About ekoVenture

Brian Barth— Best Mind in Online Travel

Barth is the founder and initial Chief Executive Officer of Sidestep.com, a major online travel aggregator that was recently acquired by Kayak.com for $196M. During his tenure, he grew the company from zero to over $1B in annual bookings and more than 4M unique monthly visitors. In 2003, SideStep was ranked as the 3rd fastest growing private company in Silicon Valley. Barth led SideStep in developing dozens of strategic relationships and was named a TIME 100 Innovator in 2001. Barth raised more than $17M in funding for SideStep and drove the company to profitability in 17 months from inception. He serves on the Board of Directors of Nor1 and TravelIntelligence.com. Barth is also a member of the Board of Advisors of ekoVenture.com and Voyij.com.

Prior to founding SideStep, Barth was CEO and Founder of DigiTV, a profitable consulting company whose clients included Sony, Sun/JavaSoft, C-Cube Microsystems. Earlier in his career, Barth was a Director of Marketing at Arithmos (acquired by STMicroelectronics), where he led the development of new products and managed strategic customer relationships. At C-Cube Microsystems, Barth was instrumental in the conception and marketing of the company's best selling products, application-optimized MPEG decoders. Barth spent the first five years of his career in research and consulting at Hewlett-Packard. Barth holds an M.S. and B.S. in Electrical Engineering from MIT.

Leo Le Bon— Inventor of Adventure Travel

Le Bon, accredited with founding the adventure travel business, is known as the "Grandfather of Adventure Travel." He is also the Co-Founder of California-based Mountain Travel Sobek, the company that launched the adventure travel industry over 40 years ago. Le Bon joined Thomas Cook World Travel in San Francisco in 1960. While there, he became one of the first travel professionals to get involved in outdoor travel by planning the first foreign outings to South America and Europe for the Sierra Club. In 1967 Le Bon led the first commercial trek to Nepal where he met Barry Bishop, one of the first Americans to climb Everest. Le Bon subsequently left his job at Thomas Cook to co-found Mountain Travel with Bishop and Allen Steck. Le Bon's vision at Mountain Travel, where he was President and CEO until 1991, earned him a citation from NEWSWEEK magazine as one of the 25 most prominent innovators in the U.S. From 1991 to 2003 Le Bon ran Le Bon & Associates, an adventure travel product development firm. Le Bon has traveled the world in search of new adventures and pioneered a number of destinations. Le Bon introduced adventurers to trekking in Nepal, foot safaris in Kenya, and opened new adventure travel destinations such as Tibet, China, Chile, Peru and Greenland. He literally has trekked, climbed, kayaked, skied and sailed the seven continents. Le Bon has also authored three books: Majestic Mountains, Where Mountains Live, and The Adventurer's Travel Guide. A fourth book on the history of Mountain Travel is underway. In 2005, Le Bon was presented with a Lifetime Achievement award from the Adventure Travel Trade Association for his many contributions to the industry over the past four decades.

Mitch Thrower— World Class Serial Entrepreneur

A serial entrepreneur, Thrower is also the Co-Founder of one of the fastest growing companies in the US, The Active Network, Inc - Active.com, a software, marketing and registration powerhouse. He also co-founded and was the CEO for 7 years of The Active Europe Network, Ltd., which operates Active's business model in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. His initiative and efforts to rapidly consolidate participatory sports registration software companies worldwide has, without any doubt, created the "Ticketmaster" of participatory sports. As a result of his entrepreneurial ideas and initiative, he has forever changed the global landscape of sports. Thrower also serves as the New Media Officer, Strategist & Senior Correspondent for Competitor Group, Inc., (CGI), based in San Diego, California. CGI is a platform media and race event company specializing in the endurance sports sector, which primarily includes marathons, cycling, and triathlons. The Company is comprised of several companies: Elite Racing, Triathlete Magazine, Inside Triathlon, Velo News and Competitor Publishing. Amazingly, CGI oversees 16 national branded sports events with over 150,000 professional and amateur participants, 8 fitness expositions as well as publishes 8 magazine titles with a combined circulation of more than 500,000 per month. Thrower was founder and CEO of The College Connection, Inc., and The Rail Connection and has consulted for American Express, AT&T, and Eurail. Thrower also serves as Chairman of The La Jolla Foundation, a foundation whose first initiative is Project Active, a non-profit program that provides money, mentoring, encouragement and education to areas of world tension, most recently providing soccer balls and jerseys to the children of Iraq, Haiti and Afghanistan. Thrower is a 17-time Ironman triathlete and the only photo-journalist to ever photograph and video the Ironman Triathlon World Championships while competing in the event. Thrower is also the author of Give Me Ten Seconds and I'll Change Your Life formally published as The Attention Deficit Workplace and also works as a columnist for Triathlete Magazine and BizSanDiego Magazine. Thrower holds a BA from Saint Lawrence University and an MBA from the University of San Diego, where he has served as Entrepreneur in Residence, and where he lectures on Entrepreneurship and Strategic Management.

Larry Bock— One of the Planet's Most Influential Entrepreneurs

Mr. Bock is a Special Limited Partner to Lux Capital a $100M nanotechnology-focused venture capital fund. He is a Member of the Board of Directors of FEI Corporation (NASDAQ: FEIC), the leading supplier of tools for nanotechnology research. He is a General Partner of CW Ventures, a $100M life sciences venture capital fund. He is currently working with UCSD BioBridge to organize a major Science Festival in San Diego.

Mr. Bock was the Founder and former Executive Chairman and initial CEO of Nanosys Inc (Private — nanotechnology). Mr. Bock was the Founder and Initial CEO of Neurocrine Biosciences (NASDAQ: NBIX — neuroimmunology), Pharmacopeia (NASDAQ: PCOP - combinatorial chemistry (which spun off Accelrys (NASDAQ: ACCL — computer-aided-drug and material discovery)), GenPharm International (Private — transgenic animals, acquired by Medarex for $100M and also spun off Pharming Group N.V.), Caliper Technologies (NASDAQ: CALP — lab-on-a-chip), Illumina Technologies (NASDAQ: ILMN — human genotyping), IDUN Pharmaceuticals (Private — apoptosis, acquired by Pfizer (NYSE: PFE) for $200M)) Metra Biosystems (NASDAQ: MTRA — musculoskeletal disease diagnosis, merged with Quidel (NASDAQ: QDEL)), and FASTTRACK Systems (Private — accelerated clinical drug development). Mr. Bock was a co-founder of Argonaut Technologies (NASDAQ: AGNT — automated chemistry merged with Biotope (NASDAQ: BIOT)), ARIAD Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: ARIA — intra cellular signal transduction), Athena Neurosciences (NASDAQ: ATHN — molecular neurobiology, acquired by Elan Pharmaceuticals (NYSE: ELN) for $700M)), Vertex Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: VRTX — rational drug design), and Onyx Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: ONXX — molecular oncology). He also helped found and is on the Scientific Advisory Board of Conforma Therapeutics (Private — cellular chaperones)

Mr. Bock was a seed stage investor in Acceleron Pharma (Private — metabolic and musculoskeletal diseases), Aurora Biosciences (NASDAQ: ABSC — high throughput drug discovery, acquired by Vertex Pharmaceuticals for $650M), Cambrios (Private — electronic materials), River Medical (Private — drug delivery, purchased IVAC from Eli Lily in an LBO and did a $700M merger with IMED to form Alaris Medical (NASDAQ: AMI — medical devices)), ekoVenture (Private - web portal for adventure travel) Genocea Biosciences (Private — vaccine development), Magen Biosciences (Private — dermatology and skin care), Plexikon Pharmaceuticals (Private — scaffold based drug design) Poland Partners (Private - a $62.5M venture capital fund investing in Central Europe), Sequana Therapeutics (NASDAQ: SQNA - genomics, merged with Arris Pharmaceuticals to form AXYS Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: AXPH) and subsequently acquired by Celera Genomics (NASDAQ: CRA)), Sapphire Energy (Private — biofuels), Siluria (Private - biology assisted assembly of electronic materials) Sirtris Pharmaceticals (NASDAQ: SIRT — gene regulation), Software Transformation (Private — object based software programming, acquired by Novell (NASDAQ: NOVL) for $25M), Surface Logix (Private — nano- imprint lithography), and Talarian (NASDAQ: TALR — real time, high content information processing over distributed networks merged with TIBCO (NASDAQ: TIBX)). He is also on the Scientific Advisory Board of Protia L.L.C.

Larry was also an early stage venture investor in Biosym Technologies (Private — computer-aided-drug discovery — acquired by Corning (NYSE: GLW) for $250M)) Gen-Probe (NASDAQ: GNPR — DNA diagnostics, acquired by Chugai Pharmaceuticals for $180M), Gensia Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: GNSA — cardiovascular drugs, merged with Sicor to become Gensia-Sicor and subsequently acquired by TEVA Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: TEVA)), IDEC Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: IDEC — monoclonal antibody therapy, merged with Biogen to become Biogen Idec (NASDAQ: BIIB)), Oclassen Pharmaceuticals (Private - dermatology, acquired by Watson Pharmaceuticals (NYSE: WPI) for $180M), and Viagene (Private — gene therapy, acquired by Chiron Corporation for $100M).

Mr. Bock started his career as a Researcher in the early days at Genentech, Inc. in the field of infectious diseases, where he was on the team that received the AAAS Newcomb Cleveland Prize for demonstrating the world's first recombinant DNA vaccine. He was a Venture Capital Associate with Fairfield Ventures (now Oxford Bioventures)

He has received several awards and honors. He was selected by Venture Capital Journal as one of the Ten Most Influential Venture Capitalists, by Red Herring as one of the Top Ten Innovators, by Forbes-Wolfe NanoReport as the Number One Powerbroker in Nanotechnology, by Ernst & Young as a Finalist for Entrepreneur of the Year, and by Small Times, as Innovator of the Year and Top 3 Business Leaders of the Year. He received the Einstein Award by the Jerusalem Foundation for lifetime contributions in the field of life sciences. He was one of a dozen individuals invited to the signing of the $3.7B 21st Century Nanotechnology Act by President George Bush in the Oval Office. In addition, Nanosys has received numerous awards including the World Economic Forum Technology Pioneers Award, Red Herring Top 100, Scientific American's Nifty Fifty, Science Magazine's Technology Breakthrough of the Year and the World Technology Network's Leading Company in Material Science.

He is involved in a number of government agencies. He is a Member of the Advisory Board and the Technology Advisory Board of the NanoBusiness Alliance. He is a Member of the President's Export Council Subcommittee on Export Administration (PECSEA) — pending final approval, a Member of the Nanotechnology Technical Advisory Group (NTAG) reporting to the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST), a Member of the Blue Ribbon Task Force on Nanotechnology formed by Congressman Mike Honda and California State Controller Steven Westly. He is on the Advisory Board of the Faculty of Chemistry at the University of California, Berkeley. He gave the Commencement Address at the University of California, Berkeley in 2007 for the graduates in the Chemical Sciences. He is n the Editorial Board of the Journal of Nano Education.

Larry and his wife, Diane, established the Larry and Diane Bock Chair in Nanotechnology at the University of California, Berkeley held by Dr. Paul Alivisatos. They also founded Community Cousins, a non-profit foundation focused on breaking down racial barriers, that was selected by former Vice President Al Gore as one of ten outstanding grass root efforts nationally. Larry is organizing the San Diego Science Festival with BioBridge of UCSD. Larry works extensively with the Sudanese and Burmese refugee's networks in San Diego. Mr. Bock is a tutor in math and sciences for Sudanese refugee children in St. Lukes Sudanese Refugee Network and a Mentor for Burmese refugee families through Jewish Family Services.

Larry received his B.A. in Biochemistry (summa cum laude) from Bowdoin College and his M.B.A. from the Anderson School at UCLA.