Tom Peters

Tom Peters is a co-founder and Managing Director of Inverness Advisors, a San Francisco boutique investment bank he helped establish in 2009. It is worth noting that the "Angel Investor / Seed Round" label in the source record does not match the public record: Peters is primarily an M&A and capital-raising advisor and investment banker, though earlier in his career he identified and sponsored direct investments through H&Q Venture Partners and other funds.

He began his investment-banking career in 1987 in the M&A group at Dillon, Read & Co. in New York. In 1991 he moved to San Francisco to join Hambrecht & Quist, helping start the firm's M&A practice and focusing on M&A advisory and capital-raising transactions for emerging-growth technology and healthcare companies (H&Q was acquired by JP Morgan in 2000). Through H&Q Venture Partners he actively identified and sponsored direct investments — the closest link to the "angel" framing in his background.

Before founding Inverness, Peters was head of Technology M&A at Cowen and, earlier, led the Communications & Digital Media Technology practice at Montgomery & Co., which he joined in 2005. Across these roles he and his partners have run investment-banking groups at firms including Hambrecht & Quist, Montgomery & Co., Cowen, and Lehman Brothers, and have collectively closed 300+ transactions.

He graduated magna cum laude from Washington & Lee University and earned his MBA from the University of Virginia's Darden School of Business.

• Operates as a sell-side / capital-raising advisor, not a check-writing venture or angel fund — the firm's value proposition is senior-partner-led execution ("senior partners lead every aspect of the engagement" and serve as primary contact for clients and counterparties).
• Focuses on middle-market and growth-stage companies in technology, digital media, healthcare, and enterprise services.
• Deep technology sub-sector coverage: cybersecurity, financial technology, advertising technology, mobile communications, SaaS, gaming, and publishing.
• Runs "full-service M&A execution, guiding clients through transaction preparation, go-to-market, negotiation and closing," and arranges private placements/financings with private-equity, strategic, international, and venture buyers/investors.
• Any direct-investing appetite historically ran through venture vehicles (H&Q Venture Partners) rather than a standalone Inverness fund.