Christine Tate is a the COO of Vara Safety, a biometrics company in Troy, NY. Tate is also an Angel Investor actively involved in early stage/seed investing in the Northeast. She serves on the due diligence committee of the NYC-based ARC Angel Fund and is a member of Funding Post Angels.
Christine is active in the Upstate NY startup community including the Statewide INY initiative based in NYC, as well as mentoring companies for the StartFast Venture Accelerator, the Tech Garden Sandbox in Syracuse and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.
Christine was an organizer of Startupweekend Tech Valley and a principle in a gaming accelerator and fund based in Troy, NY. She also serves as a judge for several pitch events in Upstate NY and has been involved with Funding Post, FashInvest and Early Stage East events.
Prior to becoming involved in early stage investing and mentoring, Christine worked for Cargill, Inc. in a variety of executive level positions, including Overseas Business Development based in Asia, Worldwide Audit, Tech and IT Development, and corporate level system and strategic efficiencies. She managed the financial and sales service departments of a $1B telecommunications company and served as Business Development Manger for an Asian manufacturing sourcing company.