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Derek L. Norton
Managing Partner
Derek Norton is an accomplished entrepreneur and venture capitalist with over 19 years of business building and executive management experience in the technology, internet and media industries. Derek is the founder and Managing Partner of Watertower Group, an industry leading boutique investment bank, and the Managing General Partner of the Watertower Early Opportunity Fund, a seed and early stage venture capital fund. Prior to founding Watertower Group Derek was with Entertainment Media Ventures, a Michael Milken backed seed and early stage venture capital fund located in Los Angeles, California. Derek spent the first half of his career as an operating executive founding and building two prominent southern California based technology companies.
Derek was previously an investment professional at Entertainment Media Ventures, a $120 million dollar seed and early stage venture capital fund focused on investments in broadband infrastructure, consumer internet and digital media sectors. Having lead investments in Kassena, Matchcraft and Relegence amongst others, Derek helped guide and support EMV portfolio companies with their growth, strategic initiatives and capitalization strategies.
Prior to Entertainment Media Ventures, Derek spent the first ten years of his career as a technology entrepreneur. Having founded both Jeffries Technologies and Digital Boardwalk, where he developed a diversified background in technology, media, business building and executive management. From 1991 until 1998, Derek helped build Jeffries into one of Inc. Magazine’s 500 fastest growing privately held U.S. companies providing network enterprise architecture and systems integration to Global 2000 businesses.
In 1995, he founded Digital Boardwalk, a provider of web based service solutions to traditional businesses and new media business ventures. As Netscape’s second commercial partner, Digital Boardwalk was a pioneer in the provisioning of internet technologies, e-commerce development, and marketing solutions to a wide range of companies and industries. Clients included CBS SporstLine, eToys, Office Max, Hughes Global Services, News Corp, and Hewlett Packard.
Derek holds a BA in Communications from the University of Southern California. He serves on several corporate boards, and is the founder of Connex. He supports charities focused on improving the lives and education of under privileged youths. He is a past member of the board of directors of The Fulfillment Fund, a Los Angeles based organization providing educational mentoring and support, and was previously Vice President of the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art, Contemporaries.
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