Dr. David O. Ellis, Ph.D. is a Co-Founder and Managing Director at EGL Holdings and a member of the Open Range Capital Partners Board of Advisors. Dr. Ellis founded EGL Ventures, in 1988 and launched EGL’s venture capital and private equity business.
Based on his relationships in British finance circles he raised capital for EGL’s U.S. venture investments, initially from Mercury Asset Management plc, followed later by the private equity division of The National Westminster Bank. He has over 40 years’ experience in private equity investing, investment banking as well as substantial operations experience at the CxO level in European and U.S. growth companies. From 1975 to 1981, Dr. Ellis held several operational roles in the U.K. and the U.S. including Chief Operating Officer and Chief Executive Officer of B.H. Blackwell Ltd., Chief Financial Officer at Software Sciences International Ltd and Chief Executive Officer of Software Sciences Inc.
As a Managing Director at 3i, Dr. Ellis had oversight of over 200 private equity investments. In 1982, he acquired Corporate Finance Associates of Georgia (“CFA”). One of his major successes was the introduction of super-conducting magnet technology into the U.S. for what became the MRI industry. He was also an Advisor and an early angel investor in Technical Analysis Corporation (developer of the IRMA board) that became the heart of Digital Communication Associates (DCA). He served on the board of InfoMed. He has been very active in the Atlanta technology community since his arrival in 1979. He co-founded the MIT Enterprise Forum of Atlanta.
He is an Emeritus Advisory Board member of the College of Sciences at Georgia Tech and serves on the Advisory Boards of the Shepherd Center, Neural Signals Inc., and two Rehabilitation Engineering Research Centers. Dr. Ellis served on the Board of Oxford Instruments Group plc from 1983 to 1991. Dr. Ellis served as a Director of CareCentric, Mid-State Welding, ArtCraft, and chairman of Barracuda and ZSoft. In 1998, he received the Georgia Technology Forum award for “Outstanding Contribution to the Technology Industry.” Dr. Ellis received a British Petroleum scholarship to the University of St. Andrews. He earned an Honors degree in Chemistry in 1964, followed by a Ph.D. in Biophysics in 1967.