Bobby Yazdani

From 1988 to 1997, Yazdani held various senior management positions at Oracle Corporation.^[7][8]

Yazdani founded Saba Software in 1997 and took the company public in 2000. He was identified as an industry pioneer in creating the Human Capital Management category.^[9] Under his leadership, Saba acquired THINQ Learning Solutions in May 2005,^[10] Centra Software in 2006^[11][12] and Pedagogue Solutions and Comartis in June 2011.^[13] Yazdani stepped down as CEO in 2013 when Saba was acquired by Vector Capital.^[14] The following year, Yazdani agreed to an SEC-negotiated claw back of $2.5 million in bonuses. Yazdani was not charged with any wrongdoing.^[15] In February 2020, Saba was acquired by Cornerstone OnDemand for $1.3 billion.^[16]

In 2006, Yazdani founded Signatures Capital, which serves as his family office and focuses on early stage investments.^[17][18] Yazdani’s first investment was in medical technology company Masimo, for which he provided capital but also wrote software to improve the accuracy of Masimo’s early neonatal pulse oximeters.^[17] According to the Huffington Post, Yazdani has invested in more than 100 companies in the technology sector via Signature Capital.^[1] Through Signatures Capital investments, Yazdani invested, among others, in Dropbox, Google,^[19] Uber, Masimo,^[20] Nextbio (acquired by Illumina),^[21][22]SoundHound,^[23] Salesforce,^[24] Clever Sense (acquired by Google),^[25][26] Greensmith Energy (acquired by Wartsila),^[27][28] Baarzo (acquired by Google),^[29][30] Bina Technologies (acquired by Roche)^[31][32] and Checkr.^[33]

In 2014, Yazdani co-founded Cota Capital, a technology investment firm that partners with technology companies to help them grow and develop "the opportunity for improving lives."^[34][35] Since its inception, the firm has invested in numerous private and public technology companies, including Berkeley Lights,^[36] Capella Space,^[37] Cloud Lending (acquired by Q2 Holdings),^[38] Tubi (acquired by FoxCorp),^[39] Gusto (formerly ZenPayroll),^[40] Mission Bio^[41] and Movandi,^[42] OpenGov, ParkourSC^[43] and Truebill (acquired by Rocket Companies),^[44][45] and Rhombus Systems.^[46]

Bobby Yazdani is a founding member of the Persian Tech Entrepreneurs network and a member of The Reset Foundation.^[47] He also underwrote the Signatures Innovation Fellowship at the University of California, Berkeley, between 2015 and 2019, which supported "data science projects with commercial promise."^[47]

In 2022, Yazdani and other members of the Iranian-American community established the American Legacy Fund, an endowment program meant to support the development of youth soccer in the United States.^[48] He serves on the board of trustees of the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute and he is a supporter of the Maryam Mirzakhani Endowed Professorship, created in honor of the late Fields medalist.^[49][50]

The Cota Impact Fund provides grants to a number of philanthropic institutions, such as the International Red Cross, the World Central Kitchen and UNICEF.^[51]