John Walecka

John Walecka is a founding partner of Redpoint Ventures. Prior to founding Redpoint, John was a general partner with Brentwood Venture Capital, a firm he joined in 1984.

John works closely with entrepreneurs to build industry leading companies in emerging technology sectors and he is interested in innovative business models built on deep intellectual property. 

John leads Redpoint's investment activity in the Energy and Materials sector.  Areas of interest include alternative and renewable energy and storage, innovative new materials, clean coal and water technologies, efficient transportation, and energy management solutions. John is currently working with Envia, CompanyX, Intermolecular, Energy Solutions and Advanced Power.

In the Information Technology area, John focuses on critical infrastructure appliances and platforms, and he is currently working with enterprise and data center appliance companies Fortinet, Trapeze and Schooner.

In addition, in the Semiconductor area, John looks for companies with unique opportunities to build category leading companies.  He is currently working with Entropic Communications (ENTR), Avnera, BCD Semiconductor and AMEC.

John also works closely with Redpoint's China activities.

John has also worked closely with a number of very successful companies in the enterprise and broadband infrastructure space. Key investments in the communications products area include: Xylan (acquired by Alcatel), Wellfleet Communications (merged into Bay Networks), Synernetics (acquired by 3Com), Agile Networks (acquired by Lucent), Network Equipment Technologies (NWK), Polycom (PLCM), Onstream (acquired by 3Com), Avici Networks (AVCI), TransMedia Communications (acquired by Cisco), Lightera Networks (acquired by Ciena), Promatory Communications (acquired by Nortel), Netro (NTRO), and StratumOne (acquired by Cisco). John has also led investments in a number of software infrastructure companies, including Sybase (SYBS), Documentum (DCTM), Object Design (ODIS) and Vitria Technology (VITR).

John served as Director of the Western Association of Venture Capitalists (WAVC) and he is currently a Director of the Stanford Business School Venture Capital Trust, an advisor to the Stanford Engineering School, and on the Investment Committee of Sacred Heart School in Menlo Park. Prior to joining Brentwood, John worked at Hewlett Packard and the Stanford University Smart Product Design Laboratory.

John received a B.S. and an M.S. in Engineering from Stanford University and an M.B.A. from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.