AVG’s Secret Recipe: How the Total Access Fund Portfolios are Built

Before joining the Basecamp Fund, Catherine was a successful entrepreneur, product manager, and software engineer. She was Director of Product at NEA-backed DataVisor, an enterprise company offering an unsupervised machine learning fraud solution. Prior to hat, she co-founded the retail analytics company Fancy That (acq. acquired by Palantir in 2015). While at Stanford, she built an online platform used by thousands of students and instructors to streamline grading. Catherine graduated from Stanford with a BS and MS in Computer Science, focusing on AI.

For the past 15 years, Cainon has worked with startups as an entrepreneur, advisor, and investor. Prior to Castor, Cainon helped co-found five companies: Viafy, Human Design Medical (merged with Breas Medical of General Electric [NYSE:GE]), Triangle Research Labs (acquired by Lonza [SIX:LONN]), Revive Pharmaceuticals (acquired by Concordia Healthcare [TOR:CRX]), and University Laundry (acquired by a national operator, then Proctor & Gamble’s Tide [NYSE: PG]). Previously, he was an investor at PBM, a $500M healthcare-focused VC firm. Cainon also worked at Boston Consulting Group (BCG), Goldman Sachs, and NASA. He has an MBA from MIT’s Sloan School of Management and a BS from the University of Virginia in Systems and Information Engineering.

Laura brings operational perspective as a CEO, Chairman, and executive in technology startups in addition to investing experience. As Managing Partner at Ripplecreek Partners’ technology practice and General Partner at FA Technology Ventures, she worked various tech sectors: mobile, consumer, internet, SaaS, cloud-based, marketing, and enterprise software across many economic cycles. She also served as CEO at Handango, creating the first marketplace of mobile apps. At Microsoft, she co-founded two businesses as an intra-preneur in an elite swat team spun out of Bill Gates’ office. Laura holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and AB in Government from Dartmouth (’89).

Ludwig has been on all sides of venture — as an entrepreneur, corporate buyer of ventures, and venture capitalist. Before Alumni Ventures, he experienced the daily realities of entrepreneurship as Founder and CEO of a mobile payments venture that served over 12 million people. Earlier, at a Fortune 100 telecommunications manufacturer (Nokia), he held general manager and business development roles that included investing in and acquiring venture-backed businesses. His first experience in venture capital was with an $800 million global fund that focused on enterprise and mobile software both before and after the dot.com crash. Ludwig began his career as a strategy consultant with the Boston Consulting Group. He has a BA from Brown University and an MBA from Columbia.

Peter has startup experience in both the non-profit and business sectors, a BA from Wesleyan University and an MBA from The Wharton School. Peter developed expertise building teams and strategic planning in the San Francisco Bay Area, driving growth across multiple seed- and early-stage companies (with many nights spent as informal adviser to a network of entrepreneurs). Peter has a passion for social impact and loves working with people who love what they do and strive to get better at it.