John N. Le is a serial entrepreneur gone parallel. John got his early start in the corporate world managing world-wide treasury and capital markets activities at Merisel, at the time the largest publicly held software/hardware distribution company in the world. Subsequently, John moved on to ContiFinancial and Long Beach Financial (WaMu) where he managed strategic planning and capital markets transactions.
With the emergence of the dotcom market in the late 90’s, John decided to jump in feet first to start LoanTrader, Inc, the nation’s first internet-based mortgage marketplace. John raised the largest private equity round in southern California for a financial technology company with blue chip investment partners such as Friedman Billings Ramsey, Capital Z (Zurich), Goldman Sachs, LendingTree (IAC), GE Capital, CitiGroup, and New Century Financial. Ultimately, the company was acquired by Metavante (NYSE: MV). John relaxed for a few months afterwards until the start-up bug bit him again and Portellus was born. John grew Portellus from a 5 man operation into a 200 plus employee firm, spread across 3 continents with clients such as Morgan Stanley, Fiserv, Deutsche Bank, Discover, Washington Mutual, and Bank United. John has been invited to speak at many industry conferences on special topics ranging from banking and lending to financial technology.
Today, John is the managing principal of Mozaik, a Web 2.0 incubator based in southern California, where it has invested in and operates Artiklz, Propzy, and Meistrz.
