Tom Peterson is a Venture Partner at Rally Ventures and joined the firm at its inception in 2012. His Rally bio states he has been a venture capitalist for more than 30 years, focusing on enterprise software and infrastructure companies, that he was one of the founding members of El Dorado Ventures in 1986, and that he began his venture career in 1984 with Union Venture Corp., the venture capital arm of Union Bank. Before that he held engineering and management positions with Hewlett-Packard and General Electric. He received an MBA from UCLA and a BS from Iowa State University. His Rally bio states that he serves on the boards of 401GO, Appdome, Epoch and Rev and is a board observer at DecisionNext and PieEye; none of those seats could be confirmed against a portfolio-company filing or company board page, so boardSeats is left empty.
Education
MBA, UCLA
BS, Iowa State University
Previous Experience
Engineering and management positions, Hewlett-Packard
Engineering and management positions, General Electric
Began his venture career there in 1984; it was the venture capital arm of Union Bank, Union Venture Corp.
One of the founding members in 1986, El Dorado Ventures
Notable Investments
Braze BRZEAccess HealthClinical Research IOCyrasEarthLinkEfficient NetworksJigsawMediaQRogue Wave SoftwareScout LabsSwarm MobileIncept AI
Career Timeline
1984
Begins his venture career at Union Venture Corp., the venture capital arm of Union Bank, per his Rally Ventures bio.
1986
Is one of the founding members of El Dorado Ventures, per his Rally Ventures bio.
2012
Joins Rally Ventures at its inception as Venture Partner, per his Rally Ventures bio.
2025
Named in Rally's 30 April 2025 Incept AI post as the Rally Venture Partner with whom Ben Fried discussed the Incept AI investment.