David Skok joined Matrix Partners as a General Partner in May 2001. He has a wealth of experience running companies. David started his first company in 1977 at age 22. Since then David has founded a total of four separate companies and performed one turn around. Three of these companies went public. He joined Matrix from SilverStream Software, which he founded in June 1996. Prior to its July 2002 acquisition by Novell, SilverStream was a public company that had reached a revenue run rate in excess of $100m, with approximately 800 employees and offices in more than 20 countries around the world.

David's work as a value added investor is best known for helping JBoss take their Open Source business to a successful exit with their sale to Red Hat, and for helping both AppIQ and Tabblo from their inception to their sale to HP. David serves on the boards of Digium (makers of the very popular Asterisk Open Source PBX/telephony software), Diligent Technologies, OpenSpan, Ringside Networks, Solidworks, VideoIQ and Virtual Iron Software.

He holds a B.SC Honours Degree in Computer Science from the University of Sussex, England.

In addition to his broad focus on enterprise software, David has specific focus on the areas of Open Source software, Software as a Service, and utility computing products for the data center.

"Matrix Partners has been instrumental in JBoss' success. David Skok's industry expertise, extensive network of relationships and continual support were vital in helping to build the JBoss management, sales and marketing teams. He has been a mentor to me personally, and played a key role in working with our strategic partners. We relied upon Skok's guidance and advice every step of the way from creating a successful company through the M&A process. He has truly been an asset to our organization."
     — Marc Fleury, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Red Hat's
         JBoss division (former CEO of JBoss)

"From the earliest days of AppIQ, David has been an active partner every step of the way leading to the success of AppIQ. Introducing me to key hires and customer opportunities, actively engaging in strategy at inflection points of company's life, being a personal coach and advisor, all the way to playing an instrumental role during the M&A process...I could be excused for forgetting that David was also a investor in the company! Any one who has met or worked with David realizes that he is a gentleman at the core, with a burning desire to help, either the company or the individual, in any capacity he can. While his enormous experience as a serially successful entrepreneur is a big reason for this positive experience, I truly believe it is David's genuine desire to work with great people and make a difference in the industry that drives his actions."
    — Ash Ashutosh, Founder of AppIQ, and now CTO of Storage, HP

"Working with David was a great experience because of the myriad of roles that he is capable of playing. At the outset, he was an instrumental thought-partner, challenging assumptions about the core business model and key user value propositions on an almost daily basis. As the company grew, he increasingly wore the hat of experienced entrepreneur, cautioning us to avoid some of the tactical pitfalls which he himself knew all too well from first-hand experience. And, of course, as a board member, David was very engaged in key strategic decisions with respect to allocating resources and placing the big bets.

But best of all, David always played the part of passionate and committed user of our product. From the very early bumps of the first alpha, to the award-winning site that HP purchased, he was always among the first to offer feedback-- both positive and negative-- and engage with our product and our community in deep ways. It is rare to find someone with so many relevant skillsets that also brings that level of enthusiasm."
    — Antonio Rodriquez, Founder and CEO of Tabblo (acquired by HP)
  
 

David was recently written up on the cover of JDJ (Java Developers Journal) in an article entitled 'Investing in Professional Open Source'.

Contact David at: dskok [at] matrixpartners.com