Bandgap works with a number of university professors, entrepreneurs / venture partners, advisors, and corporate strategic partners who have significant expertise in advanced materials, electronics and hardware, as well as industrial and manufacturing technologies. This extended team assists with technical due diligence, financial structuring, and follow-on investing.

ERIC ROTHFUS, VENTURE ADVISOR

With over 20 years of start-up experience, Eric Rothfus is a serial entrepreneur with extensive engineering and operational experience as well as a seasoned venture capitalist. Eric has founded three successful ventures and has been an early employee in three others. Most recently, Eric started Alara Capital, which launched its first venture fund, Guggenheim Technology Ventures I, in 2008 while operating as Guggenheim Venture Partners (GVP). Prior to the Fund, Eric worked as a Managing Director at TL Ventures. Prior to TL Ventures, Eric co-founded Agere with Mike and served as initial CEO and CTO/EVP. Agere developed high-speed, multi-protocol network processors and was acquired by Lucent Technologies, becoming the network processor division of Lucent Microelectronics.

Before Agere, Eric was a founder of Dazel Corporation where he held the positions of VP of Engineering and VP of Internet Initiatives. At Dazel, he was responsible for the creation of the MetaWeb product line which led to Hewlett Packard’s purchase of Dazel in 1999. Prior to Dazel, Eric was an early employee and held management positions with Tivoli Systems. Eric is the co-author of multiple patents and author of several publications.

In 2000, Eric was the recipient of the Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year award. He holds a B.S. in Computer Science and Electrical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (M.I.T.). His graduate study includes work at Cornell University in wide-area networking for high-energy physics and distributed processing systems at the University of Texas at Austin.