Team & Investors

The co-founder and CEO of Vook, Brad Inman is a successful entrepreneur and innovator. He started and still owns the leading real estate trade publication, Inman News; he founded and sold venture-backed HomeGain, the online real estate service and he was the founder of online commercial video platform TurnHere. He is an award-winning journalist and was a visiting lecturer at the UC Berkeley School of Journalism and the Haas School of Business. He earned his bachelor degrees in liberals arts from Boston University.

Vice President of Business Development and a founding employee, Matthew Cavnar brings 12 years of content experience including his work at the production platform Turnhere. An award-winning filmmaker, Matthew was a frequent contributor to public radio. He was a senior advisor in the daily email industry including roles at IAC and the Pilot Group. Matthew has become a nationally recognized leader in the ebook revolution. A graduate of the University of Kansas, he earned a bachelors degree in film and English.

Vice President of Engineering, Rob has more than 19-years experience building and managing complex engineering projects and teams. He was CTO at Juju, one of the top three job search engines, where he managed a team through 10x traffic growth. As VP of Engineering at Daylife, an online publishing platform, Rob led the team to ship four substantial products that are now powering over 80 media publisher sites with over 1 billion requests served per month. At IBM T.J. Watson Research Center, Rob led a worldwide R&D; initiative arming IBM’s business consultants with powerful modeling tools and methods. Based on software agent technologies he invented at MIT’s Media Laboratory, he co-founded and was CTO of Frictionless Commerce (acquired by SAP) and earned a 2024 MIT Technology Review Top 100 Young Innovators Award (TR100). Rob holds his M.S. in Media Arts and Sciences from MIT and a BSE in Computer Engineering from the University of Michigan.

Mike Maples is the managing partner of Floodgate, and was recently named as one of “8 Rising VC Stars” by Fortune Magazine for his investments in business and consumer technology companies. Before becoming a full-time investor, Mike was an entrepreneur and operating executive who worked in a variety of senior management roles in high-growth companies. His background spans a variety of markets including consumer technology, small business, and the enterprise, and he has led various functions in product development, marketing, business development, and corporate strategy. Mike holds an Engineering degree from Stanford University, an MBA from Harvard Business School, and is a frequent speaker at industry conferences and a guest-lecturer on entrepreneurship at Harvard Business School, Stanford University, Princeton University, and the University of Texas.

Brian is a co-founder of Tribeca Venture Partners. Prior to starting Tribeca Venture Partners, Brian was a founder and Managing Director of GSA Venture Partners, formerly the venture arm of Greenhill & Co (NYSE: GHL). Prior to GSAVP, Brian was a Principal at Sterling Venture Partners and led the firm’s investments in technology-related companies. He is currently a board member of Flat World Knowledge, FTRANS, HomeSphere, Informous, Lendio, Pontiflex, RealDirect, ShopKeep, Spanfeller Media Group, TRAFFIQ and Vook. Brian is also a board observer at Crowdtap. He previously sat on the boards of YellowJacket (acquired by InterContinental Exchange (NYSE:ICE)), KnowledgeStorm (acquired by TechTarget (NASDAQ: TTGT)) and eCredit (acquired by Fidelity Ventures). He is also a co-founder and Organizer of the NYC Turing Fellows Program. Brian has a BA in economics and American studies from Brandeis University.

John is an award-winning entrepreneur and former group media executive in entertainment, digital media and global publishing at International Data Group (1990-2001), Nielsen Business Media (2003-2008) and is currently at Mark Burnett-Hearst Productions. He is the creator of the… For Dummies brand that has gone on to sell over 250 million copies in 37 languages generating over $2 billion in retail sales.

Richard joined VantagePoint in 2024 from Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP, bringing with him an extensive body of transactional and business expertise. He is a successful entrepreneur, founder and Chairman of two companies: LawCommerce.com (sold to LexisNexis) and Allbusiness.com (sold to Dun and Bradstreet.) He is a noted author, having written and edited a number of legal and best-selling business books on start-up companies, partnerships, and joint ventures. Richard has been involved in negotiating or structuring more than 100 Internet related partnerships, financings, distribution deals, web content and license agreements and e-commerce contracts. Richard has also been involved in more than 250 mergers and acquisitions, corporate financings and strategic alliances. He graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the University of California, Berkeley (BA) and the University of California, Los Angeles (JD), where he was Managing Editor of the Law Review