Furqan Nazeeri (fn@altgate.com)

I guess you could say that I’m a serial entrepreneur and blogger, but I confess I’m not entirely happy with that label…it makes it sound like I kill companies and then write about it!

For the last 10-ish years I’ve lived in Boston but I grew up in Boring, Oregon and then got a degree in aerospace engineering from the University of Michigan. My real passion at Michigan was the solar car team where I was team captain. Not surprisingly, I spent the early part of my career working on alternative energy (solar) and transportation (plug-in electric vehicles). After getting a MBA at Harvard, I spent the next several years working in the financial technology industry at three different startups (two of which I founded or co-founded).

One of those startups was Pivot, one of a the largest trading networks for hedge funds with something like 7,000 traders. We raised $15-ish million in venture capital in a couple of rounds from folks like DFJ, Softbank and others.

Maize & Blue: 1993 University of Michigan Solar Car

I left Pivot a couple of years ago to become an Entrepreneur-in-Residence with Softbank Capital where I worked on new business ideas and pretended to be a VC. It was a rare opportunity to be a “fox in the henhouse” and get a look at venture investing from the other side of the table. I’m currently on the board of CompStudy, CEO of Viridus and involved with a number of other startups as an investor or advisor.

Lastly, I’ll say that, as founder/CEO, I have raised multiple rounds of angel and venture capital as well as debt and I’ve also done a couple early stage venture deals as an investor.

I started Altgate primarily to share tips and advice on startups and fund raising that I wish someone told me back when I was doing it the first time. Most of my posts are on startups, but occasionally I’ll slip in color commentary on other topics. I’ve also invited a few friends and colleagues that I have a lot of respect for to blog here as well so you can expect the quality and frequency to improve significantly!

Thanks for reading.