Charles has been a venture capitalist since 1997 and has focused on early-stage business technology companies throughout his career. Charles co-founded Rally Ventures in 2012 with Jeff Hinck. He started his venture career as an associate at Scripps Ventures after working as an analyst at Piper Jaffray and earlier as a systems consultant at the Mayo Clinic, where he helped design a radiology information system. Some of Charles’ notable investments include: Coupa Software, which had a highly successful IPO in 2016 (Nasdaq: COUP); Compellent Technologies, which held an IPO and was subsequently sold to Dell, returning more than 9x invested capital; NuSpeed, which was acquired by Cisco Systems returning 55x invested capital; Verodin; and Twistlock.