Tim Chang
Tim brings a combination of operational, technical and international business experience to Norwest Venture Partners. Tim focuses on investments in mobile, gaming, digital media, and also leads NVP's investment practice in China and Asia-Pacific. Tim was named on the 2011 Forbes Midas List of Top VCs and his venture investments have generated more than $1.3B in M&A exit value. Tim led NVP's investments and serves on the board of directors of Basis, AdChina, PCH International, Lumos Labs, AllReach Media, Brite Semiconductor and 3jam. He also led NVP's investment in Lashou, China's leading deal site, and BranchOut, a career networking application for social networks and social media, as well as in ngmoco (acquired by DeNA) and Playdom (acquired by Disney), two of the premier leaders in social gaming. Tim also works closely with the boards of Treatfeed, SocialVibe, Borqs, deCarta and Veveo.
Prior to joining NVP in 2006, Tim was a principal at Gabriel Venture Partners where he was actively involved in over a dozen wireless-related deals and led Gabriel's investment in Iridigm Display Corporation (acquired by Qualcomm). He also contributed to the boards of Placeware (acquired by Microsoft) and Arula Systems (acquired by Raritan), NextG Networks (acquired by a private equity syndicate), and IPWireless (acquired by NextWave). Tim built Gabriel's wireless sector practice and helped establish business development capabilities through a diverse network of strategic relationships across the mobile value chain, particularly in Asia-Pacific.
Prior to joining Gabriel, Tim spent more than five years working in Japan. He was a product manager at Gateway Inc. where he successfully launched direct-marketed PC servers in the Japanese market and quickly grew an enterprise product line into a full offering of network desktops, workstations, servers and configurable turn-key solutions. Prior to Gateway, Tim was a development engineer for General Motors. As a trilingual engineer based in Tokyo, Tim led project teams in China, Korea and Japan in the development, testing and sales of advanced chassis control systems for clients such as Toyota and Daewoo.
Tim began his career in venture capital in 1999 during his time at Stanford Business School as part of the founding team of CTR Ventures K.K., a venture accelerator in Tokyo focused on seed and early-stage mobile consumer applications for the Japanese market.
Tim currently serves on the advisory boards of the Verizon 4G Venture Forum, the Silicon Valley Telecom Council, MIT/Stanford VLAB, CasualConnect, GamesBeat/MobileBeat, Digital Hollywood, TEDx San Francisco, and Silicon Valley Chinese Wireless Association. He was also featured on the AlwaysON Hollywood IT List recognizing technology leaders in the entertainment industry, and by The Deal as one of five emerging VCs to watch.
Tim holds an MBA from Stanford Graduate School of Business, where he was an Arjay Miller Scholar, and an MS in electrical engineering/system engineering as well as a BS in electrical engineering from the University of Michigan. Tim is also an accomplished musician and currently performs with BlackMahal and Coverflow.
