Village Ventures

Mr. Kraus has extensive legal experience in venture capital and corporate transactions. Mr. Kraus joined Village Ventures in May 2000 and is responsible for its legal affairs as well as those of its network of funds, including fund development, inter-fund relationships, investments and governance matters. He has guided Village Ventures through its fundraising and corporate affairs, the establishment of its network funds, and all of its investment transactions. He advises the board of Village Ventures, the investment committees of the funds it manages and its fund administration subsidiary.

Mr. Kraus has authored articles on governance and ethical issues published in Business Law Today and was a member of the Working Group that authored the Corporate Governance volume of The In-House Counsel’s Essential Toolkit, published by the American Bar Association. He has been a member of the National Venture Capital Association’s VC General Counsel Group since its inception, and has helped draft and regularly update the NVCA’s model legal forms.

Prior to joining Village Ventures, Mr. Kraus was Group Counsel at American Express Company, where he was responsible for corporate finance, corporate governance and counseling of the new product development and domestic banking groups, as well as other portions of Amex’ consumer card businesses.  Before that, he was in private practice with the New York law firm of Breed, Abbott & Morgan.

Mr. Kraus graduated magna cum laude from Williams College in 1979, was elected to Phi Beta Kappa, and received his J.D. cum laude from the University of Michigan Law School in 1982.