Our Monday meeting in July is with Ketan Patel, Principal at New Venture Partners where he focuses on corprorate spinouts, enterprices security, mobile media and security, ad-hoc wireless networking, and communications.  Having joined New Venture Partners in 2006, Ketan previously worked in a variety of operational roles in the semiconductor industry, encompassing startups and large multinational corporations including Cavium Networks, Inc. where he was part of the technical sales and marketing organization responsible for the commercialization of the industry's first 10Gbps in-line security processor. Ketan holds a BS, magna cum laude, in Electrical Engineering from North Carolina State University, an MS, cum laude, in Electrical Engineering from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, and an MBA from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth. His current investments include:  GainSpan, Intelleflex, and TimeSight Systems.

Ketan Patel, Principal, New Venture Partners

From which industry sector do you think we will see the most innovation in the next 2 years?

Mobile security.  The existing security paradigm is arguably broken, as evidenced by the multitude of high profile attacks on seemingly secure enterprise and government institutions, and does not scale well for mobile devices.  Consequently, innovations that result in new security paradigms that leverage the unique attributes (such as location awareness) of a mobile device while addressing the scalability challenges of the mobile environment will be interesting.  There are at least two key rules that apply to security: 1) Hackers go where the people are…they look for scale, and 2) Hackers go where the money is.  The growth of smart-phones, the introduction of various mobile payment systems, and the latent value of personal information that people store on their cell phones leads me to believe that mobile security is going to get a lot of attention in the next two years.

2011 is the year of ....

Acquisitions.  As the economy recovers, we have seen our large corporate partners that have been building up cash reserves increasingly looking to deploy that cash to buy companies and technologies that present them with growth opportunities; presenting startups with interesting exit opportunities.

The biggest threat to the US venture capital industry is ...

Depressed returns in the asset class. 

What is your favorite book of the last year?

Against The Gods: The Remarkable Story of Risk by Peter L. Bernstein.  The book is a deceptively easy read that outlines the evolution of human risk perception and resultant human behavior. 

Name a venture-backed company you are not invested in but wish you were. 

Zynga.  They drove a business model innovation (vs. a technical innovation) in the gaming industry that has upended the classical model of game/content creation, game delivery, and monetization. 

Name a practicing VC from another firm who you admire and why?

Larry Finch at Sigma.  His endurance in the Venture Capital industry is simply amazing.  He has had tremendous success over three decades in Venture Capital, yet retains a tremendous excitement and passion for building great companies and helping entrepreneurs.  Larry’s energy towards Venture Capital is truly inspiring.