Mr. Freivald brings 14 years of high-tech industry experience to his role as Venture Partner at Dakota Capital. Before joining Dakota in 2004, Mr. Freivald was a Venture Partner at TechFund Capital since 2001. Prior to joining TechFund, Mr. Freivald was the founder, president, and CEO of NetMind Technologies, Inc., which was sold to Puma Technology, Inc. (NASDAQ:PUMA) in February 2000 for $812 million in public stock. With less than $9 million in venture capital invested, Mr. Freivald's most important accomplishment at NetMind was producing an overall 10,000% ROI in four years. Other accomplishments include creating the world's first and most successful e-mail alert service, accumulating over seven million active, registered Internet users with virtually no outbound marketing expenditures, signing up major corporate customers such as eBay and Boeing, and bringing in premier investors such as Dakota Capital, Softbank Technology Ventures, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, BankBoston Ventures, Chase Capital Partners, and Charter Venture Capital.

Until May of 2000, Mr. Freivald served as Executive Vice President of Strategy at Puma aiding in transition issues associated with the acquisition. He is currently involved as a consultant, advisor, and investor with several high-tech startups.

Prior to founding NetMind, Mr. Freivald held various engineering, marketing, and management positions at Schlumberger, National Semiconductor, and Analog Devices. Mr. Freivald earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Engineering from the Rochester Institute of Technology and an MBA from San Jose State University. He holds five software patents.