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Steve Payne co-founded Architect Partners alongside Eric who he has known for twenty years.

Steve has been a senior operating executive, a venture investor and a dealmaker in Silicon Valley for over two decades. Most recently, Steve was Managing Partner of the Ignite Group, a trans-Pacific venture capital partnership with funds in Silicon Valley and Tokyo. Prior to that, he headed New Products at Sega and was EVP Product Development and Marketing at SegaSoft. Two bubbles ago, Steve left management consulting to head product marketing for a Kleiner Perkins/Sequoia Capital startup. He has been a Director of two dozen private and non-profit boards.

What ties this background together is a strong understanding of technology and a senior, strategic perspective to connecting young, fast growing companies with world-class partners for business development, investment or M&A. Steve holds an engineering degree from Washington University in St. Louis and an MBA from Harvard.

Steve races sailboats on the San Francisco Bay, cycles throughout the Santa Cruz mountains and drives his two kids to water polo, ultimate, basketball and lacrosse practice.