Venture Partner
Steve Foster
Steve brings over 35 years of technology and energy experience including 20 years in private equity and venture capital.
He was most recently a Managing Partner at ClearSky Power and Technology Fund, a $275m fund focused on energy technology. Prior to ClearSky, Steve was a partner with AltiraGroup, an energy focused venture capital fund based in Denver, CO. Steve also spent ten years with TPG (formerly Texas Pacific Group) helping to start their venture capital and growth equity funds. Prior to TPG, Steve was a partner with Crosspoint Venture Partners. Prior to joining Crosspoint, Steve led business development at 3Com and held several roles at Hewlett Packard.
Notable recent investments include Greensmith Energy Management Systems (sold to Wartsila). FusionIO (IPO then acquired by SanDisk) and LineRate (acquired by F5). Prior investments include Optium (IPO then acquired by Finisar), Cloudshield Technologies (acquired by SAIC), Sierra Logic (acquired by Emulex), Aristos Logic (acquired by Adaptec), Chromatis (acquired by Lucent), Juniper Networks (NASDAQ: JNPR), and Xtreme Networks (NASDAQ: EXTR).
Steve is Chairman of the Advisory board of the Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship at Santa Clara University and serves on the Technical Advisory Board of CalSeed. In addition, Steve mentors social entrepreneurs through the Miller Center at SCU and teaches courses on venture capital and entrepreneurship at SCU and Northwestern University.