Désirée "Ellie" Cachette is an American technology executive, activist and author. She is most known as a startup founder, mobile developer and author of Software Agreements for Dummies, having co-founded several startups and published many articles on startup businesses or software design. Cachette has published several books and writings regarding software contracts, software development, and early stage startup investing. In 2012, Cachette was listed as one of the Top 6 Women in Tech to Follow and has been recognized for both her accomplishments in business as well as charity work for public health, including recognition from the California State Senate for excellence in Public Health Education. Active in both the NYC and Silicon Valley startup communities, Cachette has been recognized for her work in both ecosystems as a developer, investor and leader in the female tech communities particularly with Women2.0.
Early life
Born in Martinez, California, Cachette was raised with her father who contracted HIV in the early 1980s as part of a group of Hemophiliacs who were infected by recalled pharmaceutical products. The recall, widely known in the medical communities, affected 20,000 American hemophiliacs and 100,000 worldwide and settled in 1997 for $660MM in damages to be paid to over 6,000 victims by Bayer Pharmaceutical and 3 other makers. A single father, Terry Stogdell raised Cachette for most of her childhood before passing away due to AIDS complications in 2002. A notable AIDS activist, Stogdell is well regarded as a public health advocate and part of the founding medical marijuana movement and crucial to gain support of California Proposition 215 in 1996. Before his death Stogdell testified under oath for United States v. Oakland Cannabis Buyers' Cooperative in support of legalizing cannabis for medicinal purposes in the state of California. Cachette received a scholarship at the age of seventeen for her work in community health from KRON-TV called "Beating the Odds." She attended Humboldt State University graduating in 2006 and later receiving an alumni award in 2013 for her efforts in technology.
Career
A technical project manager by trade, Cachette led several large scale software developments in the early 2000s. In 2009 Cachette switched from corporate to early stage, launching her own startup in 2010 which she led for several years in New York, New York quickly spotted as a female founder to watch. She has been accredited with startup investing as early as 2012 and estimated to have switched full time to venture capitalist in 2016. In 2018 Cachette publicly discussed moving to Europe and launching an $1BN planned investment fund only by September 2019, an investigation by Bloomberg uncovered a series of questionable actions by Cachette surrounding her investment company, Cachette Capital, including several lawsuits by former employees. Cachette has not publicly responded to the media piece directly, although she gave a keynote in Barranquilla, Colombia after in December 2019 and an interview in Romania January 2020. March 2020 Cachette released a industry paper on the nuances of European venture capital growth and attributed most asset anomalies in Europe to investments being mainly backed by American capital yet recorded as "European growth."
