Last Monday we revealed Boston’s Open Market mafia, a play on the PayPal Mafia out west – the team that built and sold PayPal for $1.5B to eBay and went on to become founders of or serial investors in many other killer companies that dominate the web today. Back by popular demand and some help from our community, we will be continuing this series this week covering a company some of the Open Market executives went on to build – a mobile marketing company in Watertown called m-Qube. m-Qube made a $250 million exit in 2006, and so far this year three m-Qube veterans with Boston-area companies made exits themselves. With Boston’s FutureM events and panels still in mind, we started to get curious about who else was behind m-Qube: will former m-Qube executives be the future set of Boston’s mobile marketing mafia?

m-Qube Inc. was a mobile marketing channel developer co-founded in 2001 by Eswar Priyadarshan (former  head of engineering at Open Market) and Andrew Miller (who went on to found Quattro Wireless). Five years after they opened their doors in April 2006, m-Qube sold to California-based payment company Verisign Inc. for $250 million. m-Qube won awards for being one of the fastest growing companies in America in its 2-years before the exit. More recently, in 2009, Verisign sold m-Qube to Mobile Messanger for a mere $19 million in an effort to sell off its non-core businesses.

While several m-Qube executives stayed on with Verisign through the company transition, many went after the exit to found and build other Boston-area companies, a couple with very recent exits. Four m-Qube execs went on to build Quattro Wireless, which sold to Apple this January for $275 million. Another went on to build Mobicious, which sold to Exclaim Mobility this August for an undisclosed amount. And another went on to build Turbine, Inc., a multi-player game development company which sold to Warner Bros. this April for $160 million.

According to Mass High Tech, there were 13 people in m-Qube’s management team when it was sold to Verisign. We tracked down as many of these execs as we could to see what role they played then at m-Qube, where they are now, and what they did along the way:

Jeffrey Glass

Then: President & CEO
Now: Managing Director, Bain Capital Ventures and Entrepreneur in Residence, Harvard Business School
Along the way: Glass went on to be a partner at Bain (where he held an entry-level position after he graduated from Amherst College), and sits on the board of many of Boston and beyond’s favorite tech companies including BzzAgent, TargetSpot, LinkedIn, blip.tv, and BuyWithMe. Glass also sits on the board of the Massachusetts Innovation & Technology Exchange (MITX) and, until this Spring, spent over two years sitting on the board of the Mobile Marketing Association. (Glass on LinkedIn | Twitter.)

Andrew Miller

Then: Sr. VP Business Development
Now: VP Mobile Advertising for Apple
Along the way: After m-Qube was acquired in 2006, Miller went on to start Quattro Wireless with three others in the m-Qube mafia (read below). He led the company as CEO through three rounds of capital, finally selling to Apple in January 2010 for $275MM (no big deal). (Miller on LinkedIn.)

Eswar Priyadarshan

Then: CTO
Now: CTO of Quattro Wireless (LinkedIn profile not updated since)
Along the way: Priyadarshan went on to start Quattro Wireless with Miller. Prior to m-Qube Prisyadarshan was part of the Open Market mafia, serving as VP Engineering. (Priyadarshan on LinkedIn.)

David Chapman

Then: CFO
Now: Managing Member and Consulting CFO at Bound Brook Advisers
Along the way: Chapman, along with another m-Qube exec Troiano (below), went on to serve as CFO of Matchmine, a Kraft family-backed venture that focused on innovative, personalized content delivery. (Chapman on LinkedIn.)

David Chang

Then: Director of Product Marketing
Now: VP Product at WHERE
Along the way: Chang went on to start and serve as VP Marketing at Mobicious, builder of direct-to-consumer sites, applications and services, which sold to Exclaim Mobility this August. (Chang on LinkedIn | Twitter.)

Jim Crowley

Then: COO
Now: CEO of gaming company Turbine (Dungeons and Dragons, Lord of the Rings, etc.), which raised $94MM, this April selling to Warner Bros. for $160MM.
Along the way: After m-Qube was acquired, Crowley went on to serve as VP Digital Content & Messaging for Verisign. (Crowley on LinkedIn.)

Mike Troiano

Then: General Manager
Now: Principal at Holland-Mark, a Boston-based advertising and marketing communications agency
Along the way: Troiano went on to serve as CEO of Matchmine with Chapman, another m-Qube executive. (Troiano on LinkedIn | Twitter.)

Robert Orgel

Then: SVP Mobile Content and Marketing
Now: COO of Quattro Wireless (LinkedIn profile not updated since)
Along the way: After the m-Qube acquisition, Orgel served for a year as COO for Aylus Networks, which provides wireless multimedia and video sharing technology and just recently took in $4M in debt financing. (Orgel on LinkedIn.)

Dan Gill

Then: VP Sales
Now: VP Sales & Business Development at Gotuit Media, a leading provider of premium video metadata technology
Along the way: Before building Gotuit, Gill went to serve as VP Sales for Verisign for 9 months. (Gill on LinkedIn.)

Robert DeMillo

Then: VP Engineering
Now: CTO for Revision3 and 4INFO
Along the way: DeMillo went on to join Third Screen Media in Boston, which was bought by AOL in 2007, and then went on to co-found Transpera, a mobile video delivery and advertising network. He’s now CTO for Revision3 and 4INFO. (DeMillo on LinkedIn | Twitter.)

Angie Hazard

Then: Talent Consultant
Now: VP Talent at Mzinga
Along the way: Hazard, who clearly knows how to build successful teams, went on to serve as Deloitte’s National Recruiting Manager. (Hazard on LinkedIn | Twitter.)

Gerald Hewes

Then: SVP Product Management
Now: Founder of Unbound Commerce, which helps retailers take advantage of mobile opportunities with consumers.
Along the way: Hewes went on to work as the Director of Product Marketing for Verisign, leaving to work as a consultant to Quattro Wireless. Prior to m-Qube Hewes was part of the Open Market mafia, serving as VP Commerce Platform Development. (Hewes on LinkedIn.)

Mark Grindeland

Then: Co-Founder and EVP Marketing & Brand Services
Now: Co-Founder & Chairman of ShesConnected, a social media agency that provides outsourced community management for brands.
Along the way: Grindeland left m-Qube in 2004 before the exit, and went on to serve as President of MAG & Associates and then VP and GM of Mobile Applications for LiveWire Mobile. (Grindeland on LinkedIn | Twitter.)

Three other executives we found in our research who seem at one point or another to have been part of m-Qube’s success include Michael Buhrmann, cited as Chairman during their first round of capital, Joe Patore, cited as staying with Verisign at the time of the acquisition, and Dave Paulson, cited as VP Carrier Markets during m-Qube’s first round of capital. We couldn’t find enough information to confirm to what extent they helped build m-Qube – if you have more information, or if we’ve misstated or left anyone else, please let us know!