At COO (Boardroom Media) we track over 1,000,000 startups and over 5,000,000 people who hold key positions in these companies. We use this directory of startups to highlight top employees, founders and board members we think deserve more appreciation than they are currently getting.
This list showcases the top California based COO’ operating in the Virtual Reality space. If you think a COO’ is missing from this list, feel free to contact our editor on [email protected].
The individuals on this list have been included because of exceptional performance in one of the following categories:
- Innovation – Operating as a key part in an extremely innovative business or startup.
- Growth – Operating as a key figure in the growth and upscale of a market leading business or startup.
- Management – Showing exceptional management skills.
- Societal impact – Putting their business on the map for their positive societal or environmental impact.
Our Data – We source our data from OSINT (open source intelligence) and public directories such as Crunchbase, SemRush and many more. The data from these sources should be treated with a degree of caution and verified yourself.
Matt Grimm
Co-Founder and COO of Anduril Industries
Matt Grimm is Co-Founder and COO of Anduril Industries. Matt was profoundly moved by the tragedy wrought on his community and many others around the world by the attacks of 9/11. It was then that he decided to combine his passion for building with a deep sense of mission to further the country’s national defense—a career path that ultimately led him to co-found Anduril. While classmates at Cornell University, Matt co-founded with Brian Schimpf the university’s autonomous vehicle entry into the DARPA Grand Challenge and Urban Challenge competitions. He graduated from Cornell with both a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering and a Master of Engineering in Systems Engineering. After consulting for the Department of Defense at Booz Allen Hamilton, Matt was an early hire at Palantir. In this role, he deployed to both Iraq and Afghanistan to ensure U.S. forces had the best technology for the mission. Matt co-founded Anduril after some time working in venture capital in the San Francisco Bay Area. He lives in Orange County, California with his wife and two children.
Follow Matt Grimm:
About Anduril Industries: Anduril Industries is a defense product company that builds technology for military agencies and border surveillance.
Seth Skolnik
Chief Operating Officer of Live Planet VR System
Seth Skolnik is a Chief Operating Officer at Live Planet VR System.
Follow Seth Skolnik:
About Amplify.LA, Live Planet VR System, Veritonic Inc.: Live Planet’s VR System is the first end-to-end solution for easily capturing, storing, streaming, and recording immersive VR video
Michael Manuccia
Chief Operating Officer of STRIVR
Former FBI Analyst, Wharton Business School Michael is a former Federal Bureau of Investigation analyst who spent seven years serving the FBI’s Counterterrorism Division and Director’s Office. While in the Director’s Office, Michael worked with the Associate Deputy Director (the FBI’s Chief Operating Officer) to manage the FBI’s evolution to an intelligence-driven, threat-based, learning organization. Michael has an undergraduate degree from Georgetown University and, before joining STRIVR, attended The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania.
Follow Michael Manuccia:
About STRIVR: STRIVR is an information technology company that specializes in virtual reality, customer experience, and athlete performance.
Chris Milk
Co-Founder, CEO and COO of Supernatural
Chris Milk is the Co-Founder, CEO, and COO of Supernatural. He is an artist, director, and technologist.He is the founder and CEO of [Vrse](https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/vrse#/entity). Milk has gained recognition as a music video director, working with Arcade Fire, U2, Kanye West, Green Day, Johnny Cash, Gnarls Barkley, Chemical Brothers, John Mellencamp, Courtney Love, and Modest Mouse. He has been honored with the top industry awards for his music video and commercial work, including the Grand Prix Cannes Lion, the D&AD Black Pencil, the Grand Clio, and SXSW’s ’Best of Show’, as well as multiple Grammy nominations, MTV Moon Men, and the UK’s MVA Innovation Award. Milk’s short film, Last Day Dream, played at film festivals around the world, and he directed the second unit of A Mother’s Promise, the film that introduced Barack Obama at the 2008 Democratic National Convention. The Smithsonian’s Cooper-Hewitt National Design Awards recognized his work in design and art in 2011. The Wilderness Downtown was named as one of TIME Magazine’s 30 Best Music Videos of all time, and was exhibited at MoMA in NY for 6 months in 2011. Milk builds multiple projects with Virtual Reality as the canvas. The collaboration with Beck called “Sound & Vision” has been exhibited in an Oculus Rift at the Future of Storytelling Summit, Sundance Film Festival, SXSW, and Tribeca Film Festival. Chris Milk was born in New York.
Follow Chris Milk:
About Here Be Dragons, Supernatural, Within (VR/AR): Supernatural is an immersive, virtual reality fitness experience that combines music, coaches, destinations, and movements.
Ratson Morad
COO of DigiLens
Follow Ratson Morad:
About DigiLens: DigiLens is an innovator in holographic waveguide display technology for extended reality (XR).
Aaron Grosky
Chief Operating Officer of Dreamscape Immersive
Aaron Grosky started his career in Dreamscape Immersive as the new Chief Operating Officer. Prior to this, he serves as the President of Control Room, he guides the company’s long-term strategic direction across all aspects of the company’s business, including event production, television production, media architecture design, artist and celebrity relationships, sponsorship development, and creative vision. In addition to his role at Dreamscape Immersive, Grosky is the Global Producer of Talent and Programming for Live Earth. He is responsible for identifying the creative vision for Live Earth entertainment programming and securing the world’s leading artist and celebrities to make the vision a reality. Leveraging the production and programming expertise of Control Room, Grosky oversees all on-the-ground production and content distribution deals for Live Earth events worldwide. In 2007, he was responsible for securing 150 top artists and identifying the programming strategy for the eight stages around the world, he was a key architect in making Live Earth the largest global entertainment event in history, touching nearly two billion people through the event’s massive media architecture (television, radio, web and mobile broadcasts), pervasive grass roots initiatives, and deep global news media penetration. Previously, as Executive Vice President of Music Programming and Production for Control Room, Grosky identified and executed the company’s long-term programming strategy and led all Control Room productions. Leveraging long-standing relationships with artists, managers and labels, Grosky identified key opportunities with the world’s leading artists, negotiated broadcast opportunities with management and labels to maximize the offering for a variety of distribution partners, and oversaw all aspects of production to ensure the highest quality end product for both artists and distribution partners. Prior to his role at Dreamscape Immersive, Control Room, and Live Earth, Grosky spent 10 plus years in the music industry developing an expertise in the burgeoning convergence with technology. He founded Shift Inc., a consumer-facing digital music conversion, training and consulting company, which he sold to Virgin Entertainment Group in 2005. Following the sale, Grosky joined Virgin Entertainment Group as the head of the Digital Division where he served as architect of the company’s digital music service including identifying the programming voice, securing the artist and label relationships, and implementing systems for penetration in the US and Europe. As a precursor to the founding of Shift Inc., Grosky held a position as chief of creative services for Almo Sounds, working closely with Jerry Moss and Herb Alpert. In addition to his role inside the label leading the company’s entry into the digital space, he served as chief strategic advisor to both partners in their efforts to enhance business units and assets outside of Almo Sounds. He started his career as a regional sales and marketing rep for Geffen Records and Sony Music in Boston.
Follow Aaron Grosky:
About Control Room, Dreamscape Immersive: Dreamscape Immersive is a company that uses VR technologies to create an entirely new form of mainstream location-based entertainment.
David Cramer
Chief Operating Officer of NextVR
Follow David Cramer:
About NextVR: NextVR is a technology company that captures and delivers live and on-demand virtual reality experiences.
Hatem Naguib
Chief Operating Officer of Barracuda Networks
Follow Hatem Naguib:
About Barracuda Networks: Barracuda is a provider of powerful, easy-to-use, affordable IT solutions for security and storage.
Keita Funakawa
COO of Nanome
As a scientifically minded artist, Keita grew up in Tokyo then moved to Honolulu where he attended middle and high school. As the lead programmer for his high school robotics team, he led his team to two time (2009,2010) state championships at the East Oahu VEX robotics competitions. As an award winning filmmaker, his film Foliage: Roots of the Tree Barrel won the 2014 HIFF (Hawaii International Film Festival) student showcase and was named San Diego Surf Film Festival’s Emerging Filmmaker. During my undergraduate career, after reading about Mt.Gox in late 2013, I found a new passion for cryptocurrencies and blockchain which made me switch my degree from Computer Science to Management Science (Quantitative Economics). Being the Assistant Curator for the UC San Diego Film Festival, I was exposed to VR since 2014. When I first experienced the google cardboard and the HTC vive, I decided that I could no longer be a painter when photography just got invented, sort of speak. This led me to learn as much as I could about VR. At the Festival I met Steve, who told me about his idea for Nanome (formerly NanoVR) in April 2015. Nanome is a software company that democratizes Science to accelerate innovation using Virtual Reality and Blockchain Technologies.
Follow Keita Funakawa:
About Nanome: Nanome is a virtual reality software company that offers a collaborative XR software platform for molecular design.
Robert Nashak
Chief Operating Officer of Survios
Follow Robert Nashak:
About Survios: Survios is a virtual reality company that creates groundbreaking interactive content powered by cutting edge immersive technology.
George Haber
Chief Operating Officer of Fyusion
Haber’s Law! “If it can be done in Software it will”. Successful Serial Entrepreneur, Marketing Guru, Strategist, with proven track record, from envisioning, implement, guide and manage High Tech Companies from StartUp up to M&A or IPO. A dynamic example of that special breed of Silicon Valley entrepreneurs who are powering the technology revolution. Frequently quoted speaker at national and international conferences, and one of the key people of the story of the Xbox. You can read it in the book “Opening the Xbox: Inside Microsoft’s Plan to Unleash an Entertainment Revolution” By Dean Takahasi. ISBN-10: 0761537082 http://www.amazon.com/Opening-Xbox-Microsofts-Entertainment-Revolution/dp/0761537082 Specialties: Starting StartUps and helping Private / Public Companies with Strategy and Tactics to gain and sustain long-term growth and financial success. Expert in Marketing, Competitive Analysis, financing, Mergers and Acquisitions. Active Angel Investor and Board Member working with entrepreneurs on serious, innovative, disruptive technologies. A few select Public and Private Companies: Zoran (Nasdaq: ZRAN), 3Dfx (Nasdaq: TDFX), Intervideo (Nasdaq: IVII), Class Data Systems acquired by Cisco (Nasdaq: CSCO), Lucid, InterAKT acquired by ADOBE (Nasdaq:ADBE) , BitDefender.
Follow George Haber:
About Cresta Fund Management, Fyusion: Fyusion develops products powered by 3D computer vision and machine learning.
Kenneth Ryu
Co-Founder & COO of BinaryVR
Kenneth served as VP of Operations at Playnery for over 2 years. He was responsible for launching two mobile game titles in the global market, where he also experienced and learned everything that a start-up could possible teach. Prior to Playnery, he was Monetization Manager at Gala-Net, a Webzen company. Kenneth received a BA in Business Administration from Yonsei University, and earned an MBA from Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth.
Follow Kenneth Ryu:
About BinaryVR, Hyprsense: BinaryVR develops facial expression tracking technology for AR/VR.
Michael Rucker
Co-Founder & COO of OmniVirt
Michael Rucker is the Co-Founder and COO of OmniVirt, a 360° VR advertising and distribution platform. Prior to OmniVirt, Michael spent 7 years at YouTube holding a variety of different leadership positions. Michael led YouTube’s content strategy across its 5 main verticals: Entertainment, Music, Sports, News, and Education. Joining YouTube in 2007, Michael helped drive YouTube’s growth from its early days, launching YouTube’s first monetization products to leading consumer marketing for the site across Asia-Pacific. Michael has touched both the consumer and business side of the digital video business.
Follow Michael Rucker:
About OmniVirt: Leading Immersive Advertising (VR/AR) Platform
Jan-Hein Pullens
Co-Founder and COO of roOomy
Jan-Hein Pullens is the Advisor To The Board at Loft.
Follow Jan-Hein Pullens:
About roOomy: roOomy’s patented 3D/AR/VR technology brings your listing, home and décor to life with fast, scalable 3D modeling and rendering services.
Annie Rogaski
Chief Operating Officer of Avegant
Building on a 20 year litigation and intellectual property practice, Annie joined the Avegant team as its General Counsel and first lawyer to support the growth of the Avegant Video Headset. A graduate of UC Santa Barbara and McGeorge School of Law, Annie has co-founded a non-profit organization and a law firm. She was also awarded Top 50 Women Leaders in Technology Law and 2015 Woman of Influence by San Jose Business Journal. Passionate about litigation and IP, Annie runs a podcast focused on law, life and women outside of the office.
Follow Annie Rogaski:
About Avegant: Avegant specialize in developing display technology to enable previously impossible augmented reality experiences.
Elaine Lu
Co-Founder & COO of Visbit
Elaine Lu is the Co-Founder and CEO of Visbit Inc.
Follow Elaine Lu:
About Visbit, Visbit: Smart transmission and playback of premium quality immersive media across headsets, mobile, and web.
Adil Suranchin
Chief Operating Officer of ORBI
Adil Suranchin is the CEO of ORBI Inc.
Follow Adil Suranchin:
About ORBI: We built Orbi Prime – 360° video recording eyewear that seamlessly integrates into a mass consumer’s daily lifestyle.
Adil Suranchin
Chief Operating Officer of ORBI
Adil Suranchin is the CEO of ORBI Inc.
Follow Adil Suranchin:
About ORBI: We built Orbi Prime – 360° video recording eyewear that seamlessly integrates into a mass consumer’s daily lifestyle.
Zachary Chun
COO, CFO of Sixense
Over 10 years in finance, including investment banking and private equity, with firms such as Robertson Stephens in San Francisco and Citigroup in New York and London.
Follow Zachary Chun:
About Sixense: Sixense Enterprises Inc is a leading provider of VR/AR enterprise solutions.
Terri Feldman Lubaroff
Chief Operating Officer & Head of Content of Legion M
Terri Lubaroff serves as the Chief Operating Officer at Legion M.
Follow Terri Feldman Lubaroff:
About Agency for Dispute Resolution, Legion M: Legion M is a fan-owned entertainment company producing a slate of movies, TV, and digital content.
AJ “Dr Doom” Shewki
Co-founder ,CEO & COO of LIV
Follow AJ “Dr Doom” Shewki:
About LIV: LIV creates technology to share Virtual Reality experiences.
Jennifer Rundell
COO / Co-Founder of Positron
Follow Jennifer Rundell:
About Positron: Positron offers first chair that is designed specifically for fully immersive cinematic VR.
Abraham Agopian
COO of Evara VR
Follow Abraham Agopian:
About Evara VR: Virtual Realty based software company.
Travis Cloyd
Partner, COO of SkyVR
Follow Travis Cloyd:
About SkyVR: SKY VR is one of the leading VR production companies in the world.
Zachary Lovenson
Co-Founder & COO of TickHIve
Co-Founder & CFO at TickHIve
Follow Zachary Lovenson:
About TickHIve: Scan It, Live It, Relive It
Zachary Lovenson
Co-Founder & COO of TickHIve
Co-Founder & CFO at TickHIve
Follow Zachary Lovenson:
About TickHIve: Scan It, Live It, Relive It