Across more than 100 equity financings and over 35 board roles, he has developed the pattern recognition to identify exceptional founders early and the judgment to help them build through the uncertainty that follows. As Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Activate, Glen leads a venture platform whose investing history reaches back to 1985 when he co-founded its predecessor firm.
Having invested through dramatic shifts in technology, capital markets, business models, and economic conditions, Glen has developed a disciplined approach to early-stage investing. It begins with a founder who understands an important problem or sees an opportunity from the inside, a customer with a compelling reason to act, and a plan to use capital deliberately in building lasting enterprise value.
His investments have contributed to many public-company outcomes and strategic acquisitions across healthcare, software, data, industrial technology, aviation, and other specialized markets. Selected investments include Tabula Rasa Healthcare (IPO), FSA Store (acquired by Beecken, Petty & O’Keefe), Access Health (IPO), CareGain (acquired by Fiserv), ClickPayRent (acquired by RealPage) , Rights Flow (acquired by Google) , IQE, plc (IPO), Visual Networks (IPO), Ravisent (IPO), Innovative Aerosystems (IPO), UltraCision (acquired by Johnson & Johnson), AnyTime Access (acquired by Digital Insight), Natural Insight (acquired by Level Equity) and MicroE Systems (acquired by GSI Group).
Innovative Aerosystems particularly reflects Glen’s long-term orientation. He led its seed financing in 1988 and continues to serve as its Chairman of the Board as a publicly traded company. His experience also extends beyond institutional venture capital. As a partner and director of Alum-a-Lift, a Bressner family-owned advanced-manufacturing company, Glen helped steward the business and led its 2024 flagship sale to a subsidiary of InvestorAB, Sweden’s largest public company. That experience gave him an owner’s perspective on the responsibility involved in building, protecting, and ultimately transitioning a closely-held enterprise.
Founders value Glen’s direct, practical approach. He understands when a board should challenge management, when an investor can open an important door, and when the founder should be trusted to lead. He does not mistake activity for value or attempt to apply the same playbook to every company.
Glen has also devoted significant time to civic leadership and philanthropy. He has served as Chairman of the Greater Philadelphia Venture Group, now PACT, and on the Board of Governors of St. Christopher’s Hospital for Children. He co-founded and Chaired Leader Lehigh Valley, a 501(c)(3) which brought The Leader in Me, a whole-school transformation program to more than 40 elementary and middle schools and which was acquired by The United Way of the Greater Lehigh Valley. He helped found The Grete R. Bressner Performing Arts Scholarship, a 501(c)(3) devoted to helping children access dance, drama and martial arts through scholarship support. He also supports Cura Vita Fund LLC, his family’s venture-philanthropy and impact-investing organization.
He earned his BSBA, cum laude, from Boston University, where he lettered in basketball, and his MBA from Babson College.
Outside of work, Glen enjoys spending several months each year in Italy, where he speaks Italian with considerably more confidence than accuracy.
Glen views venture capital as a long-term partnership business. Recognizing potential early matters, but the true measure of the work is what endures: the companies, relationships, and institutions built over time.