Joe Beninato

Joe is an entrepreneur and investor who loves the world of startups. His first entrepreneurial experience was watching his grandfather and father run a successful restaurant in Chicago for over 50 years. Since graduating from MIT with a degree in aerospace engineering, he has worked with more than twenty startups, serving as founder, employee, investor or advisor. Joe most recently was the founder and CEO of Tello, creators of PassTools (now Wallet Studio), the leading digital wallet management service acquired by Urban Airship. Prior to Tello, Joe was the founder and CEO of Presto, a venture-backed startup in partnership with Hewlett-Packard, and served as founder and Vice President of Marketing for When.com, the leading Internet calendar and event service that was acquired by America Online. Joe has spearheaded marketing and product efforts for Roku (private), Books That Work (acquired by Sierra OnLine), Integrated Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: INTS, later merged with Wind River Systems) and S3 Inc. (NASDAQ: SIII, later known as SONICBlue). Actively involved in the Silicon Valley startup community, Joe has served on the board of directors for Tello, Presto, When.com, eDaycare (acquired by Arrowsight), and the non-profit Churchill Club. He has acted as an investor or advisor for Bigstep (acquired by Affinity Internet), Ofoto (acquired by Kodak), and numerous other companies. Joe has served as a mentor for the Stanford University Technology Venture Formation class, the fbFund REV incubator program, Imagine K12, and 500 Startups.