The Gilfus Ventures Group can trace it origins to 1995 when Stephen Gilfus was a student at Cornell University. As a founder of the Cornell Entrepreneur Organization and an Advisory Board Member of Entrepreneurship@Cornell, Steve has had a life-long passion for founding, growing and advising businesses. Over the years, Steve and the GVP team have helped hundreds of entrepreneurs, businesses and education institutions position themselves for success.

Gilfus Venture Partners provides clients with fee-based engagements that leverage a wealth of experience and expertise. Clients contact the GVP when they have something pressing on their minds, whether it is a strategic, operational or organizational challenge. They look to GVG for honest, objective, thoughtful and experienced insights. Clients reach out to GVPwhen they find themselves under pressure to deliver results. They contactGVP when resources are tight, information is difficult to get and insights are scarce. They call GVP when they need to make decisions that will have major consequences for their people, their organizations and their investors. GVP helps clients explore opportunities, manage and sustain growth, and increase revenue.

Stephen Gilfus
As a General Partner at the Gilfus Ventures Group, LLC, Stephen Gilfus applies a diversity of expertise by overseeing all facets of the company and providing both strategic and tactical direction. Steve is well-known as a serial entrepreneur, business leader, noted software designer, and inventor.

Prior to founding GVP, Steve was a founder of Washington, DC- based Blackboard Inc. {link to Blackboard} (NASDAQ:BBBB). Blackboard's flagship products are used by millions of instructors and students across more than 3,700 institutions in 70 countries. Steve has been recognized as an instrumental contributor to the development of the eLearning market space and shaping Blackboard as a leading provider of eLearning software and services. He has a unique ability to address real world problems with complex technology to provide greater convenience, a key factor in Blackboard’s growth and institutional adoption. Steve has provided leadership strategies to some of the world’s most prestigious academic institutions and publishers through his design of the Educational Technology Framework methodology.  

Steve received a Bachelor of Science degree from Cornell University where he was an academic scholar and founder of the Cornell Entrepreneur Organization. He is a member of Educause, the Northern Virginia Technology Council, and an Advisory Board Member of Entrepreneurship@Cornell. He is also the Chairman and CEO of one of our portfolio companies, Event Innovation.