Investment Partners
Lanza techVentures’ commitment to the future of the semiconductor industry is unwavering.
We believe in working closely with promising companies, nurturing innovation and new ideas to create value and drive change.
Rick Carlson
Rick Carlson has been in the electronic design automation (EDA) industry since 1980 and has held sales and sales management positions with Calma, Mentor Graphics (now Siemens), Daisy Systems, EDA Systems, Escalade, Synplicity, AccelChip and Verific. Rick was co-founder of the EDA Consortium (now the ESD Alliance, an industry trade association) and initiated the drive that led to the Phil Kaufman Award for Distinguished Contributions to Electronic System Design, EDA’s most prestigious award. He took a hiatus from EDA to help launch the FLEXlm product for license management at Highland Software (now Flexera Software). He has been an advisor to many EDA startups in his role as VP of Sales for Verific. Rick received a Bachelor of Science degree in Mathematics from the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago.
“I have been very fortunate to have worked with Lucio at Daisy Systems, EDA Systems and many other startups. He has a unique capability to triangulate multiple disparate events to arrive at breakthrough insights that are not obvious. His ability to intuit innovative marketing strategies that accelerate sales is unprecedented. His experience and wisdom have shown up in the successful outcomes of many Silicon Valley enterprises.”
Michael McNamara
Michael (Mac) McNamara has been CEO of Adapt-IP since 2013, a company developing computer design intellectual property (IP) using SystemC modeling and design technology. Previously, he served as Cadence’s vice president and general manager for System Level Design, where he managed the Simulation, Synthesis and Virtual Platform teams all using the SystemC language. His early experiences as a computer architect and chip designer at ESL/TRW, Cydrome, Ardent, Stardent and Kubota prepared him for the career transition to become a supplier of tools to chip designers and computer architects. In the early 1990s, Mac ran the engineering team that increased everyone’s simulation speed. Chronologic, where he served as vice president of engineering, developed VCS, now the flagship simulation product for Synopsys. In the late 1990s, he helped bring better verification technology to the market as CEO of SureFire and senior vice president at Verisity.
“Many of the more successful entrepreneurs in the valley count Lucio Lanza and his investment partners as key part of their collective mind space. Whether seeking money, strategic advice, a contrarian view, validation of a vision, or referral to a key person, they know that a visit to Lucio will pay off in multiple ways.”
John Sanguinetti
Dr. John Sanguinetti has been active in computer architecture, performance analysis, design verification, and electronic design automation for 35 years. After working as a design verification engineer at Ardent Computer and NeXT Computer, he founded Chronologic Simulation in 1991 and was the principal architect of VCS, the Verilog Compiled Simulator. VCS is still the market-leading logic simulator. Subsequently, he was a founder of Forte Design Systems, where he served as chief technical officer until its acquisition by Cadence Design Systems. He founded Adapt where he currently serves as chairman of the board. He was honored as a fellow of the ACM in 2012, has 15 publications, including the Verilog Online Training course, and one patent. John holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Applied Mathematics, a Master of Science degree Computer and Communication Sciences and a Ph.D. in Computer and Communication Sciences from the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor.
“Lanza techVentures, led by Lucio Lanza, is the pre-eminent investment company for Electronic Design Automation and semiconductor design ventures. Lucio’s expertise in identifying high-potential early-stage companies is unmatched in the venture community. His early involvement in a startup can be extremely valuable during product, market, and customer development.”
Michael Wishart
Michael Wishart is CEO and a member of the Board of Directors of Efabless Corporation, an early stage company offering a community and platform for crowdsourced development of electronics products. He retired from Goldman, Sachs & Co. in 2011 after three decades covering the technology industry as an investment banker. Mike worked at Smith Barney, Harris Upham & Co. in the Investment Banking Division from 1978 to 1980 and from 1982 to 1991. He joined Lehman Brothers in 1991 as a managing director. He subsequently organized Lehman’s Global Technology Group, which he led until joining Goldman, Sachs as a managing director in 1999. Michael was elected a partner in 2000. He was chairman of Goldman’s Global Technology Group and retired as an advisory director. Michael graduated magna cum laude from St. Lawrence University with a Bachelor of Science degree with honors in Mathematics. He was an Arjay Miller Scholar at and received his M.B.A. from, the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University. Mike is on the Board of Cypress Semiconductor Corporation.
“Lucio Lanza brings a unique personal brand of intellect, energy and creativity into venture investing. He has a special way of combining timeless lessons learned with the insight to find new paths to the future. And what he doesn’t know, in a phone call he can find out. Very insightful, even entertaining, and I am pleased to be a part of it.”
Norman Yeung
Norman Yeung is a Lanza techVentures Investment Partner, bringing a wealth of first-hand knowledge of semiconductor design. He held senior engineering management positions at well-recognized companies such as Cadence Design Systems, Samsung and Inphi. Norman founded and served as CEO of SandCraft, an embedded processor company now part of Broadcom and Lanza techVentures investment. He received a Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the University of California, Berkeley.
“I was CEO and Founder of SandCraft Inc. in the late 1990s. Lucio was our first investor while he was a partner at USVP and an active board member who fully understood what we were doing. In fact, we shared the same vision that IP was the way increase the level of abstraction. We agreed that to compete in the processor business, IP and not the chip was the way to make the use of microprocessor pervasive and get complex chips to market faster. Today, that’s the well-accepted and proven business model.”
Mark Templeton
Mark Templeton (1958-2016) was instrumental in driving growth in the semiconductor intellectual property market through a combination of technical and business innovations. He co-founded Artisan Components and was its president and CEO for 13 years. During his tenure at Artisan Components, the company became the leading provider of physical libraries for integrated circuit designers with its products in use by thousands of design teams around the world. In 2004, Artisan Components was acquired by Arm. Following Arm’s acquisition of Artisan, Mark served as the president of Arm North America and as the company’s chief strategy officer and as a member of Arm’s Board of Directors. Prior to forming Artisan Components, Mark held a variety of engineering and management positions at Silicon Compiler Systems and Mentor Graphics. At the time of his death, Mark was an active board member, investor and advisor to technology startup companies in Silicon Valley and China.
Mark was inducted posthumously into the Phil Kaufman Hall of Fame in 2022, an honor co-sponsored by the Electronic System Design (ESD) Alliance and the IEEE Council on Electronic Design Automation (CEDA), acknowledging his significant and innovative contributions to the industry.
“Often overlooked in its history is Mark’s genius. He created the first example of a new and innovative business model, moving away from upfront fees to a success-based approach.”
— Lucio Lanza
