Michael Banks

Michael Banks is a Venture Advisor at Employee Stock Fund Otion, and the Founding Partner of Windy Hill Capital Partners, LLC. Based in the Bay Area, Michael has spent the last 15 years launching, establishing and managing two of the top strategic venture firms in the world (Intel Capital and Steamboat Ventures) and two successful private venture capital funds (Palisades Ventures and DE Shaw Ventures). At Intel Capital, Michael led both the Media Investment Group and the Architecture Labs managing a team of 20 investment professionals investing in next generation digital media, consumer, mobile and Internet technologies. At Steamboat Ventures, Disney’s venture arm, Michael led strategic investments in a variety of digital media categories. In 2003, Michael became a partner at Palisades Ventures in Los Angeles. Over the next four years, Michael led investments in 13 broadband and media technology companies helping generate top quartile returns for Palisades Ventures. In 2007, Michael joined DE Shaw Ventures as the media partner and executed seven compelling digital media and software investments. In 2013, Michael helped launch Luminari Capital, a digital media fund focusing on the innovation and disruption in the video and entertainment ecosystem. He also invests his own seed capital in compelling start-ups out of Windy Hill Capital. Prior to becoming a venture capitalist in 1997, Michael was an entrepreneur and consultant. As an entrepreneur, Michael co-founded imaging company AdCam. As a consultant, Michael was one of the first employees of Cornerstone Research, the leading economics consulting firm based in Menlo Park, where he worked extensively developing complex financial trading models with Nobel-prize winner Myron Scholes. Michael earned his MA and BA from Stanford University and his MBA from The Anderson School.