TCOA

Definitive Agreement

TCOA
First $9.80
Recent $10.69
9%

Trajectory Alpha Acquisition Corp.

Raised
$150M
CIK
1846750
SPAC Ticker
TCOA.U
Focus
Technology
External link: SEC Filings

SPAC Team

Leadership

Mr. Peter Bordes has been our Executive Chairman and Chief Executive Officer since February 2021. Mr. Bordes has over 30 years of experience as an entrepreneur, chief executive officer, investor and board member of multiple private and public media, ad tech and technology companies. Since May 2012, he has been the managing partner of Trajectory Capital, a family office investment fund focused on disruptive innovation in private and public companies.

Mr. Bordes was the Chief Executive Officer of Kubient, Inc. (NASDAQ: KBNT), a cloud-based advertising marketplace with artificial intelligence powered ad fraud prevention, from May 2019 to October 2020 and currently serves as a member of the board of directors of Kubient, Inc.. As the Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Bordes led the company through its successful initial public offering in August 2020. Mr. Bordes was also previously the founder and Chief Executive Officer of MediaTrust Inc., a performance marketing ad exchange, where he helped lead the company through its early stages and, in 2009, was named the 9th fastest growing company in the United States by Inc. 500.

Mr. Bordes also currently serves on the board of directors of Beasley Broadcast Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: BBGI). Mr. Bordes joined the board of directors of Beasley Broadcast Group, Inc. following the sale of the radio division of Greater Media, Inc., a cable, radio and newspaper conglomerate, to Beasley Broadcast Group, Inc. for $240 million in July 2016. Mr. Bordes served on the board of directors of Greater Media, Inc. and was actively involved in sale of Greater Media, Inc. to Beasley Broadcast Group, Inc. Mr. Bordes has also served on the board of directors of Alfi, an artificial intelligence and machine learning company, since February 2021.

Since January 2017, Mr. Bordes has been the co-founder and the managing director of TruVest, an impact real-estate investment, development and technology company. Since January 2018, he has also been an investor and serves on the board of directors of Fraud.net, an artificial intelligence powered, cloud-based fraud prevention infrastructure platform. Since November 2018, Mr. Bordes has also been a co-founder, investor and member of the board of directors of MainBloq, a modular digital asset trading platform.

Mr. Bordes received a Bachelor of Science in Communication, Business and Media Studies from the New England College.

Mr. Michael E.S. Frankel has been our President and Chief Financial Officer since February 2021. Mr. Frankel has over 30 years of experience in public and private M&A and as a senior executive at multiple public and private technology-related companies. Mr. Frankel has advised on or led over 60 M&A transactions representing more than $15 billion in transaction value throughout his career as well as more than 50 equity/debt transactions representing more than $10 billion in transaction value. Since May 2015, he has been a Senior Vice President, Managing Director and Head of Deloitte New-venture Accelerator, where he leads the Portfolio Operations and Growth Strategy for a portfolio of growth technology businesses at Deloitte.

Prior to Deloitte, Mr. Frankel served as the Chief Financial Officer of 50onRED, an advertising technology company, and was the Chief Financial Officer of comiXology, a high-growth digital comics platform. At comiXology, Mr. Frankel built out the finance and product strategy teams, helped execute and close financings and helped structure comiXology’s sales process and terms of sale to Amazon in 2014.

Mr. Frankel was previously the Senior Vice President and Global Head of Business Development and M&A at LexisNexis. During his time at LexisNexis, Mr. Frankel completed 18 deals. Prior to LexisNexis, Mr. Frankel was the Senior Vice President of Corporate Development & Strategy at Information Resources / Symphony Technology Group, LLC, completing three deals. Prior to Information Resources / Symphony Technology Group, LLC, Mr. Frankel was Vice President of Business Development at G.E. Capital, where he was responsible for M&A, divestitures, equity investments, joint ventures and partnerships, helping execute four deals. Prior to G.E. Capital, Mr. Frankel was Vice President and General Manager of Directory Services and Vice President of Corporate Development of Verisign (NASDAQ: VRSN), where he led 20 deals.

Mr. Frankel was previously a Vice President in the Global Industries Group at Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith Incorporated and an M&A lawyer at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP. During his time with both firms, Mr. Frankel completed over 40 deals, including advising multiple Fortune 100 clients on acquisition and equity/debt offerings.

Mr. Frankel served on the board of directors of Onvia, Inc. (NASDAQ: ONVI) as well as the boards of directors and advisory boards of several private growth technology companies.

Mr. Frankel received a Juris Doctorate, Master’s in Business Administration, Master’s in International Relations and Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from the University of Chicago.

Mr. Paul Sethi has been our Lead Director since February 2021. Mr. Sethi has over 20 years of experience as an investor in and operator of multiple technology-related public and private companies. Since January 2019, he has been a Managing Partner and Co-Founder of 2048 Ventures, an early-stage venture fund focused on technology-differentiated ventures and backed by more than 50 notable technology company founders, senior executives and venture capitalists.

Prior to founding 2048 Ventures, from November 2010 to May 2018, Mr. Sethi was the Chief Executive Officer of Redbooks, a leading sales intelligence platform focused on the marketing and advertising industry, used by thousands of professionals globally, including at ABC Disney, Adobe, Conde Nast, Dun & Bradstreet, Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, NBC Universal, Nielsen, etc. Mr. Sethi acquired Redbooks from LexisNexis in 2010 and, during his 7-year tenure as the Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Sethi scaled the team, technology and product offerings and, in 2018, successfully sold the company to List Partners, LLC, a Northlane Capital Partners platform. Since 2014, Mr. Sethi has also been a co-founder of Robuzz, a machine learning and natural language processing platform providing real-time news alerts, and deployed the technology via APIs into publishing, marketing and information services enterprises. Earlier in his career, Mr. Sethi was a Partner / Analyst at Iroquois Capital Management, a public equities fund focused on small and micro-cap investments in diversified technology companies.

As an investor, Mr. Sethi has served as an early backer of multiple high-profile technology companies, including Flexport, Transfix, SeatGeek, LearnVest, Enigma and Zinier, and in companies acquired by Airbnb, Amazon, Blackstone, Chegg, Discovery, Facebook, Marketo, Motorola, Pinterest, Randstad, Twitter, Uber and Wish. He is also a limited partner of numerous high-profile funds, including Union Square Ventures, SV Angel, Lowercase Capital, Boldstart Ventures, Eniac Ventures, Cowboy Ventures, Bullpen Capital, Inspired Capital, MetaProp and Casa Verde.

Mr. Sethi received a Master’s in Business Administration from Columbia Business School and a Bachelor of Science in Economics from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He is also currently an Expert in Residence at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and Columbia Business School, a mentor to Techstars and Entrepreneurs Roundtable Accelerator programs and an advisor to Open Fortune and Transfix.

Board of Directors

Mr. Jonathan Bond has agreed to serve as a member of our board of directors . Mr. Bond is one of the advertising and marketing industry’s most recognized thought leaders and entrepreneurs, with over 35 years of experience. He previously was the Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of KBP. Prior to KBP, Mr. Bond served as the Chief Executive Officer of Big Fuel (now part of Publicis), one of the world’s largest social media agencies that serves blue chip clients. He helped establish iballs, one of the first online media agencies, which sold to Microsoft in the early 2000s. He also co-founded Media Kitchen and Varick under the KBP umbrella. From 2015 to December 2016, Mr. Bond was the founder of Tomorro LLC, an innovation consultancy. From January 2017 to June 2018, Mr. Bond was the Co-Chairman at The Shipyard, a full-service advertising agency focused on data science, which acquired Tomorro LLC. From June 2017 to June 2020, Mr. Bond was the Chairman and director of SITO Mobile, Ltd. He is currently fractional CMO/partner of Blue Bear Protection, Lacure and Halo Collar and a member of the board of directors of Sonobi, Inc. Mr. Bond has had investments and/or board roles at White Ops, Compound (formerly known as Metamorphic Ventures), TZP Group, Victors and Spoils (now part of Havas), Simplifi, Appinions, Data Xu, BlackBook magazine and Klout.

Mr. Bond received a Bachelor of Arts from Washington University (St. Louis).

Mr. Ninan Chacko has agreed to serve as a member of our board of directors . Mr. Chacko currently serves as senior advisor to McKinsey & Company. From September 2015 to January 2020, Mr. Chacko has served as the Chief Executive Officer Internova Travel Group. Internova Travel Group is one of the largest retail, corporate and entertainment travel companies in North America and the United Kingdom. The company had sales of over $20 billion in 2016 and more than 4,000 employees in 2018. He executed an aggressive growth strategy employing cutting-edge marketing and technology, and the company also acquired more than 20 travel firms during his tenure at Internova Travel Group. Prior to joining Internova Travel Group, he served as the Chief Executive Officer of PR Newswire. During his tenure, PR Newswire enjoyed significant organic growth from product innovation and international expansion. Before his tenure at PR Newswire, Mr. Chacko was the Chief Commercial Officer of Worldspan, the worldwide travel information, e-commerce and technology service provider. He was a founding member of the buyout consortium management team that acquired Worldspan from Delta Air Lines, Northwest Airlines and American Airlines, and served as the Chief Commercial Officer until its sale to Travelport Worldwide Ltd. Prior to Worldspan, Mr. Chacko spent more than 13 years with Sabre Holdings.

Mr. Chacko received his Master of Science and Bachelor of Science in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Kansas. He completed Harvard Business School’s Advanced Management Program and the London Business School’s Spencer Stuart Directors’ Forum, and earned his Certified Travel Counselor (CTC) from The Travel Institute.

Ms. Elisabeth H. DeMarse has agreed to serve as a member of our board of directors . From 2012 to March 2016, Ms. DeMarse served as the President and Chief Executive Officer and chair of the board of directors of TheStreet, Inc. Ms. DeMarse diversified The Street, Inc. from a B2C ad supported retail stock picking business to B2B global M&A, data and news businesses. Ms. DeMarse spent 10 years as the Chief Marketing Officer for Bloomberg LP working directly for the founder, Michael Bloomberg. Her Glassdoor Chief Executive Officer ranking is 100% and her companies have been voted best Media Company to work for. She is currently a member of the board of directors of Kubient, Inc. and a member of the board of directors and a chair of the audit committee of Clever Leaves Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ: CLVR). Ms. DeMarse previously served as a member of the boards of directors of ZipRealty (ZIPR), InsWeb Corp (INSW), Internet Patents Corporation (INTP), Edgar-Online (EDGR), Heska Corporation (HSKA), Incredimail (MAIL), Stockgroup (SWB), LiveDeal (LIVE), YP.com (YP), Nedsense (NEDSE), All Star Directories and ProNoun.

Ms. DeMarse received her MBA from Harvard Business School and her Bachelor of Arts from Wellesley College. She is also a member of The Committee of 200.