Michael J. Skok

Michael is a serial entrepreneur of more than two decades turned investor for more than a decade and now he is also mentoring, continuously learning, and teaching entrepreneurship.

Michael is one of the founding partners of Underscore VC. Prior to that he was a GP at North Bridge Venture Partners. He has created ventures with founders, and invested in many great entrepreneurs who went on to build billions of dollars of value focusing on large market opportunities such as eCommerce and Big Data. Michael focuses on breakthrough technologies & disruptive business models such as SaaS, Cloud, Open Source & Mobile. He is the founder of the Future of Open Source & Future of Cloud Computing industry collaborations that gave rise to the broadest industry wide surveys of their kind.

Prior to becoming an investor, Michael was an entrepreneur and CEO in the software business for 21 years. Michael founded and recruited teams that attracted over $100m in private equity for investments in multiple software companies ranging from Enterprise Big Data & Analytics (AlphaBlox - acq by IBM) to Security & Consumer products (Symantec UK - NASDAQ:SYMC) while spanning the Workstation, PC, Client Server & Internet eras.

Michael has served on or is active on many private & public boards such as Acquia, Demandware(Now Salesforce CommerceCloud), Mautic, Salsify and Zaius. He has also supported various industry groups like the Software Publishers Association where he was Chairman for a number of years in Europe.

Michael's passion for innovation & entrepreneurship is fueling his work mentoring & developing the next generation of founders and leaders. He is an EIR at Harvard Business School and teaches the "Startup Secrets" all over the world - a series he started with the Harvard iLab. See www.underscore.vc​, ​www.startupsecrets.com​, and follow Michael on Twitter @mjskok and LinkedIn mjskok.