Kristin McDonnell
Managing Partner & Founder
As the Managing Partner and Founder of Menlo Group, an investment firm, Kristin McDonnell manages investments in top companies in a variety of industries including Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), finance technologies, data management, software automation, and education technology.
Over the past 25 years, Kristin has developed significant financing and entrepreneurial experience as a venture capital-backed CEO, Board Chairman, COO, and CMO. She has worked for and in partnership with a wide range of companies from Fortune 100 corporations to Silicon Valley start-ups including AT&T, McKinsey, Electronic Arts, IBM, Xfire, LimeLife, and Mplayer-HearMe.
Earlier in her career, Kristin built new businesses and platforms at the intersection of technology, telecommunications, commerce, major brands, and consumers. She has been a team member who has acquired millions of digital customers, driven revenue growth through SaaS, online, and mobile, and raised over $150 million in venture capital, resulting in two IPOs and multiple acquisition exits.
From 2004-2010, Kristin was the venture-backed CEO, Chairman of the Board, and Co-Founder of LimeLife, the first mobile applications software company serving the lifestyle market. The company forged partnerships with wireless carriers, media companies, and advertisers including AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, Apple, NBCU, Time Inc., MTV, Bravo TV, Yahoo, and P&G.
Kristin has an MBA from Harvard Business School and a Northwestern University Bachelor of Science degree in Industrial Engineering, with a focus on Computer Science with Tau Beta Pi academic honors. She has been recognized as Harvard Business School's Top 100 Distinguished Alumnae of Northern California and Mobile Entertainment's Top 50 Female Execs in Mobile Content. Kristin serves on Northwestern University’s Board of Trustees and Alumni Association Board of Directors. She has served as a mentor to Stanford University’s School of Engineering Technology Venture Formation class, TechStars, and StartX.
John McDonnell
President & General Counsel
John McDonnell has over 30 years of legal and business experience, working with some of the most innovative tech companies in Silicon Valley and worldwide. He has been both in-house and external lead counsel on thousands of commercial and corporate transactions totaling over $2 billion for major companies including Autodesk, HP, Pandora, PayPal, Samsung and Shutterfly as well as a wide variety of venture-backed technology companies.
John serves as a business and legal advisor to tech executives, helping them enhance their strategy and positioning, expand their revenue sources and partnerships, and accelerate growth. His areas of expertise include mobile, payments, security, Blockchain, messaging, data rights and monetization, SaaS, and consumer electronics. Earlier in his career, as in-house legal counsel, John was a member of the teams that developed the first smart phone at Handspring and Palm, and the first cable Internet access service at Excite@Home.
John is admitted to practice law in California and was a founding member of the Internet and Privacy Law Committee of the California State Bar. He is an alumnus of the University of California at Berkeley and University of San Francisco School of Law where he was a member of the Law Review. John was also a founding member of the California State Bar Committee on Internet and Privacy Law in 1995.