David S. Rose, Associate Founder of Singularity University and its Founding Track Chair for Finance, Entrepreneurship and Economics, is an Inc. 500 CEO, serial entrepreneur and angel investor who has founded or funded over 90 pioneering companies.
He has been described by Forbes as "New York's Archangel," by BusinessWeek as a "world conquering entrepreneur," and by Red Herring magazine as "patriarch of Silicon Alley."
He is the founder and CEO of Gust, the global online platform for entrepreneurial finance, founder and Chairman Emeritus of New York Angels, one of the world's most active early stage investment organizations, and author of "Angel Investing: The Gust Guide to Making Money & Having Fun Investing in Startups", published by Wiley in May, 2014.
From his initial involvement with the first online communities in the 1970s, through founding one of the first personal computer training companies in the 1980s, one of the first wireless data information networks in the 1990s, and the first global angel investing platform in the 2000s, David has been at the forefront of innovation in business and technology. Among the fields in which he has been actively involved as an executive, board member or investor are: wireless communications, consumer electronics, crowdsourcing, international.
finance, social networking, space tourism, user-generated content, online video, mobile network security, biological testing, electronic music, citizen journalism, out-of-home advertising, fiber-optic networking, concierge medicine, online marketing, interactive voice response, and many others.
In addition to his role as CEO of Gust, the multi-award-winning platform that connects over 250,000 startup companies with over 50,000 early stage investors in over 100 countries, David is the Managing Partner of Rose Tech Ventures, an early-stage investment fund and technology accelerator; serves on the boards of directors of ComiXology; KoolSpan; Pond5; Social Bicycles; Por ti, Familia; Waywire.com; Miner; TekServe and the NY Tech Meetup; and serves as an active early stage investor in companies including LearnVest, BioScale, Amicus, Space Adventures, RealtyMogul, and PublicStuff.
He is well known in the business startup community for discovering and mentoring high-potential entrepreneurs, and has been profiled by BusinessWeek as "The Pitch Coach" for his ability to help CEOs perfect their fundraising skills. David is a regular speaker at the TED conferences, and his TEDtalk on "How to Pitch a VC" has been viewed nearly a million times. In addition to his long-term involvement with Singularity University, David lectures at business schools including Yale, Harvard, Columbia, Pace, and Stevens, and was named Mentor of the Year by NYU's Stern School of Business.
Prior to founding AirMedia Corporation in 1988, for which he served as CEO for over ten years, his career included over fifteen years in real estate development, government, technology, teaching and urban planning. David was co-founder and Chairman of The Computer Classroom and Vice President at Rose Associates, Inc. Earlier, he served as Deputy Director of the New York office of US Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan.
A native New Yorker, David has a BA in Urban Affairs from Yale University, an MBA in Finance from Columbia Business School and a D. Eng. (hc) from Stevens Institute of Technology. He is a graduate of the New York City public school system and Horace Mann High School, an Associate Fellow of Pierson College at Yale University and a member of the Entrepreneurship Advisory Boards of Columbia Business School and Yale University.
David can be followed online @davidsrose.
