Ike Lee, VENTURE PARTNER
Ike is an Ignition Venture Partner. Ike works on Ignition's investments in developing their Asia-Pacific businesses. Since coming to the U.S. in 1980 (after completing his education and working for the LG group in Korea for 3 years), Ike has built a formidable record of success as an angel investor, venture capitalist and mentor to startup management teams.
Ike is CEO of Lee Technology Consulting, which specializes in providing strategic management consulting, and mergers and acquisitions advisory services to industry leaders as well as startup companies. In the past 25 years, Ike has spearheaded efforts advising joint venture and alliance partnerships worth several billion dollars between North America and Asia, as well as driving over $250 million in M&A activities in the US and abroad; most notably, the $35 million acquisition of 3DO's digital semiconductor division by Samsung.
Ike also currently oversees a business incubation center located at the Stanford Research Park in Palo Alto, California. Under Ike's tutelage, innovative ideas are shepherded from incubation to functioning businesses. One project, NetScreen (NSCN), went public in December 2001 and was named IPO of the Year by Goldman Sachs. Subsequently, the company was acquired by Juniper Networks for $4 billion.
Since the early 1980's Ike has been instrumental in bridging the capital divide between high-tech businesses in the Asia Pacific region with those in North America. He has advised key industry and government leaders in Asia on emerging global technology trends, strategic business developments and the Venture Capital industry. Ike has earned numerous awards; in 1998 he was named Businessman of the Year by the Korean American Chamber of Commerce in Silicon Valley, and more recently he was nominated to be a Business Ambassador for the State of Washington.