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Wealth of Experience...
The seasoned approach of Sandalwood’s management team to investment is a key element of the portfolio’s success. The extensive hands-on experience of the members and advisors and the ability to work successfully as a team ensures that this collaborative effort helps the companies that we work with, grow from strength to strength.



Bob Kondamoori - Managing Director
Bob focuses on Semiconductors, Systems and Software Investments. Prior to co-founding Sandalwood Parnters, Bob was a partner at Charter Venture Capital ($400Million under management) in California. Charter Ventures has invested in more than 150 technology companies in the USA. Some of the companies founded by Charter Ventures include Linear Technologies, Avaya, Octel (Acquired by Avaya), Commerce One and Interwoven. With more than Twenty Five years of Operations and Investment experience, Bob helped entrepreneurs co-found startups such as Bay Microsystems, Brilliant Telecom, Icompression, SemIndia and Xalted. In addition, Bob also served in Senior Executive roles at Ramp Networks and NEC Corporation.

Bob invested in several successful companies which included Ramp Networks (acquired by Nokia), Softcom Microsystems (acquired by Intel), Icompression (acquired by Globespan/Conexant), Interwave (acquired by Alvarion) and private companies such as Bay Microsystems, Brilliant Telecom, Minerva Networks, SemIndia, Visionael and Xalted.

Currently Bob serves on the boards of SemIndia, Xalted and Medialabs Asia. Bob holds a mechanical engineering degree from Clemson University.


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VR Ranganath - Managing Director
VR Ranganath is the president of Alliance Venture Management, a $240M venture fund. He has made a number of investments in high-technology startups including Magma Design Automation (LAVA), Platys Communications (acquired by ADPT), Maverick Networks (acquired by BRCM), Orologic Corporation (acquired by VTSS), and Malleable Technologies (acquired by PMCS). Ranganath has more than 20 years of system & semiconductor management and marketing experience in companies like Sun Microsystems, Advanced Micro Devices, IDT and Synertek.

Ranganath was a founding member of Nazomi Communications and currently serves on the boards of several high-technology startups like Xceive, Xalted Networks, Nethra Imaging and Active Optical Networks.

Ranganath holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering from Bangalore University in India and a Master of Science degree from Utah State University in the same area. He has also been granted two US patents in the area of Java acceleration technology.

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Dr. Simon Cao - Venture Consultant
Dr. Cao currently leads Arasor International which publicly listed and joined the S&P500 Index stock on Australian Stock Exchange (ASX:ARR). Simon has more than 20 years experience in optics, communications and signal processing and is considered as a leading authority world-wide in Optics Technology and served as co-founder/ key executive in companies which have in total generated more than $100Billion market capitalization for investors.

Prior to co-founding Arasor, Simon was also the founder of Avanex Corporation (listed on Nasdaq reaching peak valuation of $17Billion for investors) and served as Chief Technology Officer, Senior Vice President of Business Development and a member of the Board of Directors. Prior to Avanex, Simon was a founder of Oplink Communications ( listed on Nasdaq generating peak valuation of over $3Billion for investors) and served as Vice President of Sales and Marketing and established the company's wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) product line.

Over the span of his career, Simon was directly responsible for the invention and commercialization of revolutionary fiber-optic products such as the fiber amplifier, WDM transmission and >10Gb/s high-speed optical transmission. In 1999, Forbes named Dr. Cao the "Godfather" of WDM technology. Simon is also the author of "Cao's Law", the optical corollary of Moore's Law in electronics, which states that WDM will spread more and more finer and finer channels of light, each using less and less power, across an optical fiber. Earlier in his career, Simon was also one of the first employees of E-Tek Dynamics which was acquired by JDS Uniphase for over $24Billion. Later JDSUniphase reached $95Billion market cap where Simon served as a key Technology Executive.

Dr. Cao holds Ph.D. and M.S. degrees in both electrical engineering and physics from the University of Southern California. He also chairs the research committee on the board of USC's engineering school and holds over one hundred U.S. and international patents with an additional 110 Patents still pending.