Bobby Yazdani
Cota Capital
Founder & Managing Partner
Bobby Yazdani is a Founder and Managing Partner of Cota Capital. Bobby works full-time on the development and support of entrepreneurs and is well-known for his active, impactful approach to portfolio company engagement. Drawing from nearly three decades of entrepreneurial experience in Silicon Valley, he mentors, advances and empowers entrepreneurs on their journey to build great companies.
In 1997, Bobby founded Saba, taking the company public in 2000. Today, Saba is the leading provider of Human Capital Development & Management Solutions. Its applications are being used by over 30 million people from 2200 customers across 195 countries and in 37 languages worldwide. While at Saba, he was named a finalist for Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award. Prior to Saba, Bobby worked at Oracle in various R&D roles from 1988 to 1997.
Bobby made his first angel investment in 1989 in medical technology company Masimo (NASDAQ: MASI), where, in addition to providing capital, he wrote software to enhance the accuracy of the company’s early neonatal pulse oximeters. He founded his family office, Signatures Capital, in 2006. Through Signatures Capital, Bobby has invested in over 100 private companies in the technology sector, many of which have gone on to successful exits. In 2014, Bobby was ranked #1 out of 2000 angel investors in a report by CB Insights as having the most successful track record for investing in companies that received follow-on funding.
In 2015, Bobby endowed the Signatures Innovation Fellowship at the University of California, Berkeley to support data science projects with commercial promise. Bobby is a founding member of the Persian Tech Entrepreneurs network, a National Advisory Board Member of The Reset Foundation, and serves as a Director on multiple company boards. Born in Tehran, Iran, Bobby completed high school in England and received a B.A. in Applied Mathematics at UC Berkeley.