• max@heartlandvc.com

Max is Founder and Managing Director of Heartland Ventures. While pursuing his BS from the Indiana University Kelley School of Business, Max served as CEO/Founder of both CleanSlate and Peloton Investors, from which he gained valuable domain and entrepreneurial experience, as well as a deep understanding of Midwestern business trends and practices. Through the process of inventing, designing, and marketing, Max was able to patent and license CleanSlate, a technology that prevents cheating on written exams. Prior to developing CleanSlate, Max founded Peloton Investors, a Milwaukee-based real estate investment firm, which he grew to 450 residential units. Max also led the acquisition of a ten-employee Midwestern construction company, which subsequently experienced 20X revenue growth.

Max serves on several regional boards designed to increase per capita income and entrepreneurial activity. He also serves as a founding board member of the University of Notre Dame’s inaugural venture capital fund. Max has received national recognition for his achievements and community impact. He was awarded an Edison Award in 2017 for innovation, received 1st place in the national Recess pitch competition, and placed 1st in the Indiana University IDEA Competition. In addition, Max was nominated as an Indiana Rising Star for enhancing the state’s entrepreneurial growth and competitiveness.

• Mark@heartlandvc.com

Mark joined the Heartland team as an Associate in June of 2017. He has since been named a Principal of the firm, after relocating to Silicon Valley to lead the firm’s deal sourcing and founder interactions.

Mark has over a decade of business leadership and investment experience within the technology space. Most recently, Mark was a full-time student at the University of Notre Dame, where he received his MBA. During his time at Notre Dame, Mark interned with several Venture Capital and Investment firms, as well as consulted with high-growth startups in Silicon Valley. Prior to receiving his MBA, Mark was a Vice President in charge of strategy at a retail travel technology company based in Long Island, New York.

Additionally, Mark co-founded an Angel Investment firm and currently sits on the Board of Directors for DH Enterprise & Associates. Mark received a BS in Entrepreneurship from Muhlenberg College in Allentown, Pennsylvania.

• (404) 431-8601
• Laurie@HeartlandVC.com

Laurie is a Principal of Heartland Ventures. Prior to joining the firm, she was a serial IT entrepreneur; anticipating and capitalizing on market disruptions and learning from both successful exits and missed opportunities. She is passionate about helping businesses better leverage their assets to drive new revenue growth, reduce wasteful spending and streamline customer acquisition and about furthering economic development in the communities that support those businesses.

Laurie has acted as both an on-site and virtual CFO/COO managing the financial and operational health for companies serving customers in the banking and finance, healthcare, telecommunications, utilities, and hospitality industries. Most recently, Laurie consulted with Executives in the Association world where she implemented Design Thinking and Lean Innovation practices to discover opportunity and to build and scale new, for-profit business ventures to enable sustainable mission focus.

In her early career, Laurie was an investment analyst in the Japanese equities market where she developed industry expertise in the Chemical, Textile and Pulp and Paper industries. Laurie has been active both in her local community and in the Atlanta business world where she was a member of the Technology Association of Georgia and of the Technology Executives Roundtable. Laurie is a magna cum laude graduate of Princeton University.

Ryan is a co-founder and Partner of Heartland Ventures and has been actively involved in the formation of the business since its inception.

Prior to Heartland, Ryan served (and is actively serving) as Managing Partner of Great Lakes Capital since co-founding the firm, Ryan leads the firm’s strategic direction and investment focus. In addition to leveraging his two decades of development experience, he has worked to position the firm to capitalize on opportunities in both debt and equity across market segments and cycles.

Ryan is a graduate of the University of Notre Dame.

Brad is a co-founder and Partner of Heartland Ventures and has been actively involved in the formation and development of the business.

Prior to Heartland, Brad served (and is actively serving) as Managing Partner of Bradley Company, Brad leads the firm with 20 years of real estate transaction and management experience. Throughout his tenure, he has gained an insightful and broad-based view of industry dynamics that allows him to provide his clients with valuable awareness of market trends and new opportunities.

Brad is a graduate of the University of California, Los Angeles with dual degrees in business and history.

I have been conducting innovative research and product developments assuming 3 roles in both academia and industry. (1) as a Professor and Educator in Universities in both Canada and US; (2) as a Researcher in Corporate Research Labs; (3) as a Practitioner and Entrepreneur in High-Tech Startups.

The goals of my work are: (1) Conduct high-impact research and innovations in IT targeting real-world practical applications; (2) Technology transfer to industry through entrepreneurship and industrial collaborations; (3) Engage in teaching and scholarly activities; motivating, advising, and helping students to be successful.

My research works were reported by news media including the New York Times (NYT), CBC, Huffington Post, Computer World/IDG, Business Insider, The Register, NewScientist, MIT Technology Review’s Blog, McGill Daily etc, and other major online news forums. They have resulted in 4 issued US patents and 2 other filed US patent applications.

I have authored/co-authored over 250 fully-referred publications in top venues in computer science and engineering. The venues include:
* ACM Annual International Conference on Mobile Computing and Networking (MobiCom),
* IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy (S&P, Oakland),
* International Conference on World Wide Web (WWW),
* IEEE Real-Time Systems Symposium (RTSS),
* IEEE International Conference on Computer Communications (INFOCOM),
* ACM International Conference on Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining (SIGKDD),
* ACM Multimedia Conference (MM),
* ACM International Joint Conference on Pervasive and Ubiquitous Computing (Ubicomp)
* AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI)
and various ACM/IEEE Transactions.

My main expertise includes:
* Big data and Data-Intensive Computing
* Machine Learning Systems and Applications
* Internet and Web Technologies
* Real-Time Systems and Embedded Systems
* Communication and Computer Networks
* IoT
* Smart Energies (Smart Grid, Renewable Energies etc)

Cory Levy is the co-founder and COO of ONE, Inc., creators of the After School App, an anonymous social network for high school students. He is also the creator, organizer, and chair of Internapalooza, a one-day tech conference for Silicon Valley interns.

At the age of 19, Cory raised $1M in venture capital from SV Angel, True Ventures, Charles River Ventures, General Catalyst, Keith Rabois, Gary Vaynerchuk, Naval Ravikant and Michael Dearing to start ONE, Inc.

Prior to leaving the University of Illinois to launch ONE, Inc., where he was studying computer science, with co-founder Michael Callahan, Cory held internships at TechStars, Union Square Ventures, and Founders Fund. Cory was named to Forbes’ 30 Under 30 for Consumer Technology and Dorm Room Founders in 2017.