Managing Partner, Praxis Ventures

Lecturer Marc Lowe is a faculty advisor for the MBA Consulting Center, helping to cast and guide the student teams working with sponsor clients. He is managing partner and founder of Praxis Ventures, a consultancy advising high-potential technology companies on strategy development, venture capital financing and M&A transactions. Praxis Ventures has been instrumental in raising more than $150 million in venture capital financing for its clients, and has advised on M&A transactions and initial public offerings valued in excess of $3 billion dollars.

Previously, Lowe was senior vice president of corporate development and general manager for emerging business units at Adaptec Inc., a publicly traded information technology firm headquartered in Silicon Valley. He was a corporate officer under SEC section 16B.

In his corporate development role, Lowe was responsible for leading the company’s strategy development, new business units and M&A activities. At Adaptec, he led the company strategic planning efforts and developed growth strategies to double revenues and triple profits in two years through a combination of organic and M&A initiatives. He successfully led multiple buy- and sell-side M&A transactions, taking them from strategic thesis development through deal sourcing, transaction execution and post-deal integration.

This marked Lowe’s second tenure with Adaptec. During his first stint with the company, he served as general manager for its core high-performance storage component business unit, growing revenues from $200 million to $500 million in three years.

Prior to returning to Adaptec, Lowe served as president and CEO of infrastructure software startup New Moon Systems Inc., culminating in the company’s acquisition by Sun Microsystems. He has held senior marketing posts in Hewlett-Packard’s personal computer business. As director of North American PC marketing, Lowe was not only responsible for marketing of a $200 million business, but developed and led the business unit’s five-year strategic planning and annual operating plan processes.

He has taught courses in new venture formation, business planning and product management.

Lowe holds an MBA from UCLA and a B.S. in genetics from UC Davis.