Best Startup
At Best Startup US we track over 1,000,000 US startups and over 3 million people who hold key positions in these companies. We use this directory of startups to highlight top employees, founders and board members we think deserve more appreciation than they are currently getting.
This list showcases the top San Francisco based Founder operating in the Venture Capital space. If you think a Founder is missing from this list, feel free to contact our editor on editor@beststartup.us.
The individuals on this list have been included because of exceptional performance in one of the following categories:
- Innovation – Operating as a key part in an extremely innovative business or startup.
- Growth – Operating as a key figure in the growth and upscale of a market leading business or startup.
- Management – Showing exceptional management skills.
- Societal impact – Putting their business on the map for their positive societal or environmental impact.
Our Data – We source our data from OSINT (open source intelligence) and public directories such as Crunchbase, SemRush and many more. The data from these sources should be treated with a degree of caution and verified yourself.
David Sacks
Co-Founder of Craft Ventures
David O. Sacks Is The Co-Founder At Craft Ventures.
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About Callin, Craft Ventures, Harbor: Craft Ventures is an early-stage venture fund specializing in the craft of building great companies.
Bill Lee
Co-Founder and General Partner of Craft Ventures
Bill Lee was CEO and co-founder of Remarq, a Benchmark Capital-backed collaboration company. At Remarq, Bill guided the company in its development of a complete end-to-end Internet messaging and collaboration platform. Before its acquisition by Critical Path in March 2000, the company developed high-volume messaging platforms for sites such as eBay, Sun, Novell, and Amazon. The company raised over $43 million in venture and debt financing. Bill has been appointed by the Mayor of San Jose to the Redevelopment Committee of San Jose. Bill also graduated Beta Gamma Sigma from UC Berkeley with a B.S. in accounting/finance and received a JD/MBA from UCLA.
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About Craft Ventures, West Coast Holdings: Craft Ventures is an early-stage venture fund specializing in the craft of building great companies.
Jeff Fluhr
Co-Founder and General Partner of Craft Ventures
Jeff is co-founder and general partner at Craft. He has been a successful tech entrepreneur and investor for two decades. While at Stanford Graduate School of Business, Fluhr entered the annual business plan competition with the idea of creating a trusted and transparent marketplace where fans could buy and sell tickets for sporting events and concerts. Fluhr dropped out of school and co-founded StubHub in March 2000. By 2007, StubHub had over 400 employees, more than $600 million of gross merchandise volume and partnerships with many professional and college sports teams. Fluhr served as CEO of StubHub until it was acquired by eBay for $310 million in 2007.
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About Craft Ventures: Craft Ventures is an early-stage venture fund specializing in the craft of building great companies.
Alexis Ohanian
Founder & General Partner of Seven Seven Six
Alexis Ohanian, born April 24, 1983, is an entrepreneur and investor in Brooklyn, NY, best known as the co-founder and executive chair of reddit, a platform for online communities to share links and have discussions. While he learned his earliest lessons in leadership and web design from his high school Quake 2 clan and Everquest guild, Alexis continued his official studies at the University of Virginia, where he met his future co-founder Steve Huffman during freshman year move-in day. This would lead to the founding of reddit, which he recounted along with many lessons for entrepreneurs, in his national bestseller, Without Their Permission. At UVA, Alexis majored in business and history with a minor in German. Though he had originally planned to become an immigration lawyer, he experienced an epiphany in his junior year (while sitting in a Waffle House) that led him to the realization that he didn’t want to practice law. Instead he convinced his best friend Steve to start a company with him. The pair traveled to Cambridge, MA during their senior year spring break to hear Paul Graham give a talk titled “How to Start a Startup.” After the lecture, Alexis invited Graham out for a drink so he and Steve could pitch Graham on their business idea. Graham agreed, loved the idea, and suggested they apply to a new seed stage venture firm he’d launched called Y Combinator. Alexis and Steve’s original plan was to build an infrastructure that would allow people to order food from their cell phones. Though the idea was rejected, Alexis and Steve were invited to join the first class of Y Combinator, on the condition that they’d come up with a new concept. The next idea they pitched to Graham would become reddit.com.
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About breadpig, Seven Seven Six: Seven Seven Six is a venture capital firm that primarily seeks to invest in seed rounds.
Justin Kan
General Partner & Co-Founder of Goat Capital
Justin Kan is the CEO and co-founder of Atrium, a technology company and corporate law firm providing fast, transparent, and price-predictable business and legal services to startups. As a founder of multiple companies and an investor in hundreds more, Justin involuntarily became a power user of corporate legal services. Justin’s mixed experiences with traditional law firms and billing practices inspired him to reimagine the delivery of legal services with a better client experience as his guide. At Atrium, Justin is chief visionary and leads a team of talented executives in developing a technology platform for legal professionals to meet client needs responsively, and rethinking and refining how services are packaged and priced so that legal spend is clear, transparent, and predictable for client legal budgets. The Atrium corporate law firm employs experienced startup lawyers who are attuned to the needs of Atrium’s client base of emerging companies. Prior to Atrium, Justin was a partner at Y Combinator, the preeminent startup accelerator. Justin was a co-founder of Justin.tv, which became Twitch, the popular video game streaming platform (acquired by Amazon in 2014); Exec, an on-demand errand service (acquired by Handybook in 2014); Socialcam, a mobile app for sharing video (acquired by Autodesk in 2012); and Kiko, the first Ajax web calendar. Justin is a prolific angel investor and mentor to startup founders. He is a graduate of Yale University.
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About Goat Capital, Zero-F: Goat Capital is a venture capital firm that invests in early-stage companies.
Robin Chan
Co-Founder & General Partner of Goat Capital
Robin Chan joined Goat Capital Founder and General Partner in 2020.
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About Bird, Expa, Goat Capital, Operation Masks, Operator, Square: Goat Capital is a venture capital firm that invests in early-stage companies.
Tim Draper
Founder and Managing Partner of Draper Associates
Timothy Draper is founding partner of leading venture capital firms Draper Associates and DFJ. Tim’s original suggestion to use “viral marketing” in web-based e-mail to geometrically spread an Internet product to its market was instrumental to the successes of Hotmail and other web-based email providers and has been adopted as a standard marketing technique by hundreds of businesses. Tim launched the DFJ Global Network, an international network of early-stage venture capital funds with offices in over 30 cities around the globe. Tim founded or co-founded DFJ ePlanet (global), Draper Fisher Jurvetson Gotham (NYC), Zone Ventures (LA), Epic Ventures (Salt Lake City), Draper Atlantic (Reston), Draper Triangle (Pittsburg), Timberline Ventures (Portland), Polaris Fund (Anchorage), DFJ Frontier (Sacramento and Santa Barbara), DFJ Vina Capital (Vietnam), Draper Nexus (Tokyo), and DFJ DragonFund (Shanghai). Tim recently launched “Six Californias,” a statewide initiative to create six new states and dissolve a failed one in California. Previously, Tim served on the California State Board of Education. In November of 2000, Tim launched a statewide cyber-initiative on school choice for the California General Election. Tim was a Member of Singapore’s International Economic Council and Ukraine’s Orange Circle. Tim was on the Board of U.C. Berkeley’s Haas School of Business. Tim was ranked 52 on the list of the 100 most influential Harvard Alumni, and seven on the Forbes Midas List. Tim was named Always-On #1 top venture capital deal maker. Tim was awarded the Commonwealth Club’s Distinguished Citizen Award for achievements in green and sustainable energy. To further encourage entrepreneurship, Tim started BizWorld.org, a non-profit for children to learn entrepreneurship, Draper University of Heroes, a school for entrepreneurs 18-28 and he leads SixCalifornias, an initiative to improve the governance of California. Tim has a B.S. degree in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University and an MBA from Harvard Business School.
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About Bancor, DDF, DFJ DragonFund, DFJ VinaCapital, Draper Associates, Draper Athena, Draper Dragon, Draper University Ventures, ePlanet Capital, Gotham Ventures, SpeedUPAfrica, Threshold, VenturesLab, Zone Ventures: Draper Associates is an early-stage venture capital firm that invests in industry-transforming companies.
Ronald Conway
Founder & Co-Managing Partner of SV Angel
Ronald Conway has been an active angel investor for over 15 years. He was the Founder and Managing Partner of the Angel Investors LP funds (1998-2005) whose investments included: Google, Ask Jeeves, Paypal, Good Technology, Opsware, and Brightmail. Ronald was previously with National Semiconductor Corporation in marketing positions from 1973-1979, and Altos Computer Systems as a co-founder, President and CEO from 1979-1990. He eventually took Altos public in 1982 and served as CEO of Personal Training Systems (PTS) from 1991-1995. PTS went on to be acquired by SmartForce/SkillSoft. Ronald has served/serves on Boards/Advisory Boards including: Twitter, Digg, Brightmail, Ask Jeeves, Rupture (acquired by EA), Associated Content (acquired by Yahoo!), Facebook, RockYou, ScanScout, Zappos, Trulia, StumbleUpon, Plaxo (acquired by Comcast), Photobucket (acquired by Fox), and Anchor Intelligence (co-founder). Ronald was recently named #6 in Forbes Magazine Midas list of top deal-makers in 2008 and is actively involved in numerous philanthropic endeavors. Ronald is Vice Chairman of the UCSF Medical Foundation in SF, Board Member of The Tiger Woods Foundation, and SF Homeless Connect, and on the Benefit Committee of Ronald McDonald House, College Track, and the Blacked Eyed Peas-PeaPod Academy Foundation. Ronald is also featured in Gary Rivlin’s book _The Godfather of Silicon Valley: Ronald Conway and the Fall of the Dot-coms, described as ‘the man who has placed more bets on Internet start-ups than anyone else in Silicon Valley.
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About Applied Intuition, FWD.us, Personal Training Systems, Smart Tech Foundation, SV Angel: SV Angel is an angel firm that helps startups with business development, financing, M&A, and other strategic advice.
Benjamin Forman
Founder and Chief Investment Officer of ParaFi Capital
Benjamin Forman (San Francisco) joined KKR in 2015 as a Principal. Mr. Forman is responsible for covering the industrials and automotive sectors for KKR Credit across various strategies, including liquid credit, direct lending, special situations and long-short credit. Previously, Mr. Forman was a vice president at TPG on its Special Situations platform. Mr. Forman graduated magna cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania.
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About ParaFi Capital: ParaFi Capital is an alternative investment firm focused on blockchain and decentralized finance markets.
Fred Ehrsam
Co-Founder of Paradigm
Fred Ehrsam is co-founder of Coinbase. He’s been named to both Forbes 30 Under 30 and TIME Magazine’s 30 Under 30 Who Are Changing the World. Previously, he was a foreign exchange trader at Goldman Sachs in New York where he traded and managed Goldman’s electronic market making platform. Fred has also analyzed portfolios at BlackRock, the largest asset manager in the world and worked in nanostructures research. He holds a BS in Computer Science and Economics with honors and distinction from Duke University.
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About Paradigm: Paradigm primarily invests in crypto-assets and businesses from the earliest stages of idea formation through to maturity.
Matt Huang
Co-Founder of Paradigm
The former founding CEO of Hotspots, a Y Combinator company acquired by Twitter in 2012, Huang spent time in Twitter’s ad analytics team before joining Sequoia Capital. The MIT grad works on investments like Reddit and Yik Yak for the firm. He’s an angel investor in companies including Instacart and Teespring. He is fascinated by new platforms: the internet, mobile devices, and whatever’s next. Matt holds a B.S. in Mathematics from MIT.
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About Paradigm: Paradigm primarily invests in crypto-assets and businesses from the earliest stages of idea formation through to maturity.
Brook Byers
Co-Founder of Kleiner Perkins
Brook Byers is the Board Director of Foundation Medicine Inc. He has been a venture capital investor since 1972. He has been closely involved with more than fifty new technology based ventures, over half of which have already become public companies. He formed the first Life Sciences practice group in the venture capital profession in 1984 and led KPCB to become a premier venture capital firm in the medical, healthcare, and biotechnology sectors. KPCB has invested in and helped build over 110 Life Sciences companies which have already developed hundreds of products to treat major underserved medical needs for millions of patients. Brook was the founding President and then Chairman, of four biotechnology companies which were incubated in KPCB’s offices and went on to become public companies with an aggregate market value over $8 Billion. He is currently on the Board of Directors of nine companies, most recently joining CardioDX, Genomic Health Incorporated, Five Prime Therapeutics, OptiMedica, Pacific Biosciences, Inc., Tethys, XDx, Inc He was formerly a Director of Idec Pharmaceuticals (Chairman), Athena Neurosciences (Chairman), Signal Pharmaceuticals, Arris Pharmaceuticals, Pharmacopeia, Hybritech (Chairman), Genprobe and others. These companies have pioneered the medical use of molecular biology, monoclonal antibodies, molecular diagnostics and genomics. Brook was President and a Director of the Western Association of Venture Capitalists. He is a currently a Board member of the University of California at San Francisco Medical Foundation, the New Schools Foundation, Stanford Bio-X Advisory Council and the Stanford Eye Council. He was Co – Chair of the five year, $1.4 billion, UCSF Capital Campaign. In 2007, he was awarded the UCSF Medal as their honorary degree equivalent. He was formerly a Director of the Entrepreneurs Foundation, the California Healthcare Institute, the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco, the Stanford Graduate School of Business Advisory Council, That Many May See (UCSF) Vision Research Foundation (Chairman) and the Georgia Tech Advisory Board. Raised in Atlanta, Georgia, Brook graduated in Electrical Engineering from Georgia Tech. He received an MBA from Stanford.
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About Aces Four Construction, Kleiner Perkins, Ligand Pharmaceuticals, Mission Bay Capital: Kleiner Perkins is a venture capital firm that specializes in investing in early-stage, incubation, and growth companies.
Arjun Sethi
Co-Founder & Partner of Tribe Capital
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About Applied Intuition, Instabase, Social Capital, Tribe Capital: Tribe Capital is an early stage venture capital firm focused on recognizing and amplifying early stage product-market fit.
Anna Patterson
Founder & Managing Partner of Gradient Ventures
Anna Patterson is the Founder and Managing Partner at Gradient Ventures.
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About Google, Google, Gradient Ventures, Washington University in St. Louis: Gradient Ventures helps founders build transformational companies.
Ali Partovi
Founder & CEO of Neo
Ali Partovi heads Neo, a mentorship community and VC fund that brings together tech veterans to invest in the diverse leaders of tomorrow. Ali invests in people smarter than himself and has backed Airbnb, Dropbox, Facebook, & Uber. He co-founded Code.org (Hour of Code) to bring Computer Science to classrooms. Ali grew up in Tehran during the Iran-Iraq war, attended Harvard, and sold his first startup, LinkExchange, in 1998. He’s passionate about sustainable food and loves climbing, guitar, puzzles, and family.
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About Code.org, Neo: Neo is a mentorship community and VC fund that brings together a diverse group of tech veterans to accelerate tomorrow’s leaders.
Neil Mehta
Founder, Managing Partner of Greenoaks
Neil Mehta is the founder and a managing partner of Greenoaks Capital. Greenoaks is a leading investment firm focused on internet and technology businesses. Greenoaks makes concentrated, long-term investments in enduring businesses globally.
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About Greenoaks: Greenoaks is a global investment firm specializing in technology companies.
Peter Nieh
Partner and Co-Founder of Lightspeed Venture Partners
Peter is a Partner and Co-Founder of Lightspeed, and covers software, mobile and cleantech. He has been working in the venture capital industry since 1995. Peter’s current investments include 99Bill, BloomReach, CoalTek, Five Stars, Leyden Energy, LS9, MyBuys, Nest, QuantumScape, Skyfire and Stion. He was also responsible for several investments which have had successful exits including Blue Nile (NILE), Celequest (acquired by Cognos), DoubleClick (acquired by Google, post IPO), Extensity (acquired by Infor, post IPO), Informatica (INFA), Kiva Software (acquired by Netscape), Phone.com (OPWV), PSS System (acquired by IBM) and TimesTen (acquired by Oracle). Prior to Lightspeed, Peter worked in business development and product marketing at General Magic, a startup that before the emergence of the Web, pioneered the development of e-commerce and electronic media services by partnering with the world’s largest telecommunications service providers and consumer electronics companies. He also managed Acer’s portable PC business in North America, where he launched the company’s first laptop PCs. Before Acer, Peter was a strategy consultant at Bain & Company and worked predominately with high-technology clients on product, sales and distribution strategies. While an undergraduate at Stanford University, he worked at Apple Computer, where he helped to develop the power management system for Apple’s first portable computer. Peter holds a BS in Electrical Engineering, an AB in Economics from Stanford University and an MBA from Stanford University Graduate School of Business.
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About Lightspeed Venture Partners: Lightspeed Venture Partners is a venture capital firm that engages in consumer, enterprise, technology, and cleantech markets.
Barry Eggers
Founder and Partner of Lightspeed Venture Partners
Barry is a Founder and Partner of Lightspeed and focuses primarily on information technology infrastructure, with a specific interest in cloud computing, big data, storage, consumerization of IT, and networking. He has 15 years of venture capital experience, 10 years of operating experience and has been named to the Forbes Midas List of top 100 investors multiple times. Barry works closely with Avi Networks, MapR Technologies, Nimble Storage, Pertino, and youwho. His past investments include Pliant Technology (acquired by Sandisk), Calista Technologies (acquired by MSFT), Arbor Networks (acquired by DHR), Growth Networks (acquired by CSCO), Maker Communications (acquired post-IPO by CNXT), Metasolv Software (acquired post-IPO by ORCL), Sirocco Systems (acquired by SCMR), and Telogy Networks (acquired by TI). Prior to joining Lightspeed, Barry held executive roles in business development and general management at Cisco Systems from 1991-1997. While at Cisco, Barry established many of the company’s largest distribution channels across OEMs, Service Providers, Distributors, and VARs. He also developed Cisco’s initial M&A process and directed the first wave of acquisitions and integrations for the company.Barry holds a BA in Economics and Business from the University of California, Los Angeles and an MBA from Stanford University Graduate School of Business. Barry is a member of the UCLA Economics Board of Visitors.
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About Lightspeed India Partners, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Origami Logic, Snap: Lightspeed Venture Partners is a venture capital firm that engages in consumer, enterprise, technology, and cleantech markets.
Ben Casnocha
Co-Founder & Partner of Village Global
Ben is cofounder and partner at Village Global, a $100M venture capital fund that invests in startup entrepreneurs across a range of categories: SaaS, consumer internet, robotics, fintech, digital health, and more. Ben is coauthor of the New York Times bestselling management book The Alliance: Managing Talent in the Networked Age (with LinkedIn chairman Reid Hoffman and entrepreneur Chris Yeh). He’s also coauthor of the New York Times bestselling career strategy book The Start-Up of You: Adapt to the Future, Invest in Yourself, and Transform Your Career (with Reid Hoffman).
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About Harvard Business School, New Anchor Foundation, Village Global: Village Global is an early stage venture capital firm and accelerator backed by some of the world’s most successful entrepreneurs.
Anne Dwane
Co-Founder & Partner of Village Global
Anne is an early stage investor with experience as a tech company founder, venture-backed CEO and public company executive. Prior to her current role at Village, Anne was Co-Founder & Partner of GSV Acceleration Fund. This early stage venture capital fund backs entrepreneurs leveraging technology to improve learning and talent development from K-12 through higher education and career advancement. Previously, Anne was Chief Business Officer at Chegg. Anne joined Chegg with the acquisition of Zinch, which enabled millions of students to showcase themselves as “more than test scores” to be matched with colleges, scholarships, grad schools and more. Previously, Anne co-founded Military.com to connect service members and veterans to benefits, including GI Bill and career networking. Military.com was acquired by Monster Worldwide, where she led affinity networks. Prior, Anne was in business development at Paul Allen’s Interval Research Corporation and in brand management for Nabisco. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Marketing & International Management from Georgetown University and an MBA from the Harvard Business School. Anne is co-author of Getting In: The Zinch Guide to College Admissions & Financial Aid in the Digital Age (Wiley 2011). She was named a Henry Crown Fellow of the Aspen Institute.
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About Village Global: Village Global is an early stage venture capital firm and accelerator backed by some of the world’s most successful entrepreneurs.
Seth Berman
Co-Founder & General Partner of Susa Ventures
“Seth Berman is co-founder and General Partner at Susa Ventures, where he focuses on investments in frontier tech, logistics, marketplaces & consumer. Seth led Susa’s investments in Flexport, Pericope Data and Expanse. Prior to Susa, Seth was an active angel investor. He has invested in 100+ seed stage companies in total, and his portfolio includes Nest, Optimizely, Wish, Omio and Docker. He also served as the VP of Strategic Marketing for The Richemont Group, a publicly traded company (CFR:VX) which owns brands and e-commerce sites Cartier, Net-A-Porter.com, Mr. Porter, Montblanc, and Chloe. Seth graduated from the University of Colorado Boulder with a bachelor’s degrees in Business and Finance.”
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About Susa Ventures: Susa Ventures is an early-stage venture capital firm investing primarily in seed rounds.
Sujay Jaswa
Founder & Managing Partner of WndrCo
Sujay Jaswa is founder and managing partner at WndrCo, a holding company that invests in and acquires consumer technology businesses. He serves as Chairman of Aura, Twingate, VPN Super, and is a Director of The Infatuation. Board member of Vy Global Growth (Nasdaq: VYGG). Advisor at Seven1 Sports & Entertainment Agency. He is also a lecturer at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. He formerly served as business founder, vice president of business, and CFO of Dropbox from 2010 to 2015. At Dropbox, Sujay created and led the global business and finance organization. He has a Bachelor’s degree in Economics from Princeton University and an MBA from Harvard Business School.
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About Pango, WndrCo: WndrCo is a holding company that invests in, acquires, develops, and operates consumer technology businesses for the long term.
Brad Greiwe
Co-Founder & Managing Partner of Fifth Wall
Brad Greiwe is a Co-founder and Managing Partner at Fifth Wall.
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About Fifth Wall: Fifth Wall is a venture capital firm that focuses on technologies for the global real estate industry.
Dan Morehead
Founder , Co-Chief Investment Officer & CEO of Pantera Capital
Dan Morehead founded Pantera Capital Management LP in 2003. He also co-founded and was CEO of Atriax, an electronic foreign exchange platform. Prior to that, he was head of macro trading and CEO at Tiger Management, global head of FX options at Deutsche Bank in London, and managed a global macro fund and derivatives trading units in North America and Japan at Bankers Trust. Dan began his career at Goldman Sachs as a mortgagebacked securities trader. Dan graduated magna cum laude from Princeton University with a B.S. in Civil Engineering and received the Carmichael Prize for an outstanding thesis. Pantera Capital is an institutional investment firm focused exclusively on Bitcoin, other digital currencies and companies in the space. As CEO of Pantera Capital, Dan is actively involved in providing investors exposure to Bitcoin in addition to digital currency startups. Bitcoin represents a quantum shift in the global financial landscape and will fundamentally transform the way finance and commerce is conducted around the world.
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About Pantera Capital: Pantera Capital is an investment firm focused exclusively on ventures, tokens, and projects related to blockchain tech, digital currency.
Adam Draper
Founder & Managing Director of Boost VC
Adam Draper is the CEO and Founder of Boost, a startup accelerator. He has invested in companies, started companies, and more. Adam Draper is a fourth generation venture capitalist and Super Smash player. He also co-founded Xpert Financial while still in his senior year at UCLA. Before starting Boost, he invested in 20 companies, including Coinbase, Plangrid, and Practice Fusion. Adam Draper’s favorite movie is Notting Hill and his favorite pizza joint is Round Table. He is also interested in making pickles. Adam Draper currently resided in San Francisco.
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About Boost VC, Creative Destruction Lab (CDL), Enders Fund: The Accelerator for Sci-Fi. We invest $500K in 20+ startups each per year.
Brayton Williams
Co-Founder of Boost VC
Brayton Williams is the Co-Founder at Boost VC.
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About Boost VC: The Accelerator for Sci-Fi. We invest $500K in 20+ startups each per year.
Raymond Tonsing
Founder, Managing Director & General Partner of Caffeinated Capital
Raymond Tonsing is a San Francisco based venture capitalist and entrepreneur. He founded Caffeinated Capital, an early stage venture capital firm, and now serves as its managing director. Raymond holds a bachelor’s degree in Arts from University of Colorado Boulder.
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About Caffeinated Capital, SingleStore: Caffeinated Capital is a technology venture capital firm that partners with founders at the inception stage.
Kishore Bopardikar
Co-Founder & Managing Partner of Eileses Capital
Kishore Bopardikar is the Co-Founder and Managing Partner at Eileses Capital.
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About Eileses Capital: Eileses Capital is an investment firm that invests in companies that focuses on information technology.
Yubo Ruan
Founder & Partner of 8 Decimal Capital
Yubo is the founder of 8 Decimal Capital, one of the leading blockchain investment firm in Silicon Valley. Yubo is the co-founder of Skylight Investment, an early stage tech investment firm, backed by Taiyou Fund and New Oriental(NYSE:EDU). Previously, Yubo started two highly successful companies, held 4 national patents and won the 2017 AACYF 30 under 30.
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About 8 Decimal Capital, Parallel Finance, Skylight Investment: A multi-strategy investment firm focused on both token and equity investment
Ullas Naik
Founder & General Partner of Streamlined Ventures
Ullas Naik is the Founder & General Partner at Streamlined Ventures.
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About Streamlined Ventures: Streamlined Ventures is a seed-stage investment firm focusing on Data Science, APIs, Blockchain/Web3, AI, and Software Automation.
Nicholas Brathwaite
Founder & Managing Partner of Celesta Capital
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About Celesta Capital, Walden Riverwood Ventures: Celesta Capital is a venture capital firm that invests in entrepreneurs and disruptive technology companies.
Steve Jang
Founder & Managing Partner of Kindred Ventures
Steve Jang is a venture capital investor and technology entrepreneur. Based in San Francisco, Steve serves as founder and a managing partner of Kindred Ventures. As a generalist early stage venture fund, Kindred’s mission is to invest in brilliant and dedicated founders at the earliest stages of building their startup and, ultimately, our collective future. Over the past 12 years, Steve has backed over 100 companies across different theme areas, including Uber, Coinbase, Postmates, Tonal, Color Health, Zymergen, and Blue Bottle Coffee. Since 2009 and up until IPO, Steve has also served as an Advisor to Uber since the founding of the company, up through initial product launch, global expansion, and then IPO. Steve also serves as an Advisor at Expa, a startup studio based in SF and NY, mentoring startup teams on product development, team building, and company growth. Most recently as an entrepreneur, Steve served as co-founder of Bitski, a digital wallet and storefront service for NFTs. Previously, he was co-founder/CEO of SoundTracking, a popular mobile music service that was Apple’s Best iPhone Music App of 2011 and was acquired by Rhapsody in 2014. Prior to these startups, in 2005, he was the co-creator and founding team member of the world’s first and largest on-demand music streaming service which reached over 100 million monthly unique users before its eventual acquisition by MySpace. //Investment Theme Areas of Interest// * Online Marketplaces * Decentralized Systems and Crypto * ClimateTech & Sustainable Systems * Digital Health and Wellness * FinTech * Social Consumer Media * Developer/Creator Tools * Future of Work * Software-enabled Hardware //Representative Portfolio Companies Include// Marketplaces/Market Networks: Uber (IPO), Postmates (acq. by Uber), Poshmark (IPO), StyleSeat, Italic, Reserve (acq. by Resy), Drip (acq. Kickstarter), GrandSt (acq. by Etsy), RangeMe (acq. by ECRM) Decentralized Systems & Crypto: Coinbase, dYdX, Zora, CoinTracker, Mina Protocol, Bitski, Computable, Nervos Network, Origin Protocol, Harbor, Radar Relay, Set Protocol, Messari, Rarebits Health & Wellness: Tonal, Color Health, Heartbeat Health, Forward, Enso, Breathometer Sustainable Systems/Climate Tech: Zymergen, Linear Labs, Replenysh, Mootral, Connora Systems FinTech & LegalTech: Atrium, Bloom Credit, Coinbase, Catch Benefits Developer/Creator Tools: Red Planet Labs, Northflank, Optic, Anjuna Future of Work: Bravado, Torch, Braintrust, Fountain, Catch Food Innovation & CPG: Taika, Blue Bottle Coffee, Fort Point Beer Consumer/Social Media: Clubhouse Frontier Tech: Humane
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About Bitski, Kindred Ventures: Kindred Ventures is a seed-stage venture capital fund that supports startup companies.
Matt Ocko
Co-Managing Partner and Co-Founder of DCVC
Matt has nearly three decades of experience as a technology entrepreneur, operating executive and venture capitalist, with over 20 patents granted or pending in areas as diverse as hardware systems and social games. He still reads C++ code but admits to occasional struggles with Erlang. Matt is a cofounder of Data Collective, a venture fund with a unique team of experienced venture capitalists, technology entrepreneurs and practicing engineers, investing together in seed and early stage Big Data and IT infrastructure companies. During his venture capital tenure, he has invested in and/or helped grow a variety of companies including XenSource (CTRX), Zynga (ZNGA), Impermium, Verisign (VRSN), Facebook (FB), Virtuata (CSCO), Akimbi Systems (VMW), Cotendo (AKAM), Tango.me, MetaWeb (GOOG), FlashSoft (SNDK), DataMirror (IBM), UltraDNS (NSR), Kenshoo, Metamarkets, Fortinet (FTNT), SupportSoft (SPRT), Alantro (TXN), CouchBase, Spool (FB), BranchOut, On-Ramp Wireless, and many others.
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About AngelList, Archimedes Capital, DCVC, Uber: DCVC backs entrepreneurs using Deep Tech to solve problems and multiply the benefits of capitalism for everyone while reducing its cost.
Zachary Bogue
Co-Managing Partner and Co-Founder of DCVC
Zack has over a decade of experience in Silicon Valley as an entrepreneur, lawyer, angel investor and advisor for big data startups. Zack is a cofounder of Data Collective, a venture fund with a unique team of experienced venture capitalists, technology entrepreneurs and practicing engineers, investing together in seed and early stage Big Data and IT infrastructure companies. Zack also is a cofounder and managing partner of Founders Den, a shared workspace for experienced technology entrepreneurs. He was previously an associate at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati and a law partner at Virtual Law Partners, where he worked with numerous start-ups and their founders, and developed expertise in technology law and Silicon Valley business practices.
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About aWhere, Cask, Citus Data, Cotendo, DCVC, Founders Den, Montara Capital Partners, Square, The World Economic Forum, Uber: DCVC backs entrepreneurs using Deep Tech to solve problems and multiply the benefits of capitalism for everyone while reducing its cost.
Eric Kwan
Co-Founder & Managing Partner of Locus Ventures
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About Applied Intuition, Ironclad, Lob, Locus Ventures, Meesho, Notable Labs, Razorpay, Standard Cognition: Locus Ventures is a seed fund that invests in passionate founders looking to build important, world-changing companies.
Harris Barton
Founder & Managing Director of H. Barton Asset Management
Harris Barton As the founder and managing director of H. Barton Asset Management, Harris Barton actively manages a $30 million fund that specializes in providing investment capital to up-and-coming VC-backed technology startups. Prior to H. Barton Asset Management, Mr. Barton was a founding partner of HRJ Capital, an investment firm specializing in private equity funds. Mr. Barton became a private equity investor during his football career, where as an All-Pro offensive lineman for the San Francisco 49ers he earned three Super Bowl wins. Today, he brings the same passion, dedication and teamwork to both his financial and philanthropic endeavors. In 2004, Mr. Barton founded Champion Charities with his friend and former NFL teammate Ronnie Lott. Dedicated to eradicating brain cancer and helping those afflicted with the disease, the charity has raised more than $7 million for research and patient care. Embracing his mantra of “always give back,” Mr. Barton also focuses his energy on helping and inspiring disadvantaged youth through motivational speeches, volunteer programs and fundraising events. Mr. Barton holds a BA in Finance from the University of North Carolina.
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About H. Barton Asset Management, H. Barton Co-Invest Fund: H. Barton Asset Management is a VC firm specializing in start-ups and early stage investments.
Josh Felser
Co-Founder of Freestyle
Josh Felser is the Co-Founder of Freestyle.
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About climate, Freestyle: Freestyle is a venture capital firm that focuses on early-stage technology companies.
Phil Black
Co-Founder of True Ventures
Phil is an early stage venture capitalist and co-founder of True Ventures. He learned the venture trade and met his future True Ventures co-founder during his time at Summit Partners. He held general partner positions for eight years prior to raising and investing a small angel fund called Blacksmith Capital, which became a seminal moment in his career of managing venture fund investments. Phil believes in risk-taking at the earliest stage and that startup founders benefit most when they are supported fully, both professionally and personally. Phil is a product of Oklahoma and Stanford alumni. He loves art, wine, and travel. His favorite place outside of the San Francisco Bay Area is London.
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About True Ventures: True Ventures is a venture capital firm that invests in early-stage technology startups.
Phil Black
Co-Founder of True Ventures
Phil is an early stage venture capitalist and co-founder of True Ventures. He learned the venture trade and met his future True Ventures co-founder during his time at Summit Partners. He held general partner positions for eight years prior to raising and investing a small angel fund called Blacksmith Capital, which became a seminal moment in his career of managing venture fund investments. Phil believes in risk-taking at the earliest stage and that startup founders benefit most when they are supported fully, both professionally and personally. Phil is a product of Oklahoma and Stanford alumni. He loves art, wine, and travel. His favorite place outside of the San Francisco Bay Area is London.
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About True Ventures: True Ventures is a venture capital firm that invests in early-stage technology startups.
Jon Callaghan
Co-Founder and Managing Partner of True Ventures
Jon is an early stage venture capitalist and co-founder of True Ventures. He has been in the venture capital business since 1991 and built three companies of his own. His first was Mountain Bike Outfitters, Inc., which he created at age 18. Jon started his venture career as an associate at Summit Partners and then joined Greenhouse, AOL’s venture capital investment group and incubator. He entered the internet market early by joining CMGI’s @Ventures group in 1996. Before founding True, Jon was a managing director at Globespan Capital Partners. First as a founder and now as an investor in early-stage technology companies, Jon’s direct startup experience has allowed him to see the world through an entrepreneur’s eyes. Jon’s career has been driven by a deep belief in the power of human creativity to improve our world. Jon received a bachelor’s degree in government from Dartmouth College and an MBA, with distinction, from Harvard Business School. He was recently the Chairman of the National Venture Capital Association. When he is not empowering the entrepreneurs of tomorrow, you can find him talking about airplanes or hanging out with his wife and four boys.
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About NexPrise Corporation, True Ventures: True Ventures is a venture capital firm that invests in early-stage technology startups.
Jon Callaghan
Co-Founder and Managing Partner of True Ventures
Jon is an early stage venture capitalist and co-founder of True Ventures. He has been in the venture capital business since 1991 and built three companies of his own. His first was Mountain Bike Outfitters, Inc., which he created at age 18. Jon started his venture career as an associate at Summit Partners and then joined Greenhouse, AOL’s venture capital investment group and incubator. He entered the internet market early by joining CMGI’s @Ventures group in 1996. Before founding True, Jon was a managing director at Globespan Capital Partners. First as a founder and now as an investor in early-stage technology companies, Jon’s direct startup experience has allowed him to see the world through an entrepreneur’s eyes. Jon’s career has been driven by a deep belief in the power of human creativity to improve our world. Jon received a bachelor’s degree in government from Dartmouth College and an MBA, with distinction, from Harvard Business School. He was recently the Chairman of the National Venture Capital Association. When he is not empowering the entrepreneurs of tomorrow, you can find him talking about airplanes or hanging out with his wife and four boys.
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About NexPrise Corporation, True Ventures: True Ventures is a venture capital firm that invests in early-stage technology startups.
Owen Van Natta
Founder and Managing Partner of Prefix Capital
Owen Van Natta is currently Founder and Managing Partner of Prefix Capital, an early stage investment fund founded in 2019. Owen is also a Founder and Managing Partner at 415 Investments. Previously, Owen was the Executive Vice President of Business at Zynga. He was responsible for the company’s revenue strategy, corporate development, international expansion, and brand. Owen was also a member of Zynga’s Board of Directors. Before Zynga, Owen served as Chief Executive Officer of MySpace, where he was responsible for all aspects of the company’s strategic vision and the execution of its global business initiatives. Owen joined the MySpace team after serving as the Chief Executive Officer of Project Playlist, a music sharing website allowing users to search for music, create custom playlists, and share the content with friends. Prior to Project Playlist, Van Natta was the Chief Operating Officer at Facebook, where he focused on revenue operations, business development, and strategic partnerships. Earlier in his career, Owen was Vice President of Worldwide Business and Corporate Development at Amazon.com, where he managed global marketing programs and strategic partnerships. He was part of the founding team of A9.com, the Amazon.com search company, and was responsible for site operations and sponsored-link advertising. Owen holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of California at Santa Cruz.
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About 415, Prefix Capital: Prefix Capital is an early-stage, deep-tech VC that invests in foundational technologies.
Byron Alsberg
Founder and General Partner of Prefix Capital
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About 415, Prefix Capital: Prefix Capital is an early-stage, deep-tech VC that invests in foundational technologies.
Calvin Ling
Founder and Principal of Prefix Capital
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About 415, Prefix Capital: Prefix Capital is an early-stage, deep-tech VC that invests in foundational technologies.
Daniel Friedland
Co-Founder and Managing Director of Goldcrest Capital
Daniel Friedland is the Co-Founder and Managing Director of Goldcrest Capital.
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About Goldcrest Capital: Goldcrest is a venture capital fund that invests in private technology companies.
Bobby Yazdani
Founder & Partner of Cota Capital
Bobby Yazdani is a Founder and Managing Partner at Cota Capital. Bobby works full-time on the development and support of entrepreneurs through Cota Capital and was ranked #1 out of 2000 angel investors for successful follow-on funding by CB Insights in 2014. Bobby founded Saba in 1997, taking the company public in 2000. Saba was the pioneer in learning management and talent management systems addressing all aspects of acquiring, developing, and retaining talent serving over 30 million users within 2,000 enterprise customers across 195 countries and in 37 languages worldwide. Prior to Saba, Bobby served in various R&D roles at Oracle. Since making his first investment in Masimo Corporation (NASDAQ: MASI) in 1989, Bobby has successfully mentored entrepreneurs and invested in more than 100 early-stage companies, including: Aardvark (acquired by Google), AddThis (acquired by Oracle), Addepar, Atheer Labs, Baarzo (acquired by Google), Berkeley Lights, Bina Technologies (acquired by Roche), Bioniz, Blueprint Genetics (acquired by Quest Diagnostics), Bonobos (acquired by Walmart), Bossa Nova, Clear Labs, CleverSense (acquired by Google), CloudLending (acquired by Q2 Holdings), Dropbox (NASDAQ: DBX), FundersClub, Google (NASDAQ: GOOG), Greensmith Energy (acquired by Wartsila (HEL: WRT1V)), Guardant Health (NASDAQ: GH), Gusto (formerly ZenPayroll), InstaEdu (acquired by Chegg), Klout (acquired by Lithium Technologies), Mission Bio, Movandi, NextBio (acquired by Illumina), OpenGov, PassBan (acquired by EMC/RSA), Purigen Biosystems, Qwiki (acquired by Yahoo!), RecVue, Rollbar, Roostify, Salesforce (NYSE: CRM), Smartfrog Canary Group, SoundHound, SweetGreen, ThinkBig Analytics (acquired by Teradata), Tubi (acquired by Fox Corp), Uber (NYSE: UBER), Webs.com (acquired by VistaPrint), Zymergen, and more. Bobby has a B.A. in Applied Mathematics from the University of California, Berkeley.
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About Compliance.ai, Cota Capital, Signatures Capital, Signatures Capital: Cota Capital is an SEC-registered multi-stage investment firm focused on private and public enterprise technology companies.
Babak Poushanchi
Founder & Managing Partner of Cota Capital
Babak Poushanchi is a Founder and Managing Partner at Cota Capital. Babak is responsible for leading public investing activities across the Firm’s funds. As Portfolio Manager of the Cota Growth Fund, he is directly responsible for the management of the investment team covering sourcing, evaluation, and portfolio/risk management of the Firm’s public investments. Babak also serves on the Firm’s Investment Committee, overseeing investments across its private and public portfolios. Babak and Bobby Yazdani founded Cota Capital in 2015. Leveraging Bobby’s early stage investing and operational expertise, and Babak’s late stage and public investing expertise, Cota was designed to invest across all the stages of the lifecycle of a company. Their investment platform is built around the desire to create a research and knowledge platform, and to deploy their own capital into the multi-decade theme of the digital transformation of the enterprise technology stack. Prior to Cota, Babak served as Co-Founder and Co-Portfolio Manager of Newbrook Capital, a global equity long/short fund focused on public investments across the technology, media, consumer, and industrial sectors. Babak was also a Venture Partner at Entrepreneurs Roundtable Accelerator, a leading technology accelerator based in New York. Previously, Babak was on the investment teams at Karsch Capital, a global equity long/short fund focused on public investments across all sectors, and Indosuez Capital, a leading middle market merchant banking group focused on equity and debt private investments across the capital structure and a broad range of sectors. Babak has a B.A. in Economics from Northwestern University.
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About Cota Capital, Fanatic Sports Corp.: Cota Capital is an SEC-registered multi-stage investment firm focused on private and public enterprise technology companies.
Anthony Schiller
Co-Founder and Co-Managing Director of Green Bay Ventures
Led venture investments in Dropbox, Lyft, Spotify, DocuSign, MuleSoft and Xiaomi. Early investor with Kramlich in the world’s largest private nuclear fusion company, Tri Alpha Energy.
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About Green Bay Ventures: Green Bay Ventures (GBV) is a San Francisco based venture capital firm backed by some of the world’s most prominent families.
Richard Kramlich
Co-Founder and Co-Managing Director of Green Bay Ventures
Dick Kramlich began his venture career in 1969 as a General Partner with Arthur Rock and Co. after nine years in general management as Manager of Financial Planning at the Kroger Co. and Investment Management as Executive Vice President at Gardner & Preston Moss Company in Boston. Since co-founding NEA in 1978, he has been involved in eight companies that have grown from start-up or near start-up stage to companies with market value in excess of $1 billion, including Juniper Networks, Ascend Communications (acquired by Lucent), ImmuneX (acquired by Amgen), Macromedia (acquired by Adobe), and Dallas Semiconductor (acquired by Maxim Integrated products). Dick was the first investor to invest in the Ethernet at 3Com with Bob Metcalfe and an early investor with John Simpson in balloon angioplasty at Advanced Cardiovascular Systems (acquired by Eli Lilly) as well as Forethought (acquired by Microsoft), the company that originated PowerPoint. Dick continues to work with start-ups such as Financial Engines, Force10 Networks, MaxiScale, Tabula, Visual Edge, Xoom, and Zhone. He recently joined the board of CITIC Pharmaceuticals in China and is also a director of Silicon Valley Bank. Dick has received four Lifetime Achievement Awards including awards from the National Venture Capital Association (he served as Chairman and President from 1992-93), the University of California- Haas School of Business, the Silicon Valley Deloitte Technology Fast 50 Program, and the Red Herring Magazine Award. He received an MBA from Harvard University and a BS in History from Northwestern University. Dick and his wife, Pamela, received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the San Francisco Art Institute in 2006. They are noted collectors of Media Art and founded the New Art Trust to foster best practices in the field in 1997. They have four adult offspring and five grandchildren; they enjoy hiking, traveling, tennis and swimming and are currently residing in Shanghai, China where Dick is assisting NEA’s China practice.
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About Green Bay Ventures: Green Bay Ventures (GBV) is a San Francisco based venture capital firm backed by some of the world’s most prominent families.
Chi-Hua Chien
Co-Founder & Managing Partner of Goodwater Capital
Chi-Hua Chien is a Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Goodwater Capital.Prior to co-founding Goodwater, Chi-Hua was a General Partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. Chi-Hua serves on the Board of Directors of Path, Lithium (fka Klout), Zaarly, Chill, Level Money, and Zumper. He also invested in Chegg, Inspirato, Karma Science (acquired by FB), Spotify, and Twitter. Previously, Chi-Hua was an Associate at Accel Partners, where he originated Accel’s investment in Facebook. Chi-Hua was an early employee or co-founder of four startups including Coremetrics (acquired by IBM), where he led the marketing and inside sales teams, served as interim CFO, and was appointed to the Office of the President. Chi-Hua fell in love with startups at Stanford University where he earned a BS in Industrial Engineering, a BA in Economics, an MS in Industrial Engineering, and an MBA. At Stanford he was named a Mayfield Fellow, President’s Scholar, and Arjay Miller Scholar. Chi-Hua also serves on the board of charity: water, a non-profit organization bringing clean, safe drinking water to people in developing nations.
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About Citizen, Goodwater Capital: Goodwater Capital is a venture capital firm that focuses on consumer tech startups.
Eric J. Kim
Co-Founder & Managing Partner of Goodwater Capital
Eric Kim was a Managing Director with Maverick Capital where he focused on the Firm’s private investments globally and led a number of investments in technology-based companies. Prior to joining Maverick, Eric co-founded Biomimedia and also worked in the US and Asia as a member of McKinsey & Company’s global strategy practice focusing on M&A, technology licensing, turnaround strategies and new product launches. Eric received his MBA from Stanford’s Graduate School of Business and his Bachelors Degree in Cognitive Science from Yale University (Magna Cum Laude), where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa and was a recipient of the Richard U. Light Fellowship.
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About Goodwater Capital, Musical.ly: Goodwater Capital is a venture capital firm that focuses on consumer tech startups.
Ramtin Naimi
Founder & General Partner of Abstract Ventures
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About Abstract Ventures: Abstract Ventures is a sector agnostic venture investor in pre-seed, seed, and series A startup companies.
Philipp Stauffer
Co-Founder and Managing Director of Fyrfly Venture Partners
Philipp Stauffer is a co-founder and managing director at Fyrfly Venture Partners.
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About Containn, Fyrfly Venture Partners, Gmelius, rready: Fyrfly Venture Partners is a venture capital firm with a focus on data and intelligence.
Mitchell Kapor
Founder & Partner of Kapor Capital
Mitchell David Kapor is the founder of [Lotus Development Corporation](/organization/lotus-development-corporation) and the designer of Lotus 1-2-3, the “killer application” often credited with making the personal computer ubiquitous in the business world in the 1980s. He is known as an entrepreneur, investor, social activist, and philanthropist. Kapor has been the Chair of the [Mozilla](/organization/mozilla) Foundation since its inception in 2003. He founded the Mitchell Kapor Foundation to support his philanthropic interests in environmental health. He also co-founded, and is on the board of, the Level Playing Field Institute, a nonprofit dedicated to fairness in education and workplaces. Kapor is also Chair of the Board of Directors of [Linden Lab](/organization/secondlife), a [San Francisco-based](/maps/city/San%2520Francisco) company which created the popular virtual world [Second Life](/product/second-life), and a member of the Advisory Board for the [Wikimedia Foundation](/organization/wikimedia-foundation). In 1990 Kapor’s new company On Technology introduced their new product On Location, an application designed for the Macintosh that contained an indexing system that permit quick retrieval and display of text on the Mac’s hard disk. “We think we’re being cagey by bringing it out on the Mac first,” Kapor said. “It’s a richer medium than MS-DOS, and if we have a hot product in the Mac market, it will be easier to get into the PC market.” In 2001, Kapor founded the Open Source Applications Foundation, where he is now working on Chandler, a modern personal information manager built using open source tools and methods. In 2006, Kapor founded his latest startup, [Foxmarks](/organization/foxmarks), based in San Francisco.
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About Kapor Capital, Kapor Center for Social Impact, Kapor Center for Social Impact, Linden Lab, Lotus, Mitchell Kapor Foundation, Mitchell Kapor Foundation, SMASH | Level Playing Field Institute: Kapor Capital is an investment firm that invests in early-stage tech-enabled startups.
Freada Kapor Klein
Founder & Partner of Kapor Capital
As a Founding Partner at Kapor Capital, Freada invests in seed stage tech startups that create positive social impact by closing gaps of access, opportunity or outcome for low income communities and communities of color.
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About Kapor Capital, Project Include, SMASH | Level Playing Field Institute: Kapor Capital is an investment firm that invests in early-stage tech-enabled startups.
Deborah Quazzo
Founder & Managing Partner of GSV Ventures
Deborah is the Managing Partner of GSV AcceleraTE, a venture capital fund investing in exceptional entrepreneurs and their companies in the $75B education and talent technology sector. In addition, she is the Co-founder and Managing Partner of the ASU+GSV Summit and Founder and Senior Advisor of GSV Advisors. Now in its 10th year, the ASU+GSV Summit celebrates innovations and innovators across the global “preK to Gray” learning and talent landscape and attracts over 4,000 attendees. Deborah currently serves on the boards of Ascend Learning (a portfolio company of Blackstone and CCCP), Degreed, The Educational Testing Service (ETS), Lightneer, Remind, and Web.com (NASDAQ: WWWW). She is a board observer at CreativeLive and RaiseMe, and an advisory board member of Area9 Lyceum. She is a member of the boards of The Common Ground Foundation, Harvey Mudd College, Steppenwolf Theatre Company, The Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation, The Board of Dean’s Advisors at Harvard Business School, The Khan Academy Thought Leadership Council and The Board of Dean’s Advisory Council at Princeton University. She is a member of the Steering Committee of the Illinois Business Immigration Coalition. She previously served on the board of a number of education organizations including The Chicago Board of Education (CPS) and KIPP: Chicago. Deborah received the 2014 Arnold M. Berlin ’46 Distinguished Service to Princeton Award from the Princeton University Club of Chicago, the 2014 Visionary of the Year Award from CFY PowerMyLearning, the 2016 LEAP Innovator in Education “Champion” Award from LEAP Innovations, the 2016 Inaugural Impact Award from Golden Apple Foundation, and the 2017 Visionary Award from the Association of American Publishers (AAP). Deborah graduated cum laude with a BA in history from Princeton University in 1982 and an MBA from Harvard University in 1987.
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About GSV Ventures: GSV Ventures is a venture firm investing company.
Gordon Ritter
Founder & General Partner of Emergence
Gordon Ritter is a Founder and General Partner of Emergence Capital Partners. Prior to founding Emergence, he spent over 15 years founding and building companies which pioneered new markets including embedded web-based interfaces, server appliances, “On Demand” services for the SMB market and web-native application development. In 2003, Gordon led Emergence Capital’s first investment, in Salesforce.com. In 2008, Gordon invested in Industry Cloud pioneer Veeva Systems when the company had 25 employees and less than $2 million in revenue. He has played a key role in the company’s development (now a public company NYSE:VEEV) and he is currently Veeva’s Chairman. Gordon was named to the Forbes’ Midas List of the top venture capital investors in 2007, 2012, 2014 and 2015. Prior to founding Emergence, Gordon was co-Founder and CEO of Software As Service, a web services platform company he created with Marc Benioff, the Chairman and CEO of Salesforce.com. Software As Service is the origin of Salesforce.com’s Salesforce1 platform. Prior to founding Software As Service, he ran the $3 billion IBM Global Small Business division, created as a result of IBM’s acquisition of his company, Whistle Communications in 1999. He was responsible for IBM’s launch partnership with Salesforce.com. Prior to IBM, Gordon was co-Founder and President of Whistle, a pioneering Internet appliance and web services platform. Gordon also co-founded Tribe Communications, a networking infrastructure company, and he was a VP of Capital Markets at Credit Suisse First Boston in New York. Gordon has a B.A. in Economics from Princeton University, where he rowed on the heavyweight crew team. He lives in San Francisco with his wife and four children. He enjoys a range of endurance sports and recently summited both Denali and Aconcagua, and completed a 250-mile trail run across Switzerland.
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About Emergence, Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy: Emergence is a venture capital firm, investing in early and growth-stage cloud and SaaS visionaries that change the way the world works.
Connie Loizos
Founder & Editor of StrictlyVC
Loizos has been reporting on Silicon Valley since the late ’90s, when she joined the original Red Herring magazine. She is currently the Silicon Valley Editor of TechCrunch. She’s also the founder of StrictlyVC, a daily e-newsletter and lecture series.
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About StrictlyVC, TechCrunch: StrictlyVC publishes a daily email that provides readers information related to venture capital firms, finance, and business investment.
Eric Bahn
General Partner & Co-Founder of Hustle Fund
Eric Bahn is a Co-Founder and General Partner at Hustle Fund, an early-stage venture capital firm based in San Francisco. Hustle Fund invests in software startups at the pre-seed and seed stages, backing founders who exhibit great execution and high velocity (aka, hustle). Previous to Hustle Fund, Eric was an angel investor and partner at 500 Startups. And prior to becoming a professional investor, he spent over a decade as an operator (Facebook, Instagram) and entrepreneur (Beat The GMAT, The Hustle). Eric draws from his product and growth experience to advise his founders in scaling their own enterprises. Eric is a native of Detroit, Michigan and first arrived to Silicon Valley to attend Stanford University (BA, MA), which launched his career into software and startups. Eric is happily married with two kids.
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About Hustle Con, Hustle Fund: Hustle Fund is a seed fund that seeks to invest in early-stage startups.
Elizabeth Yin
Co-Founder & General Partner of Hustle Fund
Elizabeth Yin is co-founder and CEO of LaunchBit. She frequently speaks at conferences and events and has previously spoken at Women 2.0 partner events, Web 2.0, Lean Startup events, TechStars, MIT, Stanford, Yale, and Babson among others. Prior to LaunchBit, she built profitable niche websites and previously worked as a product marketing manager at Google. She holds a BS in electrical engineering from Stanford and an MBA from MIT Sloan.
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About Hustle Fund: Hustle Fund is a seed fund that seeks to invest in early-stage startups.
Aditya Singh
Co-Founder and Managing Director of Neotribe Ventures
Adit is a hands-on early stage company builder having helped build three startups with an operating career spanning 15 years before entering venture capital. From 2013 to 2017, he led the b2b/enterprise practice at Foundation Capital as a Partner investing across the stack from enterprise applications, cloud infrastructure, analytics and cybersecurity. Adit graduated from University of Illinois (BS/MS in Computer Engineering) and from the University of Chicago (MBA). He started his career as an engineer at Growth Networks (a NEA/Lightspeed company) which was acquired by Cisco for $355m. At Cisco, he led the datacenter infrastructure team as a senior technical leader and delivered several products (converged servers, switches and edge routers) for data center infrastructure. He co-founded a networking appliance company, Bitsplay Systems that streamed video from data centers, out of the EIR program at Foundation Capital. In 2008, he joined Enphase Energy (networked solar microinverters), a Series A startup as their first product manager through IPO on the NASDAQ in 2012. When Enphase went public, Adit was Senior Director of Product Management and responsible for the main microinverter business. He is extremely connected in the the deeply technical circles of silicon valley and has the reputation of building companies from the bottom up by working hand in hand with founders.
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About Bloomreach, Cockroach Labs, Neotribe Ventures, Phantom: Neotribe Ventures is an early stage-venture capital firm which invests in breakthrough technologies that stretch the imagination.
Steven Bragonier
CFO and Co-Founder of Neotribe Ventures
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About Gainspeed, Neotribe Ventures: Neotribe Ventures is an early stage-venture capital firm which invests in breakthrough technologies that stretch the imagination.
Philip O’Connor
Co-Founder & Managing Partner of Blackhorn Ventures
Phil is a Co-Founder and Managing Partner at Blackhorn Ventures, an early stage venture fund investing in technology that increases the resource efficiency of essential industries. Prior to Blackhorn, Phil was co-founder and CEO of PAX Pure, an industrial water treatment company. For the past five years Philip has been an investor and advisor focusing on improving natural resource use.
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About Blackhorn Ventures, Conservation International: Blackhorn Ventures is an early stage venture firm that invests in companies using cutting edge engineering to improve resource productivity.
Bill Elmore
General Partner and Founder of Foundation Capital
With a combinationof venture and operating experience that cultivated a deep understanding about the challenges an organization faces on a daily basis, Bill founded Foundation Capital in 1995 with the purpose of helping entrepreneurs build strong organizations from the ground up. He has always operated on the belief that substantial, sustainable companies are the result of matching insight—whether about technology or market opportunity—with the right entrepreneurand management team. Prior to Foundation, Bill spent eight years as a General Partner at Inman & Bowman. Previous roles include president of Visual Engineering, as well as a variety of marketing management positions, at Hewlett-Packard. As former director and past presidentof the Western Association for Venture Capitalists, and past director of the National Venture Capital Association, Bill continues to be actively involved in defining, serving, and representing the interests of the venture capital and private equity industries. Equally passionate about his philanthropy work, Bill serves on the Advisory Council at Stanford Business School and is a board member of the Eastside College Preparatory School. Bill currently sits on the board ofdirectors of Biz360, CloudShield, Helpstream, Quartics, SpringCM, TeaLeaf Technology, Venafi, and XMOS Semiconductor, and was previously on the boards of Atheros Communications and WindRiver Systems. Bill holds a BSEEand MSEE from Purdue University and an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.
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About Foundation Capital: Foundation Capital is a venture capital firm made up of former entrepreneurs and helps companies and businesses grow.
Martin Gedalin
Founder & Partner of Lumia Capital
Martin is Founder of Lumia Capital, an expansion-stage VC partnering with leading tech companies in under-invested emerging markets and forward-thinking US companies targeting these markets to accelerate growth. Previously, Martin was one of five investment professionals at Focus Ventures, a technology-focused venture capital firm in Palo Alto with ~$850M under management and ~110 expansion-stage investments across three funds. Prior to Focus, Martin was a Product Manager at Oracle Corp., where he was responsible for core components of Fusion CRM, Oracle’s next generation CRM strategy, and a $1B+ product line. Prior to these roles, Martin was a management consultant for both Siebel Systems (Customer Strategy Team) and, post acquisition, Oracle (Insight Group), where he provided strategic recommendations across people, process and technology domains to Oracle/Siebel’s top global customers. Martin began his career in Corporate Strategy at NCR Corporation. Personally, Martin is also an adviser to a number of private companies and funds.
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About Lumia Capital: Expansion-stage VC firm partnering with forward-thinking US and European innovators expanding internationally for breakout growth.
Armaan Ali
Co-Founder & CEO of Human Capital
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About Human Capital: Human Capital is a venture firm for engineers.
Paul Hsiao
Co-Founder & General Partner of Canvas Ventures
Paul joined forces with Rebecca Lynn and Gary Little as a founding member of Canvas Ventures in 2014, with the purpose of creating the type of boutique firm he would have liked to work with as an entrepreneur himself, one where every investment is meaningful and where he can spend his time working with his founders to scale their business. At Canvas, Paul’s investments include eporta, Fluxx Labs, Kidbox, MasonHub, Flowspace, Roofstock, Shoreline Software, Skyflow, Thrive Global, Transfix, and Zola. He has also pioneered the firm’s work in co-creation— helping start new companies by match-making domain experts with market opportunity in areas ripe for disruption. A former partner at NEA, Paul spent ten years helping companies scale from garage-scale startups to IPO and acquisition. Paul found that he loved the venture business, and he had an innate curiosity to learn about how others built meaningful companies. While at NEA, he worked alongside companies including Salesforce (CRM), Tableau Software, Coursera, Spreadtrum Communications, Workday (WDAY), Upwork, Gaikai (SNE), Boingo Wireless (WIFI), SMIC, and many others. Paul is an entrepreneur at heart. He immigrated with his parents from Taipei in junior high. Contrary to his parent’s wishes for him to become a doctor, he leveraged his mechanical and biomedical engineering degrees from MIT, where he launched startup in the medical device space tackling open-heart surgery, and his MBA from HBS, where he launched a startup in the network security space called Mazu Networks. Paul financed the early days of Mazu on credit cards, camped outside of customer prospects and venture firms in minivan rentals, and got his break when he attracted financing support from Greylock, Matrix and Benchmark Capital. Mazu was a pioneer in network security built from technology developed at MIT. Early adopters of Mazu’s proprietary DDoS-security platform, which was eventually acquired by Riverbed Technology, included Yahoo, eBay and CNN, and Paul is proud to say that the engineering team and underlying software paved the foundation later for Meraki
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About Canvas Ventures, Roofstock, Zola: Canvas Ventures is an early-stage investment firm that specializes on fintech, healthtech, marketplaces, and data infrastructure.
Doug Higgins
Co-Founder & Partner of Sapphire
Doug is a co-founder of Sapphire Ventures and a lead investor for Sapphire Sport. He currently manages the firm’s investments in Convercent, Jibe, Localytics, Phoenix Labs, Return Path, Tonal, and Spring Mobile Solutions. Previously, he worked on investments including LinkedIn (acquired by Microsoft), Paytm, DocuSign (NASDAQ: DOCU) Fitbit (NYSE: FIT), Square (NYSE: SQ), and Ticketfly (acquired by Pandora). He is focused on investing in early-stage technology companies at the intersection of sports, media and disruptive technologies. Doug has worked for a venture-backed startup as well as for one of his entrepreneurial heroes, George Lucas. He launched the business development group for Lucasfilm, creating strategic partnerships for Star Wars prequels. Doug started his career in investment banking, with a focus on technology, at Robertson Stephens. More recently, he managed the Intel 64 fund at Intel Capital. Doug has lived in Madrid, Spain; Santiago, Chile; and Walker, Minnesota. He graduated with a bachelor’s from Duke University and an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, both with high honors.
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About Sapphire: Sapphire is a venture capital firm that partners with visionary teams and venture funds to build companies.
David Hartwig
Co-Founder & Partner of Sapphire
Dave is a co-founder and managing director of Sapphire Ventures. He has been working in venture capital since 1997 where he started in inside sales. Dave’s excitement for venture investing springs from getting to work with people that are smarter than him and getting a preview on new technologies and businesses changing the shape of just about everything. His interests are wide ranging and his experiences include: analytics, digital health and wellness, enterprise SaaS, FinTech/FinServices, infrastructure, IoT and security. Dave is currently a member of the board (director or observer) at Kaltura, LeanData, Livongo, Phoenix Labs and Reonomy. Dave’s previous investments at Sapphire include: 23andMe, Alfresco (acquired by THL Partners), Datria (acquired by Intelligrated), FitBit (NYSE: FIT), Lithium Technologies (acquired by Vista Equity Partners), PayScale (acquired by Warburg Pincus), Ping Identity (acquired by Vista Equity Partners), Qumu (NASDAQ: QUMU), Ticketfly (acquired by Pandora), Tradewind Markets, Tremor Video (NYSE: TLRA). Prior to joining Sapphire Ventures in 2006, Dave helped start the tech venture capital team within American Capital and was a member of the communications investing team at Battery Ventures from 1997-2004. He began his career at Deloitte Consulting where he worked on large-scale software rollouts and the supporting network and process redesigns within technology and healthcare focused clients. Dave has a BSE in operations research from Princeton and an MBA from the University of California, Berkeley. He’s interested in hearing about the best book you’ve read recently.
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About Sapphire: Sapphire is a venture capital firm that partners with visionary teams and venture funds to build companies.
Amy Gips
Founder of Astia Angels
Founder at Astia Angels.
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About Astia Angels: Astia Angels is a global network of both female and male angel investors that invest in high-growth companies.
Scott Stanford
Co-Founder and Partner of ACME Capital
Scott Stanford is a Co-Founder and Partner at ACME Capital. He has been focused on the internet/technology sector for over 25 years as an advisor, operator, and investor. Prior to founding ACME in 2018, he was a co-founder of Sherpa Capital. Scott co-headed Goldman Sachs’s Global Internet Investment Banking business in San Francisco for 12 years where he advised clients on $80 billion of equity and debt financings and strategic transactions and was deeply involved in investments in technology-enabled companies such as Facebook, Uber, DST/Mail.ru, Demand Media, LinkedIn, Palantir, iCrossing, and Square. His client coverage responsibility included Facebook, Google, Yahoo, Groupon, Zillow, Airbnb, Uber, and many other established and emerging technology-enabled companies. Prior to rejoining Goldman in 2004, Scott was an early employee of LookSmart, helping build the company from a start-up in 1999 to a publicly-traded NASDAQ company. From 1996 to 1998, while earning his MBA, Scott coded prototype applications for two startup ideas, one focusing on community service and the other focusing on automating and prototyping core financial analyses. He spent a summer during business school as an Associate at General Atlantic Partners focused on technology venture capital. Prior to business school, Scott was a Financial Analyst with Goldman Sachs’s Technology, Media, and Telecommunications Investment Banking Group. He began his Goldman career in the Fixed Income Group from 1993 to 1995 in New York. During this time, he developed software applications as well as structured and marketed Interest Rate Swaps and Options for the firm’s municipal clients. Scott grew up in Indianapolis, Indiana. As an early adopter of technology, he taught himself to code at age 13, built and ran a dial-up BBS, taught computer courses, started a personal computer consulting business, and developed a robotics exhibit for the Indianapolis Children’s Museum. Scott also earned his Pilot’s License at the age of 17. Scott received his A.B. with Honors from Harvard College (Social Studies) and M.B.A. from Harvard Business School.
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About ACME Capital: ACME Capital invests in breakthrough technologies that fuel platform shifts and disruptive business models that capitalize on new platforms.
Hany Nada
Co-Founder and Partner of ACME Capital
Hany Nada is a Co-Founder and Partner at ACME Capital. He is a trusted resource to the public and private company CEOs and management teams and has served as a long-term partner to more than 150 companies over the past two decades, advising them on the global market and business development, customer introductions, and M&A/IPO guidance across US, European, and Asian markets. Prior to founding ACME in 2018, Hany was a Co-Founder and Partner at GGV Capital in 2000 where he pioneered a one-team approach to create a cohesive culture across the firm’s US and China offices. Hany made GGV’s first investment in China and served as a Managing Director at the firm from 2000 to October 2016. He remained a Venture Partner from November 2016 to 2018. Over the course of his career, Hany has made a significant number of successful investments, including Athenahealth (NASDAQ: ATHN), Endeca (acquired by Oracle), Kintana (acquired by Mercury Interactive), and Xfire (acquired by Viacom), Tudou (NASDAQ- TUDO later acquired by Youku/Alibaba), Vocera Communications (NASDAQ- VCRA), and Heptagon (acquired by AMS). Hany currently serves on the board of directors of DraftKings, Glu Mobile (NASDAQ: GLUU), Phoenix Labs, and Houzz. Before founding GGV Capital, Hany spent ten years on Wall Street as a Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst at Piper Jaffray & Co., specializing in internet software and infrastructure. He is a graduate of the University of Minnesota where he earned a B.S. in economics and a B.A. in political science. Board Member: DraftKings, Glu, Houzz, Phoenix Labs, Wild Tangent Former Board Member: Account, BandPage, Endeca, Heptagon, Kintana, OneWave, Tudou, Turbine, Vocera, Xfire
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About ACME Capital: ACME Capital invests in breakthrough technologies that fuel platform shifts and disruptive business models that capitalize on new platforms.
Alexis Houssou
Founder & Managing Partner of HCVC
Alexis is the managing partner of Hardware Club which he co-founded in 2015. Through its unique $50M early-stage fund, Hardware Club invests in early-stage full-stack startups globally. Alexis took part in launching several initiatives including the Hello Tomorrow and The Family. He sits on the boards of companies including Cowboy, Remedee Labs, Norbert Health and several stealth companies.
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About Elephants & Ventures, HCVC, The Hardware Club, The Hardware Club: HCVC is an early-stage Venture Capital firm investing in companies automating and digitizing the physical world.
Sunil Dhaliwal
Founder & General Partner of Amplify Partners
Sunil Dhaliwal is a General Partner of Amplify Partners. He has 18 years of experience as an early-stage investor and mentor to entrepreneurs. Sunil backs founders with unique insights into distributed systems, data infrastructure, or information security. He has helped founders build companies from concept to IPO, and his passion lies in defining and positioning winning products. Prior to founding Amplify Partners, Sunil was a General Partner at Battery Ventures where he spent 14 years investing in category-defining IT infrastructure companies such as Chef, Netezza (acquired by IBM), Splunk (NASDAQ: SPLK), CipherTrust (acquired by Secure Computing), and @stake (acquired by Symantec). He has been named to both the Forbes Midas List, which ranks the top 100 venture capitalists around the world, and the AlwaysOn Top 100 list of VCs. Prior to his work as an investor, he was a member of the technology investment banking team at Alex. Brown & Sons, Inc. Sunil graduated from Georgetown University with a B.S. in Finance and International Business.
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About ActionIQ, Amplify Partners, Datadog, Enlitic, InterVenn, mabl, PicnicHealth: Amplify Partners invests in technical founders solving technical problems for the enterprise.
Paul Madera
Co-Founder & MD of Meritech Capital Partners
Paul Madera is a graduate of the USAF Academy and is currently Managing Director at Meritech Capital Partners, a $3.1 billion venture capital fund he co-founded in 1999. He currently invests in private technology companies in the SaaS, storage, e-commerce, financial, and medical device sectors. Over the past 12 years, he has led Meritech’s investments into several of the most successful tech companies of the era including 2Wire, BlueArc, Dealer Socket, Facebook, Force10 Networks, Glaukos, IntraLase, Riverbed Technology, and Salesforce.com. He is consistently listed in the top tier of the annual Forbes “Midas List” of venture capital investors. Prior to Meritech, Paul was Managing Director of Private Equity at Montgomery Securities/Banc of America where he and his group advised technology and consumer-based startups in raising capital. He began his career in finance as an investment banker with Morgan Stanley & Co. in New York. Before entering the private sector, he served in the United States Air Force as an F-16 Instructor Pilot based in South Korea, Spain, and Utah. He also spent a tour at the Pentagon as a member of the Air Force Liaison Office where he interfaced with Senate and House Armed Services Committees. Paul holds an M.B.A. from the Stanford Graduate School of Business and B.S. in Political Science from United States Air Force Academy.
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About Meritech Capital Partners: Meritech Capital provides late-stage venture capital to technology companies.
Mike Gordon
Co-Founder & MD of Meritech Capital Partners
Mike Gordon was a founder of Meritech in 1999. He currently focuses on the communications infrastructure and applications, mobile, datacenter and clean technology sectors. Mike has been directly involved with BigBand Networks (ARRS), Broadsoft (BSFT), Calix Networks (CALX), Corvis (CORV), Cyan (CYNI), FiberTower (FTWR), Good Technology, NextG Networks (CCI acquisition-pending), Presidio Solutions (acquired by American Securities), Omneon Networks (HLIT), Sourcefire (FIRE), Tele Atlas (acquired by TomTom), Tremor Video (TRMR) and Vonage (VG). Mike joined Meritech Capital Partners from Deutsche Banc Alex Brown where he was a Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst focusing on communications infrastructure. Mike was the research analyst during the equity financings of Ciena, Broadcom, and JDS Uniphase, among others, and was recognized as a two-time Wall Street Journal All Star Analyst. Prior to joining Deutsche Banc Alex Brown, Mike worked at Montgomery Securities in research and Salomon Brothers in investment banking.
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About Meritech Capital Partners: Meritech Capital provides late-stage venture capital to technology companies.
Rob Ward
Co-Founder & Managing Director of Meritech Capital Partners
Rob co-founded Meritech in 1999. His current areas of investment interest include Big Data, cloud computing, Saas, security and online consumer services. Rob led Meritech’s successful investments in Acclarent (JNJ), BigFix (IBM), Cornerstone OnDemand (CSOD), Counterpane (BT), Fortinet (FTNT), Greenplum (EMC), Imperva (IMPV), Netezza (IBM), NetSuite (N), PopCap Games (ERTS), Quigo (AOL), Reliant (SLTM) and Zipcar (ZIP). Prior to Meritech, Rob was a principal in the Private Equity Group at Montgomery Securities, and worked in the New York and San Francisco Corporate Finance Departments at Smith Barney.
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About Eastside College Preparatory School, Meritech Capital Partners: Meritech Capital provides late-stage venture capital to technology companies.
Masha Drokova
Founder and General Partner of Day One Ventures
Masha is the Founder and General Partner at Day One Ventures. Before launching Day One, she was an angel investor and founder of a PR studio that worked with companies like Houzz, HotelTonight, Gett, and Toptal. She was named to the 2019 Forbes 30 Under 30 List, and as a Top 50 PR Pro in Tech by Business Insider. Masha has a deep love for our earth and serves as an advisor to Oceanic, a non-profit using VR to bring attention to issues impacting our oceans
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About Day One Ventures: Day One Ventures is an early-stage venture capital firm that backs customer-obsessed companies and spearheads their communications.
Luke Roush
Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Sovereign’s Capital
Luke Roush co-founded 410 Medical alongside Dr. Piehl in 2013. He is currently a Managing Principal of Sovereign’s Capital, the venture capital firm which he co-founded in 2012. Previously, Luke has twelve years of experience in global commercialization and business development at venture-backed and Fortune 500 companies. He was Vice President for Sales, Marketing, and Business Development at TransEnterix, a medical device company that developed and commercialized a minimally invasive surgical system in the US, Europe, and Middle East. Prior to joining TransEnterix, he served as Chief Operating Officer at Liquidia Technologies, a nanotechnology company focused on biopharmaceutical applications. Mr. Roush was also global marketing manager for Boston Scientific’s neurovascular stroke business. Mr. Roush graduated summa cum laude from Duke University, and earned his MBA from The Fuqua School of Business.
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About 410 Medical, Sovereign’s Capital: Sovereign’s Capital provides growth capital for consumer SaaS, B2B tech, healthcare IT, and med devices.
David Fisher
Co-Founder & Managing Partner of 9Yards Capital
David focuses on investments in the enterprise and consumer segments. Previously, David worked at the private equity firm Leonard Green & Partners and the investment bank JP Morgan & Chase. He is an alum of Stanford GSB, and graduated summa cum laude from The University of Pennsylvania.
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About 9Yards Capital: 9YC is a global investment firm that invests in tech enabled consumer and enterprise fintech and logistics companies at the growth stage.
Theo Osborne
Co-Founder & Managing Partner of 9Yards Capital
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About 9Yards Capital: 9YC is a global investment firm that invests in tech enabled consumer and enterprise fintech and logistics companies at the growth stage.
Vishal Vasishth
Co-Founder and Managing Director of Obvious Ventures
Vishal is the Managing Director of Obvious Ventures. Board Observer at Tomorrow Health, Galileo & Corvus Insurance.
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About Devoted Health, Good Eggs, Myro, Obvious Ventures, The Aspen Institute: Obvious Ventures is a venture capital firm that invests in the early and growth stages.
James Joaquin
Co-Founder and Managing Director of Obvious Ventures
James has over twenty-five years of experience building and leading technology companies from early stage company ideation to global market leadership. He helped create entirely new categories such as online photography, web-based calendaring and the Personal Digital Assistant. James is the former CEO of Ofoto, Xoom, and Xmarks. James is the co-founder of Obvious Ventures, investing in #worldpositive startups that combine profit and purpose.
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About Breezeworks, Obvious Ventures: Obvious Ventures is a venture capital firm that invests in the early and growth stages.
John Cadeddu
Co-Founder, General Partner of Corner Ventures
Prior to joining DAG in 1999, John was a Managing Director at Amsterdam Pacific, an investment bank specializing in media and telecommunications. While at Amsterdam Pacific Corporation, John worked with BBU Mezzanine Fund I and BBU Mezzanine Fund II, where he sourced, supported and exited mezzanine investments across a number of industries. Previously, John worked at Octel Communications (now Lucent Technologies) and Tandem Computers (now H-P) in marketing and strategic planning roles He also worked at JP Morgan in both capital markets and corporate finance. John received a B.A. from Harvard College and an M.B.A. from the Stanford Graduate School of Business. John led DAG II’s investments into Raza Microelectronics, Agami, Tropos Networks, Qlusters, Centrata, Kovio, Pedestal Networks, Trapeze Networks, Topspin Communications and Entrisphere. He also serves on the board at Trapeze Networks, Qlusters, Pedestal Networks and Entrisphere.
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About Corner Ventures, DAG Ventures, Duff, Ackerman and Goodrich: Corner Ventures is a venture capital firm investing in the B and C rounds of promising startups.
Benjamin Black
Co-Founder and Managing Director of Akkadian Ventures
Benjamin Black is the Co-founder & Chief Investment Officer of Akkadian Ventures, LLC. An eleven-year veteran of the private equity space, Ben co-founded Akkadian with Peter Smith, to specialize in offering early liquidity to entrepreneurs, early employees, and investors in successful private companies. In 2011, Ben co-founded, with Chris Tarr, the Momentum Index (www.momentumindex.com) which tracks the top performing private venture-backed companies. With the understanding that it often takes more than ten years for entrepreneurs to achieve liquidity, Akkadian Ventures created unique deal structures for entrepreneurs and employees to generate liquidity and diversify their risk by selling or leveraging private stock. Focusing exclusively on purchasing small stakes in successful growing companies, Akkadian helps innovators manage risk and reap financial reward during that hard climb to the top. Among many, Ben has managed notable investments in RocketFuel, Splunk, DocuSign, Lithium Technologies, Cloudmark, Ooyala, Citizenhawk, The Villa, Automattic and Telephia. Ben co-founded New Cycle Capital with Josh Becker to bring socially responsible investing to sectors like clean energy and social finance with angel investments in Renewable Funding and Opower. He spent nearly four years at Seattle venture capital firm Maveron, focusing on consumer businesses such as Allconnect (Inc. 500 winner). Prior to Maveron, he spent 3 years at private equity firm Rosewood Capital where he focused on branded consumer products and services, including Under Armour. As an entrepreneur, Ben was part of the founding team at Harris Interactive, which was a pioneer in Internet-based market research. During Ben’s tenure, the company completed a successful IPO and generated $200M in revenue. Ben received his undergraduate degree at Cornell University and his JD at the Cornell School of Law. He is the author of a book on American Politics titled ‘The Politics of American Discontent’ which can be bought on Amazon for $0.12.
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About Akkadian Ventures: Akkadian Ventures is a direct secondary investment firm that offers liquidity to early employees and investors of venture-backed businesses.
Jim Kim
Founder & General Partner of Builders VC
Jim Kim began his career with GE Structured Finance and subsequently moved to GE’s Energy Financial Services Division where he worked on project financing for renewable energy projects. As a founding partner of the Energy Technology Ventures group, Jim invested in A123Systems, China High Speed Transmission, Ocean Power Delivery, and several later-stage companies across diverse cleantech sectors. Jim then joined CMEA Capital as a senior partner in the Energy & Materials practice. There he collaborated with entrepreneurs from A123Systems, Foro Energy, and a number of university spinouts. Most recently, Jim Kim was a partner at Khosla Ventures, where he led seed investments in companies like Varentec, Arcanum, and Avogy, and later-stage investments in companies like Ciris Energy. Jim received undergraduate degrees in computer science, electrical engineering and political science from MIT, where he also founded an Internet infrastructure start-up at the height of the technology bubble. He holds an MBA and a master’s in quantitative methods from Columbia University. When he’s not spending his free time making wine or practicing hung gar kung fu, Jim teaches green energy and entrepreneurship as an adjunct professor at UCLA Anderson School of Management, and conducts research with a professor at the Columbia Earth Institute. Jim hopes to see the U.S. National Soccer team win the World Cup in his lifetime.
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About Builders VC, Formation 8: Builders VC is an early-stage VC focused on investing where technology meets new business models to modernize antiquated industries.
Brion B. Applegate
Founder of Spectrum Equity
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About Spectrum Equity: Spectrum Equity, a private equity firm, provides capital and strategic support to internet, software, and information services companies.
Brian Koo
Founder and GP of Formation 8
Brian Koo is the Founder & GP at Formation 8.
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About Formation 8, Formation Group: Formation 8, a California-based technology investment firm, focuses on seed, early, and later stage venture investments.
Bon Woong Koo
Founder & GP of Formation 8
Brian Koo is a founding member of Formation 8. He currently serves on the boards of AKAStudy, Illumio (observer), Kidaptive, and Learnsprout. He was previously a board observer for Oculus. Prior to Formation 8, Brian established InnovationHub, which helped LS Group – his family business – manage relationships and find investment opportunities in energy and technology sectors, specifically in the areas of smart grids, electric vehicles and next generation wireless technologies. Prior to InnovationHub, Brian co-founded and served as a managing partner of Harbor Pacific Capital, and advised a number of companies in the online education and media space before that. Brian began his entrepreneurial career with a start-up venture that involved a wireless technology and social networking service. Brian received a B.A. with honors in Economics from Stanford University, and received an M.B.A. from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.
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About Formation 8: Formation 8, a California-based technology investment firm, focuses on seed, early, and later stage venture investments.
Geoff Yang
Co-Founder & Partner of Redpoint
Geoff Yang is a Founding Partner of Redpoint Ventures. Prior to founding Redpoint, Geoff was a general partner with IVP, a firm he joined in 1987.Geoff emphasizes investments in consumer media and infrastructure. His media and advertising investments include Ask Jeeves, Clicker, Efficient Frontier, Excite, Machinima, MySpace and TiVo. His networking investments include Calix, Foundry Networks, Juniper Networks, MMC Networks and Wellfleet. He currently serves on the Board of Bluefin, BranchOut, Formspring, Gaia Online, Gravity, Machinima, Oodle, Pinwheel and Scribd.In addition, Geoff was founding director or previously led investments in Agile Networks, Applied Digital Access, Centillion, Collabra, Crescendo, Golfweb, JotSpot, Netcore Systems, Netlink, Promatory, Rapid City, Shasta Networks and Whitetree. Geoff is currently on the Advisory Council for the Stanford Graduate School of Business, and previously served on the President’s Information Technology Advisory Committee (PITAC) as well as a Director of the National Venture Capital Association (NVCA) and President of the Western Association of Venture Capitalists (WAVC). Prior to joining IVP, Geoff was an Associate with First Century Partners and a Marketing Representative at IBM Corp.Geoff holds a B.S.E. in Engineering from Princeton University and an M.B.A. from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.
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About Franklin Templeton Investments, Performance Health Sciences, Redpoint, Rock The Bells, Tastemade, United States Olympic Committee: Redpoint Ventures partners with visionary founders to create new markets or redefine existing ones at the seed, early, and growth stages.
Travis Bryant
Partner and Head of Founder Experience of Redpoint
Travis is an EiR focused on Enterprise companies. Prior to joining Redpoint, Travis was head of Customer Growth at Front, after spending 5 years building the global Sales organization at Optimizely, the world’s most popular experimentation platform. During his time at Optimizely, the company grew from from $7 to >$90M in ARR, 40 to 400 colleagues, and from 1 to 6 offices. Travis spent his formative years at Salesforce from 2006-2012 in a number of sales roles including building the first Platform Sales team. His path to sales leadership was not an obvious one, having started as an Oracle DBA at Chevron before recognizing he was a mediocre developer and moving to more customer-facing roles. Travis also runs Saleshuman Consulting Group, an organization focused on helping technology companies build the principles and frameworks that generate scalable growth and high-performance culture. He has invested personally in YipYap, Starcity, Kettle & Fire, and Cloz.io. Travis lives in San Francisco with his wife, eagerly awaiting the hurricane of their first child arriving in the new year. He is super excited, and kinda panicked.
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About Redpoint: Redpoint Ventures partners with visionary founders to create new markets or redefine existing ones at the seed, early, and growth stages.
Peter Svennilson
Managing Partner and Founder of The Column Group
Peter Svennilson is the Managing Partner and Founder of The Column Group, a biotech VC fund based in San Francisco. He has 23 years of experience in corporate finance, investment banking, and venture capital. He was the founder and a partner of Three Crowns Capital, a leading backer of a new generation of US biotechnology companies. He helped found companies such as Rosetta, PTC, Tercica, and Somalogic. Over the past 12 years he has helped finance and develop biotech companies, including Tularik, Sunesis, Chemocentryx, Infinity, AVEO, Rinat, and FivePrime. He is currently a Board Director of NGM Biopharmaceuticals, Aragon Pharmaceuticals and PTC Therapeutics and has served on the Boards of Directors of several other biotechnology companies, including Rosetta, Somalogic, and ChemoCentryx. Before founding Three Crowns Capital, he was the Associate Managing Director of European Investment Banking Origination at Nomura Securities in London. He is currently a trustee for the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey.
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About Nomura Holdings, The Column Group, Three Crowns Capital: The Column Group is a venture capital firm dedicated to developing biotechnology companies.
Tory Patterson
Co-Founder and Managing Director of Owl Ventures
Tory is the co-founder and Managing Director of Owl Ventures where he is actively involved with all facets of the firm and serves on the board of directors for Accelerate Learning (acquired by Carlyle Group), BetterLesson, Degreed, DreamBox Learning (acquired by TPG), Gather, Hazel Health, Kiddom, Labster, Newsela, Noodle Partners, Quizlet, Remind and uLesson. As one of the early pioneers in the next generation of leading EdTech companies, Tory has led investments in some of the most successful companies in the sector. As a lead investor and board member he has played a hands-on role helping leading edtech companies across all facets of development including core definition and measurement of value proposition, sales & distribution, hiring, funding and eventual paths to successful exit. Prior to Owl Ventures, Tory was a Partner at Catamount Ventures where he founded and ran one of the venture industry’s first education investment practices. There he led investments in education companies TenMarks (acquired by Amazon), MasteryConnect (acquired by Instructure), PresenceLearning and EdSurge (acquired by ISTE). Tory is a Pahara-Aspen Education Fellow and holds a B.A. in Economics from Williams College and an M.B.A. from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.
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About Catamount Ventures, Owl Ventures: Owl Ventures is a venture capital fund that invests in education technology companies.
Jed Smith
Co-Founder of Owl Ventures
Jed is a Partner of Catamount Ventures. He has dedicated his business career to the art of entrepreneurship and to making a difference. Prior to launching Catamount, Jed founded drugstore.com (NASDAQ: DSCM) in 1997, serving on its board of directors with John Doerr, Brook Byers, Peter Neupert, Howard Schultz and Jeff Bezos. Before that, he co-founded and spent four years at Cybersmith, a retail store chain that showcased the latest advances in information technology and multimedia software. Jed was also Vice President of Sales at Tribe Computer Works, a networking hardware and software company that was successfully sold. Jed began his career in technology working for Tom Siebel and, later, Marc Benioff at Oracle Corporation, ultimately serving as District Manager for the Eastern Region. Jed has no doubt that world-class mentors have been important to his career. Jed has advised many private companies and currently serves on the boards of Linden Lab, Numi Organic Tea, Banyan Water, Plum Organics, and Revolution Foods. He has also served on the boards of several education and non-profit institutions, including the Board of Trustees of Middlebury College, the Monterey Institute for International Studies, Shackleton Schools and the Cambridge Center for Adult Education. Jed earned a BA from Middlebury College and an MBA from Harvard Business School.
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About Catamount Ventures, drugstore.com, Owl Ventures: Owl Ventures is a venture capital fund that invests in education technology companies.
Daniel Ahn
Founder & Managing Partner of Clearvision Ventures
Dan enjoys working with early stage companies and entrepreneurs to create their business plans and Go To Market strategies to disrupt existing markets and create new ones. Dan focuses on enterprise software and infrastructure, around the convergence of SaaS, big data and cloud computing. He has extensive experience in venture capital investing, portfolio company management and technology entrepreneurship.He serves on the boards of AutoGrid, where he was the founding VC, ChargePoint, ClearCare, Vidder, Placecast and Wise.io for Voyager. Prior to Voyager, Dan was a partner and managing director at Woodside Fund, an early stage venture capital firm, for nine years. At Woodside, he led the firm’s investing in core technology and infrastructure companies, and led the creation, development and investment in numerous successful companies, including companies such as Analogix and Berkeley Design.Prior to Woodside Fund, he was an associate at the Foster Management Company, a venture capital firm that invested in and consolidated fragmented service companies. Prior to that time, Dan was the co-founder and president of a successful technology startup company, Endpoint Technologies, Inc., which developed and sold real-time manufacturing control systems for semiconductor device production. He was responsible for the company’s product management, business development, and finance functions. The company was acquired by Applied Materials.Prior to that activity, Dan was with the venture capital group at CS First Boston, where he worked with information technology companies. Outside of work, Dan enjoys spending time with his family and is a classical violinist.Dan has an MBA from Harvard Business School and an AB, magna cum laude, from Harvard College.
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About Clearvision Ventures, Envision Ventures: Clearvision Ventures is a a venture capital firm that helps entrepreneurs build category leading companies.
Arjun Dev Arora
Founder & Advisor of Format One
Arjun Dev Arora is the Founder & Advisor at Format One.
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About Format One, The House Fund: Format One provides operational assistance, fundraising support and executive coaching.
John Fisher
Co-Founder and Partner of DFJ Growth
John H. N. Fisher is a Managing Director of Draper Fisher Jurvetson, with 27 years of venture capital investing experience. On behalf of Draper Fisher Jurvetson, John has served on the boards of many companies, both private and public. At present, his board positions include SolarCity (NASDAQ: SCTY), Good Technology, CafeMom, SCIenergy, Pulsepoint, and Raydiance. In addition, John serves on the Investment Committees of DFJ Growth Fund (Menlo Park), DFJ Esprit Ventures (London), DFJ ePlanet Ventures (global) and DFJ New England (Boston). Previously, John worked at ABS Ventures, where he focused on enterprise software and services. In addition to his venture capital experience, John gained further investment industry experience at Alex. Brown & Sons and Bank of America. In the non-profit realm, John serves as a Trustee of the California Academy of Sciences, and he is on the board of Common Sense Media. John is a graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Business School.
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About DFJ Growth, Threshold: DFJ Growth is a late-stage global venture capital firm that provides capital to companies in seed, early, and growth-stages.
Eric Young
Partner and Co-Founder of Canaan Partners
Since co-founding Canaan Partners in 1987, Eric has helped launch a multitude of market-leading technology companies from inception to IPO or acquisition. An active investor in the communications and enterprise technology sectors, Eric has generated numerous positive outcomes from startups such as Argon Networks, Capstone Turbine, Copper Mountain Networks; Diffusion Software, Enpirion, Frame Technology, International Network Services, Kalpana, ONI Systems, SandForce, Spectrian and Visigenic Software. Prior to Canaan, Eric was a Senior VP of GE Venture Capital, where he led successful investments in companies such as Nellcor and Octel Communications. Eric also held a variety of sales, marketing and operations management positions at GE in two power-related industrial product businesses. Eric currently sits on the boards of EnStorage, a developer of grid-scale energy storage systems; Cortina Systems, a leading supplier of highly integrated communication devices; Ebates Shopping, number one in online shopping loyalty programs; Lancope, the global leader in network behavior analysis for security, and Xirrus, an innovator in high performance enterprise Wi-Fi systems. Eric earned a BS in mechanical engineering from Cornell University and a MBA from Northwestern University. He is a member of the Advisory Council of Cornell University’s entrepreneurship initiative, Entrepreneurship@Cornell, as well as a frequent speaker to university students at Cornell and Stanford on the transformative power of entrepreneurship.
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About Canaan Partners: Canaan is an early-stage venture capital firm that invests in visionaries with transformative ideas.
Duygu Oktem Clark
Founder & Managing Partner of DO Venture Partners
Duygu Oktem Clark is the Founder & Managing Partner at DO Venture Partners.
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About DO Venture Partners, European Commission, European Investment Fund: DO Venture Partners is an investment firm.
Sean Collins
Founder, Chief Investment Officer of BCG Digital Ventures
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About BCG Digital Ventures: BCG Digital Ventures is a corporate investment and incubation firm.
Dan Bragiel
Founder & Managing Partner of Bragiel Brothers
Dan Bragiel has co-founded 2 companies and has been involved in startups for the past 10 years. He began with mobile gaming at Paragon 5 focusing on running the offices in Poland, Netherlands and Argentina. He then co-founded the startup Meetro, a pioneer in the location/mobile space. He then went on to start Lefora that was sold in 2010.
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About Bragiel Brothers, i/o Ventures: Bragiel Brothers is an early-stage venture capital fund that invests in seed and Series A rounds.
