Rick Bolander
Co-Founder and Managing Director @ eLab Ventures
San Francisco, United States
Rick Bolander is a General Partner at Michigan eLab Venture Fund. Rick has been a private investor since 1988 launching Blue Sky Ventures, a real estate investment firm, and entering the venture capital industry in 1994 at Apex Venture Partners where he was general partner. In 1999, he co-founded Gabriel Venture Partners, an early-stage venturecapital firm that invests in and assists information technology startups.Rick identifies the smartest entrepreneurs and works side-by-side with them to build highly successful companies from the ground up. Rick has been involved in more than 50 venture deals, and has led over $100 million in early-stage financings and has had over $200 million in realizations. Rick has served on the boards of AccessLine Communications (acquired by Telanetix), Arula Systems (acquired by Raritan), Concord Communications (IPO – NASDAQ: CCRD), Exodus Communications (IPO – NASDAQ: EXDS, then acquired by Savvis), IPWireless (acquired by Nextwave), Jacked (acquired by Roundbox), Neopath (acquired by Cisco), NetScaler (acquired by Citrix Systems), Persistent Systems (IPO – BSE India: PER EQ), Placeware (acquired by Microsoft) Tut Systems (IPO – NASDAQ: TUTS), and Chegg (IPO – NYSE:CHGG).EducationMBA - Harvard Business SchoolMS - Electrical Engineering, University of Michigan (full fellowship)BS - Electrical Engineering, University of Michigan (with honors)
- Total investments:
- 10
- Last investment:
- Lead investor:
- 60%
Last updated:
For AI agents: llms.txt
Industries Rick Bolander invests in
Stages Rick Bolander invests in
Countries Rick Bolander invests in
Investment Focus
Industry
- SaaS 2 (20%)
- Software 2 (20%)
- Enterprise Software 2 (20%)
- CRM 1 (10%)
- News 1 (10%)
Stage
- Series A 3 (30%)
- Series B 2 (20%)
- Series C 2 (20%)
- Funding Round 2 (20%)
Investments
| Company | Description | Round | Links |
|---|---|---|---|
Fonemine Inc
|
MobileForce is a transformative, cloud-based customer relationship optimization (CRO) company that helps enterprises optimize customer engagement and productivity by connecting field personnel with the right information at the right time on the right device. The solution uniquely connects to a wide variety of cloud and on-prem enterpriseapplications and data sources, automatically orchestrating and synthesizing the information into contextually-relevant user experiences that shorten sales cycles, reduce the cost of sales, and give field reps more “selling time” back in their day.The company's flagship product, MobileForce Sales Velocity, is a next-generation mobile engagement and productivity optimization solution for the world’s leading sales teams. It solves productivity challenges the right way – by delivering contextually relevant information, at the right time, on any device. The solution seamlessly integrates systems like Salesforce, Microsoft Dynamics, Oracle, SAP, SharePoint, Google Apps, Box, DropBox, LinkedIn, YouTube, and others in a single pane of glass interface. | $11.3M / Series B / Apr 02, 2014 | |
IForem
|
iForem is the market innovator in delivering safe, simple and secure digital asset preservation, certification, and 3rd party assurance. Through leveraging their highly economical, easy to use and secure SaaS storage platform, iForem is eliminating the need for storing physical copies of documents, program source / object codes, andincorporates 3rd party certification plus automated release management. | $2M / Jan 12, 2010 | |
|
IForem
|
iForem is the market innovator in delivering safe, simple and secure digital asset preservation, certification, and 3rd party assurance. Through leveraging their highly economical, easy to use and secure SaaS storage platform, iForem is eliminating the need for storing physical copies of documents, program source / object codes, andincorporates 3rd party certification plus automated release management. | $1M / Series A / Mar 12, 2009 | |
Chegg
|
Chegg is a student media learning platform offering services to universities and community colleges. The company also helps students become smarter, saves time & money. The company was founded in 2005 and is headquartered in Santa Clara, California, USA. | $25M / Series C / Dec 17, 2008 | |
Jacked
|
Jacked.com is an interactive content companion for live television. It provides users with a customizable, browser-based dashboard of real-time, contextual content, commerce, communication, and advertising related to the programs you are watching. The site is powered-by the Jacked TVTop(TM) publishing platform which includes a proprietarySearchCasting(TM) engine that automatically feeds contextually relevant, real-time content into a customizable RIA WebTop interface. The Jacked TVTop platform has been developed to support a broad range of TV programming including Sports, News, Reality, Event and Primetime shows. Jacked deployed its first consumer offering, the Jacked SportsTop(TM), in Q4 2007. It currently supports all NFL, NBA, NHL, MLB, NCAA Football and Basketball games. Jacked is building out its SportsTop network through its co-brand solution which has been deployed with NBC Sports & Olympics for Notre Dame and NFL broadcasts, CBS for Lakers & Dodgers broadcasts, Versus, Raycom Sports for The ACC, and the Washington Redskins. The Jacked SportsTop has also been bundled with future releases of AMD Live. Jacked was recongnized for its efforts by Always-On in its selection to the 2008 OnMedia 100. It was also selected by Microsoft as 1 of 30 companies into its Startup Accelerator Program. | $6M / Series A / Apr 01, 2007 | |
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IForem
|
iForem is the market innovator in delivering safe, simple and secure digital asset preservation, certification, and 3rd party assurance. Through leveraging their highly economical, easy to use and secure SaaS storage platform, iForem is eliminating the need for storing physical copies of documents, program source / object codes, andincorporates 3rd party certification plus automated release management. | $2M / Series A / Mar 08, 2007 | |
|
Chegg
|
Chegg is a student media learning platform offering services to universities and community colleges. The company also helps students become smarter, saves time & money. The company was founded in 2005 and is headquartered in Santa Clara, California, USA. | $2.2M / Series A / Jan 01, 2007 | |
NeoPath Networks
|
NeoPath Networks, Inc. provides file storage management solutions. It provides File Director, a network appliance that resides in-band between file servers and clients, and provides file storage management capabilities, including namespace virtualization and globalization, safe and non-disruptive file migrations, real-time file characterization andanalysis, and policy-based file management; and SMARTtouch, a file storage software solution that allows its clients to balance and utilize existing file storage capacity. The company's products simplify and advance file storage management for networked attached storage and other file servers, and increase storage utilization. It serves financial services, government, hosted services, aerospace, manufacturing, healthcare, and education industries. The company was founded in 2002 and is headquartered in Mountain View, California. As of April 3, 2007, NeoPath Networks, Inc. is a subsidiary of Cisco Systems, Inc. | $11M / Series C / May 22, 2006 | |
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NeoPath Networks
|
NeoPath Networks, Inc. provides file storage management solutions. It provides File Director, a network appliance that resides in-band between file servers and clients, and provides file storage management capabilities, including namespace virtualization and globalization, safe and non-disruptive file migrations, real-time file characterization andanalysis, and policy-based file management; and SMARTtouch, a file storage software solution that allows its clients to balance and utilize existing file storage capacity. The company's products simplify and advance file storage management for networked attached storage and other file servers, and increase storage utilization. It serves financial services, government, hosted services, aerospace, manufacturing, healthcare, and education industries. The company was founded in 2002 and is headquartered in Mountain View, California. As of April 3, 2007, NeoPath Networks, Inc. is a subsidiary of Cisco Systems, Inc. | $12M / Series B / Sep 21, 2004 | |
VARStreet Inc
|
VARStreet is the leading provider of On Demand B2B, B2G and B2C E-Commerce and Quoting software Solution for IT and Office Supplies Manufacturers, Distributors, VARs, System Integrators and other channel partners in United States & Canada.VARStreet makes it easier and more profitable for VAR’s, MSPs and IT software solution providers to selland procure technology products – through customized quoting or their own branded, fully-automated online stores.The hosted VARStreet platform combines real-time distributor pricing with advanced quoting features and an optional branded online store. Result is the world's leading hosted and completely integrated e-commerce automation platform.VARStreet XC a cloud based sales and E-Commerce solution for VARS, MSP, System Integrators & Solution providers. VARStreet XC can also be used by Distributors & Manufacturers to power their own ECommerce initiatives or to create an electronic infrastructure between them and all their partners through our Partner Commerce Solution. | $12M / Apr 06, 2000 |
Co-Investors
About eLab Ventures
eLab Ventures is an early stage technology venture capital fund created to capitalize on the growth of emerging entrepreneurial markets outside of Silicon Valley and to create bridges to those markets to seek startups with disruptive innovations, exceptional teams, and capital efficient business models that have the potential to serve largemarkets. eLab is strategically based both in Ann Arbor, to leverage innovation and talent in the Midwest, and in Silicon Valley, to leverage customers, business development, funding sources and a strong network of experienced advisors. We are passionate about nurturing world-changing ideas by connecting entrepreneurs to capital and expertise needed to build great, disruptive companies!
eLab Ventures Contacts
| Name | Phone | Socials | |
|---|---|---|---|
Robert Stefanski
Co-Founder and Managing Director
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Doug Neal
Co-Founder and Managing Director
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Mahendra Vora
Limited Partner
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Paul Brown
Managing Director
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Rick Bolander
Co-Founder and Managing Director
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FAQ
What does Rick Bolander invest in?
Rick Bolander invests primarily in SaaS, Software and Enterprise Software startups, most often at Series A and Series B stage. Most of the 10 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 Rick Bolander last invest?
The most recent investment recorded for Rick Bolander closed in Apr 2014. Shizune tracks 10 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.
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