FRED FUNKE

Fred is an Operating Partner with Spur and brings extensive background as an executive leader, sales management professional, skilled communicator/team builder, and adept negotiator with a proven record of driving rapid growth with early stage technology startups. He has proven ability to analyze business environments, markets, and growth opportunities, then introduce strategic and tactical solutions resulting in improved competitive performance.

Prior to joining Spur, Fred was worldwide Head of Data, Developer Platform, and Enterprise Solution Sales at Twitter.  Through a combined tenure at Twitter and Gnip (VP of Sales when acquired by Twitter) he built and led a Team that was responsible for increasing sales from $100k ARR to over $385M ARR. Through orchestrating strategic partnership strategies and implementing operational efficiencies, this revenue was delivered at over 84% gross margins.

Prior to Twitter, Fred has had successful leadership roles in several tech start-ups. Most notably, He was VP of US Sales for UC4 (an Austrian Tech company) and was instrumental in introducing their solutions and kick starting sales within the US market. He also led Global Sales for Pinpoint Technologies (acquired by ZOLL Medical) and drove annual revenue from $1M to over $12M over four years.  He has been instrumental in building high energy teams and spearheading growth initiatives resulting in rapid increases in revenues with associated high margins.

Fred resides in Boulder, CO with his wife, two children, and two yellow labs.