J Skyler Fernandes

J. Skyler Fernandes a Powerlist 100 VC.  He is the Managing Director of Investments at Cleveland Avenue, a private equity and venture capital fund, co-founded by the former CEO of McDonald's, focusing on investing in food and beverage technology, brands, and restaurants.   Previously, Mr. Fernandes founded and ran Simon Venture Group (SVG), the venture capital arm of Simon, an S&P 100 company and largest retail real estate company in the world. Simon Venture Group is ranked as a top 5 corporate venture capital funds by CB Insights along side Google Ventures, Intel Capital, and Comcast Ventures.  SVG focuses on investing in the future innovation of retail, from in-store retail technology to ecommerce, as well as data analytics, logistics, and internet of things. Mr. Fernandes is also the founding Partner of One Match Ventures, a seed fund, and prior to that was a Partner at Centripetal Capital Partners, a multi-stage venture capital fund with an innovative fund structure where he focused on consumer internet, online services / marketplaces, enterprise SaaS, and commercializable high-tech.

Mr. Fernandes gave the first TED Talk on Venture Capital: Innovating the Financing of Innovation, and has developed key entrepreneur resources, such as The “Best" Startup Pitch Deck (which has been viewed and downloaded over 500,000+ times), Top 10 Lies Entrepreneurs Tell Investors, and Various Rounds of Investment. Mr. Fernandes has co-founded several companies and is an advisor to a number of startups. 

Mr. Fernandes also leads a number of global initiatives, including the Missing Middle Initiative, launched at the World Economic Forum in Davos, focused on creating funds that invest $100K-$3M, a critical financing gap for early-mid stage businesses globally. Mr. Fernandes graduated a year early from New York University summa cum laude, due to his studies at Harvard University in Quantum Physics. Specialties:Mr. Fernandes is a frequent speaker on the topics of global entrepreneurship and venture capital at such venues as Harvard Business School, New York University, Wharton Business School, Wits Business School, The New York Venture Summit, Worldwide Investor Network, The United Nations, and The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE).