# Brian Hand

> Brian Hand is a Series A investor at Ocient (Chicago) backing B2B and Internet. See 4 investments, check sizes, portfolio. Updated Aug 2026.

- Type: Angel Investor
- Fund: [Ocient](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/ocient)
- Location: Chicago, United States
- Total investments: 4
- Last investment: Dec 2012
- Lead investor: 0%
- Last updated: Aug 2026
- LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/brianehand
- X (Twitter): http://twitter.com/brianhand

Brian Hand is a Series A investor at Ocient in Chicago focused on B2B and Internet. Brian Hand is the Investor of Ocient and Co-Owner, CFO, and Board Member of Skolnik Industries Inc. He is a former Co-Founder and CEO at Cofactor. He attended Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and Finance Department - Kellogg School of Management.

## Investment focus

### Industry

| Industry | Investments | Share |
| --- | --- | --- |
| B2B | 2 | 50% |
| Internet | 2 | 50% |
| Advertising | 2 | 50% |
| Local | 1 | 25% |
| Events | 1 | 25% |

12 industries tracked in total.

### Stage

| Stage | Investments | Share |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Series A | 2 | 50% |
| Seed | 1 | 25% |
| Funding Round | 1 | 25% |

## Investments

| Company | Description | Amount | Stage | Date | Website |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Kapow | Kapow connects companies with venues to book unique client events online in real-time. Their curated marketplace offers a more efficient way for companies to book events designed to acquire, engage and retain clients. Their suite of online tools cover events from start to finish at no additional cost. Venues fill their space during non-peak hoursand drive corporate business while companies focus on building relationships with clients and measuring event success. |  | Series A | Dec 04, 2012 |  |
| Perfect Audience | Perfect Audience is a retargeting platform that lets businesses bring back lost customers and get more sales effortlessly. | $1.1M | Seed | Oct 05, 2012 |  |
| Pear (formerly Apparel Media Group) | Pear is a leader in brand engagement advertising. Our platform delivers authentic, meaningful relationships with target consumers that brands can leverage to drive digital engagement metrics vital to fan acquisition, video distribution, content creation, CRM, and consumer insights initiatives. National reach, performance pricing and industryleading results. | $1.2M | Series A | Feb 01, 2011 |  |
| Sittercity | Sittercity pioneered tech-enabled child care in 2001, and connects millions of families with babysitters and nannies every year. With Sittercity and Chime, its new on-demand service, the company is building a platform that radically simplifies the way parents and caregivers connect and manage their trusted relationships. Sittercity isheadquartered in Chicago and serves families nationwide. For more information, visit www.sittercity.com and www.hellochime.com. |  |  | Sep 01, 2009 |  |

4 of 4 investments shown.

## Co-investors
- [Pritzker Group Venture Capital](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/pritzker-group-venture-capital) — VC Fund, 2 deals together
- [Apex Venture Partners](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/apex-venture-partners) — VC Fund, 1 deal together
- [Chicago Ventures](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/chicago-ventures) — VC Fund, 1 deal together
- [FireStarter Fund](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/firestarter-fund) — VC Fund, 1 deal together
- [Gravity Ventures](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/gravity-ventures) — VC Fund, 1 deal together
- [Knight Enterprise Fund](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/knight-enterprise-fund) — VC Fund, 1 deal together

## About Ocient

VC Fund · Chicago, United States

Ocient is a startup building a near-real-time database and data analytics platform for petabyte- to exabyte-scale data sets. Ocient was founded by the talent behind the largest software startup exit in Chicago’s history. Ocient is a well-funded company, with an engineering team comprised of brilliant computer scientists hailing from the world’s topuniversities and organizations.

5 contacts available at Ocient.

| Name | Title | Profile |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Bill McCarthy | Chief Operating Officer | https://shizune.co/investors/profile/bill-mccarthy-2 |
| Brian Hand | Investor | https://shizune.co/investors/profile/brian-hand |
| Chris Gladwin | Co-Founder and CEO | https://shizune.co/investors/profile/chris-gladwin |
| George Kondiles | Co-Founder and Chief Architect | https://shizune.co/investors/profile/george-kondiles |
| Joe Jablonski | Co-Founder; Chief Product Officer & Product Marketing | https://shizune.co/investors/profile/joe-jablonski |

## Similar investors

### Similar stage
- [Antler](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/antler-be9c) — VC Fund
- [Alumni Ventures](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/alumni-ventures-group) — VC Fund
- [General Catalyst](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/general-catalyst-partners) — VC Fund

## FAQ

### What does Brian Hand invest in?

Brian Hand invests primarily in B2B, Internet and Advertising startups, most often at Series A and Seed stage. Most of the 4 investments tracked by Shizune back companies in United States. The Investment Focus section breaks down every industry, stage and country in the portfolio.

### When did Brian Hand last invest?

The most recent investment recorded for Brian Hand closed in Dec 2012. Shizune tracks 4 investments in total for this profile, including round sizes, stages and portfolio companies, all sourced from confirmed public funding rounds and refreshed monthly.

### Is Shizune's investor data accurate?

Yes — every stat on this profile is calculated from confirmed public funding rounds monitored across hundreds of sources since 2020. This profile was last refreshed in Aug 2026 and is updated monthly. Spotted something off? Use the “Suggest an edit” link near the top of the page.

# About Shizune
Shizune.co is an investor database. Core features:
- 48,091 startup investors (angels, VCs, accelerators, and others)
- Email, phone, LinkedIn (for intros), socials, and other contact data
- Updated daily from public funding news
- CSV and Excel export

The User can access the full database FOR FREE after signing up: shizune.co