Author: Byron McCann

Byron McCann is a founding partner of Ascent Partners Group, and the co-chair of the Northwest Energy Angels. He previously was a senior investment banker on merger transactions for the software industry, Chief Operating Officer of a Paul Allen funded company focused on multimedia networking technology, and co-founder of a software venture which was acquired by Computer Associates. He was the Vice-Chairman of the Washington Technology Industry Association. He is Co-chair of the Northwest Energy Angels and is Co-Chair of the Cleantech Open NW Region. Mr. McCann has an undergraduate degree cum laude from Harvard College and an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.After Stanford, he joined Ernst & Young’s (then Ernst & Ernst) national telecommunications consulting practice. He consulted on telecommunications projects for large firms such as IBM/Satellite Business Systems (later acquired by MCI) and Xerox, as well as with a number of independent telephone companies and other common carriers. Subsequently, he was Vice President and General Manager of Pacific Communications, which marketed satellite time for new programs such as MTV, ESPN, and CNN to the advertising industry. TCI eventually acquired the company for its high ad revenue per subscriber. He was brought in as Chairman/CEO of IQ Technologies, a personal computer peripheral firm which developed the Smart Cable, the first universal, serial interface device to connect computers to peripherals and other devices instantly, in order to raise venture capital to fund operations. He later co-founded and was Chief Operating Officer of genSoft Development Corporation which published dBFast for Windows, the first Xbase-type database development system for the Windows platform. dBFast won Windows Magazine’s Top 100 Windows products award in 1992. genSoft was subsequently acquired by Computer Associates International. He became Chief Operating Officer of MediaLink Corporation when Paul Allen’s venture firm made its first investment in the Company. MediaLink focused on developing a real-time, high throughput, fully synchronized networking protocol, patented as MediaLink, primarily to enable bandwidth intensive, multimedia local area networking applications. MediaLink also developed VNOS (Visual Network Operating System) which was a cross-platform, graphical interface network management application for controlling hardware and software objects on a network. Mr. McCann joined the Corum Group, as its Corporate Vice President, and specialized in merger and acquisition advisory work serving the software and related industries. He led engagements that resulted in sales to or investment by GT Interactive Software (a leading digital media publisher), Disney, Xerox, Kewill, QC Data, and SPSS. In addition, he assisted on various transactions resulting in sales to Intel and IMNET. Mr. McCann is a frequent speaker and co-authored The Investor’s Guide to Fidelity Funds which was published by John Wiley and Sons, New York. He also co-authored Cracking the New E-conomy, published by Washington Software Alliance. He serves as Board Chair of Broadway Bound Children’s Theatre.