Steve Felter
Venture Partner at Berkeley Frontier Fund
Steve Felter
Venture Partner at Berkeley Frontier Fund
Berkeley, California
Overview
Work Experience
Venture Partner
2022 - Current
The Berkeley Frontier Fund invests in the best Berkeley startups while providing a sustainable revenue source for UC Berkeley.
Advisor
2015
UC Berkeley’s startup accelerator provides investment and support for promising companies coming out of the Berkeley ecosystem. I help early-stage founders/CEOs optimize their business for growth and fundraising.
Advisor & Investor
2010
I advise startups on growth, fundraising, financial modeling, FP&A, customer acquisition, business development, corporate strategy, and operations. I also advise and mentor startups from a variety of entrepreneurial organizations affiliated with UC Berkeley (through the Haas School of Business, College of Engineering, Center for Entrepreneurship & Technology, and SkyDeck).
CEO, Resio
2021 - 2022
Core Spaces acquires, develops, and manages multi-tenant real estate assets, specializing in premium student housing properties. I was hired as the founding CEO to lead a corporate spin-out of Resio, a proptech/fintech startup that helps property managers elevate the resident experience of their buildings. * Raised $2M seed round from strategic investors, helping secure over 5% of the student housing market for the GTM launch * Signed first 30 enterprise customers to multi-year SaaS agreements * Negotiated and implemented a payment processing partnership to monetize mobile transactions, increasing ACV 5X * Led spin-out process, including legal structuring, IP assignment, hiring, operations, and developing the initial strategy/business plan
CEO
2017 - 2020
Guild Extracts is a premium California extracts brand, known for pioneering award-winning concentrates. The founders asked me to take over as CEO, raise venture capital, and help scale the business at the onset of California’s legal recreational market. * Restructured company to become cashflow positive and achieve a multi-million annual revenue run rate in the first year * Grew sales 30% in the second year leading to multiple competitive M&A offers from large public and private entities * Raised a $2.5M seed round from VCs and strategic investors, including founders of Cookies and Cannacraft
CEO
2010 - 2015
GameSalad is the world’s most popular no-code game development platform, with a global community of over 1M developers and 65K games published. Investors recruited me from Disney to take over the CEO role, refocus the strategy, raise venture capital, and help scale the business. * Led a team consisting of product, engineering, business development, analytics, and marketing that helped grow the developer base to 1M (13X increase), monthly active users to 65M (33X), and a multi-million ARR (18X) * Raised $12M over 2 rounds from VCs, including Greycroft, DFJ, Steamboat/Disney, and ffVC, increasing the company valuation over 10X * Overhauled the business model from a perpetual license to a SaaS and freemium ad-supported model; refocused and aligned product and marketing efforts to optimize paid conversion rates and minimize churn * Sourced and negotiated multi-million annual revenue deals with leading platform providers including Amazon, Microsoft, Samsung, Intel, and Tencent
COO & CFO, DigiSynd
2008 - 2010
Disney acquired DigiSynd to serve as the foundation of its first social media division. * Led a team consisting of product, engineering, analytics, marketing, and content development that helped grow Disney’s Facebook audience to over 250M (13X increase), YouTube subscribers into the millions, and video views into the billions; launched and managed the first official Twitter accounts for Disney and Pixar and piloted Twitter’s first Promoted Tweet * Collaborated with the leadership of Pixar, ESPN, Disney Interactive Studios, ABC, Disney Channel, and Parks & Resorts to translate their iconic brands into authentic social media experiences at scale * Post-acquisition, I was the company’s primary interface into Disney corporate (finance, accounting, legal, HR, operations, strategic planning)
COO
2007 - 2008
Acquired by Disney in 2008, DigiSynd was an early pioneer in social media analytics and distribution. Prior to the acquisition, I was primarily responsible for business development, operations, and fundraising. * Raised $1.5M in funding from Greycroft and Warner Bros and recruited WB’s President of Home Entertainment to join the board of directors * Sourced and negotiated multi-million annual revenue deals with Microsoft, Overbrook Entertainment (Will Smith), Katalyst Labs (Ashton Kutcher), and Warner Bros. (film, TV, games) * Led negotiations and due diligence with multiple suitors during the acquisition process before finalizing a deal with Disney and spearheading the integration
Director of Corporate Business Development & Strategy
2005 - 2007
I joined WB’s corporate development team after business school to help the studio transition to digital via organic and inorganic growth initiatives. * Focused on M&A, investment, and partnership opportunities with technology startups, specializing in video, social media, mobile, games, 3D, VR, and other emerging forms of digital entertainment * Worked closely with studio leadership to help launch the company’s first digital division and establish a series of precedent-setting licensing deals with the leading digital platforms
Director of Business Development
2002 - 2005
Acquired by Rakuten for $1B, Ebates built the leading e-commerce customer loyalty platform. I worked closely with the CEO on customer acquisition strategies and managed a multi-million acquisition budget, optimizing for CAC, payback period, and LTV.