Dr. Avi S. Katz. Dr. Avi S. Katz has served as our Executive Chairman of our Board of Directors since March 2019, and from that time until August 2019, was also our Chief Executive Officer, President and Secretary. In March 2019, Dr. Katz founded the Company. The Company completed its initial public offering in June 2019, in which it sold 17,250,000 units at a per unit price of $10.00, with each unit consisting of one share of our Common Stock, one warrant to purchase one share of our Common Stock, and one right to receive one-twentieth (1/20) of one share of our Common Stock, generating aggregate proceeds of $172,500,000. Upon the consummation of the Business Combinations, Dr. Katz will transition to being the Co-Chairman of our Board of Directors. He has also served as the Executive Chairman of the Board of Directors, Chief Executive Officer, President and Secretary of GigCapital3, Inc. since February 2020 and as the Executive Chairman of the Board of Directors of GigCapital4, Inc. since its inception in December 2020. He is also the Founding Managing Member of GigFounders, LLC, a Founding Managing Member of GigManagement, LLC and the Manager of our Sponsor, as well as GigAcquisitions, LLC (the sponsor of GigCapital) and GigAcquisitions3, LLC (the sponsor of GigCapital3, Inc.). Dr. Katz has spent approximately 33 years in international executive positions within the TMT industry working for privately held start-ups, middle-cap companies and large enterprises. In these roles, Dr. Katz has been instrumental in launching and accelerating entities, building teams, large scale fund-raising, developing key alliances and technology partnerships, M&A activities, business development, financial management, global operations and sales and marketing. In October 2017, Dr. Katz founded GigCapital, a Private-to-Public Equity (PPE) company formed for the purpose of acquiring a company in the technology industry. GigCapital completed its initial public offering in December 2017, in which it sold 14,375,000 units at price of $10.00 per unit, with each unit consisting of one share of GigCapital common stock, three-quarters (3/4) of one warrant to purchase one share of GigCapital common stock and one right to receive one-tenth (1/10) of one share of GigCapital common stock, generating aggregate proceeds of $143,750,000, and, at that time, was listed on the NYSE under the symbol “GIG.” On February 22, 2019, after intensive screening of more than 400 companies worldwide, GigCapital entered into a stock purchase agreement to acquire Kaleyra S.p.A. at a transaction enterprise value of $187,000,000 with combined cash and/or promissory note consideration of $15,000,000. Kaleyra S.p.A. is a global company specialized in providing mobile messaging services for financial institutions and companies of all sizes. The transaction closed on November 25, 2019, and GigCapital was renamed Kaleyra, Inc. and listed on the NYSE American stock exchange under the symbol “KLR” at that time. Dr. Katz has served as the Executive Chairman of Kaleyra, Inc. since the consummation of the transaction in November 2019. Dr. Katz is also the co-founder of Cognizer, a software company specializing in deeplearning powered natural language artificial intelligence, and was the Executive Chairman of Cognizer’s board of directors from its inception in December 2018 until August 2020. Prior to forming GigCapital, Dr. Katz dedicated 10 years to bootstrap, develop and manage GigPeak (NYSE American: formerly GIG), originally known as GigOptix, Inc. He served as Chairman of the Board, Chief Executive Officer and President of GigPeak from its inception in 2007 until its sale in April 2017 to IDT for $250,000,000 in cash, GigPeak provided semiconductor integrated circuits and software solutions for high-speed connectivity and video compression. While Dr. Katz was at GigPeak’s helm, the company completed 10 M&A deals. From 2003 to 2005, Dr. Katz was the Chief Executive Officer, President, and member of the board of directors of Intransa, Inc., which at the time provided full-featured, enterprise-class IP-based Storage Area Networks. From 2000 to 2003, Dr. Katz was the Chief Executive Officer and a member of the board of directors of Equator Technologies, which at the time sought to commercialize leading edge programmable media processing platform technology for the rapid design and deployment of digital media and imaging products. Equator Technologies was sold to Pixelworks, Inc. for $110,000,000 in 2005. Dr. Katz has held several leadership positions over the span of his career within the technology industry since serving as Member of Technical Staff at AT&T Bell Laboratories in the 1980s, and has made numerous angel investments in high-tech companies around the world. Dr. Katz is a graduate of the Israeli Naval Academy and holds a B.Sc. and Ph.D. in Semiconductors Materials from the Technion (Israel Institute of Technology). He is a serial entrepreneur, holds many U.S. and international patents, has published many technical papers and is the editor of a number of technical books. Dr. Katz is married to Dr. Dinu, one of our directors, and our President and Chief Executive Officer.
The Company believes that Dr. Katz is qualified to serve as Co-Chairman of the Board of Directors based on his business experience as a founder, inventor, chief executive officer and director of a publicly-listed company and his investing experience.