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Mike Volpi

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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Mike Volpi
Mike Volpi in 2015
Born
Michelangelo Volpi

(1966-12-13) December 13, 1966 (age 59)
Milan, Italy
Alma materStanford University
OccupationsVenture capitalist, businessperson
Years active1989-present
EmployerPartner at Hanabi Capital [1]
Board member of
Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, Castilleja School, Knight-Hennessy Scholars

Michelangelo "Mike" Volpi (born 13 December 1966) is an Italian-American businessman and venture capitalist. He worked as an engineer, eventually becoming chief strategy officer at Cisco Systems during the company’s growth era, acquiring over 70 companies in less than five years.[2][3] He co-founded Index Ventures’ San Francisco office with Danny Rimer in 2009, and currently serves as general partner at Hanabi Capital.

Early life and education

[edit]

Volpi was born in Milan, Italy.[4] When he was five, his family moved to Tokyo, Japan, where he lived until he moved to the United States in 1984 to attend college at Stanford University.[4] There, he earned a B.S. in mechanical engineering as well as an M.S. in manufacturing systems engineering.[4][5] After working at HP for several years, he returned to Stanford to earn an M.B.A. from the Graduate School of Business in 1994.[6][7]

Career

[edit]

Volpi began his career at Hewlett Packard's optoelectronics division in 1989 where he was both in engineering and marketing.[2] Volpi joined Cisco Systems in 1994 in the nascent business development group. He was promoted to leading acquisitions at Cisco starting in April 1996. As chief strategy officer he led corporate strategy, business development, and strategic alliances. Their acquisition strategy of Volpi and his team at Cisco is used as model for technology mergers and acquisitions.[8] he was promoted to the chief strategy office working for CEO John Chambers until 2000. Some press speculated he was heir apparent to Chambers.[9][10] Moving into an operational role as a senior vice president and general manager, he led the routing and switching teams, then co-led the routing and service provider group with Prem Jain until 2007.[11] During this time Cisco's first Carrier Routing System product was announced, the CRS-1, in 2004.[12]

After Cisco in 2007 he became entrepreneur in residence (EIR) at Sequoia Capital. A few months later, he was appointed CEO of Joost,[13][14][10][15][16][17] an Internet startup focused on online TV which was founded by Skype founders Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis.[18] In 2009, Volpi joined Index Ventures as a partner,[19] but concurrently retained his position of chairman of Joost.[20] In September 2009, Skype's founders filed a lawsuit against Volpi for alleged use of confidential information in conjunction with the proposed divestiture of Skype from eBay.[21] Volpi was also removed by Joost shareholders from his role as company chair, with Joost releasing a statement at the time saying, "The company and its Board of Directors is conducting an investigation into Mr. Volpi's actions during his tenure as CEO and as Chairman."[20] The lawsuit was dropped in November 2009 after a settlement in which Zennstrom and Friis received a 14% stake in Skype, worth $400 million at the time, as well as exclusion of Index Ventures and Volpi—who had been considered as a potential leader of Skype after the divestiture—from the sale of the company.[22][23]

At Index, Volpi invested in early-stage companies, primarily across autonomous driving,[24] open source,[25] and artificial intelligence.[26] Volpi has served on the boards of Index portfolio companies, including Aurora,[26] Big Switch Networks,[27] Blue Bottle Coffee,[28] Confluent,[29] Covariant,[26] Elastic,[30] Kong Inc.,[26] Hortonworks,[30] Pure Storage,[31] Scale AI,[32] Sonos,[26] Tekion Corp,[33] Wealthfront,[26] and Zuora.[34] During Volpi's time at Index, the firm grew its office in San Francisco to an equal presence on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean.[35]

Volpi co-founded Hanabi Capital, an early-stage venture capital firm, in 2025.[36] Volpi serves as general partner.[37] The firm invests in artificial intelligence, software infrastructure, and similar technology company startups.[36][38] As of 2026, notable investments include Cognition AI and Mind Robotics.[39][40]

Councils and boards

[edit]

Volpi is a non-executive board member of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, an independent director of European investment firm Exor,[41] and was a board member of Swedish mobile giant Ericsson from 2010 to 2013.[42][43] He served on the board(s) of Opsware (now HP),[44] TIBCO Software, Skype, StorSimple, Cloud.com, and Clearwire.

Volpi serves sits on the board of Castilleja School, an independent school for girls grades six through twelve in Palo Alto, California,[45] and is a Global Advisory Board Member at Knight-Hennessy Scholars, an international graduate-level scholarship program for study at Stanford University.[46] He served on the board of Witness, a non-profit organization that uses video to find human rights violations,[47] and on the advisory council for the Stanford University Graduate School of Business.

Personal life

[edit]

Volpi is trilingual in English, Italian and Japanese,[4] and is married to Toni Cupal with 2 children.

His father is Vittorio Volpi, an executive at the United Bank of Switzerland.[48]

Awards

[edit]

References

[edit]
  1. ↑ https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-12-23/why-vc-partners-are-leaving-firms-like-a16z-founders-fund-and-more
  2. 1 2 Andy Reinhardt (August 25, 1997). "Michaelangelo Volpi Vice-president, business development Cisco Systems". Business Week. Archived from the original on May 27, 2000. Retrieved June 2, 2013.
  3. ↑ "Forbes.com profile". Forbes.
  4. 1 2 3 4 Holson, Laura M. (November 19, 1998). "The Cisco Whiz Kid; Young Deal Maker Is Force Behind Company's Growth". The New York Times. Mr. Volpi was born in Milan, Italy. His father is a bank executive; his mother a journalist. When he was 6, his family moved to Japan, where he attended a Roman Catholic boys school. There he perfected the two languages -- Japanese and English -- that he knows besides Italian. In 1984, he left Japan for Stanford University to study mechanical engineering. (He got bachelor's and master's degrees.) After a brief stint at Hewlett-Packard, he went to business school and ended up at Cisco.
  5. ↑ Scott, Kevin (May 2024). "Mike Volpi, Partner at Index Ventures". Behind the Tech. Mike studied engineering at Stanford, where he earned B.S. in mechanical engineering, an MS in manufacturing systems, and an MBA.
  6. ↑ "The Top 20 Venture Capitalists". CB Insights. April 1, 2019. Mike Volpi began his career at Hewlett Packard, where he worked in both engineering and marketing. After receiving his MBA, he joined Cisco, where he held a number of executive positions including Chief Strategy Officer and SVP/GM of the routing business.
  7. ↑ "Despite Sluggish Economy, a Bullish Outlook on Investing". Insights by Stanford Business. December 12, 2011. Mike Volpi, MBA '94, a former Cisco M&A executive and now a partner in Index Venture[.]
  8. ↑ Can Mike Volpi Make Cisco Sizzle Again? - Businessweek
  9. ↑ Swisher, Kara (2007-09-13). "Kara Visits With Joost's Mike Volpi, Part 1". allthingsd.com. Retrieved 2023-08-23.
  10. 1 2 Mike Volpi's trek from Cisco to Joost - CNET News
  11. ↑ Cisco veteran Volpi to step down – CNET News
  12. ↑ "CRS-1: The Foundation for the Future of Communications". News release. May 25, 2004. Archived from the original on June 3, 2004. Retrieved June 2, 2013.
  13. ↑ "Elevator Pitch: Mike Volpi on his past at Cisco and the future of Android". The Mercury News. March 10, 2014.
  14. ↑ "Volpi Leaves Joost for Index Ventures". AdWeek. July 6, 2009.
  15. ↑ Interview: Mike Volpi, Former Joost CEO, Now at Index Ventures - Kara Swisher - News - AllThingsD
  16. ↑ Former Joost CEO Mike Volpi Jumps to Index Ventures — Tech News and Analysis
  17. ↑ Mike Volpi Out As Joost Chairman – Business Insider
  18. ↑ Joost taps Cisco VP Mike Volpi as CEO – Electronics Eetimes
  19. ↑ "Mike Volpi Jumps From Joost to Index". Venture Capital Journal. July 6, 2009.
  20. 1 2 "Skype founders' Joost ousts chairman Mike Volpi". NBC. 12 September 2009. Retrieved 29 July 2026.
  21. ↑ Fowler, Geoffrey A. (21 September 2009). "Skype Founders File Another Suit in eBay Saga". The Wall Street Journal.
  22. ↑ Skype Lawsuit Settlement Details – Kara Swisher – News – AllThingsD
  23. ↑ Johnson, Bobby (6 November 2009). "Skype founders wrestle back $400m share of company". The Guardian. Retrieved 29 July 2026.
  24. ↑ Connie Loizos (March 17, 2020). "Veteran VC Mike Volpi discusses investing and fundraising in 'a very difficult time'". TechCrunch.
  25. ↑ "A "Perfect Storm" Moment for Multibillion-Dollar Open Source Companies". recode. March 25, 2014 – via Vox.
  26. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Pieter Abbeel (July 2, 2021). "The Robot Brains: Index Ventures' Mike Volpi". The Robot Brains.
  27. ↑ Nicola Leske (November 13, 2012). "Big Switch Networks launches first commercial product". Reuters.
  28. ↑ "Nestlé acquires a majority stake in Blue Bottle Coffee at a valuation north of $700M". TechCrunch. September 14, 2017.
  29. ↑ Jordan Novet (July 8, 2015). "Confluent, the startup from the creators of Apache Kafka, raises $24M". VentureBeat.
  30. 1 2 Jordan Novet (October 7, 2018). "This tech investor had a killer week thanks to two big open-source deals". CNBC.
  31. ↑ Ingrid Lunden (August 15, 2012). "Pure Storage Raises Another $40M To Bring Europe Its Flash Storage Products, Index's Mike Volpi Leads Round". TechCrunch.
  32. ↑ Alexander Wang (August 8, 2018). "Announcing Our Series B with Index Ventures and Accel". Scale AI.
  33. ↑ "Tekion". Index Ventures.
  34. ↑ Theodore Schleifer (August 5, 2018). "One investing firm is behind a string of this year's big money-making moments in Silicon Valley". Vox.
  35. ↑ "Index Ventures Has A New, $550 Million Fund, And A New Partner". TechCrunch. February 3, 2016.
  36. 1 2 Katie, Roof; Clark, Kate (December 23, 2024). "Venture Capital Partners Are Leaving Big Firms in Droves". Bloomberg.
  37. ↑ Miles Kruppa; Deepa Seetharaman (January 30, 2025). "Why 'Distillation' Has Become the Scariest Word for AI Companies". The Wall Street Journal. Mike Volpi, a veteran tech executive and venture capitalist who is general partner at Hanabi Capital.
  38. ↑ "Mike Volpi". Forbes. May 27, 2025.
  39. ↑ "US AI coding startup Cognition nets $400m at $10.2b valuation". Tech in Asia. September 8, 2025. New investors included Bain Capital Ventures, Hanabi Capital, and D1 Capital.
  40. ↑ "Rivian-Backed Mind Robotics Startup Raises $500 Million". Orange County Business Journal. March 30, 2026. In late 2025, Mind Robotics raised $115 million in seed funding led by Eclipse Capital. Other investors include Hanabi Capital, Bessemer Venture Partners, Prysm Capital, Bain Capital Ventures (BCV), Greenoaks and Allen & Company LLC.
  41. ↑ "Agnelli heir makes bet on family fortune". FT. April 4, 2017.
  42. ↑ Two new members nominated to Board of Directors – Ericsson
  43. ↑ Ericsson's Annual General Meeting 2013 - Ericsson
  44. ↑ Opsware Inc. Adds Two New Independent Board Members; Noted Industry Leaders Mike Volpi and Mike Homer Elected to Board of Directors | Business Wire
  45. ↑ "Castilleja School: Board of Trustees".
  46. ↑ "Stanford University Knight-Hennessy Scholars".
  47. ↑ Human Rights Videos | witness.org
  48. ↑ John Shinal (February 25, 2001). "Can Mike Volpi Make Cisco Sizzle Again?". Bloomberg. His father, Vittorio Volpi, the head of the Japanese subsidiary of Swiss UBS Bank, says his son has learned flexibility from the Italians, subtlety from the Japanese, and pragmatism and fairness from American business culture.
  49. ↑ "The Midas List 2015". Forbes.com. No. Midas List. 25 March 2015. Retrieved 7 April 2015.
  50. ↑ "MIT Technology Review: Innovators Under 35".
  51. ↑ Mike Volpi, 12/27/99 Archived 2012-10-14 at the Wayback Machine, Network World
  52. ↑ "The Top 100 Venture Capitalists". 31 March 2019.
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