Pete Thomas
Managing Director
pthomas@ataventures.com

Pete is a co-founder and Managing Director of ATA Ventures with over 25 years of experience in the venture capital arena. In 1985, he joined Institutional Venture Partners (IVP) as a General Partner in their IVP III fund and continued as a General Partner of IVP through the IVP III-VIII funds. Prior to IVP, Pete spent two years at Technology Venture Investors (TVI) as an associate.

Companies that Pete has successfully led investments in include an outstanding list of recognized industry leaders, such as Adaptive Solutions (ADSO), Atmel (ATML), Altera (ALTR), @Road (ARDI), Cirrus Logic (CRUS), Form Factor (FORM), Nellcor (NELL), NeoPhotonics (NPTN), Office Club (OCLB), Transmeta (TMTA).

Over the years, Pete’s investments have been in companies focused on semiconductors, computing, software, materials, and medical devices. His new interests include education and health based solutions with a heavy focus on software. Many of Pete's investments include industry breakthrough efforts. For example, Altera was one of the first companies to commercialize the idea of Programmable Logic Devices. The concept was to simplify the development of custom integrated circuits through the use of programmable circuit configuration. Pete led the TVI investment in Altera's 1st round of major financing in 1982 and was a member of the board until 1991. Another example includes Atmel Corporation, which started as a leader in Electronically Erasable Programmable Memory (EEPROM) devices. Pete led the 1st round of financing in the company in 1984 and was a member of the BOD until 2008. The company had their IPO in 1987 and has grown substantially since then, hitting over $2B in revenue in 2000. Pete currently serves as a Director on the boards of a number of private companies including Adesto, Lavante, PixyKids and Revera.

Prior to venture capital activities, Pete was at Intel Corporation for 7 years. He initially was the Memory Systems Division OEM Engineering Manager, moved to the Strategic Business Segment (SBS) Manager role for two divisions of the company, and then into the Marketing Manager role for the Memory Systems Division. Prior to Intel, he held engineering positions at Fairchild Communications Division and at Sylvania EDL.

Pete graduated magna cum laude in 1968 with a BSEE degree from Utah State University. Pete has been a recipient of the Utah State University College of Engineering Distinguished Alumnus Award and is currently on the Board of Trustees of the Utah State University Foundation. He received his MS in Computer Science from the University of Santa Clara in 1975.