Arben Kane, formerly known as Arben Kryeziu, is a German-American software developer, entrepreneur, and business executive. ^[53] Previously known as the co-founder, CEO, and chairman of the remote access software technology company Code Rebel, in 2016, The M&A Advisor awarded Kane their annual Emerging Leaders Award. ^[2] In 2015 he founded the venture builder Stacked Venture Builder in New York. ^[53]

Arben Kane was born as Arben Kryeziu in 1977 ^[4] in Kosovo, ^[7] moving to Germany ^[8] at a young age. ^[11] He speaks fluent German, English, and Albanian. ^[21]

In 1999 Kane graduated from Berufsakademie Stuttgart with a Bachelor of Science Degree in logistics. Afterwards he attended Darmstadt University of Applied Sciences in Darmstadt, where he graduated with a BS in computer science in 2000. ^[11] He relocated to Hawaii in 2001. ^[8]

In 2001 Kane founded and became principal owner of the technology consulting and digital services company Bump Networks Inc., now dba KonturLabs.

^[11] With a broad client base that has included the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, ^[26] Bump Networks (dba KonturLabs) has also been involved with diverse businesses and organizations in Hawaii, including the Pacific Disaster Center, Maui Gold Pineapple, Maui Food Bank, Blue Hawaiian Helicopters, ^[29] and others. Through KonturLabs and its work with the Pacific Disaster Center, Kane developed software focused on disaster management. His "DisasterWare" program is used in command centers for natural disasters such as earthquakes, hurricanes, and tsunamis. ^[34] In 2004 Kane began focusing on "solving problems" as compared to programming directly himself, with a focus on out how to "overcome friction points" in development. ^[34]

From 2002 to 2005 Kane served as the CTO of Paradise Television Network in Hawaii. ^[11] Through the Paradise Television subsidiary ^[37] Maui X-Stream (MXS), ^[39] a startup company based in Lahaina, Hawaii, ^[37] he also became lead developer ^[42] on the CherryOS project in 2004. ^[45] CherryOS was a PowerPC G4 processor emulator for x86 Microsoft Windows platforms, which allowed various Apple Inc. programs to be operated on Windows XP. Made available for pre-orders on October 12, 2004, ^[39] the program encountered a number of launch difficulties its first year, ^{[37] [48] [50]} including accusations that CherryOS used code grafted directly from PearPC, an older open source emulator. Kane subsequently stated that PearPC had provided the inspiration for CherryOS, but "not the work, not the architecture,"^[42] and that the direct grafting PearPC code had been done by a single programmer, since fired from MXS. ^[42]

By late 2004, Kane stated to Wired that he'd been contacted by Apple Computer for an undisclosed reason that "wasn't bad." ^[42] After further development, ^[54] CherryOS 1.0 was released in its final form on March 8, 2005. ^[1] Estimated to be compatible with approximately 70 percent of PCs, ^[3] it was described as automatically detecting hardware and network connections and allowing "for the use of virtually any OS X-ready application,"^[1] including Safari and Mail. ^[3] Again fielding accusations that CherryOS 1.0 incorporated code from PearPC, MXS argued CherryOS was "absolutely not" a knockoff,"^[3] and that though "certain generic code strings and screen verbiage used in Pear PC are also used in CherryOS... they are not proprietary to the Pear PC product." ^[3] The controversy, however, remained a focus of the press, and CherryOS announced that "due to overwhelming demand, Cherry open source project launches May 1, 2005." ^[6]

In 2006 Kane became the co-founder, CEO and chairman of the software technology company Code Rebel. ^[11] Headquartered in Kahului, Hawaii, Code Rebel's initial goal was to create a new object oriented remote access protocol. ^[9] The company went on to develop, manufacture, license, support and sell computer software typically related to terminal services and virtualization software for Apple Inc. products. ^[10] In particular, the company is known for its remote access software application called iRAPP, and a Mac terminal services application called iRAPP Terminal Server (iRAPP TS). ^[13] As the company grew, it began catering software to companies such as Intuit, *Bloomberg * and Wells Fargo. Code Rebel later relocated to the United States mainland, setting up an office in New York City. ^[34] In October 2010, University of Alabama’s Management Information Systems program announced a partnership with Code Rebel to create Apple iPod Touch, iPhone, and iPad applications. ^[15]

In March of 2011, competitor Aqua Connect filed suit against Code Rebel for alleged misappropriation of trade secrets. To bolster their defense, Aqua Connect cited the controversy relating to PearPC and CherryOS some years earlier. ^[16] Over three years later, the United States District Court for the Central District of California entered judgment in favor of Code Rebel on all claims, stating “Aqua Connect has failed to establish any act of reverse engineering by Code Rebel or any other illegal act that would support any of its claims.” ^[18] Code Rebel filed a countersuit against Aqua Connect in June 2013, alleging, among other things, a pattern of trade libel, business interference and unfair business practices. On October 14, 2014, the District Court entered a monetary judgment in favor of Code Rebel and against Aqua Connect. ^[19]

Code Rebel went public in May 2015, in the first IPO for a Hawaii technology company since 2000, and is listed on the Nasdaq stock exchange. By its second day of trading, the company's stock was up over 200% from its initial offering price. ^[22] Dr. James Canton joined Code Rebel as director in 2015. ^[24] On July 28, 2015, Code Rebel announced it had acquired ThinOps Resources, ^[10] for $9.25 million. ^{[10] [34]} In August 2015, Kane was featured in a webcast by BizTechReports, discussing topics including the increased adoption of Code Rebel's iRAPP Solution by customers such as AT&T, Microsoft, Cisco, IBM, Bloomberg, and J.P. Morgan Chase. ^[24]

On January 14, 2016, Code Rebel announced that it would likely merge with Aegis Identity Software, Inc., ^[27] which is a private software company in Colorado ^[31] that provides "on-premise [sic] and cloud-based identity and access management products and services for the K-12 and higher education markets." ^[27] After the announcement, Code Rebel's shares doubled in market value. ^{[31] [32]} A definitive merger agreement between the two companies was signed on March 11, 2016. ^{[33] [35]} Aegis Identity's CEO stated that Aegis would continue to maitain its branding, with the two companies working as a joint operation. ^{[36] [38]} As of 2016, Code Rebel was undergoing a bankruptcy. Kane was quoted stated "digesting a bankruptcy after building Code Rebel for over ten years, will take some time - and my only way forward is to pick up the pieces and optimize the next steps I take." ^[53]

From 2011 to 2012, Kane worked at Echoecho Media Inc. as Senior VP of Engineering.

^[11] Kane also founded the HD video live streaming company Ozolio in 2012. ^[11]

Also in 2012 Kane became Chief Technology Officer of Flikmedia, ^[11] a mobile video dating service. Flikmedia debuted a program for iOS in May 2012, with TechCrunch calling it "an innovative mobile video dating service that feels like a mix between Chatroulette and Match.com." ^[41] The app was written by a team of female programmers, and limits users to short 90 second conversations with strangers, with optional longer conversations. ^[41] A free Flikdate app debuted at the App Store in July 2012. ^[41] As of June 26, 2014, Flikdate's technology was patent pending. ^[43]

While CEO of Code Rebel and an executive or chairman for several other companies, Kane also served as an operating partner at Pegasus Capital in 2014. ^[29]

Together with business partner Nick Bicanic ^[44] from Venice, California, ^[46] Kane co-founded ^[8] the Maui-based business incubator and technology fund ^[29] Mbloom Ventures LLC in 2013, ^[4] becoming general partner. ^[11] The *Star Advertiser * wrote in January 2014 that, "with the fund, [Kane] and Bicanic plan to provide mentorship, strategies, and business networks that nurture and cultivate the success of new Hawaii startups." ^[44]

This initial venture capital fund, ^[47] mbloom Fund 1, was described as "a public-private partnership" between the Hawaii State Development Corporation (HSDC) and a private investor. ^[44] Devon Archer, a co-founder of Rosemont Capital and a New York-based investor, ^[46] invested the remaining $5 million to cap the fund. ^{[49] [47]}

Announced as closed on January 22, 2014, ^[46] Mbloom Fund 1 was to "target early-stage Hawaii technology companies, including those that are supported by the State’s HI Growth Initiative programs such as Blue Startups, Hawaii’s first technology venture accelerator." ^[46] While Kane stated that most of the fund's portfolio companies would have a connection to Hawaii, he described a return on investment as the primary consideration in selecting investments.

Mbloom began to work on deals and looked to expand into Honolulu in early 2014. ^[8] In March of 2014, Kane announced that mbloom expected to make five to ten investments in 2014, most likely in the $50,000 to $250,000 range. On June 26, 2014, Flikdate announced they had raised $350,000 from mbloom to launch a new version of its app, with backing provided by the Hawaii Strategic Development Corporation (HSDC), ^[43] and by July 2014 mbloom had invested $200,000 in Vantage Sports, ^[51] a sports data company. ^[47] In October 2015, mbloom announced it had provided a seed investment to Fanhandle, Inc., which had been founded by Darius A. Monsef IV of Creative Market. Fanhandle marked mbloom's seventh investment. ^[52] In 2016, the M&A Advisor awarded Kane their Annual Emerging Leaders Award. ^[2] He resigned from mbloom after the fund was renamed Reef Capital Ventures. ^[53]

In 2015, Kane founded Stacked Venture Building, a startup incubator focused on computer software. Based in San Francisco, ^[5] the company has satellite offices in New York, San Francisco, Sydney, and Kosovo. ^[53] Kane in 2016 moved to New York to focus on the venture full-time. ^[53] Beyond investing in various markets, the company develoeps its own apps through Stacked Labs. ^[12] Managing partners beyond Kane include Patrick Nguyen and Jennifer Zanich, while operating partners include Jin Sun Park and Tanya Loh. Technical leads are Karel Herink and Craig Malone, while director of product is Steve Saul. ^[14] As of April 2016, Stacked had nine active companies in its portfolio ^[14] and by June 2016 it had 50 partners. ^[53]

Kane holds five US patents related to media data processing, ^[11] including code for compression and decompression of media data.

^[21] His first patent was assigned on August 30, 2005, and was titled "methods, data structures, and systems for processing media data streams."

The software was focused on media players that automatically configured themselves and began playing diverse data types. ^[17] His second patent, assigned in 2008, used a color matrix layout among other features to compress and decompress media. ^[20] Similar to his first patent, his third was assigned in February 2009, and again provided systems and data structures to allow for the custom compressing and streaming of media data, with an encryption process added as well. ^[23] Finalized in March 2010, his fourth patent was again focused on media players and the compression, streaming, and playing of media data. ^[25] In 2014, he was assigned a fifth US patent along with Nikola Bicanic, ^[28] for a live camera hosting program that allowed for successive interactive video sessions with users, ^[28]"facilitating selection of dating partners in online dating environments," among others. ^[30]

As of 2014 Kane has dual American and German citizenship, ^[11] and he lives in the Maui district of Kula ^[29] and in New York City. ^[7] After getting married in October 2015, he and his wife moved their primary residence to New York City in June 2016. ^[53]