The Tabard Team
Ryan D. Teksten
Founder & General Partner
Ryan backs founders with unique insights into remote sensing, enterprise infrastructure, and small to large-scale agriculture. He has helped founders build companies from concept to acquisition, and his passion lies in defining and positioning winning products.
Ryan grew up on a homestead family farm in south-west Minnesota raising cattle and hogs along with corn, soybeans, and hay. He later moved to Greeley, Colorado where his family continued to work in the beef and produce industries. He is an avid outdoors-man, conservationist, and especially enjoys fly fishing on Colorado's gold-medal waters and pheasant hunting in the mid-west.
Prior to founding Tabard Venture Capital, he was a Vice President at Fidelity Investments where he spent 7 years scouting new technology ranging from IT infrastructure companies, to disruptive Cloud-based processing, Artificial Intelligence, FinTech, and security solutions to enable key data stores. He also conducted due diligence on startups and referred investment opportunities for Devonshire Investments, FPrime, 8Roads, and Anterra Capital. Previously, he led new product and program management teams at DigitalGlobe prior to the 2009 IPO. His tenure at Booz|Allen|Hamilton included global stints in Washington, DC, Denver, and the Far East focusing on remote sensing and global financial services. He also lived and worked in Germany, Austria, and South Korea and is multi-lingual.
Ryan graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point with a B.S. in Mathematical Economics with an emphasis on Systems Engineering. He also graduated from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University with a MA in Law and Diplomacy International Finance, Trade, and International Business.
Ryan continues to be an avid Twins and Vikings fan, despite being surrounded by the Red Sox fanatics in Boston where he lives with his three children, a chocolate lab, and a large garden plot in historic Lincoln, MA.
Sergey Plotnikov
Venture Partner, Seattle
Sergey joins Tabard as a Venture Partner and covers our West Coast activity from Seattle. He is also a Senior Director of Business Development at PitchBook, where he works closely with corporate and venture capital investors, startups and entrepreneurs. With a strong analytical focus, Sergey helps executives and management teams with industry analyses, competitive company positioning, fundraising, and private company transactions to more effectively execute their strategies.
Prior to PitchBook, Sergey lived in Atlanta and worked at Curing Capital, a healthcare and technology focused investment and consulting firm. He covered technology companies in the lower middle market space and maintained extensive relationships with financial sponsors and strategic investors.
Sergey first got involved with startups and entrepreneurs while at New England College, where he founded and successfully ran two student organizations focused on investing and venture capital. He also worked closely with Dean Kamen, as a Program Coordinator at FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology). Dean is best-known for inventing Segway, and he holds more than 440 patents for innovative medical and technology related devices. At FIRST, Sergey collaborated with various engineers, inventors and entrepreneurs.
Sergey earned his B.S. Degree in Accounting from New England College, while taking various Math, Calculus and Statistical courses. He spends his free time in the outdoors backpacking and snowboarding. He also serves as a volunteer for a few local Arts and nonprofit organizations in Seattle.
Eric Johnson
Venture Partner, Mid-West
Eric Johnson hails from Minneapolis, MN and joins Tabard Venture Capital as our eyes and ears of the Mid-West.
He is also currently the Global Digital Marketing & Strategy Lead for 3M Industrial Business Group. In this role, Eric leads marketing transformation, digital media, user experience, content, search, and social media strategy. Eric also works as an advisor for several early stage startups.
Prior to 3M, Eric lead Brand Engagement Strategy at Optum, Brand Strategy at Pinterest, Digital Marketing at General Mills (Helper, Progresso, and Old El Paso brands) and served as a Strategist and Metrics Analyst at Google where he worked with clients such as Expedia, Disney, Starbucks, and Priceline.com on search and interactive marketing strategies.
Eric is a graduate of the University of Minnesota and lives with his wife and family in Minneapolis.