Our Team
Partner
Robert Simon
Ariva Partners is the portfolio of personal investments of Robert Simon. His day job is Senior Managing Partner of the IT Venture Fund for BDC Capital.
​
He began his career as an early employee of T/Maker and co-founder of T/Maker Graphics, a developer of Macintosh and IBM PC graphics and desktop publishing products. He went on to found PS Publishing, a developer of desktop publishing software acquired by Lotus Development. He was a co-founder of Navitel, which developed an early smartphone for the home together with Microsoft. In 1997, he moved into venture capital as a partner with Sierra Ventures, where he identified, sourced and evaluated business opportunities in the Internet e-commerce and enterprise software sectors. During this time, he also founded DotBank, a direct competitor to PayPal, where he negotiated partnerships and the sale to Yahoo for over $100 million.
​
In 2000, Mr. Simon became General Partner with Alta Partners, with an investment focus in internet infrastructure, enterprise software, network security and wireless. More recently, he was a Managing Director/Venture Partner with Saints Dakota/Saints Capital, a portfolio of companies managed by Saints Capital.
​
Mr. Simon holds a BS and MS in Industrial Engineering from Stanford University.
​
