People who have run businesses, building for people who run businesses.
Strategy and operations depth first. Software second. That order is the whole point.
Operators first. Software second.
sc0red was founded by people who had spent their careers running and growing businesses: setting strategy, fixing operations, buying and selling companies. We built world-class software for finding M&A targets, and along the way we kept seeing the same thing in the mid-market companies we worked with.
Everyone was under pressure to "do something with AI." Most of what got built was whatever was easiest to see, and very little of it moved revenue, cost, or how it felt to work there. The problem was never a shortage of tools. It was a shortage of people who understood the business well enough to tell signal from noise.
That is the gap we exist to close. We bring strategy and operations depth to finding the opportunities that are unique to a client's strategy, and we build only what earns its place. Where a problem recurs often enough, we turn the answer into a product. We work across industries, and we are at our best in regulated ones, where getting it wrong is not an option.
Mission
Help companies find and deliver the opportunities that grow revenue, reduce cost, and improve employee experience, aligned to their strategy and built to withstand scrutiny.
Vision
The first call a leadership team makes when AI is loud and they need to know what actually matters.
Meet the team
The sc0red team combines operators who have set strategy and run businesses with engineers who have built secure systems in regulated industries. That mix is how we tell which AI opportunities actually matter, and then build them.
Chris Creel
Co-Founder and Co-CEO
With over 30 years of experience in software engineering and R&D, Chris is a visionary technology executive with a proven track record of starting, building, and scaling companies. He has repositioned corporations in the marketplace, driving billion-dollar transactions. A best-selling author and holder of 13 patents, Chris excels in creating high-performing global teams and delivering groundbreaking solutions that redefine business success.
Zack Walmer
Co-Founder and Co-CEO
Zack brings over 15 years of experience in driving strategic growth for organizations across diverse industries. As the co-founder of Geigsen Group, he successfully helped companies execute strategies by connecting operations with culture and people. With a practical approach and expertise in strategic planning, Zack is focused on scaling sc0red to build impactful partnerships and transform businesses.
Srikanth Kolli
Co-founder & Head of Engineering
Srikanth is a seasoned engineering leader with over 13 years of experience. He excels in transforming complex business challenges into actionable solutions. Known for building high-performance teams aligned around clear, focused goals, Srikanth drives innovation by harnessing cutting-edge technologies. His expertise lies in delivering scalable engineering solutions that exceed both customer and executive expectations, ensuring technical excellence at every step.
Brian Kempf
Chief Product Officer
Brian has led 0-1 product teams and launched company-first AI products in e-commerce, retail tech, and AI Data Development. A former data scientist, Brian made the jump to product management at e-commerce B2B SaaS provider, ChannelAdvisor, where he scaled data systems to make 600M purchase options available to online consumers and launched one of the earliest products in the digital shelf monitoring space. He led Toshiba's retail self-service software portfolio serving 21M daily in-store checkouts and commercialized Edge AI innovation to deliver the company's first AI product. Before joining sc0red, Brian helped CloudFactory bring its first SaaS product to market and build an AI data labeling service with a 2-sided user base into a viable business. Brian leads Product at sc0red, blending customer insights with product strategy and hands-on execution as we build the AI-powered future of M&A deal sourcing.
Vedratana Velani
AI-Native Cloud Application Architect
Ved is an AI-native cloud application architect with nearly two decades of experience building secure, high-scale systems in demanding, regulated industries — from HIPAA-compliant healthcare claims platforms at Cotiviti and Rialtic to SOC 2-compliant serverless SaaS at Layr and high-concurrency streaming infrastructure at Livestream. At sc0red, Ved pioneers a fully AI-driven development lifecycle, orchestrating teams of AI agents to deliver production-grade software with uncompromising speed and quality. He architected and built the sc0red Opportunity Diagnostic, the self-serve tool that gives leadership teams a first read on where AI could move revenue, cost, or employee experience in their business.
Srilakshmi Krishnamoorthy
Software Consultant, Full-Stack & Cloud
Srilakshmi brings more than 22 years of engineering experience across startups and enterprise — from serverless fintech platforms at Upstox and compliance-grade insurance integrations at Layr to 15 years at Wipro, where she grew from engineer to delivery leader. At sc0red, she builds core product features end-to-end across the platform's deal-sourcing and AI-scoring workflows. She built the sc0red MCP server, which connects AI agents like Claude directly to the sc0red platform — letting deal teams search, score, and evaluate acquisition targets through natural conversation.
Advisory Board
Our advisory board comprises distinguished leaders in M&A, entrepreneurship, and strategic finance who bring invaluable expertise and guidance to sc0red.
John Ioannou
CEO and M&A leader who has driven growth and transformations across dozens of companies
CEO, Board Director, and Operating Partner with a track record leading, advising, or transforming 32 companies across 15 industries, including software, services and finance. John has completed 12 acquisitions and raised ~$400 million in capital across multiple companies, stages, industries and buy & build strategies. He is a specialist in high-performance cultures, growth strategies, and scaling businesses.
William Lieberman
Experienced entrepreneur and financial strategist who has built and advised high-growth companies
Founder and Managing Partner of The CEO's Right Hand, delivering outsourced CFO, M&A advisory, and strategic finance services to growth-stage companies. Built and exited multiple successful ventures, including Xtiva Financial Systems, recognized on the Inc. 500 list of fastest-growing companies. 30+ years of experience helping founders scale, raise capital, and prepare for liquidity events across diverse industries.
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