Paul Ferris

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GENERAL PARTNER

Paul Ferris is a founding General Partner with Azure Capital Partners and has over 25 years experience working with high growth disruptive technology companies, with the past 23+ years investing directly in consumer, digitally native vertical e-commerce, cloud-enabling applications and infrastructure, IoT, gaming and digital media related companies for Azure.  

During his career Paul has been active on 3 public company boards and has helped drive over 30 very successful venture backed outcomes totaling over $50B in value, both as an investor and adviser.  Paul has provided strategic and investment advice to numerous leading technology companies— notable firms include: The Bouqs, Blume, Broadcom (IPO), Calix (IPO in 2010), Cerent (acquired by Cisco Systems), Clutch, Com21 (IPO), Cyan (IPO in 2013; acquired by Ciena in 2015), Empowerly, Efficient Networks (IPO; acquired by Siemens), Eight Sleep, Merit, Native (acquired by P&G in 2017), Packet Engines (acquired by Alcatel), Phanfare (acquired by Carbonite), QL Gaming (acquired by Entercom in 2020), Ranovus, Sanctuary, Shinesty, Siemens and Sliderocket (acquired by VMware in 2011). Prior to founding Azure in 2000, Paul was a strategic adviser and investor with several investment banks, including Credit Suisse First Boston, Deutsche Bank Securities and Morgan Stanley, where he focused on emerging technology companies. 

Paul also served as President, Director and Co-Sponsor of Big Sky Growth Partners, Inc. (NASDAQ: “BSKYU”), an e-commerce focused Special Purpose Acquisition Company founded by Mark Vadon, Chairman and CEO (Chewy, Zulily, Blue Nile).

Paul received his B.A. degrees in Computer Science and English from Amherst College, where he graduated summa cum laude.

Paul has lived in San Francisco, CA for over 29 years and has recently bi-located to Miami, FL to bring his extensive network and experience and to osmose in the burgeoning technology ecosystem there. In his free time he can be found insouciantly reading esoteric philosophical works, curiously tinkering with gadgets that quantify life’s everyday data, jubilantly juggling a fútbol ball or placidly riding adventure motorcycles— although certainly not all at the same time.

COMPANIES

Mike Kwatinetz i

GENERAL PARTNER
 

Mike Kwatinetz is a founding General Partner with Azure Capital Partners where he specializes in consumer companies, software and related infrastructure technologies. His current board memberships are Chairish, Education.com, Medsphere, Open Road and Silkroad and he led Azure's investment in FilterEasy, GotIt, Maker Media, Coffee Meets Bagel, Luma, Sprinklr and Tripping. He also served on the boards of Bill Me Later (acquired by eBay), BlogHer (acquired by SheKnows), Cooking.com (acquired by Target), Julep (acquired by Warburg Pincus), Rooftop Media (acquired by Amazon.com), TripIt (acquired by Concur), TopTier (acquired by SAP), Wildseed (acquired by AOL), Prospect Park, and Woodbury Computer Associates (acquired by JWP).  Other representative investments include VMware (acquired by EMC).  Mike’s blog, SoundBytes II, is a continuation of his widely read technology investment strategy newsletter.

Prior to Azure, Mike was Group Head of Technology Research, a Managing Director and the senior software and hardware analyst at several major investment banks, including Credit Suisse First Boston, Deutsche Bank Securities and PaineWebber. Mike was also a senior research analyst at Sanford Bernstein & Co.

Prior to his career in technology research, Mike was CEO of Woodbury Computer Associates, a software products and consulting firm, which resulted in a 160x cash-on-cash return.

Mike, prior to Azure, has provided research coverage and strategic advice to numerous technology companies and has consistently been viewed as a top resource on many, including Microsoft, Compaq, Dell, Apple, Hewlett Packard, VA Linux and Gateway. His coverage universe also included e-business software and internet devices and infrastructure. His theories on the shift of industry control to Microsoft and Intel, "The 4th Wave of the Web," the advantages of Linux, and the need for PC vendors to go "Beyond the Box" were considered agenda setting for the investment community and contributed to his upgrade of Apple to a "Buy" in 1999.  He was top-ranked by Institutional Investor in PC Hardware and ranked second in PC Software and was the only sell-side analyst to ever be top three rated in both software and hardware, doing so for six straight years before leaving to form Azure in early 2000. In 1997 and 1998, Mike was rated Institutional Investor's No.1 Large-Cap "Home-Run Hitter" for stock selection among all Wall Street analysts and remained among the Top 5 in 1999. Furthermore, Reuters and the Wall Street Journal have selected him as the No.1 PC analyst.

Mike received his M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in Mathematical Modeling from the University of California Berkeley and his M.B.A. in Finance & Accounting from New York University. He sat on the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) advisory committee for a number of years. He is also author of "The Big Tech Score," published by John Wiley & Sons.

COMPANIES

Paul Weinstein i

GENERAL PARTNER

Paul Weinstein is a founding General Partner of Azure with over 28 years of investment experience across numerous sectors of technology. Paul's primary investment focus is on cloud infrastructure & software, communications technology, data center, enterprise software and AI/ML solutions.  Current board and advisory responsibilities include: Convercent, Decision Next, GenXComm, NetFortris, K2 Software, ScreenMeet, Selector, Unitas Global, Virtana; other active investments include Ginkgo Bioworks, IrisVR, Magic Cube.  Prior investment responsibilities included; Broadlight (acquired by Broadcom), NeoNova (acquired by NRTC), Parama (acquired by BayMicro), Prediction IO (acquired by Salesforce.com), Sylantro (acquired by BroadSoft), Tutum (acquired by Docker), World Wide Packets (acquired by Ciena), Vapps (acquired by Citrix). Paul has served on the Ericsson North American Advisory Board and the Citrix Startup Accelerator Advisory Board.

Prior to Azure, Paul was a Managing Director and communications equipment analyst covering the Data Communications and Network Equipment sectors at Credit Suisse First Boston (CSFB) in San Francisco. Prior to CSFB, Paul was a Managing Director and held a substantially similar position with Deutsche Bank Securities in San Francisco. Prior to Deutsche Bank, Paul was a Managing Director and held a substantially similar position with Paine Webber in New York and San Francisco. Prior to PaineWebber, Paul was a Senior Vice President and equity research analyst at Kidder Peabody in New York and Boston, where he was responsible for the Data Communications and Data Storage sectors. For four consecutive years (1995-1999), Paul was a top ranked analyst in the Institutional Investor and Greenwich Associates surveys.

Paul has provided strategic and investment advice on numerous communications equipment and data networking companies. Notable firms included; 3Com, Alantec Networks (acquired by Fore Systems), Aspect Telecommunications, Bay Networks (acquired by Nortel), Broadcom, Cabletron, CacheFlow (name changed to Blue Coat), Chipcom (acquired by 3Com), Cisco Systems, Conner Peripherals (acquired by Seagate), Efficient Networks (acquired by Siemens), EMC Corporation, Fore Systems (acquired by GEC), Juniper, Komag Corporation, Latitude Communications (acquired by Cisco), Maxtor Corporation, MMC Networks (acquired by AMCC), Newbridge Networks (acquired by Alcatel), Nortel Networks, Packet Engines (acquired by Alcatel), Quantum Corporation, Read-Rite Corporation, Seagate, SynOptics, WellFleet (acquired by SynOptics) and Xylan (acquired by Alcatel).

Paul received his B.S. degree in Finance from Babson College, where he graduated with highest honors. Paul has earned the Chartered Financial Analyst designation.
 

COMPANIES

Andrea Drager i

PARTNER

Andrea is a Partner at Azure Capital Partners based in our Calgary office and is responsible for evaluating investment opportunities across Canada. She works with all our Canadian investments and selected consumer investments in the US.

Prior to joining Azure in 2016, Andrea was co-founder of a start-up fashion and travel e-commerce company. Prior to founding her own company, Andrea was a Director with Strategy Consulting firm Monitor Deloitte, where she worked with clients in consumer businesses (innovation, marketing strategy, marketing transformation) and healthcare (healthcare delivery, pharmaceutical and medical device sectors) based in Paris, London, Toronto, and worked across North & South America, Europe and Africa.

Andrea received a Bachelor of Commerce degree from McGill University, where she captained the Varsity Tennis Team and was awarded the Scarlet Key for outstanding contribution to McGill.

COMPANIES