• Team

Formed by Professionals that have Built, Run, and Sold Businesses

Catapult’s partners have (i) advised and executed on some of the largest tech transactions, (ii) invested in start-ups and late-stage businesses, (iii) been leaders and operators of companies, and (iv) founded and sold businesses as principals. Catapult’s execution has a unique perspective because it is rooted in our own experience as executives, owners, and operators – not just deal-makers.

We have the ability to execute both complex transactions and provide sound strategic and operational direction – it’s a skill that sets us apart within the industry. Throughout our investment processes we seek to best align our goals with those of the management teams we work with, and to engage with key managers to maximize our portfolio companies’ long-term potential. Our broader team includes a network of technology-focused advisors, business leaders, and consultants specifically trained to deliver results.

Jeff Bonforte

Jeff Bonforte

Managing Partner

Jeff is a recognized product leader in the Silicon Valley, with over twenty years of experience. He has founded and run five startups (one sold to Google, another to Yahoo). He is an active angel investor with over 60 investments. He has raised over $50M in venture capital with over $100M in exits. In addition to his startup work, Jeff was on the executive team at Yahoo, where he was the executive responsible for Yahoo Mail, Search, Ad Platforms, Research, Data, Messenger, Flickr, Answers, and Groups. While running Yahoo Messenger, Jeff increased revenue from $8M to $108M and took over market leadership in the U.S. from Aol (2005-2007). While running Yahoo Mail, Jeff led a dramatic reversal of Yahoo Mail’s growth and revenue decline, eventually growing revenue by over $300M (70%) and turning a 20% YoY user decline to 5% user growth. In these leadership roles, he had responsibility for product, engineering, and design teams.

While at Yahoo, Jeff also served as the executive sponsor for a number of employee resource groups, such as Women in Tech and Neurodiversity. He was the executive in charge of three Yahoo campuses, including its HQ in Sunnyvale.

Jeff has a BA with Honors and magna cum laude from UCLA. He was recognized by Fortune Magazine in their 40 Under 40 issue. He is on the board of directors for the national charity, Playworks. He has over 400 skydives and is a partner of The Racers Group, one of North America’s most winning motorsports teams.

Gary C. Hsueh

Gary C. Hsueh

Managing Partner

Gary has two decades of experience in a variety of business development, operations, and corporate finance roles. Gary was the Vice President and Global Head of Search Partnerships at Yahoo, where he negotiated and structured Yahoo’s largest search deals and managed a high performing business development team that sourced, managed, and executed Yahoo’s search distribution and content partnerships. Prior to joining Yahoo, Gary spent several years launching and advising start-ups in various industries ranging from mobile payments to consumer-focused businesses. Gary was a Vice President in the Technology Investment Banking Division at Goldman, Sachs & Co., where he advised on almost $90B in M&A and financing transactions; including negotiating and structuring mergers and acquisitions, divestitures, joint ventures, equity investments, initial public offerings, convertible bonds, and other corporate debt. While at Goldman Sachs, Gary worked on some of the largest and most notable transactions in the technology industry, including the $65B+ break up of eBay and PayPal, the Skype divestiture from eBay to an investor consortium for $2.75B and the subsequent sale of Skype to Microsoft for $8.5B, and the Tesla Motors $226M Initial Public Offering. Gary also spent over 6 years at Conexant Systems and Cisco Systems, where he was responsible for managing large, cross-functional teams focused on manufacturing and operations.

Gary holds an MBA from the UCLA Anderson School of Management and a BS in Industrial Engineering from the California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, where he graduated with honors.

Rick Marini

Rick Marini

Managing Partner

Rick is a serial entrepreneur and investor with 20 years experience in the consumer technology space. He founded and successfully sold 3 companies (Tickle, BranchOut and Talk.co). Rick is an active angel investor in 50 early stage start-ups including 6 unicorns (Snapchat, Reddit, Opendoor, Poshmark, PAX, and OutReach) and many more. In 2018, Rick was named one of the Top 50 Angel Investors by Forbes.

Prior to Catapult, Rick served as the Head of Digital Innovation at Hearst Corporation. His team focused on the social and mobile efforts across all of the Hearst properties including TV, magazines, newspapers, etc. Previously, Rick was the Founder & CEO of BranchOut – the largest professional network leveraging the social graph with more than 800M profiles. BranchOut raised $49M in funding from Accel Partners, Redpoint Ventures, Mayfield Fund, Norwest Partners, and a dozen of the top angel investors in Silicon Valley. BranchOut was acquired in 2014 by a publicly traded company in the recruiting space. Previously, Rick was also the Founder & CEO of Talk.co. Talk.co was a real-time messaging service focused on the enterprise. Talk.co was acquired in 2014 by Hearst Corporation. Previously, Rick was the Co-Founder, CFO and Chief Strategist of Tickle. Tickle operated as a profitable company with almost $40M of revenue. In 2002, the Company experienced tremendous growth and won the “Rising Star” Webby Award as the fastest growing website on the Internet and was ranked the 18th largest website in the world with 200M registered members. Tickle was acquired in 2004 by Monster Worldwide for $100M. Prior to Tickle, Rick began his career in 1994 working in Mergers & Acquisitions and Corporate Finance at Fisher Scientific International.

Rick earned a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration at the University of New Hampshire, magna cum laude, and an MBA from Harvard Business School. Rick is regularly featured in national press as a thought leader on entrepreneurship, investing, and technology. Rick was National Co-Chair of Technology for Obama.

Jacqueline D. Reses

Jacqueline D. Reses

Senior Advisor

Jackie is Catapult Capital’s Senior Advisor and is currently the Chair, CEO and co-founder of Lead Bank, a chartered banking-as-a-service platform for some of the largest fintechs and crypto companies in the world. Before that, she ran Capital at Square. Jackie oversaw the team which has facilitated over $4.2B in loans to small businesses across the US. Jackie also started a banking services business within Square, Square Financial Services (SFS), and is the Executive Chairman of this independently-managed, wholly-owned company focused on building FDIC insured banking services at Square. Additionally, Jackie served as the Head of People (CHRO) where she also managed all leadership, recruiting and culture programs which have helped make Square one of the more referenced “great places to work”.

Prior to Square, Jackie was the Chief Development Officer for Yahoo. In this role, Jackie focused on developing and managing revenue and product partnerships which generated over $2B+ in annual revenue for Yahoo. She also ran M&A, executed significant corporate tax transactions, and ran the People team. Jackie was also on the Board of Directors of Alibaba Group, China’s largest online and mobile commerce company. There, she co-chaired the audit committee and the compensation committee of the Board of Directors and also managed strategic M&A, banking and financial services transactions for both Alibaba and ANT Financial, one of China’s largest financial institutions.

Prior to joining Yahoo in 2012, Jackie led the U.S. media group at Apax Partners (2001-2011), one of the largest global private equity firms with over $50B in assets. While at Apax, she made some of the firm’s largest and complex investments in TMT including Intelsat, Cengage Learning, Hit Entertainment, and NEP Broadcasting. Jackie also managed significant LP and credit relationships on behalf of Apax. Jackie served as CEO of iBuilding Inc., a real estate software business spun-out of Tishman Speyer which was sold to Realeum Software in 2001. Jackie also spent seven years at Goldman Sachs (1992-1999) in mergers and acquisitions and the principal investment area.

Jackie was named one of Forbes “Self Made Women,” Fast Company’s “Most Creative People in Business,” and American Banker’s “Most Powerful Woman in Finance.” She has a patent pending for “Systems and Methods for Equitably Determining Employee Compensation” and multiple financial services patents. She received a bachelor’s degree in economics with honors from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

Michael Levit

Michael Levit

Strategic Advisor

Michael is a serial entrepreneur, company builder and angel investor with over two decades of Internet experience. Michael sits on several boards as an advisor or director, including August, Snap Interactive, Say Media and Vision Knight Capital. Michael is also an active mentor at Founders Den, a co-working space he founded with fellow entrepreneurs. Prior to Catapult, Michael co-founded and bootstrapped Spigot, an internet services company, which he sold for over $250M to Genimous, a diversified public conglomerate based out of China. Previously, Michael was an executive at Vendio, which Alibaba later acquired as their first international acquisition. Michael has also founded or held executive positions at Paltalk (acquired by Snap Interactive), AOL Broadband, Bluelight (acquired by Kmart) and Accenture’s Internet practice (formerly Andersen Consulting). Michael began his career as a software engineer for a Department of Defense contractor.

Michael received two Bachelor’s degrees in four years from UC Santa Barbara in both Mechanical Engineering and Business Economics and a Masters in Business Economics (MBE) from Oxford University and UC Santa Barbara.

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