Helping to shape the future of entertainment, brand engagement and commerce.

Sandy Agarwal is a hands-on CEO with over 25 years of experience disrupting traditional media markets. At TAPPP, he has helped shape the development of the company’s payment services and interactive solutions platforms. Under Sandy’s leadership, TAPPP has established key business partnerships with powerful media and gaming companies including Major League Baseball, the National Football League and BetMGM.

Prior to founding TAPPP, Sandy started a mobile content and advertising company which merged with Enpocket and was later acquired by Nokia. While at Nokia, he led the monetization of interactive services across the Asia Pacific region. Agarwal also held management positions at Discovery Channel and ESPN, helping to build new businesses in India and greater Asia.

Sandy was voted into the Top 10 Global MobiThinkers list and was the founding chairman of the Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) in the Asia Pacific region. His love for the Cleveland Browns, Indians and Cavaliers drives him to make sports content more accessible and engaging for fans around the world.

Ashmit Bhattacharya is widely considered a thought leader in the payments space. As TAPPP’s Chief Technology Officer, he is directly responsible for the development of the company’s payment services and interactive solutions platform and for leading TAPPP’s innovation agenda.

Ashmit was the  VP of Research and Development during the startup period at Blackhawk Network, where he led the technical team in defining and designing a high-redundancy payment clearing and settlement system based on POS terminals, web and mobile prepaid.

Ashmit was a co-founder of Plastics Jungle, the prepaid card exchange company, which was successfully sold to Incomm. He has also held senior technical management positions at General Electric, eBenefits and Safeway.

Ashmit graduated from India Mangalore University and earned a BS in Engineering.

Willy Burkhardt is responsible for strategy, operational excellence and contract negotiations and helps guide the development of TAPPP’s interactive media products and services. He has more than 30 years of experience in managing across borders, developing new sources of revenue and extending consumer-focused brands. He spent five years as an EVP at ESPN, with responsibility for all operations outside of the US and ESPN’s brand extensions and new business developments within the domestic market. He spent another 5 years as President of Iconix International.

Willy was previously in charge of international business development for Turner Entertainment, EVP of Television and Digital Media at InterMedia Outdoors, President of the Sportsman Channel and President of the Blue Man Group. Willy began his career at McKinsey & Company, Inc. where he held several positions within the firm both domestically and overseas, focusing on strategy, marketing and new product development engagements for consumer-facing businesses.

He earned an MBA at Harvard University with high distinction as a Baker Scholar. He also earned his BA in Political Science at Stanford University with honors and high distinction.

Anush Lalit Singh is a pragmatic, hands-on technologist and innovator with over 20 years of experience. Currently, he’s focused on TAPPP’s digital transformation and building out the company’s innovative MicroApp Platform and TV viewing enhancement apps such as shopping, betting and skills-based contests.

Before joining TAPPP, Lalit was Head of Identity at Amazon. He also held senior leadership positions at Jack Henry and Sabre. An entrepreneur at heart, Lalit is a pioneer in the payments space, having previously been Chief Architect at both Blackhawk Network and Visa.

Lalit has deep experience in IT, software delivery management, enterprise architecture and security. He specializes in building mobile plus apps, meta-data driven programming platforms, high-transaction enterprise architecture, SOA, data architecture and analytics, enterprise security, high-volume social networking, social media, electronic funds transfer (EFT), high- frequency transactions (HFT), rich media apps and web portals.

James Sampson joined TAPPP as VP, Partnerships & Operations, where he is helping develop an innovative ecosystem sitting at the intersection of media and transactions.

With 20+ years of experience in scaling retail media, mobile and ad tech businesses, James has a deep understanding of how publishers, marketers and media companies can adopt disruptive technologies to develop new business models and monetization opportunities.

Prior to joining TAPPP, James led Strategy, Partnerships, Operations & Finance at GrabAds. As part of its advertising arm, he helped brands reach, engage and transact on Southeast Asia’s leading SuperApp.

Prior to GrabAds, James was the APAC Vice President and General Manager of global demand side platform DataXu (acquired by Roku). He also spent a number of years with mobile advertising pioneer Enpocket (Acquired by Nokia), focused on strategy and business development.

James holds a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration from Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts.

Jeremy Pressman is a venture capitalist and former professional basketball player, a unique combination for a sports tech investment fund. He has vast experience sourcing and conducting due diligence on sports-focused tech deals, including Replay Technologies, which was acquired by Intel for approximately $180M. Jeremy is a veteran of Israel’s Artzit basketball league and has connections with athletes and teams from many leagues, including the NBA, NFL, Euroleague, MLS and CBA. 

Keith is a co-founder and Managing Partner of Xplorer Capital. Previously, he was a senior executive at Yahoo!, a partner at TPG Growth and held management roles at Intel, Alex Brown and Bankers Trust.Keith Nilsson is a co-founder and managing partner of Xplorer Capital. He focuses his efforts on deal sourcing and execution and provides support and general management to portfolio companies. Previously, Keith was a partner for the private equity firm TPG, where he led technology investments for its growth fund. Keith also served as a Head of Corporate Development at Yahoo for 12 years. Prior to Yahoo, Keith held investing and management roles with Intel, Alex Brown and Bankers Trust.

Lyle founded Verance Capital, a PE fund and major investor in TAPPP. Previously, he was an investment and financial advisory services executive at Redbird Capital Partners, LionTree and Evercore.Lyle Ayes founded the private equity firm Verance, following 20 years of advising and investing across the sports, media and entertainment industries. Previously, he was an Operating Partner at RedBird Capital Partners. Lyle also led venture investment efforts for one of RedBird’s portfolio companies, OneTeam Partners. Prior to RedBird, Lyle served with LionTree, Evercore and Morgan Stanley’s Mergers & Acquisitions division.

Sandy has over 25 years of experience disrupting traditional media markets. Prior to founding TAPPP, he held management roles at large media and entertainment companies including Discovery, ESPN and Nokia.Sandy Agarwal is a hands-on CEO with over 25 years of experience disrupting traditional media markets. At TAPPP, he has helped shape the development of the company’s payment services and interactive solutions platforms. And under Sandy’s leadership, TAPPP has established key business partnerships with powerful media and gaming companies including Major League Baseball, the National Football League and BetMGM.

Gina Garrubbo is President and CEO of National Public Media (NPM), the corporate sponsorship subsidiary of NPR, owned in partnership with PBS and WGBH. She leads NPM in delivering corporate sponsorship revenue to NPR and the public media system. With 20+ years of experience growing marketing and sales teams, launching brands and building companies, she has advised a number of media start-ups and supported the establishment of Women.com, a revolutionary website for women.

Mike Baker has pioneered digital media platforms for 20+ years and is a recognized leader in interactive advertising. An active angel investor in digital media, he is currently chairman of the board of Nexage. Mike was the co-founder and CEO of Dataxu, which was acquired by Roku in 2019. He was EVP at Engage Technologies, an innovator in online advertising and behavioral targeting, and he also served as VP at Nokia Interactive and as a partner at GrandBanks Capital.

Ryan Moore is a founding partner at Accomplice, a tech VC firm. Prior to founding Accomplice, he was a partner at Atlas Venture. Currently, Ryan sits on the boards of DraftKings and a number of privately-held companies. For the last three years, Ryan has been listed in the top third of Business Insider’s The Seed 100: The Best Early-Stage Investors. In 2023, Ryan was named to the Forbes Midas Seed List.

Scott Rosenberg is CEO and co-founder of 257, a VC-backed energy data startup in NYC. Previously, Scott spent 10 years at Roku, where he created the company’s ad business, played a central role in the company’s 2017 IPO, and led the company’s content and ad business to $2B+ and 1500 people. Prior to Roku, Scott held numerous GM, sales, product and engineering roles with large and small companies at the intersection of TV and ad tech. Scott holds CS degrees from Princeton and MIT, an MBA from MIT/Sloan and was a Fulbright Fellow to Japan.