Immersive video company C360 Technologies has appointed longtime business development executive Howard Wright as its CEO and secured a new round of fundraising from investors that include Wayne Kimmel’s SeventySix Capital. Kimmel also will join the board of the Pittsburgh-based company, which creates 360-degree videos for use in broadcasts by leagues like the NFL, NHL, UFC and NASCAR and networks such as ESPN, CBS Sports and Fox Sports.
Wright graduated from Stanford and played for three NBA teams before working at Qualcomm and Intel.Getty Images
“The winners and the losers of this immersive media economy are being built right now,” said Wright. “That’s why it’s exciting for me personally, and I think that’s why some of the additional funding and the additional board members are excited to go on this journey with us.” Wright said that C360’s “defensible intellectual property,” its list of partners and its “world-class board” were the core factors in his decision to join the company.
A former professional basketball player who played 19 games with the Atlanta Hawks, Dallas Mavericks and Orlando Magic in the early 1990s, Wright has been in the tech world for nearly two decades, overseeing business development at Qualcomm for 13 years before joining Intel in 2015.
Rick Alessandri, Turnkey Search’s managing director of media and tech, led C360’s executive search process. “I’ve known Howard for 20 years, having worked with him in his early days at Qualcomm, when I was leading some mobile initiatives for ESPN,” said Alessandri, who added that the search considered over 100 candidates.
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Alessandri said that diversity was a “key factor” in its search, and Wright noted that the C360 role will allow him to make an impact that’s “not just financial.”
“I think there’s an extra and added responsibility for African American CEOs,” said Wright. “I am stepping into this opportunity fully aware of the responsibilities across multiple metrics on which I will be judged, and I am ready for all of them.”
C360, founded in 2008, has raised $1.8 million in a new financing round from SeventySix Capital and Serial Stage Investment Partners. The investment follows a previous $3.7 million round from BlueTree Capital Group, Boeing HorizonX Ventures, MI-12 Ventures and Pasadena Angels. Kimmel, SeventySix Capital’s managing partner, joins a board that features BlueTree founder Catherine Mott, former Pypestream President and COO Saied Seghatoleslami, former ESPN executive Jed Drake and C360 co-founder Evan Wimer.
Kimmel said C360 has been on his radar since the company won a pitch competition at SeventySix Capital’s Sports Innovation Conference last year, and he said the appointment of Wright as CEO ultimately landed his investment. “If there’s anything that I’ve learned over the last 21 years being in the venture capital business, it’s that if you back a really good entrepreneur, that company will be successful, regardless of whatever it is,” said Kimmel.
