Skyler Fernandes Email Address

Founder and General Partner

J. Skyler Fernandes is ranked as a Powerlist 100 VC and is the Managing Director of Investments at Cleveland Avenue, a private equity and venture capital fund focused on restaurants, food and beverage brands, and technology. The group was co-founded by the former President and CEO of McDonald's. Cleveland Avenue also has a incubator restaurant lab for testing new concepts and a consulting accelerator group with leading industry veterans in real estate site selection, franchising, operations, marketing / branding, and technology. Previously, Mr. Fernandes founded and was the Managing Director of Simon Venture Group (SVG), the venture capital arm of Simon Property Group, an S&P 100 company, and the largest retail real estate company in the world. SVG is ranked by CB Insights as a top 5 corporate venture group within retail (alongside Google Ventures, Intel Capital, and Comcast Ventures) and focuses on investing in retail technology, rising new brands, and internet of things for smart cities / buildings. Mr. Fernandes has developed key entrepreneur resources, such as 'The Best Startup Pitch Deck' (a top ranked investor pitch deck template online, viewed and downloaded 500,000+ times and used by leading accelerators and business schools), The Top 10 Lies Entrepreneurs Tell Investors, and the #1 googled image for IRR Analysis. Mr. Fernandes also co-founded with his wife the #1 startup / VC board game, 'The Next Big Thing: The Game of Entrepreneurship', http://www.nextbigthingboardgame.com/Mr. Fernandes graduated early from New York University (NYU), summa cum laude, due to his studies at Harvard University in Physics and Foreign Policy. Mr. Fernandes is an adjunct professor at NYU, teaching Venture Capital Intensive, and is a frequent speaker on venture capital and entrepreneurship. Mr. Fernandes also gave a TEDx Talk on Venture Capital, called 'Innovating the Financing of Innovation'.