| Website | wmasgroup.com |
| University of California, Los Angeles, MBA | 1986 |
| Finance | |
| California Institute of Technology, M.S. | 1982 |
| Engineering | |
| Oregon State University, B.S. | 1981 |
| Engineering |
Walter Kortschak is a Silicon Valley venture capitalist and a senior advisor and former managing partner of Summit Partners, a private equity and venture capital firm that invests in profitable, growth companies. Prior to Summit, he was a Vice President and Associate at Crosspoint Venture Partners. Walter currently invests privately in technology companies through his family investment office, WMAS Group and Kortschak Investments, L.P.
Over a venture capital career spanning 25 years, Walter has served as a director of 40 companies, including 20 public companies. He has invested in several industry defining companies, notably E-TEK Dynamics (1998 IPO), an early leader in optical networking, which merged in 2000 with JDS Uniphase in a transaction valued at over $18 billion; as the initial investor in McAfee, Inc. (1993 IPO), an anti-virus and network security firm, and one of the pioneering companies using the internet business model for distributing software; and HMT Technology (1996 IPO) and Diamond Multimedia Systems (1995 IPO), both early technology buyout and recapitalization transactions in Silicon Valley. Other notable technology investments include AltoCom (sold to Broadcom), Finisar (1999 IPO), Netcom Systems (sold to Bowthorpe) and Xylan (1996 IPO).
While at Summit for 20 years, Walter was responsible for investing over $750 million in 36 companies, which returned over $5 billion in value, for an internal rate of return (IRR) of over 80%. He has consistently appeared on Forbes Magazine’s Midas List of top 100 venture capitalists.
Walter received a B.S. in Engineering from Oregon State University in 1981, an M.S. in Engineering from the California Institute of Technology in 1982, and an M.B.A. from the UCLA Anderson Graduate School of Management in 1986.
He is a founder of the USC Kortschak Center for Learning and Creativity, a member of the USC Marshall School of Business Board of Leaders and serves on the Chair’s Council for the Division of Humanities and Social Sciences at the California Institute of Technology. He is also a past director of the National Venture Capital Association.
| Company | Date | Round | Size | Participants |
| EvntLive | 2/13 | Seed | $2.3M | 7 |
| Lovely | 10/12 | Seed | $2M | 5 |
| Gradient X | 6/12 | Seed | $3.75M | 8 |
| ecomom | 12/11 | Series A | $4M | 18 |
| MomentFeed | 7/11 | Seed | $1.2M | 7 |
| Anametrix | 4/11 | Venture Round | 1 |
