Brian Garrett is a Co-Founder and Managing Director of Crosscut Ventures. For his entire career, Brian has been involved in building and funding early-stage technology and media companies.
Brian is very active in the local start-up community and currently sits on the Boards of GumGum and Verve Wireless. He is also an advisory board member for the following digital media companies: Jacked, Zannel and ICN.tv.
Prior to co-founding Crosscut, Brian was a Partner at one of the largest Southern California-based venture funds. He joined there in 2001 and played an active role in managing and investing three funds over six years totaling more than $500 million. He was the sponsor and/or an active board member of nine Palomar portfolio companies, including successes such as DataAllegro (data warehouse appliance company sold to Microsoft in 2008), Entone (video on demand server company sold to Harmonic in 2006) and Lombardi (stand-alone leader in the business process management software market). He also led or co-led investments in several companies that have shown tremendous growth, including Skyetek (RFID reader technology) and Zannel (mobile Instant Media Messaging Platform).
Prior to Palomar, Brian was the Director of Business Development at Niku Corporation. Niku developed Professional Service Automation software for Global 2000 companies. He led business development efforts for iNiku.com, an online workplace for independent professionals. Niku subsequently went public and then was acquired by Computer Associates in 2006.
Prior to Niku, Brian was with a boutique strategy consulting firm called R.B. Webber & Company. He worked with many leading early-stage technology companies including CommerceOne, Inktomi, Sagent, Aurum and Broadbase. In this capacity, he provided strategic advisory services including business plan writing, market entry strategy, and primary market and pricing research. The firm also began formally investing in many of the early-stage companies with which it worked and this was his first exposure to and involvement in venture capital investing. He has continued to refine the skill of evaluating new business opportunities since 1995.
Brian received his MBA from Stanford’s Graduate School of Business and he graduated from Stanford University with a B.S. in Industrial Engineering.
