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  David S. Waxman
General Partner and Managing Director, Equip Advisory Group

David S. Waxman Over the past 18 years Mr. Waxman has had a rich startup operating background as well as private equity and venture capital investment /advisory experience. In the startup realm, he has been focused primarily on founding, operating, financing, advising and investing in early-stage technology companies in both the United States and internationally. He has extensive startup operating experience as a founding CEO and COO, and has personally driven and executed on all the phases of company building that Equip's portfolio companies need to execute in order to be successful. He has a track record in raising venture capital, angel and strategic financing, strategic planning and positioning, management team building, new product development and launch, solution-oriented enterprise sales of high-tech products, marketing and public relations, negotiating strategic partnerships, building and managing an internationally-distributed organization, managing in distressed environments, executing acquisitions and turnarounds and executing exit strategies. David is innovative, results-oriented and an effective team player. He has conceived of, founded, funded and built two startups from the ground level up that were funded, scaled and exited and is currently serving as Chairman and Seed Stage CEO if a third startup that is one of Equip's portfolio companies – eZore Systems.

He has also had significant private equity and venture capital experience where he has led a number of VC investments, advised on the divestment of a number of portfolios on the secondary market, including the divestment of Corning’s Venture Capital arm and the divestment of Israel Discount Bank and Clal Holdings’ LP Interests, as well as on a number of other transactions that are under NDA. He has served as the publisher of the VC Insights Newsletter that has been published in partnership with AltAssets.net and distributed to a readership of over 16,000 private equity professionals. He has also assisted several startup ventures to raise capital from other Venture Capital Funds.

From 1999 to 2000, he co-founded, was co-chairman and served at various times as both CEO and COO of Giftworld.com, an ebusiness services and e-commerce startup. Giftworld.com was the third highest-rated gift site on the internet by Gomez Advisors, a leading internet analyst firm. Giftworld.com was ultimately sold to Museum Company, a leading specialty retailer, in 2000.

From 1994 to 1999, he founded and served as the Chairman and CEO of CompassWare Development, an Israeli- United States software infrastructure firm that at its peak employed 48 people in Israel and the United States. CompassWare was named one of the "Hot 50 Private Companies" by Upside and a Top 100 Private Company by Red Herring in 1996.

From 1991 to 1994, Mr. Waxman was a venture capitalist at the Castle Group, focusing on very early-stage investments in the biotech, healthcare and information technology spaces, where he gained valuable experience identifying, sourcing and negotiating private equity and venture stage investments. Mr. Waxman also helped identify and recruit management teams and worked closely with management in building successful portfolio companies, several of which had successful IPOs and are now established public companies including Neose Technologies (NASDAQ: NTEC) and Avigen (NASDAQ: AVGN).

After the sale of Giftworld.com, Mr. Waxman served as an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Silicon Alley Seed Investors, an early stage VC fund backed by Sevin Rosen, Canaan and Rho Management, where he led an investment in a seed stage IP services platform startup.

Mr. Waxman has served as a guest lecturer at the NYU Stern Graduate School of Business, received a BS from Yeshiva University, an MBA from the NYU Stern Graduate School of Business and Australian Graduate School of Management and has taken executive continuing education courses in advanced communication technologies through the International Engineering Consortium.

David is married with four children and assists his community board and a number of non-profit organizations in Israel and the US. At an earlier phase of his life he led a mountaineering expedition to the Karakoram Himalaya in Pakistan and has traveled extensively throughout Asia, India, Africa, Europe and the Mideast. Mr. Waxman is a published travel writer and nature photographer and in his spare time he enjoys teaching his children history and how to ski and camp.

email: dwaxman@equipventures.com

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