Santo Politi's Email & Phone

? Santo has the unique ability to see three moves ahead which given the dynamic nature of the market and our industry is invaluable to a CEO. ? Alex Blum, CEO, KickApps Santo Politi is a founder and General Partner of Spark Capital. An engineer by training, Santo follows a force in his work that will never be found in any engineering texts: passion. He is passionate about the areas he invests in and he looks for entrepreneurs who burn with the same intensity. His success has been built on combining this intensity with an equally strong drive to eliminate, as much as possible, risk from the picture. His unique approach has taken him around the world pursuing opportunities. Santo has led Spark's investments in Adapt.tv, Admeld, Inform, CT-100/CNET (acquired by NYSE:CBS), Genie, IPWireless, KickApps (acquired by KIK Digital), OneRiot, Tashtego, Triggit and Vurve. He has also participated in Spark's investments in thePlatform (acquired by NASDAQ:CMCSA) as a board member. Santo most recently was a Partner at Charles River Ventures (CRV) with an investment focus on media and entertainment infrastructure. His investments at CRV include BigBand Networks (NASDAQ:BBND), Broadbus Technologies (acquired by NYSE:MOT) and Groove Mobile (acquired by NASDAQ:LVWR). Prior to joining CRV in early 2001, Santo served as President of New Media for Blockbuster Entertainment (NYSE:BBI), where he was responsible for establishing a new operating division focused on extending the company beyond its brick-and-mortar retail stores into digital broadcast and video on demand. Before his work at Blockbuster, Santo co-founded BT Venture Partners, an early-stage venture capital firm affiliated with Bankers Trust. Some of his successful investments at BT Venture Partners include Aether Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:AETH), Novatel Wireless, Inc. (NASDAQ: NVTL) and DigitalThink (NASDAQ:DTHK). Santo has held various engineering and management positions with the Video Systems Division of Matsushita Electric Industrial in Osaka, Japan; Panasonic Broadcast and Television Systems Company; and Weston Instruments, a subsidiary of Schlumberger Industries. Santo is the recipient of an Emmy® Excellence in Technology Award. He has also been named multiple times to the Forbes Midas List, which ranks top venture capitalists who have created the most wealth for their investors. Santo Politi holds an MBA in finance from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, an MS in electrical engineering from NJIT and a BS in electrical engineering and a BS in physics from Bogazici University in Istanbul, Turkey. He is fluent in Japanese, conversational in Spanish and French and is a native Turkish speaker.