Paul Martino

Investor

Because I like to start disruptive businesses

Zynga, Aggregate Knowledge, RPX

The rest of the world moving as fast as I would like it to!

Not investigating those who have failed at similar ideas before them.

(1) Research those that went before you
(2) Reach out to people that help you and don't be scared with how important you think they might be
(3) Find a good mentor to show you the way

Paul is the founder of four companies and active early stage investor. He was most recently the CEO and founder of Aggregate Knowledge. In 1990, Paul started his first venture which was an online gaming company. In these pre-internet, bulletin board days, he was one of the original innovators to bring to life the multi-player user experience. Paul’s early games from almost 20 years ago are the inspiration for several of the modern social gaming offerings. In 1997, Paul founded Ahpah Software, a computer security firm that was the result of his work as a Ph.D. student at Princeton University. Paul’s tools for reverse engineering and obfuscation were first used by the premier security lab, the Princeton Secure Internet Programming Lab (SIP). In 1999, Ahpah Software was split into two companies and one half was acquired by InterTrust Technologies. Paul went to InterTrust as part of the acquisition and moved into roles in business development, strategic alliances, and mergers & acquisitions. In 2003, Paul formed Tribe Network, one of the first social networks, with Mark Pincus, Chris Law, and Valerie Syme. Tribe’s lead investors were Mayfield, The Washington Post, and Knight Ridder. Tribe’s assets were acquired by Cisco and are the cornerstore of Cisco’s Entertainment Operating System (EOS). Paul is the inventor of several core patents related to social networking. In 2005, Paul and Chris Law formed their second venture together, Aggregate Knowledge. Aggregate Knowledge was the natural product of their early work in social networking. The key insight being that the data produced by such networks would be highly valuable for predictive modeling and targeting. Aggregate Knowledge has raised over $35 million in financing from First Round Capital, Kleiner Perkins, DAG, and OVP. Paul is a limited partner in First Round Capital and has been doing angel investing for almost a decade. Some of his investments include Zynga, PayNearMe, and Zvents. Paul holds a BS in Mathematics from Lehigh University and Masters in Computer Science from Princeton University