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 United States based Managing Partner operating in the Venture Capital space. If you think a Managing Partner 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.
Avichal Garg
Managing Partner of Electric Capital
Avichal is Managing Partner at Electric Capital. He is a serial entrepreneur and technology executive. Avichal sold two companies and was most recently Director of Product at Facebook, which acquired his company Spool in 2012. He previously worked at Google on search ranking and ads ranking, is part-time at YCombinator, and an active angel investor. Avichal’s firm, Electric Capital, focuses on cryptocurrencies that are rooted in technological utility. Electric performs deep technological diligence, such as compiling code, profiling nodes, and analyzing blockchains with in-house software. The founders of Electric have started and sold five companies, have been investing in cryptocurrencies since 2013, and are investors in Anchor, Bitwise, Chia, Coda, dYdX, Dfinity, Oasis, Thunder and many other crypto projects.
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About Electric Capital: Electric Capital is a venture capital firm that focuses on the cryptocurrency, blockchain, fintech, and marketplaces industries.
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Jared Carmel
Managing Partner of Manhattan Venture Partners
As a pioneer in the development of the secondary market for pre-IPO technology companies, Jared helps shareholders with their liquidity and diversification needs; Simultaneously providing investors access to well-capitalized, disruptive, venture-backed companies that we refer to as “Tomorrow’s IPOs Today™”. Jared’s involvement has helped produce over $5 billion of invested capital with >45 exits including: DraftKings ($DKNG), Facebook ($FB), Twitter ($TWTR), Pinterest ($PINS), Lyft ($LYFT), Airbnb ($ABB), Spotify ($SPOT), Alibaba ($BABA), DocuSign ($DOCU), Coinbase ($COIN), Asana ($ASAN), SoFi ($SOFI), MoneyLion ($ML), and Palantir ($PLTR). Other select pre-IPO investments include Epic Games, Turo, Lime, Transfix, Instacart, and Udemy. Jared is often quoted by leading financial news organizations such as CNBC, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, CNN, MarketWatch, The Telegraph, and Business Insider. Over the last twenty years, Jared has worked on various assignments, including early and late-stage venture capital, SPACs, private investment in public equity (PIPE), M&A projects, and secondary direct stock offerings. The aforementioned has led to extensive investment banking experience, business operations, acquisition integration, and board work. Jared Carmel graduated with a BA from the University at Buffalo School of Informatics. For all media inquiries, please reach out using the following email address: info@mvp.vc
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About Manhattan Venture Partners, MVP All-Star Fund, The MVP Foundation: Principal investor and advisory solution to private venture backed technology companies and their shareholders.
Bradley Fishman
Managing Partner of Manhattan Venture Partners
Manhattan Venture Partners “MVP” is a research-driven merchant-banking firm focused on the emerging secondary market for late-stage private technology companies. We facilitate direct and managed secondary investment opportunities, deploy capital as principals, and provide advisory services. Act as a partner and work with companies, angel and venture capital investors, executives and current/former employees to provide them the liquidity and diversification that they need and want in a professional and efficient manner. MVP also provides our clients with accurate, timely and innovative research into the companies and sectors we cover. To that end we established an experienced team of analysts, researchers, economists and industry veterans that focus exclusively on private companies with a proven track record of success.
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About Manhattan Venture Partners, MVP All-Star Fund: Principal investor and advisory solution to private venture backed technology companies and their shareholders.
Eric Brachfeld
Managing Partner of Manhattan Venture Partners
Eric has more than 27 years of experience as an investment banker and entrepreneur and has provided financial and strategic advice and structuring transactions for a broad range of companies and investors. Prior to launching Manhattan Venture Partners, Eric was a Partner at Citizen VC, Inc., a financial technology and investment firm, where he led the firm’s investment banking efforts. Prior to Citizen VC, Eric cofounded Gentry New York, which he merged with GSV Financial Group. At GSV FG, Eric was head of investment banking and CEO of Gentry Securities, their broker-dealer subsidiary. Prior to GSV FG, Eric cofounded and led investment banking efforts at Ledgemont Capital Group and Indigo Ventures, firms which raised capital for and invested in early and growth stage companies. Prior to those firms, Eric was an Associate and then General Partner at McFarland Dewey & Co., a boutique investment banking firm. Eric began his career at McKinney Advertising. Eric received a BA in Economics from the University of Pennsylvania and an MBA, with Honors, from the Stern School of Business, New York University. He holds FINRA Series 7, Series 63, Series 24, Series 79, Series 87 and Series 99 licenses.
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About Manhattan Venture Partners, MVP All-Star Fund: Principal investor and advisory solution to private venture backed technology companies and their shareholders.
Effie Epstein
Managing Partner of Sound Ventures
Effie is the Managing Partner of Sound Ventures, an LA-based venture capital fund founded by Ashton Kutcher and Guy Oseary.
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About Sound Ventures: Sound Ventures is a venture capital firm that seeks to invest in the technology sector.
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.
Topher Conway
Co-Managing Partner of SV Angel
Topher Conway is a Co-Managing Partner of SV Angel. Topher joined SV Angel in 2009, coming from a background in Business Development and Sales at EQAL. At SV Angel, he works particularly close with Flexport, Dapper Labs, Stripe, BetterUp, Coinbase, DoorDash, and Deel. He was included in Forbes Magazine’s 30 Under 30 in 2015. Topher studied History at UCLA and is a member of the UCLA VC Fund, helping foster entrepreneurship at the University. Philanthropically, Topher is involved in a wide range of organizations including Family House, College Track, THORN Foundation, Giffords.org, TGR Foundation, and Team RWB.
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About SV Angel: SV Angel is an angel firm that helps startups with business development, financing, M&A, and other strategic advice.
Ram Shriram
Founder & Managing Partner of Sherpalo Ventures
Ram Shriram has served as a member of our board of directors since September 1998. Ram has been a managing partner of Sherpalo Ventures, LLC, an angel venture investment company, since January 2000. From August 1998 to September 1999, Ram served as Vice President of Business Development at Amazon.com, Inc., an e-commerce company. Prior to that, Ram served as President at Junglee Corporation, a provider of database technology, which was acquired by Amazon.com in 1998. Ram was an early member of the executive team at Netscape Communications Corporation. Ram is also on the board of trustees of Stanford University. Ram holds a Bachelor of Science degree in mathematics from the University of Madras, India.
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About Sherpalo Ventures: Sherpalo is a mentor capital firm that supports the development and commercialization of early-stage disruptive new technologies.
Hans Tung
Managing Partner of GGV Capital
Hans Tung is the Managing Partner of GGV Capital.
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About GGV Capital: GGV Capital is a global venture capital firm that invests in local founders.
Jeff Richards
Managing Partner of GGV Capital
A Managing Partner at GGV Capital, Jeff joined the firm in 2008 after spending 13 years as an entrepreneur and operating executive in the US and Asia. Prior to joining GGV, Jeff founded two venture-backed companies, one a success and one a “huge failure” in his own words – “I learned a lot.” His background as an entrepreneur gives him a unique perspective on the challenges of starting and running a venture-backed company, and he works closely with the GGV Talent team on Founders + Leaders. Jeff focuses on the Software and Internet sectors, and currently sits on the boards of or is a board observer at BigCommerce, one of the top ecommerce software platforms, Boxed, a rising star in the ecommerce space, Brightwheel, the leading SaaS provider for the early education vertical, Gladly, a next generation SaaS platform for customer care, Percolate, a leading marketing SaaS platform for global brands,PlushCare, a mobile platform for consumer healthcare, Reebonz, Southeast Asia’s leader in luxury ecommerce, Slice, a market network for the pizza industry, and Tile, the platform for location. Jeff also led GGV’s investments in Appirio (acquired in 2016 by Wipro), BlueKai (acquired in 2014 by Oracle), Buddy Media (acquired in 2012 by Salesforce), Citrus Lane (acquired in 2014 by Care.com), Evolv (acquired in 2014 by Cornerstone OnDemand), Flipboard, HotelTonight, ShiftGig, Voicera and Zylo, and has been actively involved in GGV’s investments in Domo, OpenDoor, Square and Wish. Prior to joining GGV, Jeff founded two software companies: R4, a supply chain SaaS business acquired by VeriSign (NASDAQ: VRSN), and QuantumShift, a telecom software business backed by Texas Pacific Group (TPG). Earlier in his career, Jeff worked in Asia and Latin America with PriceWaterhouseCoopers. Jeff graduated from Dartmouth College, where he was a four-year letterman on the basketball team and is on the Advisory Board for the Dartmouth Entrepreneur Network (DEN). Jeff is a frequent guest on CNBC and often writes on topics like startup management and leadership, venture-backed IPOs and shifts in tech trends across the US and China. Follow Jeff on Twitter @jrichlive or check out his LinkedIn profile for more information.
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About Addi, All Raise, Appirio, Belong, BigCommerce, Boxed, Brightwheel, Coinbase, Convex, Curebase, Electric, Fairmarkit, GGV Capital, Gladly, Handshake, Homebase, Lambda School, Namely, People.ai, Phil, Pinpoint.com, Realm, Slice, Stream, Tala, Tile, Vic.ai, Voicea, Workboard: GGV Capital is a global venture capital firm that invests in local founders.
Glenn Solomon
Managing Partner of GGV Capital
Glenn Solomon is a venture capitalist. He is a partner at [GGV Capital](https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/ggv-capital), a venture capital firm that invests in the U.S. and China. Since 2006, Solomon has worked with entrepreneurs and leaders at companies where he has led GGV’s investments such as Zendesk (NYSE: ZEN), Pandora (NYSE: P), Successfactors (NYSE: SFSF/Acq by SAP), Isilon (NASDAQ: ISLN/Acq by EMC), Nimble Storage (NYSE: NMBL), Quinstreet (NASDAQ: QNST), Square, Conviva, Domo, AlienVault, HashiCorp, and Gridstore. He also assists his partners on other GGV investments such as Appirio, BlueKai, Buddy Media, China Talent Group (CTG), MediaV, Tujia, and Qunar. Prior to GGV, Solomon was a general partner with Partech International, where he led investments in Broadbase Software, Datacenter Technologies, Digital Island, Pentasafe, and Vignette (NASDAQ:VIGN). Earlier in his career, he worked with [Goldman Sachs](https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/goldman-sachs) and also with SPO Partners, a San Francisco-based private investment partnership. Glenn Solomon graduated from [Stanford University](https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/stanford-university), where he majored in tennis, starting on three NCAA championship tennis teams, and he also earned an M.B.A from Stanford where he was an Arjay Miller Scholar.
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About Airbnb, GGV Capital, Kong, Slack, Spotlight Foundation: GGV Capital is a global venture capital firm that invests in local founders.
Saurabh Gupta
Managing Partner of DST Global
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About DST Global: DST Global is an investment firm that funds late-stage ventures in the internet industry.
Karan Wadhera
Managing Partner of Casa Verde Capital
Karan Wadhera is a Managing Partner at Casa Verde Capital. He is an experienced finance professional and investor, as well as an advisor for several young companies. Spending over a decade in Asia as a senior executive with Goldman Sachs and Nomura, he has had significant international experience. Karan holds a BA in Finance from Babson College.
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About Casa Verde Capital, Cayke: Casa Verde Capital is a venture capital firm specialized in seed investments.
Jamie McGurk
Managing Partner of Coatue
Jamie McGurk is a Partner at Andreessen Horowitz, a venture capital firm focused on identifying and funding world-class entrepreneurs in spanning both enterprise and consumer technology. Jamie has been focused on the technology space for his entire 15 year career, funding, advising and supporting management teams with revolutionary ideas. Jamie’s expertise spans M&A and capital raising in both public and private markets and is also an active angel investor in several emerging technology companies.
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About Coatue: Coatue invests in public and private equity markets focusing on the technology, media, and telecommunications industries.
Kris Fredrickson
Managing Partner of Coatue
Kris Fredrickson is Managing Partner at Coatue.
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About Coatue, Curology: Coatue invests in public and private equity markets focusing on the technology, media, and telecommunications industries.
Garry Tan
Managing Partner of Initialized Capital
Garry is a designer, engineer, and founder turned early stage investor, co-founding Initialized Capital in 2012. The firm has invested at the earliest stages of companies like Coinbase, Flexport, Instacart, and Cruise. Prior to Initialized, Garry spent nearly 5 years as a partner at Y Combinator, advising and funding more than 1,000 companies and founders. He was co-founder of YC-backed blog platform Posterous (acquired by Twitter in 2012) and previously worked at Palantir as a founding member of the engineering team. He also designed Palantir’s logo. Garry holds a BS in Computer Systems Engineering from Stanford University.
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About Initialized Capital, SapientNitro: Initialized Capital is an early-stage VC firm focused on helping software engineers and designers with their first seed checks.
Andrew Adams
Co-Founder & Managing Partner of Oak HC/FT
Andrew joined Oak Investment Partners in 2003. He currently serves as General Partner of Oak Investment Partners, and General Partner of Oak HC/FT. Andrew currently serves on the Boards of Limeade, Maestro Healthcare Technologies, One Medical Group, Radisphere National Radiology Group, and xG Health Solutions. Andrew is also actively involved with Benefitfocus, Independent Living Systems, and Precision for Medicine Holdings. Prior investment activity includes American Esoteric Laboratories (acquired by Sonic Healthcare Limited), Argus Information & Advisory Services (acquired by Verisk Analytics), CareMedic Systems (acquired by Ingenix), CLARiENT (acquired by GE Healthcare), Harbor Payments (acquired by American Express), Health Dialog (acquired by British United Provident Association), iHealth Technologies (merged with Connolly), NetSpend Corporation (acquired by TSYS), PayFlex Systems (acquired by Aetna), PharMEDium Healthcare (acquired by Clayton, Dubilier & Rice) and United BioSource (acquired by Medco Health Solutions). Prior to joining Oak Investment Partners, Andrew was a Senior Associate with Capital Resource Partners, a mezzanine capital firm, where he focused on investments in healthcare and business services companies. Andrew was also a Financial Analyst in the media and communications group of Deutsche Banc Alex. Brown. Andrew graduated from Princeton University with a BA in History.
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About Oak HC/FT: Oak HC/FT is a venture and growth equity investment firm that focuses on healthcare information services and financial service technology.
Patricia Kemp
Co-Founder & Managing Partner of Oak HC/FT
Patricia joined Oak Investment Partners in 2002. She currently serves as Venture Partner of Oak Investment Partners, and General Partner of Oak HC/FT. Patricia currently serves on the Boards of Kuaipay, Duedil, and Vesta, and she is a Board Observer at Acculynk. Some of Patricia’s past portfolio activity includes Argus Information & Advisory Services (acquired by Verisk Analytics), Harbor Payments (acquired by American Express), NetSpend (acquired by TSYS), Point Carbon (acquired by Thomson Reuters), and TxVia (acquired by Google). Prior to joining Oak Investment Partners, Patricia’s history includes over 11 years of senior management experience at Cendant (formerly CUC International). At various times she was responsible for the marketing, operations, or general management of a variety of direct marketed products and memberships in the auto, shopping or merchant services space.
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About Oak HC/FT: Oak HC/FT is a venture and growth equity investment firm that focuses on healthcare information services and financial service technology.
Lee Linden
Managing Partner of Quiet Capital
Lee is an entrepreneur and early stage investor. Previously, he lead Facebook’s emerging initiatives in commerce, including Gifts and the Facebook Card. Lee founded Karma, a breakthrough mobile commerce platform which allowed smartphone users to instantly send real gifts to others without the burden of physical mailing addresses. Karma was acquired by Facebook in early 2012. Prior to Karma, Lee founded Tapjoy and piloted the company to it’s position as a leading mobile advertising platform which today touches more than 1 billion devices. He began Tapjoy by co-creating multiple top mobile games for iOS/Android and subsequently unraveling the potential of mobile advertising and app distribution at scale. Earlier, Lee worked for venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins and helped launch the iFund, a $100M investment vehicle focused on smartphone application platforms. Lee originally began his career working in product development at Microsoft, where he co-created the Windows Home Server division and shipped the first version of that product to market. Lee holds a MBA from Stanford’s Graduate School of Business and a BA in Computer Engineering from the University of Michigan. He grew up in the suburbs of Detroit, Michigan and today lives and works in the beautiful San Francisco Bay Area. Lee has been a featured speaker at universities, conferences, and panels worldwide and has received numerous awards for his work including 30 under 30 Best Young Tech Entrepreneur by Bloomberg Businessweek 2012, 100 Most Creative People in Business by Fast Company in 2012, and The Silicon Valley 100 by Business Insider 2013.
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About Quiet Capital: Quiet Capital is an investment firm that seeks to make venture capital investments.
Meyer Malka
Managing Partner of Ribbit Capital
Micky Malka (born Meyer Malka Rais) is an entrepreneur by design and investor at heart, focused on the utilization of technology to disrupt consumer financial services. He is based in Palo Alto, California where he is the Managing Director of Ribbit Capital. Micky is also the CEO and a founding member of MECK Partners, an investment partnership focused on investing and building businesses in financial services, energy and agribusiness, and the Co-Founder and Chairman of Lemon, Inc. He currently serves on the Board of Wonga, a company transforming the credit market by offering small, short term loans with more transparency, speed, convenience and flexibility than banks, high street lenders and other websites. Micky also serves on the Board of Peixe Urbano, the first and largest Latin-American local commerce website. Micky grew up in Venezuela where he learned the impact of devaluation and hyperinflation at a very young age. Living with hyperinflation allowed him to develop a skill he is still well known for; accurately and quickly running numbers in his head. He also saw first hand how technology could transform businesses. In 1993, at the age of 19, Micky, co-founded Heptagon Group, a securities and investment broker dealer servicing the Venezuelan and US markets. In 1996, he graduated with a degree in Economics from the Universidad Católica Andrés Bello in Caracas, Venezuela and was one of the founders of the Wendy’s Hamburger’s franchise for Venezuela. It was one of the fastest growing food businesses worldwide with over 70 new store locations in the first 3 years. In 1998, Micky developed the online brokerage, Patagon by merging with Heptagon local operations. Patagon became Latin America’s first comprehensive Internet based financial services portal and dealer. The company expanded its online services to the United States and the rest of South America and was later acquired by the Spanish bank Banco Santander (NYSE: STD) for US$ 750 million. In 2000 Micky was the interim CEO for Banco Patagon the leader for online banking in Spain and Germany. In 2002, he co-founded Banco Lemon, a Brazilian retail bank serving the underbanked population) which became the largest private microfinance institution in Brazil. In 2009 it was acquired by Banco do Brasil, Latin America’s largest bank. Micky was also involved with Classified Media Group, an online classified company focusing on Colombia, Venezuela and Central America. The group was acquired in 2007 by MercadoLibre (NASDAQ:MELI). In 2011 he co-founded Banco Bracce a Brazilian financial institution positioned as the merchant bank of choice for mid-cap companies in Brazil. In 2011 Meyer co-founded Lemon a service to help individuals keep track of their expenses.
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About Ribbit Capital: Ribbit Capital is a venture capital firm that invests in early-stage companies.
Colin Fan
Managing Partner, Americas, Asia of SoftBank Vision Fund
Colin Fan serves as the Head of Markets and Co-Head of Corporate Banking & Securities at Deutsche Bank AG. At Deutsche Bank, Mr. Fan is responsible for Cash Equities, Program Trading, Equity Derivatives and Prime Services. He serves as the Global Head of Convertibles Trading of Deutsche Bank. Mr. Fan served as Regional Head of Asia and Global Markets Equity Division of Deutsche Bank AG since September 30, 2005 and served a its Co-Head of Global Credit Trading since February 2008. From 2001 to 2004, he served as Head of Emerging Markets Credit Derivatives of Deutsche Bank. Mr. Fan holds a BA with honors in History and Science from Harvard University.
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About SoftBank Vision Fund: SoftBank Vision Fund specializes in growth capital and social impact investments.
Deep Nishar
Senior Managing Partner, Americas of SoftBank Vision Fund
Deep Nishar is the Vice President of Product at LinkedIn, a position he took in December 2008. Prior to LinkedIn, Nishar was a long time Google executive who helped start its mobile business and other key products. As Director of Wireless Products at Google, Deep Nishar developed and implemented the product strategy for Google’s mobile products worldwide. Prior to Google, Deep worked at Siebel Systems where he was a member of the founding team of the Universal Application Network (UAN) business unit which grew to a $40 million a year run rate in its first year. Prior to Siebel, Deep founded Patkai Networks, a web services based software integration company. At Patkai, Deep built the product and engineering organizations and drove all of the business operations for the company. Additionally, Deep was an associate at The Boston Consulting Group and also held various product management, marketing, finance and engineering roles at Cummins Engine Company, where he was awarded three patents. Deep received his Bachelors in Technology with honors from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, where he was awarded the Institute Silver Medal. Deep also received a Masters of Science in Electrical Engineering from University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign and a Masters in Business Administration from Harvard Business School where he graduated with highest honors as a Baker Scholar.
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About SoftBank, SoftBank Vision Fund: SoftBank Vision Fund specializes in growth capital and social impact investments.
Brian Wheeler
Managing Partner, General Counsel of SoftBank Vision Fund
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About SoftBank Vision Fund: SoftBank Vision Fund specializes in growth capital and social impact investments.
Eric Chen
Managing Partner of SoftBank Vision Fund
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About Silver Lake, SoftBank Vision Fund: SoftBank Vision Fund specializes in growth capital and social impact investments.
Adeyemi Ajao
Co-founder & Managing Partner of Base10 Partners
Adeyemi (“Ade”) is Co-founder & Managing Partner at Base10 Partners. Before Base10, Ade had a successful career as an entrepreneur and investor. Ade was the co-founder and CEO of Tuenti (The “Spanish Facebook” which was acquired by Telefonica in 2010 for $100M), co-founder and CEO of Identified (“AI for HR” acquired by Workday in 2014) and a founding investor of Cabify (the largest ridesharing company in Latin America currently valued at over $1B). While at Workday, Ade led launch to Workday Ventures, the first fund focused on Applied AI for Enterprise Software and was VP of Technology Strategy. Ade is originally from Spain and half Nigerian. He holds an MBA from Stanford’s Graduate School of Business. He also holds a J.D. in Law and a M.S in Economics from Icade University in Spain and studied a certificate on Machine Learning at Stanford. Ade volunteers with CODE2040 who tries to create access, awareness and opportunities for gifted Black and Latin engineering talent.
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About Augusta Investments LLC, Base10 Partners: Base10 is an early-stage venture capital firm investing in the automation of the real economy.
TJ Nahigian
Co-founder and Managing Partner of Base10 Partners
TJ Nahigian helping to build Jobrapp.com, a mobile first job matching marketplace. Previously, I invested in tech companies like: Wildfire (acq Google), Clearwater Analytics, Nimble Storage (NMBL), Qualtrics, Despegar, Airwatch (acq VMWare), HotelTonight, Snapchat, Lyft, Avvo, Anaplan.
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About Base10 Partners: Base10 is an early-stage venture capital firm investing in the automation of the real economy.
Shana Fisher
Managing Partner of Third Kind Venture Capital
Shana Fisher is the Managing Partner of HLVP, a NY Based venture fund focused on early stage investments. From December 2003 to June 2010, Ms. Fisher served as IAC’s Senior Vice President, Strategic Planning & Mergers and Acquisitions, and prior to that as the Senior Vice President of Business Operations for IAC. Previously, Ms. Fisher served as Vice President and Director, Media and Technology Mergers and Acquisitions and Corporate Finance for Allen & Company, LLC. In this capacity she led principle investments and advised publicly traded technology firms, private telecommunications firms and media companies. Prior to Allen & Company, LLC., Ms. Fisher was a program manager for the Microsoft Corporation. Ms. Fisher received her B.A. from Hampshire College with a triple major in Sculpture, Philosophy and Linguistics and attended the Master of Arts program at New York University’s ITP.
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About Third Kind Venture Capital: Third Kind Venture Capital is a venture capital fund focused on early-stage investments.
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.
Joshua Kushner
Founder and Managing Partner of Thrive Capital
Joshua Kushner (June 12, 1985) is an American entrepreneur and businessman. He is a co-founder of Vostu, the largest social gaming company in Brazil, where he serves as Chief Strategic Officer. He is also the founder and Managing Partner of Thrive Capital, an early stage venture capital fund. Kushner also serves as a Principal of Kushner Companies, a diversified real estate investment company, whose holdings include The New York Observer, a weekly Manhattan newspaper. Kushner sits on the board of the Observer Media Group. He is the son of businessman Charles Kushner and brother of businessman Jared Kushner.
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About Oscar Health, Thrive Capital: Thrive Capital is a venture capital investment firm that focuses on building and investing in the software and technology-enabled companies.
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.
Benny Peretz
Managing Partner of Greenoaks
Benny Peretz is a Managing Partner of Greenoaks Capital. Prior to Greenoaks Capital, Benny co-founded WRKSHP, a leading mobile gaming company. Benny previously invested in public and private businesses globally with D.E. Shaw & Co., L.P. Benny holds a BSc from the Wharton School and BAS from the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences at the University of Pennsylvania.
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About Greenoaks: Greenoaks is a global investment firm specializing in technology companies.
Andrea Traversone
Managing Partner of Amadeus Capital Partners
Andrea is a partner at Amadeus Capital Partners Limited, focusing on the wireless telecommunications sector. Since joining Amadeus in 1998, Andrea has worked on several transactions, and he is currently on the board of Riskclick, which supplies business process management software to the insurance industry; AePONA, which is a provider of open standards service creation platforms for the telecommunications industry; Seven Networks, which allows mobile phone users real-time access to email applications and Nujira. Andrea started his career as a financial auditor at a chain of resort hotels in Costa Rica, rising to become head of operations, finance and development. He holds an MBA from Cambridge University and a BSc in Economics from the London School of Economics. Italian by birth, Andrea is fluent in French and Spanish, as well as English and Italian.
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About Amadeus Capital Partners: Amadeus Capital Partners caters to the technology sector with seed, early, and later stage venture, and private equity investments.
Fady Yacoub
Co-Founder and Managing Partner of HOF Capital
Fady Yacoub is a Co-Founder and Managing Partner at HOF Capital, where he focuses on companies leveraging frontier technologies to reshape massive industries. At HOF, he led investments in Epic Games, Klarna, Flutterwave, and others across sectors and stages. Prior to HOF Capital, Fady worked at Digital World Capital, a technology-focused hedge fund, helping the firm expand its investment portfolio in Asia by overseeing the firm’s investment in Baidu and Qihoo 360. Earlier in his career, he was an EIR at Switch (NYSE:SWCH), which builds and operates the highest-rated colocation data centers in the world. Fady earned both a BS and BA in Business Administration & Psychology from the University of Southern California.
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About HOF Capital: HOF Capital is a global multistage VC firm with $1 billion in AUM that partners with ambitious entrepreneurs from idea to IPO.
Hisham Elhaddad
Co-Founder and Managing Partner of HOF Capital
Co-Founder and Managing Partner at HOF Capital. He invests across sectors and stages, with a particular focus on deep tech and web3. Hisham’s track record at HOF includes early-stage investments in the likes of Dapper Labs, Insitro, Figure, Republic, Braintrust, and Habi, amongst others. He also led the firm’s growth stage investments in category-defining companies, such as SpaceX, Stripe, Kraken, SaltPay, FTX, and UiPath (NYSE:PATH). Prior to HOF, Hisham was an investor at ERA, an early stage fund and technology accelerator in New York. Hisham holds a BSc in Electrical and Electronics Engineering from Boston University. He is fluent in English, German, and Arabic with a working proficiency in French.
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About HOF Capital: HOF Capital is a global multistage VC firm with $1 billion in AUM that partners with ambitious entrepreneurs from idea to IPO.
Onsi Sawiris
Co-Founder and Managing Partner of HOF Capital
Co-Founder and Managing Partner at HOF Capital, where he focuses on cloud-based technologies, fintech and enterprise SaaS. Onsi currently sits on the boards of Drop Technologies, ItaliaOnline, Riverbank, and Orascom Financial Holding. He leads portfolio acceleration at HOF and helps founders secure commercial traction by identifying synergies within the firm’s global LP network. Prior to HOF, Onsi worked in TMT-focused M&A at Arma Partners, a specialist technology investment bank. Onsi holds a BSc in Mechanical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He is fluent in English, German and Arabic with a working proficiency in French.
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About HOF Capital: HOF Capital is a global multistage VC firm with $1 billion in AUM that partners with ambitious entrepreneurs from idea to IPO.
Joe Maxwell
Managing Partner of Cultivation Capital
Joe Maxwell is the Managing Partner at FINTOP Capital. Joe was most recently the EVP and MD of IPreo Inc. where he led the Private Capital Markets, acquiring Clear Momentum Inc. in December 2015 and ILevel Inc. in August 2015.
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About Cultivation Capital, FINTOP Capital, Numerated, Shareholder InSite, YPO: Cultivation Capital is a venture capital firm managing funds focused on software, agriculture, geospatial, and health tech startups.
Thomas Lehrman
Managing Partner of Teamworthy Ventures
Thomas D. Lehrman is the Board Director at Gerson Lehrman Group.He is a Co – Founder and former Co – Chief Executive Officer of Gerson Lehrman Group, Inc. Thomas Lehrman most recently served as Director of the Office of WMD Terrorism at the U.S. Department of State and previously as a member of the professional staff on the President’s WMD Commission. Earlier in his career, he worked as a Financial Analyst at Tiger Management. He is also a Co – Founder & Board Member of the Brooklyn Excelsior Charter School and the Hillhouse Scholars Program. Thomas Lehrman is a Chartered Financial Analyst and graduated from Duke University and Yale Law School.
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About GLG, MasterStreet, Teamworthy Ventures: Teamworthy Ventures is a venture capital firm that invests in consumer and enterprise software and software-enabled services businesses.
Harley Miller
Founder and Managing Partner of Left Lane Capital
Harley Miller joined Insight in 2011. He previously worked as an analyst at Lubert Adler Real Estate Funds in Philadelphia, focusing on acquisitions and asset management. Harley graduated magna cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business with a BS in Economics, with concentrations in both ‘International Venture Capital & Consumer-Facing Industries’ and ‘Information Management’. During his time at Wharton, Harley launched his first startup, MobileEatz – a mobile food ordering portal targeted at college campuses. Harley is fluent in both Spanish and Portuguese.
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About Left Lane Capital, MobileEatz: Left Lane Capital is a venture capital and early-growth equity firm that invests in high-growth internet and consumer technology businesses.
Jordan Nof
Co-Founder, Managing Partner of Tusk Venture Partners
Jordan Nof is a Co-founder and Managing Partner at Tusk Venture Partners L.P. and is a member of the firm’s Investment Committee. He has led many of the firm’s investments including Lemonade, Bird, Coinbase, Alma, Sunday, and Wheel. He currently serves on the board of directors of Wheel, Alma, and Sunday. Prior to Tusk Venture Partners, Jordan was a Director at Blackstone, where he focused on the development of the firm’s corporate venture capital portfolio. During that time, Jordan focused on investing in early-stage technology companies that could accelerate operations across Blackstone and the firm’s underlying portfolio companies. Before joining Blackstone, Jordan was part of the institutional investment management division at AllianceBernstein. During that time, he worked with many of the firm’s largest global institutional sub-advisory relationships. Jordan received an M.B.A. from Rollins Graduate School of Business and is a graduate of Florida State University where he received a B.S. in Finance. He is based out of the firm’s New York office.
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About Tusk Venture Partners: Tusk Venture Partners invests in early-stage technology startups operating in highly-regulated markets.
Bradley Tusk
Co-founder, Managing Partner of Tusk Venture Partners
Bradley Tusk is a venture capitalist who protects startups from political risk. He is the CEO and founder of Tusk Ventures, the first venture capital fund dedicated to working with and investing in startups in regulated industries. His fund, Tusk Ventures, has now worked with and invested in dozens of startups like Bird, FanDuel, Lemonade, Circle and Ripple. Bradley previously served as Mayor Bloomberg’s campaign manager in New York City, Deputy Governor of Illinois, and Senator Chuck Schumer’s communications director
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About Tusk Strategies, Tusk Venture Partners: Tusk Venture Partners invests in early-stage technology startups operating in highly-regulated markets.
Michael Marks
Founding Managing Partner of Celesta Capital
Michael E Marks is the Founding Managing Partner at Celesta Capital. Prior to that, he was the CEO and founder of Katerra. He was also the founding partner of Riverwood Capital, a Menlo Park-based private equity firm. Prior to establishing Riverwood, he was a partner and senior advisor at Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. in 2006 and 2007. Prior to KKR, Michael spent 13 years as CEO and then chairman of Flextronics International Ltd., building it into one of the largest technology companies in the world. He is a director of The Melt, Enjoy, H20.ai, and Berkeley Lights.
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About Celesta Capital, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, Riverwood Capital, Walden Riverwood Ventures: Celesta Capital is a venture capital firm that invests in entrepreneurs and disruptive technology companies.
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.
Kanyi Maqubela
Managing Partner of Kindred Ventures
Kanyi is a Managing Partner at Kindred Ventures, an early stage venture fund investing in mission-driven technology companies at the earliest stages. Previously, he served as a Partner at Collaborative Fund. Kanyi is a co-founder at Heartbeat Health, and previously ran growth at One Block Off the Grid (acquired by $NRG) and was an early employee at Doostang (acquired by Universum Global). Kanyi has also served as a Lecturer and Adjunct at New York University Tisch School of the Arts, a curriculum adapted from his time in undergrad at Stanford University, where he studied Philosophy.
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About Kindred Ventures: Kindred Ventures is a seed-stage venture capital fund that supports startup companies.
Aileen Lee
Founder and Managing Partner of Cowboy Ventures
Aileen is the founder of Cowboy Ventures, a seed-stage focused fund. They seek to back exceptional teams building technology that re-imagines work and personal life in large and growing markets – what they call “Life 2.0”. She was formerly a partner with Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, and the CEO of RMG Networks. A graduate of MIT, Aileen has an MBA from Harvard Business School and is a Henry Crown Fellow of the Aspen Institute.
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About All Raise, Broadway Angels, Cowboy Ventures, nWay: Cowboy Ventures is a generalist seed-stage fund focused fund investing in technology startups.
Andy McLoughlin
Managing Partner of Uncork Capital
Andy McLoughlin is a Managing Partner at Uncork Capital.
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About Founders Pledge, GreatHorn, Human Interest, Kauffman Fellows, Simplifeye, Uncork Capital: Uncork Capital is a seed-stage venture capital firm that focuses on SaaS, consumer, marketplaces, hardware, and new technology startups.
Jeff Clavier
Founder and Managing Partner of Uncork Capital
Jeff Clavier Is The Founder and Managing Partner At Uncork Capital.
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About Uncork Capital: Uncork Capital is a seed-stage venture capital firm that focuses on SaaS, consumer, marketplaces, hardware, and new technology startups.
Michael J. Pellini
Managing Partner of Section 32
Michael Pellini, M.D., is a Managing Partner of Section 32, a tech and life-science-based venture capital fund. He served as CEO of Foundation Medicine (NASDAQ:FMI) from May 2011 until he transitioned to Chairman in February 2017 through the close of Roche’s (NASDAQ:RHHBY) acquisition of FMI in August 2018. He was President and COO of Clarient, Inc. (“Clarient”), which was acquired by GE Healthcare in 2010. He also currently serves as a member of the Board of Directors for Tango Therapeutics, Singular Genomics, the Personalized Medicine Coalition, and the Mission Hospital Foundation. As a physician with more than 20 years of executive experience with companies at the forefront of clinical diagnostics and genomics, Dr. Pellini brings a breadth of understanding in personalized medicine, with a particular interest and focus in cancer. Dr. Pellini is a member of the President’s Leadership Council at Thomas Jefferson University and Jefferson Health, as well as the Advisory Board for Mission Hospital’s Cancer Institute (Provident/St. Joseph Health). Dr. Pellini received a BA from Boston College, an MBA from Drexel University and an MD from Jefferson Medical College.
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About Section 32: Section 32 is a venture capital fund that invests at the cutting edge of technology, healthcare, and life sciences.
Andrew Harrison
Managing Partner of Section 32
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About Section 32: Section 32 is a venture capital fund that invests at the cutting edge of technology, healthcare, and life sciences.
Steven J. Kafka
Managing Partner of Section 32
Steven J. Kafka (PhD) is the Chief Business Officer at Foundation Medicine Inc. Steven Kafka joined Foundation Medicine in January 2013, bringing over 15 years of business and strategy experience in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries, with a focus on targeted therapies in oncology. Steven Kafka was previously Chief Operating Officer and Chief Financial Officer at Aileron Therapeutics, where he led the company’s operations, finance, and human resources functions, and helped to secure a major collaboration with Roche worth up to $1.1 billion. Before this, Steven Kafka was vice president of finance at Infinity Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: INFI) where he led finance, investor and public relations and business operations. While at Infinity, he worked on a number of innovative collaborations with leading pharmaceutical companies, including the company’s strategic alliance with Purdue Pharmaceuticals. Earlier in his career, Steven Kafka was Senior Director of Finance at Millennium Pharmaceuticals, where he was a key member of the product team in driving strategic planning and alliance management efforts with partner Johnson & Johnson for VELCADE®, a novel targeted cancer therapeutic. Steven Kafka earned his Ph.D. from Harvard University. His B.A. with Distinction and Honors from Stanford University.
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About Section 32: Section 32 is a venture capital fund that invests at the cutting edge of technology, healthcare, and life sciences.
Soleio Cuervo
Managing Partner of Combine
Soleio is cofounder and managing partner of Combine, a design and venture firm in San Francisco. Prior to Combine, Soleio led early product efforts at Dropbox as head of design and at Facebook where he was one of the company’s first product designers. He’s invested in and advised early stage startups since 2012.
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About Combine: Combine is a design and venture firm.
Adam Michela
Managing Partner of Combine
A digital product investor, designer and engineer.
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About Combine: Combine is a design and venture firm.
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.
John Hamer
Managing Partner of DCVC
John is a Managing Partner at DCVC Bio. Prior to DCVC Bio, John was an Investment Director for Monsanto Growth Ventures. Monsanto is a leading global, agricultural company providing products to growers worldwide. Monsanto Growth Ventures, through investment and partnership encourages entrepreneurs, and innovative start-up companies, to take on the challenge of a more sustainable future for world food production. John Hamer’s career spans more than three decades of research, senior management and investment experience in the life sciences. Prior to joining Monsanto, he was Entrepreneur-in-Residence and later Managing Director and General Partner at Burrill & Company, a San Francisco-based life sciences merchant bank with activities in venture capital, merchant banking and media. John Hamer led investments in numerous of Ag-related start-ups in the U.S., Europe, Asia and the Middle East. Prior to joining Burrill, John Hamer was the CSO and later CEO of Paradigm Genetics/ICORIA, a leading genomics and ag-biotechnology company that completed its IPO on NASDAQ in 2000 and was later acquired by Monsanto. John Hamer received his Ph.D. in Microbiology from the University of California at Davis and was a Visiting Scientist in Dupont’s Central Research & Development Group. He later joined Purdue University and rose to the rank of full Professor and was the recipient of several national awards including the David Lucille Packard Award, and The National Science Foundation Presidential Faculty Fellowship. At Purdue, John Hamer’s research focused on crop diseases, where he pioneered molecular approaches to disease management and control and worked with numerous international agencies in China, the Philippines and South America. John Hamer lectures widely on innovation, agriculture and venture capital and is a member of the Board of Trustees for the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT), and serves on the Board of Directors for Golden Pine Ventures, a microVC fund in RTP, North Carolina. He is a passionate believer in new growth opportunities that are emerging in the agricultural value chain in food, health, energy, materials and chemicals.
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About DCVC: DCVC backs entrepreneurs using Deep Tech to solve problems and multiply the benefits of capitalism for everyone while reducing its cost.
Kiersten Stead
Managing Partner – DCVC Bio of DCVC
Kiersten is a Managing Partner at DCVC Bio. Prior to DCVC Bio, Kiersten was an Investment Director at Monsanto Growth Ventures (MGV), the Venture Capital arm of Monsanto, which was one of the most active investors globally in agriculture. Kiersten has over 15 years of experience in Biotechnology. Prior to joining MGV, Kiersten worked at Burrill & Company, which invested broadly in Life Sciences and Industrial Biotechnology. Kiersten is a co-founder and Director of Pairwise, is on the Board of Atomwise, Farmlead, Plant Response Biotech, VitalFields (acquired), Understory Weather and Blue River Technology (acquired). She is also a member of the Investment Committee of Genome Canada GAAP, The Keystone Symposia Scientific Advisory Board, and the EULC, a sport-not-for-profit.
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About DCVC: 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.
Perry Tam
Founder & Managing Partner of Locus Ventures
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About Locus Ventures: Locus Ventures is a seed fund that invests in passionate founders looking to build important, world-changing companies.
Lo Toney
Founding Managing Partner of Plexo Capital
Lo is the Founding Managing Partner of Plexo Capital, which he incubated and spun out from GV, based on a strategy to increase access to early stage deal flow. Plexo Capital invests as an LP into emerging seed stage VCs and also invests directly into select companies sourced from the portfolios of VCs where Plexo Capital has an LP commitment. Investors in Plexo Capital include the venture capital units of top corporate VCs, prominent family offices and technology executives. Prior to founding Plexo Capital, Lo was a Partner on the investing team at GV where he focused on marketplaces, mobile and consumer products. Before GV, Lo was a Partner with Comcast Ventures where he led the Catalyst Fund and worked with the main fund where he focused on mobile messaging and marketplaces. He also worked with Zynga as the GM of Zynga Poker with full P+L responsibility for Zynga’s largest franchise at that time. During his leadership, web bookings increased by over 150% with margin expansion. Lo has also held executive roles with Nike + eBay as well as startups funded by top tier investors. Lo received his M.B.A. from the Haas School of Business (University of California at Berkeley where he completed the Management of Technology program – a joint curriculum program with the College of Engineering. Lo received his B.S. from Hampton University in Virginia.
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About Plexo Capital: Plexo Capital is a venture fund formed inside GV that seeks to make investments into women and minority seed-stage VCs.
Michael Yang
Managing Partner of OMERS Ventures
Based in Silicon Valley, Michael is a Managing Partner of OMERS Ventures leading the fund’s investment efforts in the US in sectors such as health-tech, proptech and insuretech. Prior to joining OMERS Ventures in 2019, Michael was a Managing Director for Comcast Ventures. Previously, he was a VP/GM for Yahoo! and started his career at AT Kearney, AOL and Atlas Venture. He has a BS from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and an MBA from Harvard.
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About Creative Destruction Lab (CDL), OMERS Ventures: OMERS Ventures is a transatlantic multi-stage investor in growth-oriented, disruptive technology companies
Krishna Yeshwant
Managing Partner of GV
Dr. Krishna Yeshwant is a physician, programmer, and entrepreneur who has been working with GV since its inception. He first joined Google as part of the New Business Development team. Prior to Google he helped start an electronic data interchange company that was acquired by Hewlett-Packard and a network security company that was acquired by Symantec. He also co-authored the business plan for Diagnostics For All, which won both the Harvard Business School and MIT $100k business plan competitions. Previously, Krishna published several book chapters and journal articles in the field of computer-guided surgery, completed research in tissue engineering, and developed and licensed multiple surgical devices. He has worked with the technology transfer offices of MIT, Harvard, and Massachusetts General Hospital. Krishna has a B.S. in computer science from Stanford University. He also earned an M.D. from Harvard Medical School, an MBA from Harvard Business School, and completed his residency at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, MA where he continues to practice.
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About GV, Partners HealthCare, Wingu: GV provides venture capital funding to bold new companies.
David Krane
CEO & Managing Partner of GV
David is the CEO & Managing Partner at GV and oversees the fund’s global activities. He invests in a wide range of technology companies including Uber, Nest, Blue Bottle Coffee, and Urban Engines. David’s Google career began more than 17 years ago, as director of Global Communications and Public Affairs. In this role, David oversaw the company’s strategic communications programs worldwide, and worked as a member of the senior leadership team to grow Google from a small startup to a multi-billion dollar global enterprise. David’s prior professional experience spanned both startup and public companies, including Apple Computer, QUALCOMM, Four11 (now Yahoo! Mail), and two computer security software developers. David is also on the board of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc. (MGM), a member of Young President’s Organization (YPO), a trustee of San Francisco’s Contemporary Jewish Museum of Art, and a Menlo/Atherton Little League baseball coach. David received his Bachelor of Arts in journalism from Indiana University Bloomington. As a proud Hoosier alumnus, he serves on the Dean’s advisory board for the IU School of Informatics, Computing, and Engineering. David resides in the Bay Area with his wife, three children, and their labradoodle.
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About Google, GV: GV provides venture capital funding to bold new companies.
Graham Spencer
Managing Partner of GV
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About GV, Santa Fe Institute: GV provides venture capital funding to bold new companies.
Jon Soberg
Managing Partner of MS&AD Ventures
Jon Soberg joined MS&AD Ventures as Managing Partner in 2018.
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About CerraCap Ventures, MS&AD Ventures, SocietyOne, The Wharton School, True Link Financial: MS&AD Ventures is an early-stage venture fund focused on big data businesses related to the insurance industry.
Jeremiah Daly
Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Elephant
Jeremiah is Co-Founder and Partner at Elephant, a venture capital firm focused on the enterprise software, consumer internet and mobile markets. Previously, he was a Principal at Highland Capital Partners, where he focused on investments in growth stage internet, software, payments and mobile businesses. Prior to joining Highland, Jeremiah was a Principal at Accel Partners in London. While at Accel Jeremiah led the investment in Ostrovok.ru (Russian-focused online travel agency) and was involved with investments in Atlassian (software for streamlining product development), Showroomprive (online private sales club), SimpliVity (IT infrastructure technology for the virtualized data center and cloud) and Supercell (mobile and social games). Earlier, Jeremiah was an investor at Summit Partners and Gold Hill Capital and a banker at Silicon Valley Bank. Jeremiah lives in Boston and has a strong interest in amateur sports. He was the captain of the Dartmouth golf team where he was a two-time Academic All-Ivy performer and also enjoys skiing, squash, tennis, soccer and supporting Boston sports teams.
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About Elephant, KnowBe4, Malwarebytes: Elephant is a venture capital firm focused on the enterprise software, consumer internet, and mobile markets.
Andrew Hunt
Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Elephant
Andrew Hunt is a Co-Founder and Director at Warby Parker. He is also Co-Founder and Partner at Elephant, a venture capital firm focused on the enterprise software, consumer internet and mobile markets. Andy has studied eyewear design in more than 40 countries. Rumors that he conceived the idea for Warby Parker while fasting at a temple in the jungle city of Angkor Wat are only somewhat misleading. After working in finance and healthcare, Andy was convinced that there had to be a way to deliver top-quality eyewear for less.
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About Elephant, Warby Parker: Elephant is a venture capital firm focused on the enterprise software, consumer internet, and mobile markets.
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.
Matthew Howard
Managing Partner of Norwest Venture Partners
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About Norwest Venture Partners: Norwest is a global venture capital and growth equity investment firm that specializes in venture and growth equity companies.
Promod Haque
Senior Managing Partner of Norwest Venture Partners
Promod has 31 years of experience in the venture capital industry and currently serves as senior managing partner at Norwest Venture Partners. Promod joined Norwest in 1990, and has invested in more than 70 companies since he began his venture career. His investments have been worth more than $40B in aggregate exit value to date, as 25 of his portfolio companies have gone public and 37 have been acquired (or have gone public and been acquired). In 2014 and 2016, Forbes recognized Promod as a “Hall of Fame” investor. 2017 marked Promod’s thirteenth appearance on the annual Forbes Midas List, including 2004, when he was ranked the #1 venture capitalist based on performance over the previous decade. In 2006, Promod was presented with a Global Leadership award from NASSCOM, and he was honored with the 2011 SV Forum Visionary Award based on his outstanding achievements and contributions to the technology industry.
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About Norwest Venture Partners: Norwest is a global venture capital and growth equity investment firm that specializes in venture and growth equity companies.
Jon Kossow
Managing Partner of Norwest Venture Partners
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About Clarus Commerce, Norwest Venture Partners: Norwest is a global venture capital and growth equity investment firm that specializes in venture and growth equity companies.
Jeff Crowe
Managing Partner of Norwest Venture Partners
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About Norwest Venture Partners: Norwest is a global venture capital and growth equity investment firm that specializes in venture and growth equity companies.
Albert Wenger
Managing Partner of Union Square Ventures
Albert Wenger is the Managing Partner at Union Square Ventures.
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About Stacks, Union Square Ventures: Union Square Ventures is a venture capital firm focused on early-stage, growth-capital, late stage, and startup financing.
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.
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.
Henry Ellenbogen
Founder, Managing Partner & Chief Investment Officer of Durable Capital Partners
Henry Ellenbogen is the Founder, Managing Partner, and Chief Investment Officer of Durable Capital Partners. Prior to that, he served as a portfolio manager at T. Rowe Price.
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About Durable Capital Partners: Durable Capital Partners invests in small and mid-cap companies in both public and private markets.
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.
Adam Freed
Managing Partner of GSV Ventures
Adam Freed is the Executive Chair of the Board of [Teachers Pay Teachers](https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/teacherspayteachers-com), a New York City-based company that runs an online marketplace, where teachers can sell their educational materials to other teachers. Most recently he served as the chief operating officer of Etsy. Freed holds a bachelor’s degree in linguistics from Harvard University and a Juris doctor degree from Yale Law School.
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About GSV Ventures, Teachers Pay Teachers: GSV Ventures is a venture firm investing company.
Paul Sethi
Co-Founder & Managing Partner of 2048 Ventures
Paul Sethi is a co-founder and Managing Partner at [2048 Ventures](https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/2048-ventures). For 7+ years prior to 2048 Ventures, Paul was CEO of [Redbooks](https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/redbooks), leading sales data and intelligence platform for the marketing industry (acq. by List Partners – May 2018). He also co-founded [Robuzz](https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/robuzz-news), an advanced ML/NLP practice, with a real-time alerts and data extraction engine built for enterprise. Paul has been a first-check angel for over a decade, including in Flexport, SeatGeek, Transfix, Knotel and LearnVest. He serves as Advisor to Transfix and OpenFortune, and graduated with honors from Wharton (UPenn) and Columbia. Early in his career, he was a public company investor focused on the tech sector.
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About 2048 Ventures: 2048 Ventures is an early stage venture capital firm.
Alex Iskold
Co-Founder & Managing Partner of 2048 Ventures
Alex Iskold is Co-Founder and Managing Partner at [2048 Ventures](https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/2048-ventures). Prior to 2048, Alex spent 5 years at [Techstars](https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/techstars) as the Managing Director of its NYC program, where he invested in and helped over 100 startups. Alex was previously the founder and CEO of Info Lab (acquired by IBM), founder and CEO of GetGlue (backed by [Union Square Ventures](https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/union-square-ventures), [RRE Ventures](https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/rre-ventures), [TimeWarner Investments](https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/time-warner-investments)), Chief Architect of distributed computing startup DataSynapse, and a software engineer at Goldman Sachs, D.E. Shaw and Thinkmap. Alex also taught an award-winning undergraduate computer science class at NYU. He holds a B.S. in Math with Honors from Lehigh University and M.S. in Computer Science from NYU. Alex writes one of the top startup blogs called Startup Hacks.
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About 2048 Ventures: 2048 Ventures is an early stage venture capital firm.
Jenny Just
Co-Founder, Managing Partner of PEAK6 Investments
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About PEAK6 Investments: Peak6 Investments operates as an investment management firm.
Shiyan Koh
Managing Partner of Hustle Fund
Shiyan leads NerdWallet’s Personal Financial Management products. Before NerdWallet, she was an investment professional at Bridgewater Associates. Shiyan was also a Senior Investment Associate at Institutional Venture Partners, and began her career as an Investment Banking Analyst at JPMorgan, serving technology and healthcare clients. She is a graduate of Stanford University and Harvard Business School.
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About Hustle Fund: Hustle Fund is a seed fund that seeks to invest in early-stage startups.
Richard M. Cashin
Managing Partner, Founder, President and Member of Investment Committee of One Equity Partners
Mr. Cashin is Managing Partner of OEP. Prior to founding One Equity Partners in 2001, Mr. Cashin was President of Citigroup Venture Capital, Ltd. Mr. Cashin is a member of the JPMorgan Chase Executive Committee and sits on the Board of Titan International Inc. He is a Trustee for the American University in Cairo, Boys’ Club of New York, Brooklyn Museum, Central Park Conservancy, Jazz at Lincoln Center, the National Rowing Foundation (Chairman), and TOUCH Foundation. He is Co-Chairman of the New York City Investment Fund and is active in several inner-city educational initiatives as well as Harvard fundraising and has served as Co-Chairman of his Harvard class for over 35 years. Mr. Cashin received his M.B.A. from Harvard University, his A.B. in East Asian Studies from Harvard College, and attended a one-year fellowship at Trinity College, Cambridge.
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About One Equity Partners, One Equity Partners: One Equity Partners makes private equity investments behind compelling business ideas and strong management teams.
Brent Hill
Managing Partner of Origin Ventures
Brent Hill is a partner at Origin Ventures, an early-stage venture capital firm. Brent joined Origin Ventures as a partner in January 2013, and leads the firm’s office in Salt Lake City. He serves on the Board of Directors of 15Five, Fountain, Pronto, Voxpopme, Apptentive, Kidizen, Measured, and Mighty. He is a board observer for Cameo, AppDetex, DirectScale, and ViralGains. Other previous investments include Grubhub (NYSE: GRUB), BacklotCars (acquired by KAR Global), Ahalogy (acquired by Quotient), and Teem (acquired by WeWork). Prior to joining Origin, Brent led the Central Region sales organization for Twitter – opening their first business office in the Midwest in 2010. Prior to joining Twitter, he was the head of Financial Services for Google (Chicago). Brent joined Google after his previous company, FeedBurner, was acquired by Google in 2007.He previously co-founded MVP.com, an online sporting goods retailer. Brent started his career with Accenture, where he spent 10 years developing CRM software for the telecom industry. Brent received a B.S. in Finance from Bradley University, where he was captain of the golf team. He received his MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, where he serves as a judge for the annual New Venture Challenge. He was recognized in the Crain’s Chicago Business Tech 50 in 2014. An avid runner and cyclist, Brent has completed 20 marathons – including three of the World Marathon Majors (Chicago, Boston, NY). He was a 2013 Team USA qualifier for the World Duathlon Championships.
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About Origin Ventures, Origin Ventures: Origin Ventures is an early-stage venture capital firm investing in software and marketing businesses enabling the Digital Native economy.
Jason Heltzer
Managing Partner of Origin Ventures
Jason joined Origin Ventures as a partner in 2014. Jason is currently a board member or observer for Ahalogy, Atavium, Base, MyAlerts, Tock, and Tovala. The prior 13 years before joining Origin, Jason worked at OCA Ventures where, as a member of the investment committee and as a general partner, he was involved in over 60 venture capital investment transactions and worked directly with founders to grow many of OCA’s portfolio companies. While at OCA, Jason led the seed round in Base CRM where he continues to serve on the board of directors. Previously, Jason had board responsibilities for Alert Logic (acquired by Welsh Carson), TradeKing, Red Foundry, Whittl and Pinpoint Health. Jason also led OCA’s investments in Cartavi (acquired by Docusign), Brightnest (acquired by Angie’s list) and FeeFighters (acquired by Groupon). Jason was named a Crain’s Chicago Business Tech 50 member in 2013. Before OCA, Jason spent three and a half years as a software engineer and software architect for Deloitte Consulting. He also led engineering and business teams at 1stUp, a San Francisco-based startup. Jason holds an MBA in finance and entrepreneurship, with high honors, from Chicago Booth, where he was selected as a Siebel Scholar. Jason also holds a BS in computer science, with highest distinction, from the University of Michigan, where he also founded a fraternity. In addition to his professional responsibilities at Origin, Jason is an Adjunct Assistant Professor of Entrepreneurship at Chicago Booth, where he teaches the venture capital and private equity lab class. Jason serves on the board of Temple Sholom of Chicago. He also authors a blog devoted to examining startups and the venture capital business from the eyes of a former software engineer: www.ventureevolved.com. Jason has an interest in movies, and has watched every Best Picture movie from 1927-2013, plus about 100 documentaries. In addition, for most of his life, Jason has been addicted to video games, which is what prompted him to teach himself how to code when he was 13.
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About Origin Ventures, The University of Chicago Booth School of Business: Origin Ventures is an early-stage venture capital firm investing in software and marketing businesses enabling the Digital Native economy.
Alexander Meyer
Managing Partner of Origin Ventures
Alex Meyer is Vice President, Global Business Development at SAP. A seasoned international executive, he has traveled and done business globally including some of the world’s most challenging developing markets and has addressed international gatherings of the United Nations, World Bank, World Investment Forum, and others. Previously, Mr. Meyer served clients with multinational management consulting firm Deloitte. He was also previously Director of Operations for Hollywood based House of Blues, Inc. Alex is the founder and chairman of the Harvard Business School Alumni Entrepreneurship Council of Chicago managing the HBS Angels, recognized as one of Chicago’s most active early stage investors, the HBS Global Alumni New Venture Competition for the U.S. Central Region, and the Distinguished Speaker in Entrepreneurship & Venture Capital series. Mr. Meyer is a member of the Harvard Business School Alumni Board of Directors where he serves on the Executive Committee. He is President Emeritus of the Harvard Business School Club of Chicago and has served on the board of the HBSCC Charitable Fund. Mr. Meyer has contributed to a variety of entrepreneurship and innovation programs at Harvard University, University of Chicago, University of Illinois, Northwestern, IIT, and Endeavor as a judge, lecturer, advisor, and international selection panelist and co-authored the Harvard Business School case: Rising from the Ashes – The Emergence of Chicago’s Entrepreneurial Ecosystem (HBS Press). He served on Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s tech and economic development delegations to Boston, London and Israel. Alex is the founder and past-president of the Society for Business & Management in Engineering, now the National Organization for Business & Engineering (NOBE), and a recipient of the NOBE Lifetime Dedication Award. Alex is a founder and officer of the board of Chicago’s Stage773 Theater operating the Stage773 performing arts center and incubator, producing the Chicago Sketch Comedy Festival, and the Cupid Players Theatre Company. He holds a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Illinois, an MBA from the Harvard Business School, and theatrical education from the Second City Conservatory. He was named one of Chicago’s 40 Under 40 and is a member of the Economic Club of Chicago.
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About Harvard Business School, Harvard Business School Angels Chicago, Origin Ventures, Stage 773: Origin Ventures is an early-stage venture capital firm investing in software and marketing businesses enabling the Digital Native economy.
Karl Alomar
Managing Partner of M13
Karl Alomar is a serial entrepreneur turned investor with extensive experience in starting, developing and selling high growth businesses in various market segments. Karl co-founded two successful ventures of his own, followed by 6 years as COO at DigitalOcean helping build the company from ground up to $250MM ARR. Karl received his MBA from Columbia Business School in New York and a BEng in Electrical and Electronic Engineering from Imperial College London and currently hold the position of Managing Partner at venture firm M13.
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About M13: M13 provides strategic counsel and operational expertise to help founders grow their companies.
David Tisch
Founder & Managing Partner of BoxGroup
David Tisch is the Managing Partner of BoxGroup, a New York City-based early stage investment fund. BoxGroup is an investor in over 200 seed-stage companies, including Vine, Blue Apron, Sunrise, Warby Parker, Harry’s, Oscar, Behance, Handy and more. David is also the co-founder and Chairman of Spring, a mobile marketplace where customers shop directly within the app from a curated community of brands. Spring was named by Apple as one of the Best Apps of 2014. In 2014, David was named Head of Startup Studio at Cornell Tech, the University’s New York City-based graduate campus focused on digital technologies and the information economy. He is also Entrepreneur in Residence for Wharton’s Entrepreneurship Program. David is the co-founder of TechStars NYC and has served on numerous boards, including Mayor Bloomberg’s Advisory Council on Technology, the Investor Board of Venture for America, and the Entrepreneurship board at NYU. He graduated from the University of Pennsylvania and New York University School of Law, and currently lives in New York City
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About BoxGroup, Cornell Tech, Techstars: BoxGroup is an early-stage investment fund that invests in technology companies.
Matt Hobart
Co-Managing Partner of TPG Growth
Hobart is a Partner based in San Francisco. He leads the Healthcare and Financial Services sectors for TPG Growth. Matt is currently a board member of Petbarn and iMDsoft. Previous board service includes The Vincraft Group, Schiff Nutrition International, Wil Research and Agraquest. Prior to joining TPG Growth in 2004, Mr. Hobart was the Vice President of Corporate Development for Critical Path, where he was part of a turnaround team that led Critical Path through a major financial and operational restructuring. Previously, Matt co-founded and served as a Managing Director of Vectis Group, a venture corporation that capitalized and built companies globally, in partnership with leading U.S. technology businesses. Prior to Vectis Group, Mr. Hobart made private equity investments in the US and Europe for the $2.2 billion Morgan Stanley Capital Partners III L.P. and helped raise and invest the $350 million Morgan Stanley Global Emerging Markets Fund.
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About TPG Growth: TPG Growth specializes in growth equity and middle-market buyout opportunities.
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.
Melissa Cheong
Managing Partner of Blackhorn Ventures
Melissa Cheong is a managing partner at Blackhorn Ventures.
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About Blackhorn Ventures, Bonfils-Stanton Foundation, PG Impact Investments: Blackhorn Ventures is an early stage venture firm that invests in companies using cutting edge engineering to improve resource productivity.
Trevor Zimmerman
Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Blackhorn Ventures
Trevor Zimmerman is Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Blackhorn Ventures. Previously, he co-founded Farmore Capital Group (FCG), a private investment firm. While there, he led the firm’s day-to-day activities and spent much of his time working directly with entrepreneurs to build successful companies. In addition to angel investing and venture capital, Trevor’s professional experience ranges from developing materials for biomedical implants to designing high-performance batteries for the U.S. Navy to developing systems to hinder the migration of radionuclides in groundwater at the Y-12 National Security Complex. Before co-founding FCG, Trevor was the principal engineer in the Technology Development Division of a venture-backed startup company, Kurion, Inc. Here he was responsible for the development and maturation of technological solutions that support clean energy through waste separation and stabilization, primarily for radioactive wastewater treatment efforts at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. Trevor serves on a number of for-profit and nonprofit boards. He has lectured and published in the areas of venture capital, entrepreneurship, advanced materials, environmental engineering, and radiochemistry, and holds patents for making carbon nanopipes and ductwork with nanomeric walls and separating radionuclides with submersible filters. He is focused on using his diverse technical and entrepreneurial background to solve humanity’s biggest challenges. Trevor frequently serves as an instructor, mentor, and judge for a variety of institutions including the Department of Energy, Stanford University, and MIT. He completed a postgraduate research appointment at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and holds a M.S. in Environmental Engineering from Clemson University and a B.A. in Chemistry from Alfred University.
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About Blackhorn Ventures: Blackhorn Ventures is an early stage venture firm that invests in companies using cutting edge engineering to improve resource productivity.
Morgan Flager
Managing Partner of Silverton Partners
Morgan Flager joined Silverton in 2006. Prior to joining Silverton, Morgan worked with FTVentures in San Francisco, where he focused on software & services companies in the financial services industry. Prior to FTVentures Morgan served as Director of Business Development at Ingrian Networks, a leading data privacy, and information security solution provider. Earlier in his career, Morgan co-founded Woosh, a $30 million venture funded by HP, which developed e-commerce infrastructure solutions. Morgan received his BS from Stanford University.
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About Silverton Partners, TurnKey Vacation Rentals: Silverton Partners is an early-stage venture capital firm that invests across software, tech-enabled services, and CPG brands.
Dan O’Keefe
Managing Partner of Apax Partners
Dan is Managing Partner of Apax Digital, focused on growth stage investments in consumer internet, software, and technology enabled services areas. He began his career at Apax Partners in 1999 as an Associate, and rejoined the firm in 2016, based in New York. He serves on the board of Apax Digital Fund investment Moda Operandi. Prior to joining Apax Partners, Dan was a General Partner of Technology Crossover Ventures where he focused on investments in the Consumer Internet and Software sectors. Dan holds an MBA from Harvard Business School, where he graduated as a Baker Scholar and is a member of its Alumni Advisory Board. Dan also holds a BA from Brown University. Dan also holds a fellowship with the Foreign Policy Association, is a member of the Board of Directors of the New York Venture Capital Association, and is the Chairman of The Opportunity Network, an education focused non-profit.
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About Apax Partners: Apax Partners is an independent global partnership focused solely on long-term investment in growth companies.
David Singer
Managing Partner of Maverick Ventures
David has led Maverick’s private investments since he joined Maverick in 2004. Maverick Ventures was established in 2015. Previously David was a founder and CEO of three companies: Affymetrix; Corcept Therapeutics; and Genesoft Pharmaceuticals, the latter two in which Maverick invested. David currently serves on the boards of private companies in healthcare and software-driven marketplace businesses, and one public company, Castlight Health. During his career, David has served on the boards of 19 private companies including five that became public companies during his service. David received a B.A. from Yale University and an M.B.A. from Stanford University. He was a Crown Fellow of the Aspen Institute and a member of the Rand Corporation’s Health Advisory Board. He is currently Vice Chair of College Track and was formerly Vice President of the San Francisco Health Commission. He lives in San Francisco with his wife Diana Kapp, and their three kids.
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About College Track, Maverick Ventures: Maverick Ventures is a registered investment advisor managing private investment funds for qualified investors.
Patrick Chun
Managing Partner of Juxtapose
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About Juxtapose: Juxtapose partners with entrepreneurs building category-defining technology companies.
Sumant Mandal
Co-Founder and Managing Partner of March Capital
Sumant is Managing Director and cofounder of LA-based March Capital Partners, in addition to being cofounder of two leading technology incubators in the San Francisco Bay Area, The Hive, which focuses on AI and Blockchain driven companies, and The Fabric, which focuses on cloud, IoT and network infrastructure companies. Sumant invests in Cloud Computing, IoT, AI/ML, and Network Infrastructure as well as companies focused on the Indian market. Sumant currently serves on the boards of numerous market leading companies, including BillDesk, The Rubicon Project, CarTrade, IoTium, and Xage Security. In his nearly two decades of venture capital, Sumant has generated multiple meaningful exits in companies he has either incubated or been the first institutional investor. Most recently, Sumant played an integral role in VMWare’s acquisition of cloud networking startup VeloCloud, as well as Cisco’s acquisition of machine-learning startup Perspica, both in late 2017. As an active board member, and investor in both companies, Sumant fostered their development and growth since their formations at The Fabric and The Hive, respectively. Other companies that he has incubated and helped lead to a successful exit include The Rubicon Project (NYSE:RUBI), Kosei (acquired by Pinterest), Appcito (acquired by A10 Networks), Deep Forest Media (acquired by Rakuten), Kazeon Systems (acquired by EMC), Mimosa Systems (acquired by Iron Mountain), Ankeena Networks (acquired by Juniper), Cetas (acquired by VMware), and Apture (acquired by Google). In 2000, Sumant joined Clearstone Venture Partners where he went on to become a Managing Director four years later. In 2014, he cofounded March Capital Partners, which has since grown to $500M under management. Prior to Clearstone, Sumant spent more than eight years as an entrepreneur, starting companies in both India and the United States. Sumant has an MBA from the Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University, and a BS in Electrical Engineering from Michigan State University. He is a Charter Member of TiE.
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About Clearstone Venture Partners, March Capital, The Fabric, The Hive: March is committed to partnering with exceptional entrepreneurs to build great tech companies and scale them globally.
Gregory Milken
Co-Founder and Managing Partner of March Capital
Gregory Milken is Managing Director at March Capital Partners, where he focuses on investments in digital media, gaming and esports. Gregory has led March Capital’s investments in broadcasting solution Genvid Technologies, game mastery platform Dojo Madness, and game developers nWay and Wavedash. Gregory has over 15 years of entrepreneurial and operational experience. He was the co-founder and COO of AltEgo, a cloud-based technology and gaming company. Prior to his work in technology, he worked in strategy and operations for Knowledge Universe Education, new business development at Warner Bros. in Hong Kong and London, and at Twentieth Century Fox. Gregory received his M.B.A. from the Stanford University Graduate School of Business, and a M.A. in international policy studies from Stanford University. He also received a B.A. in international relations and Asian studies from the University of Pennsylvania.
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About AltEgo, March Capital: March is committed to partnering with exceptional entrepreneurs to build great tech companies and scale them globally.
