Frederick Beste III

Visiting Lecturer
The Johnson School
Sage Hall
The Johnson School
Cornell University
Ithaca, NY 14853
Phone: 607-255-6637
FAX: 607-254-4590
Email: thebeste@nep.benfranklin.org
Fred Beste has spent his entire career in the venture capital industry, beginning in 1968 with Greater Washington Investors, Inc., a publicly held venture capital firm, where he was Vice-President and Treasurer. In 1975 he joined Kentucky Highlands Investment Corporation, a private venture capital development firm, where he was Vice-President and, ultimately, President and Chief Executive Officer. He joined MAVF in 1984 as the founding President and Chief Executive Officer of its first general partner. MAVF is comprised of four venture capital limited partnerships totaling approximately $200 million in capital. The funds focus on seed and start-up stage investments, primarily in technology-based companies located in the mid-Atlantic.

During the course of his career, Fred has served on the boards of directors of countless operating companies and has advised and worked with thousands of entrepreneurs. He has been widely published on the subjects of venture capital and entrepreneurship, and has done extensive public speaking on both subjects as well. He was the Chairman of the 1994 Mid-Atlantic Venture Fair, the largest such event in the industry, and the recipient of the Greater Philadelphia Venture Group’s 1995 Blair Thompson Memorial Award for career achievement in venture capital, and Early Stage East’s inaugural (2001) Sal Buccieri Memorial Venture Impact Award for early stage venture capital investment achievement. He received his B.A. in Economics from Stetson University, and for the past few years has served as a courtesy professor in the MBA program at Cornell University, where he teaches its Entrepreneurial Case Studies course.