Andrea Kalmans
Membership: Founding Member
Joined: March 2023
Company: Lontra Ventures
Title: Founder
Education: BBA, Finance, Economics from Wisconsin School of Business and MBA from Texas McCombs School of Business
Social Media: LinkedIn
Professional Biography
Andrea is an active Austin angel investor, advisor, and start-up champion. Lontra Ventures engages with start-ups tacking massive global challenges with deep technology.
Andrea partners with founders tackling massive market opportunities and explosive growth rates primarily targeting enterprise sales. At her core, she embraces founder friendly ideals and practices. The Lontra portfolio is primarily targeted in: AI/ML, developer tools, high performance computing, IT infrastructure, security and web optimization with delivery models ranging from SaaS and Enterprise Sales. Andrea builds the technology portfolio with passion and energy as well as focus and discipline.
Andrea’s strengths reside in identifying emerging trends and finding the best people to deliver that innovation. In her advising capacity, Andrea works side-by-side founders in crafting messaging to best drive sales business development as well as to achieve product/market fit. Andrea spends her time at innovation hubs such as Techstars and Capital Factory.
Prior to joining Lontra Ventures, Andrea ran a $700M global P&L for Dell and worked in the Media Investment Bank of Salomon Smith Barney in NYC. She holds an MBA from UT, Austin and degrees in Finance/Economics from UW-Madison where she graduated Phi Beta Kappa.
Andrea, her husband Walter, and her kids, Sabrina and Hudson, are proud to call Austin home!
Features
The Business Journals: Startup investor Andrea Kalmans Touches the Globe from Austin
Austin American Statesmen: Austin startups to watch: Chamber unveils its A-List of promising young companies
TechCrunch: Austin emerges as a city of unicorns and tech giants
Endorsements
I can say with utmost confidence that should you have the opportunity to work with such a positive, bright and effective force in Business Development, Sales, Strategic Partnerships as Andrea Kalmans, you should take it.
- Amanda McGuckin Hager, Vice President of Marketing
I’ve had the opportunity to know Andrea for several years and work with her at Infochimps and cannot recommend her more highly. Her skill at understanding the root value proposition for a company and designing and executing killer business development strategies is exceptional. She has a terrific ability to identify the appropriate target customers and partners for a business and bring them on board in a way that is persistent, but not at all overbearing, and delivers value to both sides of the deal. Plus, Andrea is an absolute pleasure to work with - she has a unique ability to make people feel comfortable and the energy and enthusiasm she brings to the team is contagious.
- Dean Cruse, Vice President of Marketing