Primary Job Title senior executive Primary Organization Clean Energy Venture Group
Gender Male
Investor Type
Carl Nelson has been a founder and CEO of successful technology companies in Massachusetts for the last 25 years. His first company was Access Technology, a Natick-based minicomputer productivity software company. It grew to over 400 employees with offices around the world before being acquired by CompuServe. He next started VIS Development in
1991, one of the first companies to successfully deploy video on large corporate networks.
In 1999 he founded Integrity Interactive a SAS (Software as Services) and consulting company that provides web delivered training and communications services on corporate ethics, sustainability, and corporate responsibility to the Global 2000. Integrity is based in Waltham with offices in San Francisco, New York and London. Carl has recently retired from Integrity after its acquisition by SAI Global.
A common thread of Carl’s companies is that they have all been “data driven”. The value proposition of each has relied not just on technology innovation but on how better data and analytics can lead to astonishing cost savings and efficiencies. The clean tech industry is just beginning to realize the gold mine that lies in data and Carl is especially interested in entrepreneurs with plans to exploit this value proposition.
All three of Carl’s companies were bootstrapped with the help of individual angel investors. Over the years he has seen first hand that early-stage funding from large VC’s is rarely the best solution for the startup company or its entrepreneur. As a partner in CEVG, he intends to help a new generation of entrepreneurs – as he was helped by angels 20 years ago.
Carl has a BA from Colby College and an MBA from the MIT Sloan School of Management. His other passions are sailboats – a four thousand year application of wind power and the first hybrid vehicle (once the steam engine was invented). He lives in Weston with his wife, two college age sons, and a particularly lazy Golden Retriever who is personally committed to energy conservation.
