Mark Fasciano is a serial technology entrepreneur with a passion for visual art, particularly drawing and painting. From a very young age, Mark watched his father work as a graphic designer, creating well-known album covers and logos and always encouraging him to draw along. As a father himself, Mark is delighted to share a love of art with his three children. He and his middle daughter, Ava, have matching travel sketchbooks, which they have filled with scenes from around the world.
For Mark, drawing and painting are meditative experiences that provide a peaceful break from the pressures and hectic pace of the business world. He considers it the best form of therapy, having control over one creation at a time from beginning to end. In his paintings, he enjoys mixing representational art with narratives and abstract concepts.
Mark applies the same creativity and inventiveness to his artworks as he does to his technology ventures. His fascination with technology began at an early age when he discovered a natural language adventure game called Zork. It grew in college at Cornell University, where he received his bachelor’s degree in Computer Science and English. During this time, Mark developed an ardent interest in artificial intelligence, and he eventually pursued his Ph.D. in AI at the University of Chicago. For his groundbreaking thesis on real-time gameplay and machine learning, he created an AI system that learned to play an expert game of SimCity.
After earning his Ph.D., Mark Fasciano immediately entered the world of entrepreneurship, co-founding FatWire Software with a grad school classmate. As CEO of FatWire for ten years, he transformed the company into a leading global web content management software provider. The business grew to over $40 million in sales with 400 customers in nine countries around the world. Shortly thereafter, FatWire was purchased by Oracle for over $160 million.
As Chairman of Crowdster, Mark launched one of the first crowdfunding platforms, which raised more than $60M in donations for over 300 nonprofits. Mark expanded his entrepreneurial expertise beyond software and into biotechnology when he co-founded Clarapath, which automated the most labor-intensive step of preparing biopsy tissue for pathologists so that patients can receive faster and more accurate medical diagnoses. Clarapath was sold to Northwell Health, New York’s largest healthcare provider.
Mark currently serves as the CEO and cofounder of Rover Diagnostics, a biotech firm that spun out of Columbia University and is revolutionizing the diagnostic testing industry. Rover’s proprietary technology will provide an ultrafast, point-of-care method of diagnosing infectious diseases, including the novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19.
Mark is also the co-founder of Hashcore DLT, a fintech start-up with blockchain distributed ledger technology that reduces the costs and time required for regulatory reporting and trading operations. In addition, Mark serves as Strategic Advisor to TalentWell Partners, which provides human capital management software that helps companies develop the skills and career paths of their employees.
For nearly 25 years, Mark Fasciano has built and led a variety of tech companies with a wide range of important missions, but a few things have remained constant: a passion for excellence, a commitment to the well-being of his team members, and a desire to contribute to the greater good. He grows businesses like he paints, focusing intently on the task at hand, making sure each stroke is just right, while keeping sight of the bigger, beautiful picture.