Maha Ibrahim

Maha Ibrahim invests in innovative cloud and digital media companies with the potential to become global market leaders. Maha is known in the venture industry for her ability to spot technology trends early, foster growth at her portfolio companies through hands-on operational guidance, and achieve profitable exits for entrepreneurs and investors.

Maha joined Canaan’s Menlo Park office in March 2000. She was one of the first investors to recognize the huge potential of social gaming. Maha led Canaan Partners’ early investment in social games pioneer PicksPal (acquired by Liberty Media) and was a seed investor in Kabam, the world’s largest developer of massively multiplayer social games and Koolbit, the first social retail site for online games. Maha also invests in enterprise technology companies leveraging cloud computing to improve business outcomes. She led investments in Virsto (acquired by VMware), creator of the first virtual storage architecture; XDN (acquired by Fortinet), provider of a cloud-based management solution for disparate content delivery resources; and SenSage (acquired by KEYW Corporation), provider of log management and security information management systems.

Earlier, Maha led Canaan Partners’ investment in Tacit Networks, helping the company negotiate a partnership with Brocade and a later acquisition by Packeteer Networks, and was a lead investor in Mobilitec (acquired by Alcatel-Lucent).

Maha has won numerous industry awards, including The Silicon Valley Business Journal 40 Under 40 award, and is a regular on BloombergTV. In addition, Maha has spoken at a variety of industry conferences including Game Developers Conference, Social Media Insider Summit, OMMA Global, GigaOm Structure, Ernst & Young Strategic Growth Forum, Web 2.0 Expo, Under the Radar Cloud Computing, Digital Hollywood, CTIA Wireless, AlwaysOn Stanford Summit, and Global Tech Forum, among others.

Prior to joining Canaan, Maha held numerous executive-level roles at Qwest Communications, including Vice President of Business Development and Vice President of eBusiness and Internet Operations. While at Qwest, her keen networking skills helped the company forge relationships with Netscape and Microsoft. Earlier in her career, Maha was a management consultant with both the Boston Consulting Group and Price Waterhouse.

Maha holds a B.A. in Economics and an M.A. in Sociology from Stanford University and a Ph.D. in Economics from MIT. She currently sits on the boards of Cuyana, Kabam, Koolbit and The RealReal.  Previous board seats include SenSage, PicksPal, Tacit Networks, Mobilitec, Virsto and XDN.  Maha is an active member of the MIT/Stanford Venture Lab (VLAB), a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting the growth and success of high-tech entrepreneurial ventures by connecting ideas, technology and people. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her husband and two young sons.

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