Jim Kiles believes that every thing in his education and work career has led to Vayu, a cloud computing company that makes wind farms and drones more productive. "We are on the cusp of using technology to benefit the Earth in a time when industry appreciates new ideas, as long as the entrepreneur believes with every ounce of their being," says Jim. "Vayu is a dream come true- an opportunity to work on cutting edge technology in a huge market where every sale helps the planet. My strong commitment to systemic change as an instrument of progress has a perfect place with Vayu."
Jim is a lifelong entrepreneur and visionary whose career began as a paper boy for the Long Island Newsday. He won trips to Coney Island by getting new customers. Expansion and employee strategies were important even then. Jim recalls acquiring paper routes from friends and hiring his (very cute) younger sisters to "collect" from customers, getting better tips than he ever could!
Educated as a lawyer, Jim's creative entrepreneurial instinct led him to join Intel as a systems engineer in 1995. There he planned and deployed the very first international, satellite based, hybrid IP communications network. His team installed numerous startup technologies in the network, without IT permission! The technology won an Intel award for Jim's Integrated Communications Research Lab. It also led the legendary Avram Miller to try and spin the Lab out as a startup with VC support!
Instead, Accel Partners integrated the technology with a startup, Intel invested and Avram brought Jim into Intel Capital. It was also a match made in heaven. In five years at Intel Capital (1996-2001), Jim enjoyed working to accelerate business in the use of new technologies that enhanced their work, supported faster processors and made money for entrepreneurs.
Jim worked with the legal, medical, investment, media and sports industries to accelerate industry technology adoption. He led Intel investments in Enabling Technologies startups resulting in IPOs (Akamai, Loudeye, Williams Communications, iBeam Broadcasting, Juno Online Services), mergers and acquisitions (Sightpath (by Cisco), Sandpiper (by Digital Island), NetPodium (by Akamai), SportVision (by Ignite), and Excalibur (by Intel)) and a $2B Intel spinout and joint venture with Allen & Company and the NBA.
Jim left Intel in 2001, to become CEO of a software as a service (SaaS) business, the first of several senior executive roles at SaaS businesses (Eyetide Media, Visage Mobile, Cloudmark, GroundControl). In those roles, Jim learned many of the software, data center and network skillsets that benefit Vayu.
In 2014, Jim made a critical career move, transitioning to work that would put him in the middle of Climate Change technology investigation. He joined the Industrial Advisory Board at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, where he helped develop an approach to commercializing "hard science" at the national lab. This work led to the founding of the US National Labs Accelerator Competition and the Energy i-Corps Program (Department of Energy).
Deep involvement with the National Labs gave Jim the opportunity to merge his experience with accelerating industries at Intel and developing cloud computing businesses as a startup exec. From 2014-2017 Jim worked with more than 100 scientists on industry opportunities, including rare earth mining, solar materials, wind turbine construction, hydrogen and carbon recapture (among many more great ideas).
In 2017, Jim decided that cloud based wind software systems for increased production and reduced LCOE (costs) was the best fit for his skills and Vayu was born!
"It has been the best work of a great career, with so much left to accomplish! I wake up every day re-energized and excited to engage with wonderful people on difficult concepts! We just charge ahead!"
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