Derek L. Norton
Managing Partner
Derek Norton is an accomplished entrepreneur and venture capitalist with over 18 years of business building and executive management experience in the technology, internet and media industries. Derek is the founder and Managing Partner of Watertower Group. He was most recently a partner at Entertainment Media Ventures (EMV), a Michael Milken backed seed and early stage venture capital fund located in Los Angeles, California. Prior to EMV Derek founded two southern California based technology companies.
Derek was a founding member and partner of Entertainment Media Ventures, a $120 million dollar seed and early stage venture capital fund focused on investment in broadband infrastructure, consumer internet and digital media sectors. Having lead investments in Kassena, Matchcraft and Relegence amongst others, Derek helped guide and support EMV portfolio companies with their growth, strategic initiatives and capitalization strategies.
Prior to EMV, Derek spent the first ten years of his career as a technology entrepreneur. Having founded both Jeffries Technologies and Digital Boardwalk, were he developed a diversified background in technology, media, business building and executive management. From 1991 until 1998, Derek helped build Jeffries into one of Inc. Magazine’s 500 fastest growing privately held U.S. companies providing network enterprise architecture and systems integration to Global 2000 businesses.
In 1995, he founded Digital Boardwalk, a provider of web based service solutions to traditional businesses and new media business ventures. As Netscape’s second commercial partner, Digital Boardwalk was a pioneer in the provisioning of internet technologies, e-commerce development, and marketing solutions to a wide range of companies and industries. Clients included CBS SporstLine, eToys, Office Max, Hughes Global Services, News Corp, and Hewlett Packard.
Derek holds a BA in Communications from the University of Southern California. He serves on several corporate boards, and is the founder of Connex. He supports charities focused on improving the lives and education of at-risk youths, is a member of the board of directors of The Fulfillment Fund, a Los Angeles based organization providing educational mentoring and support, and was previously Vice President of the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art, Contemporaries.
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