Paul Colton
Partner
Paul assists in evaluating potential investments in startups and in advising portfolio companies on technical and business issues, including evaluating technology, software readiness, strategic partnerships, and overall business strategy.
As founder and CEO of Live Software, Paul was a pioneer in the use of the Java language. Paul wrote numerous articles and was a contributing author to one of the first books on Java, Java Unleashed. Paul also developed custom software applications for the State of California, uBid.com, and numerous other companies. Through the writing of both publications and software products, Paul helped to bring the use of server-side Java in the spotlight.
Soon after Live Software was created, Paul developed a server-side Java product called JRun. Through initial free distribution of the product, JRun quickly became the most popular product in its category. After only 6 months of commercial availability, JRun's revenue grew to over $1 million per quarter. OEM and distribution partnerships were formed with dozens of companies including Cisco, Macromedia, Microsoft, Symantec, Inprise, IBM, and Intel. Twelve months after the commercial release of JRun, Live Software, a company of 9 employees, was acquired by Allaire Corporation, creators of the nearly ubiquitous ColdFusion and HomeSite product lines.
Paul's career began at International Research Institute, a privately held company in Virginia, specializing in software for command and control systems for the military. Using pre-release version of Mosaic (the precursor to Netscape and Internet Explorer), Paul was a pioneer in the use of Internet and web technologies within the company. Paul left International Research Institute in 1995 to form his own company, Live Software.