Ben Smith

Bio

Ben Smith is a Venture Partner at Accelerator Ventures. Before joining Accelerator Ventures, Ben served as President of Reply Media which acquired MerchantCircle where he had been a cofounder and CEO. Ben cofounded MerchantCircle and incubated it at Rustic Canyon Partners while he was an Entrepreneur in Residence with Alex Lloyd. Prior to cofounding MerchantCircle, Ben was the SVP of Corporate Development at Borland through four acquisitions and drove the spinoff of their subsidiary, CodeGear, as their CEO through the separation and startup. Additionally, Ben co-founded the company Spoke and is still serving on its board. Ben also holds a seat on the board of Glu Mobile (Nasdaq: GLUU). He is a long time angel investor with over 40 early stage investments, often alongside of Accelerator, and is an LP at a number of venture funds. Ben previously served the White House as the Senior Advisor for Strategy and Planning to the Secretary of Transportation, assisting with the creation of the Transportation Security Administration after 9-11. Among his other accomplishments, Ben was a Vice President in Electronic Data System's A.T. Kearney management consulting subsidiary, leading the West Coast operations of the Kearney/EDS Venture Development Group, was one of the youngest partners in the history of the firm, and was named one of the 25 most influential strategy consultants in 2002.. As a Partner in the High Technology and Strategy Practices at A.T. Kearney, he advised leading technology companies on business, acquisition, investment and marketing strategies. Ben holds a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of California, Davis and a MBA from Carnegie Mellon University's Tepper School of Business.