Aashish Dhamdhere. (Amperity Photo)

Amperity — a stealth-mode, AI-fueled marketing startup led by two Seattle startup veterans — has piqued the curiosity of many since GeekWire first reported on its $9 million seed round last year.

The company has been quietly beefing up its leadership team and board of directors over the past eighteen months, and its latest addition is former LiquidPlanner VP Aashish Dhamdhere.

Amperity says Dhamdhere’s addition will help the company prepare for its market launch, which has not yet been announced.

Dhamdhere joins Amperity from LiquidPlanner, where he spent two years on the company’s executive board, most recently as VP of customer acquisition. He was formerly the director of strategic marketing and demand generation at business intelligence software company Apptio. Dhamdhere also spent six years at Microsoft, where he led marketing for the launch of the company’s cloud platform, Azure.

“Aashish is a grounded, no-nonsense marketing executive. That’s important to our organization because we have built a great product that delivers real customer value — and Aashish is the right kind of marketer to help us tell our customer success stories to the market,” Amperity Co-founder and CEO Kabir Shahani said in a press release. “Equally importantly, we are building to a level of scale that requires Aashish’s experience and success in building and running a demand generation engine.”

Amperity founders Kabir Shahani (left) and Derek Slager (right).

Amperity was founded last year by Shahani and Derek Slager, the co-founders and former leaders of healthcare marketing startup Appature, which was acquired by IMS Health for $100 million in 2013.

“I’m thrilled to join the great team at Amperity,” Dhamdhere said. “As an engineer turned marketer, I have a deep appreciation for the importance of using data in marketing. Kabir and Derek’s transformative vision speaks to me, all the more so because of their track record and how thoughtful they’re being in addressing the opportunity, crafting this product, and building a cohesive team. Machine learning is poised to transform consumer marketing, and I’m looking forward to helping brands use this technology to reinvent themselves in a data-driven landscape.”

Amperity’s backers include Madrona Venture Group; legendary NFL quarterback and investor Joe Montana; Founders’ Co-op partner Chris DeVore; former Microsoft corporate vice president S. Somasegar; Concur co-founder Rajeev Singh; former drugstore.com CEO Dawn Lepore; Isilon Systems founder Sujal Patel; and former ExactTarget chief marketing officer Tim Kopp, who now is a partner at Hyde Park Ventures.

Brent Abrahamsen. (Taqtile Photo)

— Seattle-based mixed reality startup Taqtile has added a big new name to its leadership board: Brent Abrahamsen, the longtime CFO of video game company Bungie, the one-time Microsoft subsidiary that developed blockbuster game franchises like Halo and Destiny.

Abrahamsen worked as Bungie’s CFO for more than seven years, during which he negotiated the company’s 2007 departure from Microsoft, which had acquired it in 2000. He left Bungie in 2015 and worked as an independent contractor before joining Taqtile.

“I am excited to be joining a talented group of people working on such fascinating, cutting edge technology,” Abrahamsen said in a press release. “The opportunities in the mixed reality space are only just beginning and I look forward to helping Taqtile establish a leading market position as the technology and the related applications unfold.”

Taqtile builds enterprise software for virtual, augmented and mixed reality experiences. Last year it unveiled HoloMap, a collaborative 3D mapping app that was originally released for the Microsoft HoloLens. Its clients include Microsoft, Starbucks, AT&T and a number of international sports organizations.

Matt Miszewski. (Socrata Photo)

—  Socrata, cloud-based government data services company, announced the addition of technology sales vet Matt Miszewski as the company’s SVP of global sales.

Miszewski has a fascinating resume: He most recently worked as the SVP of global sales and marketing at data center management company Digital Reality, before which he was the SVP of global public sector and enterprise sales at Salesforce.

He also has a strong background in government data, Socrata’s specialty. He served as Microsoft’s general manager of worldwide government for three years and also spent more than four years as the CIO for Wisconsin Governor Jim Doyle.

“I was searching for a way to put decades of revenue and technology experience to work for a larger mission, driving a technology vision that is positioned to solve important and challenging problems for people serving society,” Miszewski said in a press release.

Asha Sharma. (Seattle Foundation Photo)

— Porch Chief Operating Officer and Director Asha Sharma has been elected to the Seattle Foundation’s Board of Trustees. She joins a number of other leaders from Seattle’s business and tech community, including the EVP of Microsoft’s Windows and Devices Group Terry Myerson.

Sharma joined Porch in the company’s pre-launch stage over four years ago. She previously spent three years in product marketing and operations at Microsoft and also serves on a number of other community boards, including serving as the board director for Virginia Mason Medical Center.

The Seattle Foundation is the Pacific Northwest’s oldest community philanthropy organization, with more than 1,200 individual and family donors.

“Seattle Foundation is a powerful platform with philanthropic expertise, deep heritage and an evolving ecosystem of incredible organizations and strategies that I believe will result in a better community for all,” Sharma said in a press release. “The Seattle Foundation family has ignited my passion to be able to make a lasting and meaningful impact through this opportunity.”

Jeff Dosset. (Impinj Photo)

— RFID-maker Impinj announced the addition of Microsoft vet Jeff Dossett as the company’s SVP of marketing and business development.

Dossett spent the past few years as an advisor and investor to emerging startups across the West Coast and in the Toronto region. He formerly spent 18 years at Microsoft, including eleven as the executive producer and general manager of MSN.

In his new role, Dossett will lead Impinj’s marketing and branding efforts as the company continues to scale and grow internationally. Impinj’s RFID technology connects objects to the internet and is used in a variety of settings and industries.

“Marketing has changed dramatically over the last decade. Marketing innovations have enabled new opportunities to effectively reach and engage customers in physical and digital experiences,” Dossett said in a press release. “What excites me most is that Impinj connects everyday items to the Internet, enabling the intersection of our physical and digital lives.”

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