Bob Davoli

Bob Davoli is an American venture capitalist at Sigma Partners in Boston, Massachusetts.

Davoli obtained a history degree from Ricker College and held a variety of early jobs, including as a substitute teacher in Boston’s public schools. As he considered his career options, Davoli began to study computer software by taking courses at Northeastern University.

In 1981 he started working for Stone and Webster, and in 1986 he founded a database consulting firm, D & N Systems, with a partner, Dave Newsom. In January 1990, in Davoli’s first successful high-tech exit, D & N Systems was acquired by Sybase a few months before that company went public. D & N Systems changed its name to SQL Solutions, and Davoli stayed on to run it as a separate operating subsidiary.

In 1992, Davoli was recruited to become CEO of Epoch Systems, a Sigma Partners portfolio company with a hierarchical storage management product. In 1993 Davoli sold Epoch Systems to EMC Corporation for $140 million. This solidified Davoli’s reputation as a successful entrepreneur and CEO. Davoli left Epoch / EMC about a year after the acquisition, and started doing angel investing and advising local startups.

At about this time, Charles Ferguson had founded Vermeer Technologies which was in the process of creating FrontPage, new and innovative software for creating web pages. Ferguson was seeking out the best advisors he could find in the area, and was recommended to Davoli, who joined the Vermeer board as an independent director. Vermeer was purchased by Microsoft in January 1996 for $130m.

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