David J Cowan

David joined Bessemer Venture Partners in 1992. He has since made 45 early-stage investments for Bessemer, including 19 that have gone public, and 18 that have been acquired by public companies. The first Forbes Midas List ranked David among the world's top 10 venture investors. David has invested in network technology (Ciena, P-Com), internet services (PSI-Net, Keynote, Flycast, Netli), and consumer internet (Hotjobs, Blue Nile). In 1995 he cofounded Verisign as a Bessemer-funded spinout of RSA, serving as VeriSign's initial Chairman; his other data security investments have included Counterpane (acq. by BT), Cyota (acquired by RSA), ON (acquired by Symantec), Postini (acquired by Google), Qualys, Tripwire, Tumbleweed, Valicert and Worldtalk (both of which Tumbleweed acquired after they went public). David currently serves on the boards of Billshrink, Delivery Agent, Flock, Goodmail, Lifelock, MashLogic, Nominum, Perimeter eSecurity, Sonic Mule, and Vimo. David received both his A.B. in math and computer science and his M.B.A. degrees from Harvard University.