, InQuira
“We had been incubating a deal in house for some while with a well known serial entrepreneur. Tom’s
efforts to position the opportunity as an entirely new category really helped confirm what we suspected
about the opportunity. Their objectivity, their network, their analysis and their customer meeting
documentation really had a positive impact on our decision to fund.”
Jon Feiber, General Partner, Mohr Davidow Ventures
“There is no other way to say it. Tom was a part or team and his efforts finding an OEM partner who
had a strategic fit with our company’s product line lead to the successful sale of the company to
another public company.”
Vatsan Kasturi, Founder and CEO Soundpipe, (acquired by Comdial Corporation)
“Tom’s contacts and approach to enterprise IT decision makers was very helpful to ConSentry as we
validated and refined our customer value propositions. It really makes the due diligence process with
top tier VCs a lot easier when you have dozens of documented customers."
Tom Barsi, CEO of ConSentry Networks
“Unlike consumer companies, most tech companies don’t conduct many customer focus groups. They
launch the product and see what happens. I don’t know how the did it but Tom has access to very
relevant IT professionals. The interaction of these individuals in the same room sharing war stories
with us really was powerful and helped drive product and positioning strategy.”
Alan Kessler, CEO of Attune Systems, Inc
“Our portfolio companies have worked with ACT Venture Partners to help validate their product
strategy for funding and to nail 1.0 release features. It has really paid off. Our portfolio companies
have worked with Tom to help validate their product strategy for funding and to nail 1.0 release
features. It has really paid off. I would recommend Tom without exception. Tom has an uncanny
ability to read early markets and help companies navigate the choppy waters of getting innovative
products to market."
John C. Occhipinti, Managing Director, The Woodside Fund
"In testing new ideas and new products for new markets, you need to balance the dream and reality:
you need to put forth what's new and put it in the best possible light, but you also need to be disciplined
in interpreting -- rigorously -- what the market says back. ACT Venture Partners has developed a
methodology that accomplishes both these things without sacrifice to either one."
David L. Gilmour , President and CEO Tacit Software, Inc.
"Tom really helped us define and refine our customer viewable messages and materials and got us beta
traction with early customers. When we hired our VP Marketing, it really helped having so many
marketing activities in process." Aseem Vaid, founder and former CEO Neoscale
“As a fab-less semi-conductor company, you really need vision to look far into the future for product
design opportunities and you need access to the right OEMs. Tom got us in front of many OEMs to
help validate what we were working on. In addition, Tom tapped his personal network to bring in the
first angel and the lead Series A investor.”
Kianoosh Naghshineh, Founder, CEO and President, Chelsio Communications
“Tom is superb at helping companies investigate and resolve complex marketing issues. He knows how
to get to detailed, actionable information.” Jim Smith, Mohr Davidow Ventures
“I have heard great things about Tom's work in the past in the venture and business community in the
past. In the process of incubating a business plan in a venture firm - I needed to validate the market fit
and alignment with the help of a market research firm. As part of the process - we engaged with Tom
at ACT Venture Partners over a period of 4 months starting November, 2007. The whole engagement
was fantastic. Tom's processes are extremely aligned to the needs of a seed-stage venture backed
business. He worked with us to quickly determine the goals and non-goals of the project, put together
the collateral and got started. The reach from his database was excellent - and we finished our goals of
contacting the relevant people at 30+ targeted business prospects on-time. This is especially impressive
considering that this was over a period including Thanksgiving, Christmas and the New Year. The
prospects he brought to engage with us were at the right level, they gave frank feedback and Tom's
write-ups and summarizations were phenomenal. As a result of this market validation work, were able
to tune our product plan more appropriately to the market, prioritize the sequence of our launch plan
and are able to get a great sense of possible sales strategies and partners. I have started three venture-
backed companies in the past. I am a strong believer that early market validation can, very bluntly,
mean everything between success and failure. I whole-heartedly recommend Tom to both early-stage
investors and entrepreneurs thinking about starting a business in the IT space. This is the best use of
seed money that I have come across.”
Som Sikdar, EIR, founder Force10 Networks, CTO/founder GridIron Systems
“As the Founder and CEO of RingCube, I came to this "strategic fork in the road" and needed to
quickly decide on which path to take the company. We engaged Tom Garland to help us validate the
market opportunities we had in various verticals. He did an outstanding job in a very short time by
making a lot of meetings happen in the respective verticals. Great rolodex. He helped our board and
me to make objective decision based on real market data and insight. He did a thorough job in
documenting and presenting his findings. I would highly recommend him based on his work ethics.”
Shan Appajodu, Founder and CEO RingCube
“I've worked with Tom off an on for half a dozen years. He is smart, energetic and skillful in business
development, marketing and general management. I've worked with him in VC-related environments
where he shines. I've also worked with him in startup-environments where he is an excellent
contributor. He makes an excellent CEO and a valuable consultant. He has my complete confidence
and my highest recommendation.” Bob Cousins, Founder & CTO, ACME Storage
“Tom is a creative and insightful general manager who knows how to develop strategy and evaluate
decisions. He builds a well-grounded understanding of what might happen in the future when evaluating
and executing new ideas.” Andrew Bein, CEO, Active Inquiry
“I had the pleasure of working for Tom over the past 10 months. Tom was the VP of Product
Management at Catalyst Mobile. Its been a blast working with him. Tom is extremely intelligent,
thoughtful, thorough and has the uncanny ability to "sniff" out products / technologies / companies
and find the gem-in-the-rough. He is also one of the best I have seen when it comes to figuring out
business models, product positioning and go-to-market strategies. What makes Tom so unique in the
executive ranks is his humility and his ability to connect with people at different levels. I would really
look forward to an opportunity to work with Tom in the future.”
Utpal Thakrar, Director of Product Management, Catalyst Mobile
our early stage startup he was instrumental in creating the early bizdev deals and marketing programs
that helped us create our market. He is just fantastic at creating business conversations that lead to
deals. Tom is as good as they get! And, fun to work with too!”
Gautam Bhargava, Co-Founder & CEO, SnapTell, Inc.
“Tom is one of the best and most thorough business leaders I have worked with. He has been a driving
force for SnapTell in identifying and closing business relationships with partners and customers over
the past (nearly) two years. Tom is meticulous, detail oriented, and leaves no stone unturned in pursuing
potential business opportunities. I have found it fun and rewarding to work with Tom on presentations
to many potential partners and customers.”
G. D. (Ram) Ramkumar, Co-Founder and CTO, SnapTell Inc.
“As co-founder and CEO of Catalyst Mobile, Tom was our CMO but more importantly he was my
trusted advisor who I hold in extremely high ethical and business regard. I have known Tom for 15+
years as an executive at SGI, as a start up CEO and as a successful advisor to dozens of companies
many with successful exits - including Catalyst Mobile. Tom seamlessly integrated into our management
team and was very hands on successfully managing our product and corporate marketing team. Tom is
very well connected into the venture capital community and played an important strategic role in our
financing strategy. Tom has deep domain expertise in the wireless application and infrastructure space
gained from his many clients in the industry. I highly recommend Tom and his firm ACT Venture
Partners.” Peter Meechan, Founder and CEO of Catalyst Mobile
“Tom's connections with IT professionals, especially on Wall Street, helped drive a lot of our early
momentum around betas and early revenue traction.”
Tom Kemp, Founder and CEO, Centrify
"...they helped us figure out what NOT to do during a critical period of time in our early history."
Ross Schibler, Topspin's founder, CTO, and VP of software (acquired by Cisco)
“The validation due diligence service that Tom Garland put together was instrumental to Juniper
Networks in a decision we made not to acquire a potential target…. Time has proven him right – in
retrospect, it’s clear that we dodged a bullet."
Spencer Greene, VP Corporate Development, Juniper Networks
“A key part of Gryphon’s investment strategy is to proactively identify industry sectors and become experts. ACT
Venture Partners did a tremendous job in helping us profile a particular sector, including drilling down into the
technology, the market and the competitive threats.”
Keith Stimson, Gryphon Investors Private Equity Firm
“When we spun out of Australian Telecommunications Co-operative Research Center and decided to
move our company’s headquarters to the USA, with Tom’s help we were able to assess the competitive
market landscape, better target OEM customer’s and their channel partners. It really helped...”
John Siliquini, Founder and CTO, Xelor Software
“We were hitting on all cylinders in our core vertical markets this year. Tom did a great job of
strategically segmenting our vertical markets to look for ancillary verticals we could exploit for next
year. They uncovered a number of channel opportunities that will further drive
revenue." Mike Murphy, CEO, InQuira
“We had been incubating a deal in house for some while with a well known serial entrepreneur. Tom’s
efforts to position the opportunity as an entirely new category really helped confirm what we suspected
about the opportunity. Their objectivity, their network, their analysis and their customer meeting
documentation really had a positive impact on our decision to fund.”
Jon Feiber, General Partner, Mohr Davidow Ventures
“There is no other way to say it. Tom was a part or team and his efforts finding an OEM partner who
had a strategic fit with our company’s product line lead to the successful sale of the company to
another public company.”
Vatsan Kasturi, Founder and CEO Soundpipe, (acquired by Comdial Corporation)
“Tom’s contacts and approach to enterprise IT decision makers was very helpful to ConSentry as we
validated and refined our customer value propositions. It really makes the due diligence process with
top tier VCs a lot easier when you have dozens of documented customers."
Tom Barsi, CEO of ConSentry Networks
“Unlike consumer companies, most tech companies don’t conduct many customer focus groups. They
launch the product and see what happens. I don’t know how the did it but Tom has access to very
relevant IT professionals. The interaction of these individuals in the same room sharing war stories
with us really was powerful and helped drive product and positioning strategy.”
Alan Kessler, CEO of Attune Systems, Inc
“Our portfolio companies have worked with ACT Venture Partners to help validate their product
strategy for funding and to nail 1.0 release features. It has really paid off. Our portfolio companies
have worked with Tom to help validate their product strategy for funding and to nail 1.0 release
features. It has really paid off. I would recommend Tom without exception. Tom has an uncanny
ability to read early markets and help companies navigate the choppy waters of getting innovative
products to market."
John C. Occhipinti, Managing Director, The Woodside Fund
"In testing new ideas and new products for new markets, you need to balance the dream and reality:
you need to put forth what's new and put it in the best possible light, but you also need to be disciplined
in interpreting -- rigorously -- what the market says back. ACT Venture Partners has developed a
methodology that accomplishes both these things without sacrifice to either one."
David L. Gilmour , President and CEO Tacit Software, Inc.
"Tom really helped us define and refine our customer viewable messages and materials and got us beta
traction with early customers. When we hired our VP Marketing, it really helped having so many
marketing activities in process." Aseem Vaid, founder and former CEO Neoscale
“As a fab-less semi-conductor company, you really need vision to look far into the future for product
design opportunities and you need access to the right OEMs. Tom got us in front of many OEMs to
help validate what we were working on. In addition, Tom tapped his personal network to bring in the
first angel and the lead Series A investor.”
Kianoosh Naghshineh, Founder, CEO and President, Chelsio Communications
“Tom is superb at helping companies investigate and resolve complex marketing issues. He knows how
to get to detailed, actionable information.” Jim Smith, Mohr Davidow Ventures
“I have heard great things about Tom's work in the past in the venture and business community in the
past. In the process of incubating a business plan in a venture firm - I needed to validate the market fit
and alignment with the help of a market research firm. As part of the process - we engaged with Tom
at ACT Venture Partners over a period of 4 months starting November, 2007. The whole engagement
was fantastic. Tom's processes are extremely aligned to the needs of a seed-stage venture backed
business. He worked with us to quickly determine the goals and non-goals of the project, put together
the collateral and got started. The reach from his database was excellent - and we finished our goals of
contacting the relevant people at 30+ targeted business prospects on-time. This is especially impressive
considering that this was over a period including Thanksgiving, Christmas and the New Year. The
prospects he brought to engage with us were at the right level, they gave frank feedback and Tom's
write-ups and summarizations were phenomenal. As a result of this market validation work, were able
to tune our product plan more appropriately to the market, prioritize the sequence of our launch plan
and are able to get a great sense of possible sales strategies and partners. I have started three venture-
backed companies in the past. I am a strong believer that early market validation can, very bluntly,
mean everything between success and failure. I whole-heartedly recommend Tom to both early-stage
investors and entrepreneurs thinking about starting a business in the IT space. This is the best use of
seed money that I have come across.”
Som Sikdar, EIR, founder Force10 Networks, CTO/founder GridIron Systems
“As the Founder and CEO of RingCube, I came to this "strategic fork in the road" and needed to
quickly decide on which path to take the company. We engaged Tom Garland to help us validate the
market opportunities we had in various verticals. He did an outstanding job in a very short time by
making a lot of meetings happen in the respective verticals. Great rolodex. He helped our board and
me to make objective decision based on real market data and insight. He did a thorough job in
documenting and presenting his findings. I would highly recommend him based on his work ethics.”
Shan Appajodu, Founder and CEO RingCube
“I've worked with Tom off an on for half a dozen years. He is smart, energetic and skillful in business
development, marketing and general management. I've worked with him in VC-related environments
where he shines. I've also worked with him in startup-environments where he is an excellent
contributor. He makes an excellent CEO and a valuable consultant. He has my complete confidence
and my highest recommendation.” Bob Cousins, Founder & CTO, ACME Storage
“Tom is a creative and insightful general manager who knows how to develop strategy and evaluate
decisions. He builds a well-grounded understanding of what might happen in the future when evaluating
and executing new ideas.” Andrew Bein, CEO, Active Inquiry
“I had the pleasure of working for Tom over the past 10 months. Tom was the VP of Product
Management at Catalyst Mobile. Its been a blast working with him. Tom is extremely intelligent,
thoughtful, thorough and has the uncanny ability to "sniff" out products / technologies / companies
and find the gem-in-the-rough. He is also one of the best I have seen when it comes to figuring out
business models, product positioning and go-to-market strategies. What makes Tom so unique in the
executive ranks is his humility and his ability to connect with people at different levels. I would really
look forward to an opportunity to work with Tom in the future.”
Utpal Thakrar, Director of Product Management, Catalyst Mobile
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ACT Venture Partners Inc.
ACT Venture Partners Inc.