Kevin Merritt

About Kevin Merritt

I\'m a technology-focused entrepreneur, angel investor and advisor based in Seattle, WA. I\'ve founded, led and successfully exited two venture-backed companies.Most recently I\'ve been investing and advising startups that are in one of the following four areas: Seattle, vertical SaaS, GovTech, and WineTech. My passion for the wine industry has led me to study viticulture and enology and work two harvests at a winery. I\'m an aspiring winemaker. In addition to my investment and advisory roles, I own Wine Industry Insight, a free daily newsletter for the wine industry In 2007 I founded Socrata (originally known as blist). We raised $54M of venture capital across three rounds. In 2018, Socrata was acquired by Tyler Technologies, forming the new Data & Insights Division. I served as President of this division, which is focused on helping public sector institutions turn data into a strategic asset, improving operations and program outcomes. Before founding Socrata, in 2002 I founded MessageRite, a web-based email archiving software developer and service provider. In 2004 FrontBridge Technologies acquired MessageRite and I became VP of Archiving and Compliance and functioned as CTO of the archiving service. In 2005 Microsoft acquired FrontBridge and moved the 150-person company, including me, to the Seattle area. At Microsoft I initially served as a Software Architect and ultimately as Director of Operations. At heart, I\'m a software entrepreneur with a passion and focus on making customers elated by delivering great software as a service. Specialties: Experienced angel investor and entrepreneur with roots in software engineering, application architecture, big data and analytics, and email infrastructure.

Experience

1. Board Director

   InnoVint

   Jun 2020 — Present · Seattle, WA, US

   Board Director and investor in the world\'s leading wine production software company - InnoVint! I\'m combining the best of both of the worlds I love - helping grow great SaaS companies and winemaking! Learn more at

Education

• Northwest Wine Academy

  Viticulture and Enology

• Sierra College

  AS, Computer Science

Skills

• Strategic Partnerships
• Data Center
• Saas
• Agile Methodologies
• Mergers
• Start-Ups
• Marketing Strategy
• Ajax
• Enterprise Software
• Project Management
• Cloud Computing
• Software Project Management
• Crm
• Scalability
• Software Engineering
• Management Consulting
• Sales
• Software Development
• Web Applications
• Go-to-Market Strategy
• Distributed Systems
• Mergers & Acquisitions
• Entrepreneurship
• Big Data
• Product Management
• Strategy
• Telecommunications
• Product Development
• Analysis