Dane Ross

Dane earned an MBA and a Lebor Entrepreneur Fellowship (Arthur Rock Center for Entrepreneurship) at Harvard Business School, and a BA with Honors in International Business at the University of Minnesota and the DIS Program at Copenhagen University, Denmark. He is bilingual (Danish/English), with strong comprehension and reading in 4 other languages.

Dane is a founding Managing General Partner of Belay Equity, a firm investing in later-stage, top tier VC-backed companies. Belay Equity purchases 5-10% of the stock of individual company officers in transactions executed in a VC ecosystem-friendly manner without damage to the company's stock option pricing, providing limited liquidity to enable key management team members to address immediate personal needs, relieve distractions, and increase focus. Belay also assists companies as third party acquirers of employee shares to more amicably accomplish management reorganizations. Belay Equity transactions help protect the progress of companies by increasing the commitment of key company managers and eliminating solvable distractions in the crucial lead-up to a liquidity event. 

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Dane has 17 years of venture capital/private equity experience, including 8 years on the Investment Committee and Board of Directors of Elwin Capital Partners, a venture capital firm investing in technology companies in the US, Europe, Asia, and Israel. Dane is also the founder and Chairman of International Management Ventures, through which he has venture partnered with dozens of entrepreneurs and their companies.

Dane Ross is a member of the Kauffman Fellow Charter Class and served his fellowship under mentor Rick Kroon at DLJ's venture capital affiliate Sprout Group in NYC and Menlo Park, CA.