Draft:Christopher J. Rust

• Comment: Likely COI editor, or even UPE editor. Restoring unverified promotional/resume information is not going to increase your chances of acceptance. Interested uninvolved editors may compare details and structure of this with what is found in the history of Rajeev Madhavan, also edited by this editor, and infested with socks. Drmies (talk) 02:49, 7 December 2023 (UTC)

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Christopher J. Rust

Christopher-J-Rust.jpg Headshot of Christopher J. Rust

Christopher J. ("Chris") Rust is a venture capital investor in Silicon Valley. He is currently Co-Founder and Partner at Clear Ventures, where he works with technology entrepreneurs from the earliest stages of company creation. His prior venture capital experience includes partner roles at Sequoia Capital and U.S. Venture Partners. Rust has experience in recruiting, product marketing, business development, follow-on fundraising, and scaling.

Early Life and Education

Rust attended the University of Lowell (today the University of Massachusetts Lowell) and studied Electrical Engineering, earning a Bachelor of Science degree with distinction and a Master of Science degree for which his thesis was "Heterodyning Techniques For Coherent Optical Detection". He later attended the University of Colorado Boulder where he earned a second Master of Science degree in Telecommunications Engineering for which his thesis was "Efficient Signal Processing Algorithms For Broadband Transmission Over Copper Local Loops". Rust earned a third master's degree, a Master of Engineering in Engineering Management, also from the University of Colorado, Boulder. His third master's thesis was "Evaluating Human Capital Assets In Emerging Technology Companies", which took an in-depth look at the patterns of success and failure in venture-backed technology companies.

Personal Life

Rust lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with his wife. The couple has three children.

Early Career

One of Rust's first technical roles was with Wang Laboratories, where he worked during his undergraduate studies. Rust was then selected by the American Scandinavian Foundation for an engineering position with Nokia in Espoo, Finland.

MITRE: Member of Technical Staff

Rust completed his first master's degree after returning from Finland, then joined MITRE Corporation, a not-for-profit company that operates multiple federally funded research and development centers, as a member of the technical staff. He was at MITRE four years (May 1988 - May 1992) as a full and part time software programmer doing R&D on fast packet networks and military communications systems. During his time, he worked on FTS-2000, the national airspace communications network (NACS), the Ground Wave Emergency Network (GWEN), and various military communications networks. In addition, he worked on "MITRE-NET", an early implementation of a CSMA-CD local area network.

US West: Broadband Network Architect

After completing his second master's degree, Rust joined US West Advanced Technologies as a member of technical staff in the Switch Architecture Group. He spent just over four years (May 1991 - May 1995) at US West Advanced Technologies. During this time he was a software engineer in the Broadband Architecture Group.

Rust was then assigned to Time Warner Roadrunner on a near full-time basis from April 1993 to May 1995 to represent US West's 25% ownership position in Time Warner Cable.

Roadrunner: Co-Founder and Lead Architect

Rust was the Co-Founder and Lead Architect of broadband access pioneer Roadrunner, now known as Time Warner Cable Internet. He was at the company for almost two and a half years (February 1993 - May 1995). Roadrunner grew to 14 million subscribers, and over $4 Billion in revenue in 2015, and was the key driver of Charter Communication's $56.7 billion acquisition of Time Warner Cable.

ComCore (NSM): Director PLM

Rust spent 10 months (October 1996 - July 1997) at ComCore. During this time, he was responsible for writing the functional specifications and product requirements for a DSP-intensive Gigabit-over-copper Ethernet PHY transceiver, working with customers to validate the design specifications, managing the program schedules, and defining the product roadmap.

Rust left the company in July 1997 to move back to Boulder, Colorado for family reasons.

ComCore was acquired by National Semiconductor in April of 1998 for $122 million.

Carrier Access Corporation (IPO CACS): Senior Director PLM

Rust spent six months (August 1997 - January 1998) at Carrier Access Corporation managing the product line, managing customer service, and helping execute a pre-IPO trade press, analyst, and investor tour.

Rust left the company to learn technology venture investing at Sequoia Capital.

Carrier Access was later acquired by Force10 Networks in December of 2007.

Sequoia Capital: Partner

Rust worked at Sequoia Capital for four and a half years (February 1998 - July 2002). He was promoted from Associate to Partner in November of 1999. Rust was responsible for early stage investments in 15 companies across Sequoia Capital funds VII to X, starting 13x at seed/series A and 2x at series B. These startup teams created $19.5B+ in market cap from 2 IPOs, 12 acquisitions, and 1 out-of-business: Abrizio (PMCS), Afara (SUN), Avanex (AVNX), Mahi (Meriton), Mellanox (MLNX), MEMX (oob), Nexsi (JNPR), Onetta (BKHM), Santur (NPTX), Springbank (CFLO), SwitchOn Networks (PMCS), Syndesis (Subex Azure), Telera (AIcatel), Turin (DELL), and VxTel (INTC). He was a notable contributor as diligence team member and investment co-sponsor, then board advisor for Netscreen (NSCN) series B (1st institutional round). In 2002 Rust transitioned to Sequoia Capital's active portfolio company Mahi Networks as the acting CEO. Rust led Mahi Networks until 2004, and stayed on the Mahi Networks Board of Directors until it was acquired by Meriton Networks in 2005.

U.S. Venture Partners: Partner

Rust was recruited to U.S. Venture Partners (USVP) in 2004 and was a partner until 2013. While at U.S. Venture Partners, Rust was responsible for investments in 14 early stage companies, starting 9x at seed/series A and 5x at series B. The first 7 exits created $12.7B+ of market cap from 1 IPO and 6 acquisitions, and include GoPro (GPRO), Dune (BRCM) and LVL7 (BRCM). The remaining companies are active, and include Appthority, CloudPassage, Kaiam, and Zerto. Rust was a notable contributor as investment team member on 8 more USVP portfolio companies that created $1.0B+ in market cap from 8 acquisitions. Diligence team member and formal investment co-sponsor of AltoBeam series B (active), Trusteer series A (IBM), and Optichron series D (NETL). Assumed BoD seat on investments led by others such as Commerce5 (DRIV) and Stratalight (OPXT) to provide operational assistance. With over 25 trips to Tel Aviv, one of the most active contributors to USVP's IT VC practice in Israel.

Clear Ventures

Chris Rust met Rajeev Madhavan when they both invested in a company that Intel later bought for $550 million. Then, they went from co-investing from different funds to raising their own Palo Alto-based venture capital fund, Clear Ventures, in 2014.

Rust Rust is the current Co-Founder and Managing Director of Clear, where he focuses on early-stage technology investments. Rust utilizes his background to aid investments with recruiting, product marketing, business development, follow-on fundraising, and scaling.

Clear Ventures raised its first $120 million fund in June 2016. The target for this first fund was originally $80 million but was increased to $120 million to accommodate demand. The second fund of Clear Ventures totaled $180 million and was announced in April of 2019. Clear Ventures currently has $335 million of capital to date.

Awards and Recognition

Named one of the famous people who majored in engineering management.