Scott Banister is a prominent American entrepreneur, startup founder, and angel investor, widely recognized for co-founding the anti-spam company IronPort Systems, which was acquired by Cisco for $830 million. He is also known for his early involvement with PayPal as an advisor and board member, where he helped invent "email payments." Currently, he serves as a Venture Partner at Long Journey Ventures and continues to invest in and advise early-stage technology companies.
Computer Science, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Exoskeletons for medical and military applications. Enables soldiers to carry more weight and those with paralysis to walk!
Topsy
Board of Directors
Jul 2007 - 2013
Responsibilities
Search powered by the social web. If you use Twitter, you'll really love it. We're hiring.
Slide
Board of Directors
Feb 2005 - Aug 2010
Responsibilities
Entertainment meets analytics. See also Max Levchin.
Powerset
Board of Directors
Dec 2007 - Jul 2008
Responsibilities
Like Wikipedia on steroids. The iPhone version is especially useful.
IronPort Systems
Co-Founder & CTO
Dec 2000 - Jun 2007
Responsibilities
Founded during the tech bust, IronPort became the leading provider of enterprise email routing and anti-spam solutions, and we were acquired by Cisco Systems in 2007 for $830 million. If another company has ever had a higher percentage of all-stars at all levels of the organization, I'd like to hear about it! If you see IronPort on someone's resume, they're very likely to be an A player.
eVoice
Board of Directors
Jan 2000 - Dec 2000
Responsibilities
Email-enabled home voicemail service. Acquired by AOL. Funded by idealab!, Nokia Venture Partners, Worldview Technology Partners, and Oak Investment Partners.
Idealab
VP Ideas
Aug 1999 - Nov 2000
Responsibilities
Got to work closely with Bill Gross, one of the coolest people you will ever meet. I landed this gig through my earlier contributions to the business model at GoTo/Overture.
PayPal
Board of Directors
Jan 1999 - Jul 1999
Responsibilities
Short stint as board member. My role as an advisor/investor continued after I left the board to make room for Nokia Ventures. Luke Nosek and I invented "email payments", which was part of a rich history of cool innovations at PayPal -- "instant" ACH transfer, random deposit account verification, consumer CAPTCHAs, proprietary antifraud systems... This was an awesome team, and they are all out doing cool new startups now.
LinkExchange
Lead Singer
Jun 1998 - Jan 1999
Responsibilities
Welcome to free banner advertising. Such a lovely place.
S
Submit It!
VP Technology, Co-Founder
Feb 1995 - Jun 1998
Responsibilities
We also developed ListBot and ClickTrade. Merged with LinkExchange and then acquired by Microsoft.
Sloan Foundation
Webmaster
Sep 1994 - May 1996
Responsibilities
Maintenance and expansion of the content available at sloan.org for the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, which was then hosted on a good ol' MacHTTP server.
Education
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
None
Sep 1994 - Jan 1996
Field of Study
None - Computer Science
Core Expertise & Skills
Scott Banister is a seasoned entrepreneur, co-founder of IronPort, and influential angel investor known for his deep expertise in software engineering, enterprise security, and early-stage venture capital.
LinkedIn2.6K
