Mark Walsh
Ruxton Ventures
Managing Partner
Mark Walsh is an angel and venture investor in technology, software, content and services through his fund, Ruxton Ventures, LLC. He recently stepped down as ceo and chair of FactSquared, an AI/Machine learning company, upon its sale to FiscalNote. Before, he was head of The Office of Investment and Innovation for the U.S. Small Business Administration, overseeing all SBIC, SBIR, Accelerator/ Incubator and other growth activities at the SBA.
He was ceo of a high growth public company, (VerticalNet NASDAQ: VERT) was a senior executive at GE, AOL, and HBO, and has invested/served on the board of a number of high profile public and private companies He was the first CTO of the Democratic Party, ran internet ops for the John Kerry presidential campaign, and was the founding CEO of Air America Radio, where he hired Al Franken and Rachel Maddow. He is a venture partner for Revolution, Inc. in Washington, D.C., the investment fund of Steve Case and Ted Leonsis.
He was Board Chair (and remains a Life Trustee) of Union College (NY), Board Chair of the Entrepreneurial Center at the University of Maryland, Board Chair of the Bipartisan Policy Center in Washington D.C. - where he remains a director- and is currently board chair of the New Leaders Council. Walsh earned a BA from Union College, and an MBA from Harvard. He has served or serves on many not-for profit boards, including the Philadelphia Orchestra, the New York Theatre Workshop, Compass ProBono, the Baltimore Symphony, and The Washington West Film Festival, among others. He is married with two grown children.
His angel investing has included some successful growth entities. He was/is a shareholder and/or director of: Blackboard (was NASDAQ: BBBB), thestreet.com (was NASDAQ:TST), Half.com (sold to eBay), Day.com (sold to Adobe), Transactis.com (sold to MasterCard), GoCanvas.com (sold to K1 Private Equity), Homesnap.com (Revolution Ventures and sold to CoStar) FedBid (Revolution Growth and sold to Unison), Distributed Media Lab, AliroVets.com and many… many others. He is a limited partner in several venture funds, including Deciens Capital, Osage Ventures, NOMO Ventures, New Markets Education Ventures II and III, Zeal Capital, and others.