Keith Bank

Keith Bank is the Founder and has been the Managing Partner of KB Partners since its inception in 1996. He has been intimately involved in all aspects of the firm, including deal sourcing, evaluation and negotiation, executive recruiting, portfolio company management, board oversight, reporting to limited partners and raising capital. He has managed one predecessor sports tech fund and two traditional pure technology focused venture capital funds, and has made and overseen a large portfolio of both sports related and non-sports related angel investments. He has also founded and managed multiple companies to highly successful exits. His most notable exits have included Club Champion Golf, Golf.com, Buddy Media, Fusion Risk Management, and MST Analytics. He currently serves on the Board of Directors and oversees the firm’s investments in multiple companies, including Hammerhead, Streamlayer, Workforce Athletics, Phenix Real Time Solutions, Club Champion Golf and multiple others.

Prior to organizing KB Partners’ venture funds, Mr. Bank was an active investor in various early stage and start-up technology companies in a wide variety of industries, including the consumer, semiconductor, medical, real estate, and information technology arenas. Mr. Bank previously co-founded and served on the Board and as President of MST Analytics, Inc., (successfully sold to ATMI, Inc., a public company) and as Chairman of publicly traded Steadymed, Ltd.

Before forming KB Partners, Mr. Bank served as a Principal at Hiffman Shaffer Associates, Inc., a Chicago-based national real estate development, investment, management and brokerage firm. He participated in the development and acquisition of more than $250 million worth of retail, industrial and office properties, and also leased and/or sold properties totaling over three million square feet with a value in excess of $400 million. Major projects he either sourced and/or helped develop include Ontario City Center, The Broadway, Soo T Rail Terminal and Broadview Village Square.

Other career highlights include co-founding a chain of deep discount drugstores, acquiring and completing a successful turnaround of a women's apparel manufacturing and sales company, and procuring the equity and debt financing for, and producing feature films Tommy’s Honour (BAFTA Scotland Best Film of the Year) and Heaven Is a Playground. He got his start in venture investing as the founder of an angel investment group, which he formed as a vehicle for entrepreneurs to present their business plans to a diverse group of potential individual investors. Bank served as Founder and Chairman of the Chicago Select Golf Invitational, via which he has raised over $10 million for the American Cancer Society, making it one of the most successful events of its kind in the country. Mr. Bank has been selected as a “40 under 40” by Crain’s Chicago Business, and as a Who’s Who of Chicago Executives by Crain’s multiple times. He was one of the Founders and served as Chairman of the Illinois Venture Capital Association, where he was honored in 2006 with its prestigious Fellows Medal. He also serves on the board of NU Wave, an investment entity affiliated with the Northwestern University endowment and athletic department.

Mr. Bank graduated magna cum laude with a B.S. degree in Economics from the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania and received his MBA degree with honors from the J.L. Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University. In his younger days, he was a multiple sport athlete, and is 99% of the way toward his goal of playing the Golf Digest Top 100 U.S. golf courses and 81% of the way toward playing the Golf Magazine World Top 100 courses.