Carter Williams - Managing Partner

Most recently Mr. Williams was President of Gridlogix, a software company focused on energy and building integration.  In October 2007, Gridlogix was successfully sold to Johnson Controls.  Previously, Mr. Williams was a director with Boeing Ventures and founder of the Chairman’s Innovation Initiative, where he led The Boeing Company's efforts to develop an internal incubator focused on new venture growth opportunities. In that role he oversaw the review of more than 1000 new business opportunities and led development of several spin-offs, licensing transactions and new internal businesses.  Prior to this position, Mr. Williams led Boeing's technology planning process, which covers all aspects of technology adoption at The Boeing Company. Prior to the Boeing and McDonnell Douglas merger, Mr. Williams led several successful engineering and manufacturing activities at McDonnell Douglas involving design for manufacturing, process development, and product development. Through his affiliation with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology he has been involved in several other entrepreneurial activities, including the MIT 50K competition and the founding of the MIT Entrepreneurship Society.  He is the past president and founder of the MIT Corporate Venturing Consortium.  Mr. Williams serves on the boards of Procelerate, Viamorph, and First Choice Courier.  He is on the board of advisors of Anzode.  He is a past member of the board of Appistry (previously known as Tsunami Research).  He has an MBA from the MIT Sloan School and a Bachelors of Science from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

Eric Achtmann - Venture Partner
Eric is an 11-year veteran of the European VC/private equity industry.  He founded Global Capital Advisors GmbH, an investment advisory firm providing strategy, M&A and restructuring services, and was part of the founding team of PolyTechnos Venture-Partners, a ca. €200m Munich-Based VC fund investing in ca. 40 early stage companies in the Europe, the U.S. and Middle East over more than 80 rounds of financing.  At PolyTechnos, Eric specialized in hardware, including optics, wireless, semiconductors and cleantech. He has served the boards of a number of technology related companies, including Media Lario Technologies S.r.l., NemeriX S.A., NL Nanosemiconductor GmbH, Enigma Information Systems, Inc. and PLX Systems Inc.

Eric joined PolyTechnos in 1998 from McKinsey & Co., where he worked primarily in the Firm’s industrial and financial institutions practices based in London, Munich and Scandinavia.  During that period, Eric also served as product development and automotive/defence-aerospace industry expert, following roles in product development with organizations including BMW, Daimler, EADS and Boeing/McDonnell-Douglas (Phantom Works).  He also served financial institutions, either directly or as part of M&A and post-merger integration/restructuring activities.

Prior to McKinsey, and in the wake of the 1st Gulf War, Eric founded Petrotech International Ltd., a company developing revolutionary fire-fighting and bioremediation products and services in the Middle East and, later, the U.S., Europe and Asia. As part of these activities, Eric co-led fire response activities for the United Nations World Catastrophe Response Exercise in 1993, involving 41 nations.

 Eric received his MBA in finance from the MIT Sloan School of Management.  Further, he holds engineering degrees from MIT (M.S., Aeronautics & Astronautics); Von Karman Institute for Fluid Dynamics (NATO) (Dipl. Post-Universitaire, Turbo-machinery); Technical University of Munich (Hdipl., Aeronautics & Astronautics); and University of New Hampshire (B.S., Mechanical Eng.).

 A Dwight D. Eisenhower and U.S. Air Force Fellow, Eric is a founding member of the MIT Entrepreneurship Society and a Member of the MIT Sloan New Venture & Product Development Alumni Advisory Board.  He is also a Senior Lecturer at the Technical University and Ludwigs-Maximillians University in Munich.

Paul M. Smith - Venture Partner and CFO
Mr. Smith is recent past Chief Financial Officer of the Sensient Technology Color Group, a $400M industrial and consumer products public company.  With more than 20 years of corporate leadership experience with consumer, business and technological product companies both domestically and internationally, Mr. Smith is a seasoned business executive with general management experience supported by a solid financial foundation.  He has led finance, sales and operations and understands the inexorable linkage of those functions.  His experience spans businesses ranging in size from start up to Fortune 500.  Mr. Smith is proactive in attacking business challenges and his successes have been based on strong personal leadership in developing cross-functional teams that have a clear understanding of the objectives at hand. His strong business acumen has allowed him to significantly build value in a broad range of companies.  Prior to joining Sensient, Mr. Smith was the Chief Financial Officer of Nancy’s Specialty Foods, and before that, was Co-Owner and President of Dakota Brands International.  He also held key positions at Sensient Technology (Frozen Foods Division), JL Foods, Intel Corporation and Deloitte & Touche.  An MBA graduate from Santa Clara University, Mr. Smith also holds a Bachelor of Science in Economics from the University of Oregon and his CPA designation. 

Skip Martin – Venture Partner Consumer Driven Healthcare
Mr Martin most recently served as President of SynApps Software and PC Innovators Consulting. SynApps’ primary focus was in the areas of medical and scientific computing. In that role he was responsible for business development, strategy, and operations including finance, HR, and project execution.   During his tenure SynApps has been involved in development of new and innovative software products in the areas of telemedicine, hospital clinical information systems, medical diagnostics, and a range of scientific and medical research applications.  Prior to these efforts Mr. Martin was involved in a number of technology based startups. These included efforts in the medical device and imaging arena.  Mr. Martin is currently involved as organizer and chair of the Midwest Information Technology Coalition for Health (MITCH). MITCH is focused on integrating various constituencies in the St. Louis healthcare marketplace including the provider, payer, business and information technology communities to advance an effort to form a Regional Health Information Organization (RHIO) in the region. Mr. Martin also serves on the Executive Committee of the Technology Gateway Alliance, the Technology arm of the Regional Commerce and Growth Association (RCGA). He consults with a number of technology startups providing technical and strategic direction. He founded and chairs the Tech Gateway Bioinformatics Network. He founded and chaired the Technology Advisory Committee for KETC Channel 9, and until recently served Ex-Officio on the Board of the station.  Mr. Martin graduated with honors with an Electrical Engineering degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.