MA

Michael Aronson

Venture Capitalist in the University of Pennsylvania/Wharton School ecosystem. Founded five successful companies while a student and faculty member . Raised more than $100 million for investment in PENN companies.

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Invests in

Stages:

  • Min Investment:

    $100,000.00
  • Max Investment:

    $10,000,000.00
  • Target Investment:

    $1,000,000.00

Education

Work Experience

  • Co Founder and Managing Director

    2016

    Red & Blue Ventures (PENN's colors) invests in exciting seed and Series A rounds of Ecommerce and Information Technology startups from the UPENN ecosystems. These companies are founded and/or led by UPENN Alumni, current students and faculty. Now investing out of Fund II.

  • Board Member (observer)

    2011

    The prognosFACTOR™ platform intakes cumbersome and complex health care data and standardizes it. Then it’s enriched using sophisticated AI and machine learning techniques resulting in deep, data-driven clinical insights. Prognos can link such lab-testing-related insights to traditional real-world data (RWD) from other sources, as well as a choice of a wide range of options in an open data ecosystem — all while making our data-driven insights amenable for downstream applications.

  • Managing Partner

    2005

    MentorTech invested in about 30 companies out of the Wharton/Penn startup ecosystem. Notable exits included Yodle (sold to Web.com), Diapers.com (sold to Amazon), Payquik (Sold to CITI), Jet (sold to Walmart) and the NYSE listed Warby Parker. Total exit value of over $10 billion. Active investments include Prognos and GoTenna. MentorTech is no longer making any new investments (see Red&Blue Ventures)

  • Director

    2005

    Neat is a highly profitable cloud based accounting system for small and medium sized businesses with more than 50,000 customers.

2018 - 2021

  • Board Member (observer)

    2018 - 2021

    Some Spider Studio is the leading destination on the web and via social media apps, for Moms, Dads and Families. Brands include Scary Mommy, The Dad and Fatherly. The company was acquired by BDG Media

2020 - 2021

  • Board Member (observer)

    2020 - 2021

    Cafe is a leading podcast company on how the law intersects with society. The company offers podcasts on politics, business and technology. CAFE’s Stay Tuned with Preet, a weekly podcast that explores fascinating legal cases alongside thought provoking ethical dilemmas, has been downloaded a total of 54 million times, with an average of 2.1 million downloads per month and 350,000 downloads per episode. In 2021, Cafe was acquired by Vox Media.

2008 - 2017

  • Director

    2008 - 2017

    Ticketleap was a pioneer in self serve online ticketing. It was sold to Providence Strategic Growth Partners in 2017.

  • Investment Committee

    1991 - 2016

    BFTP operates as an early stage venture fund for technology companies in Southeastern Pennsylvania. Actively involved in hundreds of tech investments over a 25 year period.

2015 - 2016

  • Board Member (observer)

    2015 - 2016

    Jet.com was an ecommerce marketplace. It was sold in 2016 to Walmart for $3.3 billion.

  • Founder

    1981 - 2001

    SMG was the world leader in business simulation for management development for Fortune 500 companies worldwide. It was sold to a private equity firm in 2000 with approximately $25 million in revenues.