Bruce Luehrs, Chairman
Bruce Luehrs was previously a General Partner of the Edison Venture Fund from 1998 through 2006 and has been a banker, entrepreneur, and venture capitalist for the past 25 years. Bruce has extensive experience with both equity and debt financings and is well known in the Philadelphia area, having served as a past Chairman of the Greater Philadelphia Venture Group (now the MAC Alliance) and as an active member of the Mid Atlantic Venture Conference Steering Committee and the Association for Corporate Growth.
Bruce brings a strong track record to Emerald Stage2 and has extensive investment experience in the region, having championed numerous Edison investments in the Mid-Atlantic region including Gain Capital (www.gaincapital.com), Virtual Edge (recently sold to ADP), Fiberlink (www.fiberlink.com), Innaphase (successfully sold to Thermo Electron in 2004), Octagon (www.octagonresearch.com) and Cadient (www.cadient.com). Bruce’s investment activities have been concentrated on financial services information technology (IT), pharmaceutical IT and communications services companies. Over the past 8 years, Bruce has championed investments in 14 companies totaling over $60 million.
Previously, Bruce was Vice President of Columbia Capital, an investment merchant bank in Alexandria, Virginia and a principal at PNC Equity Management and Fidelcor Capital. While at PNC Equity Management, he directed their specialization on wireless telephone service investments. Earlier in his career, Bruce was a commercial lender with Continental Illinois National Bank (Chicago) and Fidelity Bank (Philadelphia). While at Fidelity, he developed a lending and investment practice for Fidelity Bank to serve emerging growth companies in the Delaware Valley. In 1988, he secured a SBIC license for Fidelity Bank and served as the first President of the SBIC unit and Fidelcor Capital.
Bruce was commissioned as an officer in the United States Air Force in 1975. He received an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University following graduation from Duke University with a BA in Economics, summa cum laude.
Saul Richter
Mr. Richter is the Founder of Emerald Stage2 Ventures and has been active within the technology community for twenty years as a venture capitalist, entrepreneur and technologist. Mr. Richter brings the Fund broad experience in the venture capital industry, having worked at a number of leading venture firms over the past 10 years. Mr. Richter’s strong technical background in software development and systems administration, his ongoing avid interest in emerging technologies and deep early-stage venture experience make him a strong leader of the Emerald Stage2 Investment Team.
Since founding Stage2 in 2006, Mr. Richter has led investments in Evident Software, Maverick Network Solutions and ClickEquations, and he currently sits on the Boards of all three companies. Prior to Stage2, Mr. Richter was a Principal at Himalaya Capital, which he joined in early 2002. While at Himalaya, Mr. Richter was active on the boards of a number of companies including Concerro (fka BidShift) and Wasabi Systems. Prior to Himalaya, Mr. Richter worked at Lucent Technologies in the New Ventures Group, where he focused on the creation and launch of software startups. In addition to Lucent, Mr. Richter has prior venture capital experience working at Softbank Ventures (now Mobius Venture Capital), Jerusalem Global Ventures and Flatiron Partners.
Mr. Richter also has operational experience as the founder of Zapper Technologies’ US operations. He formed and built out the company’s US office, developed the go-to-market strategy, hired a sales force and worked closely with the Israel-based development team to coordinate product development. Mr. Richter also worked as a financial analyst at Salomon Smith Barney and as head of new product development at Dubois, Brown & Co, a financial analysis software company sold to Thomson Financial (NYSE:TOC).
Mr. Richter earned his MBA from Columbia Business School, where he was awarded the Beta Gamma Sigma Alumni award for overall achievement. He received his BA in economics from Columbia University. Mr. Richter is also a frequent speaker on technology and venture capital trends.