About Rembrandt Venture Partners

Shaukat Shamim
Venture Advisor

Shaukat is currently the CEO and Co-Founder of Permuto, Inc. Prior to Permuto Shaukat founded Rhythm NewMedia, an industry leading startup that pioneered mobile video advertising. Shaukat was the member of the Board of Directors and played the role of CTO and Senior Vice President of Business Development. Rhythm's solution is successfully deployed with leading mobile operators like Sprint, Verizon Wireless, 3-UK, Telecom Italia, Orange UK, T-Mobile-UK, and Vodafone Spain. Rhythm has partnership with top 50 brands like Unilever, Cisco, Microsoft, Nike, BMW, Coke, Pepsi, Bank of America, Jeep, Nissan, Visa, Cannon, Land Rover, etc. Rhythm also has strong business relationships with major agencies worldwide like OMD, MindShare, Ogilvy, Carat, Publicis, Universal McCaan, etc. Shaukat also successfully completed distribution agreements with over 200 media partners like Sony Pictures, EMI Music, BBC, ABC News, ITN, A&E, iFilm, CBS, ITN, NorthOne, Aardman, Weather channel, IMG Media, Endemol and others.

Prior to Rhythm, Shaukat was a Venture Partner and CTO of NeoCarta Ventures, a $300m early stage venture firm focused on technology investments in internet, media, and wireless. Shaukat was Responsible for developing investment and technology strategies for new markets and identifying early stage companies in wireless, internet, media and entertainment. Additionally, was responsible for providing operational and technical guidance to the portfolio companies. Shaukat came to NeoCarta in July 2002, having been at Yahoo! for 5 years. Joined as an early employee, Shaukat pioneered the development of the instant messaging platform - Yahoo Messenger - which ultimately boasted one of the world's largest online communities. Shaukat was responsible for the architecture, product vision and long-term product roadmap for Yahoo Messenger and played key roles in the industry-wide coordination over IM standards.