John Balen

John Balen has been involved in the venture capital and technology industries for over 25 years. At Canaan he focuses on the digital media, enterprise, and fintech sectors and has led investments in several successful startups including Commerce One, which brought B2B ecommerce to the masses; eStamp, the pioneer in Internet postage; Everdream, an innovator in on-demand desktop management services (acq. by Dell); ID Analytics, the nation’s only real-time fraud prevention system for enterprises (acq. by LifeLock); Intraware, the leading provider of electronic license delivery and management; and Rightpoint, a real-time customer analytics software provider (acq. by Epiphany).

Before joining Canaan Partners, John held a variety of operational and financial roles, including Managing Director of Horsley Bridge Partners, a multi-billion dollar private equity firm in San Francisco. While at Horsley Bridge, John was responsible for investing in technology companies, as well as many venture capital and buyout partnerships. Earlier in his career, John was a sales applications engineer at fiber communications startup Codenoll Technology and an engineer at Digital Equipment Corp.

John currently serves on the boards of Blurb, Cardlytics, Echopass, SilverRail Technologies, SOASTA, Switchfly, and UrbanSitter.

John received a BS in electrical engineering and an MBA from Cornell University. A firm believer in education, he is a strong advocate for his alma mater, Cornell University, and his children’s schools.