Robert Adams

Bio

Rob brings 20 years of venture capital, operational, and financial experience to NextStage. His work with emerging businesses includes strategy development and implementation, financial analysis and modeling, management development, and positioning. Prior to co-founding NextStage, Rob was a vice president and officer of Safeguard Scientifics (NYSE: SFE), a publicly traded venture capital firm. There, he was instrumental in the development of numerous technology companies, from early stage through public entity. As a part of this role, he sourced, structured, and negotiated greater than $100 million in investments for Safeguard's portfolio and led $380 million in mergers, acquisitions and exits. Rob was responsible for designing and executing Safeguard's investment strategy for the communications software and services industry segment, including technology-specific investment platforms in voice-over-internet protocol (VoIP) and wireless middleware applications. Rob led Safeguard portfolio companies through the strategic planning, product development, and commercialization processes; recruitment of various CxO management positions; and development of strategic alliances, mergers, and acquisitions. Rob was also a member of Safeguard's investment committee. Examples of Rob's venture investment while at Safeguard include PacWest Telecomm ($100 million IPO), Extant ($200 million acquisition by Dynegy), and ThinAirApps ($20 million acquisition by Palm). Prior to Safeguard, Rob was with the media and entertainment industry firm of Rascoff/Zysblatt. There he held profit and loss responsibility for a business unit providing financial and compliance services to media companies and media artists, growing revenues by broadening the firm's product offerings. Rob began his career as a CPA the Entrepreneurial Services division of Ernst & Young. At Ernst, he provided consulting and auditing services to management/owners of technology-based venture-backed companies. Rob has served on numerous boards of directors, including many NextStage portfolio companies, is a licensed CPA. He has a Masters of Business Administration with distinction from the University of Michigan and a Bachelor of Arts in Economics from Skidmore College.