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Management
Mimvi was founded in January, 2010. We have assembled a team of seasoned industry and functional experts.

This page is currently under construction.


Kasian Franks, technical founder, CEO & CVO
Kasian Franks previously worked as a software engineer, genomic researcher and product developer specializing in pattern matching algorithms and tools for companies and organizations, including: Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Genentech, Motorola, Tivo and Sun Microsystems. He was also founder and CEO of SeeqPod, a search engine technology company which garnered 50 million unique visitors and 250 million monthly searches.
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    • He worked at the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), Life Sciences Division, as a Genomic Research Scientist from 2002-2005. At the LBNL, along with Raf Podowski and Connie Myers, he developed the technology behind SeeqPod. Franks began to study biomimetics along with pattern matching in data and nature. This led to five patents in the area of search and discovery.

      He later founded SeeqPod Inc., a music search, discovery and pattern matching company in which the U.S. Department of Energy, along with LBNL, held a 5% stake. Under Steven Chu and LBNL, Franks and SeeqPod won the 2008 R&D 100 award for biomimetic search engines.

Michael Poutre, President and COO
Mike joined the Company in August of 2011. Since then, he has been leveraging his considerable experience in operations, particularly in relation to public companies. Mike is a 20 year veteran of the securities industry. His experience ranges from working at some of the largest wire house firms in the world, to having owned his own broker-dealer. In addition, he co-founded and operated the first open-end, actively-managed Israeli stock mutual fund in the United States. Under his leadership as President and Chief Compliance Officer, The Blue and White Fund had considerable success, soundly beating all its benchmarks, while proactively protecting the investments of all shareholders.
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    • Mike also has many years of experience in the capital markets as a portfolio manager, and has been cited or featured in numerous premier financial publications, including Forbes, Business Week, The New York Times and The Los Angeles Times. Mike is currently an MBA candidate at California Lutheran University and sits on the advisory board of the Center for Economic Research & Forecasting at the university.

Caleb Pate, Content and Media Strategist
As media, content and music Industry Strategist for Mimvi, Caleb Pate is also founder of Pacific Radio Fire Records and a member of the American Society of Composers and Producers (ASCAP). Caleb maintains a world-wide deal with Zomba/BMG Music Publishing
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    • and is member of the band Seventeen Evergreen with forthcoming UK/European releases of full-length albums licensed for the UK and Japanese markets. Their songs have been featured in recent Summit Entertainment film 'Bandslam' with Vanessa Hudgens as well as various BBC and ITV television programs. He has also appeared on BBC Radio One, BBC Six Music and XFM. Caleb has released an album in the CMJ Top 100 of 2005, available domestically and on iTunes. He also has 15 years software, Internet and e-commerce experience in analyzing user behavior and digital commerce patterns with UpSide Magazine, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, PointConnect and HeadLight.com. Caleb has a proven team leadership record, managing search engine media content curation efforts and editorial content development.

Alain Mahmoud, VP of Brand
Alain is an award-winning marketing strategist. He brings a comprehensive business toolkit to Mimvi, from planning through delivery. His experience spans over 60 brands across more than 30 industries and 100+ countries worldwide. He has worked on both the client and agency side for B.A.T., Y&R, Richemont and Bedrock (Brand Consultants) across a multitude of functions, including: brand and communications strategy (internal and external), brand management, strategic (business) planning, advertising (planning and account management), verbal branding, project management, interactive branding, trade marketing development (CRM) and sales.
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    • Alain’s brand experience is equally diverse, encompassing global, regional and local propositions: corporate, divisional, product and service. Alain holds a Bachelor of Science in Business and Management Studies (Four Year Honors) from Bradford University's School of Management.

Matt Hamilton, VP of Operations
Matthew Hamilton is an internet entrepreneur with a background in Mechanical Engineering. For the past six years he has managed teams of scientists and engineers at some of the largest companies in the semiconductor space including Applied Materials and LAM Research.
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    • Matthew is a long time classic car collector with a passion for Alfa Romeos. His blog, www.giuliettas.com , has grown to become the number one destination world wide for enthusiasts of Alfa Romeo's 1954 - 1965 Giulietta line. In his spare time he restores and drives his cars in rallies. Matthew is also a musician and aspiring novelist.

Advisors

Joe Abrams
Mr. Abrams specializes in working with small technology companies to build shareholder value in the public markets. As a direct result of his efforts, he has completed merger and acquisition transactions in excess of $1 billion and small cap market equity raises in excess of $200 million. Abrams co-founded Intermix in 1998, the predecessor company to MySpace, which was sold to News Corp. in 2005 for $580 million. In 1983, Abrams co-founded The Software Toolworks, Inc., a publicly held developer, publisher, and distributor of educational and entertainment software, which was sold to Pearson, Plc. in 1994 for $462 million.
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Daiwa Quantum Capital
Daiwa Quantum Capital, led by the former CEO of Sony Nobuyuki Idei, seeks growth capital opportunities in Asia with a particular emphasis on applying Japanese resources to its investments. The General Partner was founded by Daiwa Securities SMBC Principal Investments, a unit of Daiwa Securities SMBC and Quantum Leaps Corporation. See: http://www.dqcap.com.
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    • By way of background, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation (“SMBC”) is a leading Japanese financial services firm with more than JPY 100 trillion (approx. $1 trillion) in assets. Quantum Leaps, founded by Nobuyuki Idei (ex-Group CEO of Sony Corp), is a business incubation and strategy consulting firm. It is also a leading venue for exchanging ideas among CEOs of Asian and Western companies. The investment team of the Fund includes senior professionals from the Asia-team of DPI and Quantum Leaps.

      Since 2001, DPI has invested more than JPY 800 billion (approx. $8 billion) in private equity and real estate in Japan and worldwide.

Mina Bissell
Mina Bissell has been recognized for her lifetime contributions to the fields of breast cancer research, the enhanced role of extracellular matrix (ECM) and the nucleus environment to gene expression in normal and malignant tissues. These works have ushered and changed some central paradigms that have strengthened the importance of context in the development of cancer. She has received numerous recognitions.
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    • -NY Times "Old Ideas Spur New Approaches in Cancer Fight"
      -The Mina J. Bissell Award
      -American Cancer Society’s Medal of Honor
      -INSERM Annual International Award
      -American Philosophical Society
      -Pezcoller Foundation-AACR International Award for Cancer Research
      -Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology Excellence in Science
      See also http://www.lbl.gov/LBL-Programs/lifesciences/BissellLab/main.html

Dr. Gordon Chiu
Dr. Chiu is an execution driven businessman with more than 15 years of combined domestic and international experience in biomedical, chemical, cosmetic, medical and technology industries. He has been invited to serve on the board of public and private companies and to provide vital advice to the board while increasing overall shareholder value.
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    • Dr. Chiu’s background and experience has led to numerous accomplishments across fields, including: Alzheimer research, breast cancer research, dermatology, drug addictions research, green technology and antimicrobial research. He started his career as a research scientist at Pfizer Inc and Merck & Co. Inc. His healthcare and marketing experience includes strong links to both Wall Street and Asia.

      Dr. Chiu’s educational background began with a B.S. degree in Chemistry from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute with a summa cum laude. He graduated with an M.S. degree in Chemistry from Seton Hall University with high honors. Additionally, Dr. Chiu was accepted as an MD/PhD candidate under the National Institutes of Health's Medical Scientist Training Program for four years at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine where he also researched, developed, consulted and advised the Department of Dermatology's Dr. Huachen Wei in skin cancer research. Seeing the opportunity to impact foreign policies in healthcare, he transferred his credentials to University of Bridgeport School of Naturopathic Medicine where he received his doctorate in naturopathic medicine.

      With this unique background, he has investigated the validity of foreign treatments and their success level for public health. He has also been chosen to serve an advisory role in the identification of low cost solutions (i.e. non-invasive diagnostic equipment) for emerging countries that cannot afford to maintain armies of physicians across numerous sub-specialties. Dr. Chiu developed and owns methodologies called directed combinatorial algorithmic libraries (D.C.A.L.) that are used in various commercial applications, composition development and research.

Andre de Souza
André de Souza is a Corporate and Business Development professional who has led many successes at startup, growth and enterprise levels. Mr. de Souza has a diverse background in strategic alliance building, innovative solution development, and has excelled at delivering POC/ Design/ OEM/ Channel wins, with a special focus on innovative early stage companies.
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    • Mr. de Souza co-founded Corundum Consultancy, an Irish-based firm providing advisory and business acceleration services to high potential startup companies and spin-outs from leading universities. In this role he served as a catalyst to attain rapid corporate development and introduction to strategically chosen Silicon Valley based funding and technology partners, and he helped launch a company aimed at delivering personalized, destination-specific content to mobile phones.

      Formerly Director of Global Strategic Alliances for BEA Systems, he managed corporate development with top-tier strategic partners as well as joint R&D, engineering, sales development and marketing efforts influencing over $600 million in partner revenue per annum. Prior experience includes executive management at Tarantella (Sun Microsystems) and Cambridge Technology Partners, where he led the company’s first Venture investment in a partner company. André led business development activities and served as Entrepreneur in Residence for a boutique entrepreneurial bank, where he co-founded three companies. He also co-founded Hurst Technologies, an IT firm in the energy sector, where he served as COO and grew the company from a two-man entity to over 40 engineers and $5 million in four years.

      André holds a Master of Science in Biomedical Engineering and a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering. A certified Professional Engineer, he has also held an NASD Series 7 Securities License.