Focused Funds Team

Bio: Mike has been involved in almost every facet of venturing, from angel investing to venture capital, new business and product launches, and innovation consulting. He is currently CEO of Alumni Ventures Group, the managing company for our fund, and launched AVG’s first alumni fund, Green D Ventures, where he oversaw the portfolio as Managing Partner and is now Managing Partner Emeritus. Mike is a serial entrepreneur who has started multiple companies, including Kid Galaxy, Big Idea Group (partially owned by WPP), and RDM. He began his career at VC firm TA Associates firm. He holds an undergraduate degree in Engineering Science from Dartmouth and an MBA from Harvard Business School.
Notable Deals: Intuit, Sapho, Jenny Craig, Group

Bio: Alain has 30+ years of experience as a VC, angel investor, CEO, serial entrepreneur, Board Member, and advisor. He was Co-founder of Common Angels, New England’s leading investment group; Managing Director and CEO of Navigator Technology Ventures, a high-tech VC firm funded by Draper Lab; and CEO of Viewlogic, an innovative chip design software company. Alain has mentored over 100 MIT high-tech spinoffs and served on the MassTech Board through the terms of six governors. He was honored as Inc Magazine’s Entrepreneur of the Year. He has BSEE and SB Math degrees from MIT, SM Computer Science from Harvard, and OPM from Harvard Business School.
Notable Deals: Viewlogic, Applix, EverQuote

Bio: Jim has over 20 years of experience in capital market sales and business development on Wall Street. He worked for a handful of large banks, including Lehman Brothers, Barclays Capital, UBS, and RBC, covering institutional investors. His client base ranged from HNW individuals to the largest money managers and hedge funds. He focused on the highly quantitative sector of securitized credit, backed by commercial real estate, leveraged loans, mortgages, and derivatives. He earned a BA in Business Economics from Brown University, where he was a member of the varsity swimming team.

Bio: Anton has 20+ years of technology experience as a proven venture capital investor, entrepreneur and operating executive in companies ranging in size from start-up to Fortune 10. Most recently, Anton founded and led Vener8 Technologies, a technology commercialization company he started with GE. Previously in his career, Anton led the Software and Internet Infrastructure Group at GE Equity where he directly invested $72 million in 10 companies generating more than $500 million of realized gains. Anton has substantial international experience in Canada, China, Europe and Israel, and has served on the board of directors of more than 20 private and public companies. Anton has a BSc. Engineering from Queen’s University in Canada, and an MBA from Harvard Business School.

Bio:Deborah has over 25 years of experience working with social impact entrepreneurs and mission-driven leaders. Prior to joining AVG, Deb was an independent consultant for business development and growth strategies, guiding founders through the early startup and launch phases of new social ventures and nonprofit organizations. Her clients included an MIT professor and former dean launching a venture to transform the higher education landscape, social ventures focused on national security and foreign policy, and a national organization building a global joint initiative for world leaders. She has worked in higher education advancement, nonprofit management, and as a Capitol Hill lobbyist, beginning her career as committee staff in the US Senate. Deborah holds a BS in political science from Birmingham-Southern College and a MA in Communication from American University.

Bio: Rob is a former entrepreneur, institutional fund manager and software executive. He has served on many corporate boards and has founded or financed more than 40 companies, raising capital in both public and private markets. He is an internationally recognized expert and speaker on innovation, commercialization ,and entrepreneurship. Most recently, Rob was on the faculty of The University of Texas at Austin, where he taught entrepreneurship in the MBA program and was the Founder and Director of Texas Venture Labs. Previously he was a venture capitalist, founding AV Labs, a fund affiliated with Austin Ventures. Prior to the venture business, he was a software operating executive with Lotus Development, Business Matters where he was a founder and CEO and Pervasive Software, a company he helped take public. Rob holds a BS in Industrial Engineering from Purdue (receiving their Outstanding Engineer Award), an MBA from Babson’s Olin School of Management and a Ph.D. in Management from Capella University.

Bio: Greg is a highly accomplished executive with experience in corporate leadership, business development, startups, M&A, strategic planning, and more. He has spent much of his career growing business in the electrical products, packaging, and chemical industries. Throughout, he has been buying, selling, and combining companies to fit strategic goals. Previously, Greg served as President and CEO of 2D2C, developing safer energy-saving products. Greg was also VP Corporate Development and Acting Division President for a high-tech subsidiary at Woodhead Industries and Director Corporate Development for Tenneco. Greg has a BS in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Wisconsin (’86) and an MBA from the Fuqua School of Business, Duke University.
Notable Deals: Heal, Grub Market, American Gene Technologies

Bio: David has played a leading role in many aspects of the VC investment cycle: structuring transactions as a fundless sponsor, improving operations as a consultant, leading management teams as a CEO, evaluating opportunities as an investor and advisor, and selling companies as a licensed business broker. Previously, he founded Synergy Financial, a private capital and consulting firm for entrepreneurs, PE professionals, and family offices. He started his investment career as a professional advisor managing millions in assets. David has an undergraduate and graduate degrees from Northwestern and played for the two-time Big Ten Championship Northwestern Wildcats Football Team. He serves on the NUvention and Kellogg Entrepreneurial Center Advisory Boards.
Notable Deals: Relayr, Heaven’s Door

Bio: Rob is an experienced investor, whose personal investments include Lyft, one of the world’s largest ride-hailing apps, Coursera, one of the world’s largest online learning platforms, and MobilEye, an autonomous driving company that was acquired by Intel for $15 billion.
Before joining Fission Ventures, Rob was a Managing Director and Partner with Sailing Capital, a private equity fund based in Hong Kong. Prior to that, Rob advised a number of ultra-high net worth individuals on private equity, including one of the first investors in Skype and one of the largest initial investors in Mail.RU. Before that, Rob was Partner and Head of Direct Co-Investments with Atlantic-Pacific Capital in London, after spending 15 years in investment banking with BAML, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs and UBS in Europe, the US and Asia.
Rob received his MBA from Columbia and is the 4th generation of his family to attend Columbia University. He received a BA in English from Trinity College, and speaks four languages.

Bio: Marco is Principal at Fission Ventures, where he is responsible for sourcing and conducting due diligence on venture investments. Most recently, Marco served as Venture Fellow at Vostok Emerging Finance, where he leveraged his emerging markets expertise to perform in-depth analysis of FinTech opportunities in the region. Marco has 10 years of experience working with institutional investors, introducing them to fast-growing companies for which he helped raise over $20 billion in IPOs and secondary transactions. He received a BA in political science from Middlebury College and an MBA from Columbia University, where he focused on VC & PE investing and entrepreneurship. Marco grew up in Venezuela, finished high school in Southern Africa, and moved to New York by way of Moscow. He is fluent in Spanish and Russian, and conversational in French, Italian, and Portuguese.
Notable Deals: Capella Space, Hatch Apps, Veem, Universal Standard

Bio: Cainon has 10+ years’ experience in finance, venture capital, and entrepreneurship, having worked at Boston Consulting Group and PBM Capital Group as well as serving on the founding team of five startups. At BCG, he worked in their private equity practice to conduct due diligence across the semiconductor, transportation, and medical device industries. At PBM (a $500M healthcare-focused venture capital firm), he led investments and worked as an operating partner within portfolio companies (including Human Design Medical, Revive Pharmaceuticals, and Triangle Research Labs). Cainon is a co-founder and advisor of Viafy and was previously a co-founder and CEO of University Laundry (acquired by a national operator and now part of Proctor & Gamble’s marquee Tide brand). He has an MBA from MIT Sloan and a BS from the University of Virginia in Systems Engineering.
Notable Deals: Optimus Ride, Human Design Medical, RapidSOS, Vesper

Bio: Andre is an experienced investor, investment banker, and entrepreneur. He backed leading-edge Internet ventures such as Songza (GooglePlay), Trulia (sold to Zillow), Dash (sold to RIM), and Oodle (sold to QVC). He co-founded Deep Fork Capital as a Managing Partner of Fund I, investing for an ultra-high net worth family, and also founded wine management business Vintrust ($300M+ in assets). Earlier, he managed a $500M venture fund for billionaire Bernard Arnault, ran Morgan Stanley’s global Internet banking practice (working directly with Mary Meeker), and founded the Internet banking practice at Robertson Stephens. He received an MBA from Stanford’s Graduate School of Business in 1995, JD at Boston University School of Law, and BA in Economics from Trinity College.
Notable Deals: Trulia, Songza, Dataminr, Oodle

Bio: Luofei is a member of the Green D Ventures investment team, bringing along years of investing and operational experience in technology and startups. Previously, at Tenaya Capital, Luofei worked on growth-stage venture investments in such companies as HubSpot, Health Catalyst, and Sumo Logic. Luofei began his career in technology M&A investment banking at Revolution Partners (now Raymond James). Luofei has an AB in Economics and Applied Mathematics from Dartmouth and an MBA from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

Bio: Dave has held operating roles in sales and business development at venture-backed companies focused on digital health (Zocdoc) and enterprise cloud software (Shibumi). He has also invested as a Venture Partner at NextGen and an LP at CRE Venture Capital. Dave began his career in investment banking and corporate strategy at Deutsche Bank. He has a BA in Economics from Brown.
Notable Deals: Circulation, Andela

Bio: Lacey joined Green D Ventures from CareGroup Investment Office, a $3B manager of combined endowment and pension assets. As a member of the investment team, Lacey was responsible for investment sourcing and due diligence. Lacey managed investment opportunities across asset classes and strategies, including venture capital, growth equity, buyout, private credit, and hedge fund vehicles. Previously, she was an Associate at J.P. Morgan Asset Management and an Analyst in the Securities Division of Goldman Sachs. Lacey has a BA in History from Middlebury College and an MBA from Tuck.
Notable Deals Propel, WelbeHealth

Bio: Steve has over 20 years of operating and investing experience, having closed 30+ equity, debt, and M&A transactions totaling ~$5 billion. Previously, he was Founder and Managing Partner of Fox Meadow Capital Partners, a PE and infrastructure investment and advisory firm. Prior to that, he was a General Partner and top performer at Clarity Partners, an $800M PE fund, and a Vice President and top performer at Clarity’s predecessor, Rader Reinfrank & Co., a $100M TMT venture capital fund. While at Clarity, Steve founded ImpreMedia, which he built into the largest Spanish language newspaper company in the US as CFO/EVP of Corporate Development. Steve has also worked in investment banking and as a developer and investor in energy and utilities. He has a JD from Stanford, an MBA from Cornell, and a BS with distinction from Cornell’s College of Engineering. Steve teaches Advanced Private Equity at Cornell’s Johnson Graduate School of Management and serves on the advisory council of the Cornell Program in Infrastructure Policy (CPIP).
Notable Deals: Trillium Digital Systems, Multex, PrimeCo, ImpreMedia, Verity Studios, Veem

Bio: Erik has worked with both traditional venture investors and corporate venture teams during his career. He has deep experience evaluating opportunities, structuring investments and advising management on value creation. Previously, he helped build the strategy and make investments for the PGA TOUR’s corporate ventures group. Erik began his career with Deloitte Consulting where he focused on corporate strategy and M&A engagements. He holds a BA from the University of Texas at Austin where he graduated Phi Beta Kappa and with High Honors. He has an MBA in Finance from Kellogg.

Bio: Larry is an experienced investor, business adviser and investment banker. Before joining Westwood Ventures, Larry managed the investment portfolios for the family offices of two prominent Seattle technology and telecom billionaires. Earlier, Larry was a strategy consultant in McKinsey & Company’s Silicon Valley Office, Director of Finance at a Silicon Valley startup (Blue Pumpkin Software) and a hedge fund investor. Larry started his career as an investment banker with Salomon Brothers and later, Robertson, Stephens & Company. He received his MBA from The Anderson School at UCLA, Masters in Finance from London Business School, and a BA in Economics from Stanford University, where he sailed for the Varsity Sailing Team.

Bio: Brian is a seasoned venture capitalist with over 20 year of investing experience across a range of industries.Before joining Chestnut Street Ventures, Brian was the Managing Director for New York Ventures, the venture capital arm of the State of New York. Prior to New York Ventures, Brian was VP of Strategy & Corporate Development at Arbitron (now Nielsen Audio) and a Managing Director at the Peacock Fund, the venture capital arm of NBC Universal. Before joining the Peacock Fund, Brian worked at GE Capital and Bain & Co.Brian holds an MBA in Finance from The Wharton School and a BS in Industrial Engineering from The University of Southern California.
Notable Deals: Outlooksoft, The Rubicon Project, Adify, Unite Us

Bio: Ron has spent his career in a variety of entrepreneurial, leadership and business development roles. He has been an angel investor and advisor to over a dozen technology startups. Ron was co-founder and CEO of Barcelona-based TravelPerk, a venture capital-backed travel management platform that is ranked as one of the world’s fastest-growing SaaS companies as well as one of the most popular business travel booking tools in the market. Prior to TravelPerk, Ron started the B2B division of Booking.com and before that was a consultant with McKinsey & Co. Ron began his career at Lycos, one of the web’s pioneer search engine and web portals. He has lived in four European cities and traveled for business and pleasure to over 130 countries on six continents. Ron graduated from Babson College and received his MBA from Harvard Business School.

Bio: Peter has 20+ years of experience as a business innovator, leader, and investor in Silicon Valley, Europe, and Asia. He is a member of the Forbes Global CEO network; has served on numerous boards and done business in 40+ countries. He was Senior Advisor at McKinsey & Co., a Co-founder and seed investor of Silicon Valley Data Science, Co-founder and Managing Partner of Almaz Capital, and a partner at Alloy Ventures. Previously, he was a founding member and operating executive with several startups. Peter is a co-inventor of several patented mobile messaging technologies and earned an MBA and BS in Engineering from UC Berkeley. Notable Deals: Yandex (IPO), Xactly (IPO), Qik (acq. by Skype) and Silicon Valley Data Science (acq. by Apple).
Notable Deals: Qik, Yandex, Xactly, Silicon Valley Data Science

Bio: Prior to joining Spike Ventures, Catherine was a successful entrepreneur, product manager, and software engineer. She was Director of Product at NEA-backed DataVisor, an enterprise company offering an unsupervised machine learning fraud solution. Prior to DataVisor, she co-founded the retail analytics company Fancy That, which was acquired by Palantir in 2015. While at Stanford, she built an online platform used by thousands of students and instructors to streamline grading. Catherine graduated from Stanford with a BS and MS in Computer Science, focusing on artificial intelligence.
Notable Deals: Capella Space, Haven, Lily AI, Sunfolding

Bio: Michael has spent most of his career in leadership roles at growing organizations. He has focused his time primarily as an investor, advisor, and/or board member working with companies across a range of industries and stages. Prior to co-founding The Yard, he served as Managing Director of Square 1, leading the expansion of the New England region while providing growth financing to dozens of venture-backed companies. Previously, Michael was an investor at Edison Ventures, Polaris Venture Partners, and Summit Partners. He earned an AB from Harvard University( ’00), where he was a four-year letter winner in both Varsity Football and Varsity Baseball. Michael later received an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.
Notable Deals: JUMP, SimpliSafe, Getaround, STRIVR

Bio: Jonathan is responsible for sourcing, conducting due diligence on, and executing venture capital investments at Chestnut Street Ventures. He previously spent 12 years investing in private companies at two single-family offices and at American Capital. Jonathan began his career as an investment banker as an analyst at Wasserstein Perella and subsequently joined Goldman Sachs as an associate. He received his BS in Economics cum laude from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and his MBA with honors from Columbia Business School.

Bio: Tom Meyer is an experienced CEO and strategic consultant. Prior to becoming Managing Partner of Nassau Street Ventures and Senior Partner at Alumni Ventures Group, Tom was the Chief Operating Officer of OnePak, the leading reverse logistics software company and consultant to over 30 companies, advising on corporate development, sales and marketing, financing, strategic planning, and business transformation. Mr. Meyer has been CEO of three different tech companies, which he successfully turned around. As general manager, he launched Iron Mountain’s award-winning Digital Record Center. He brings a global perspective to business, having lived in Europe and Asia and worked in 40 countries around the globe. Mr. Meyer has an engineering degree from Princeton University and an MBA from the Yale School of Management. He is the former chair of the Princeton Entrepreneurs’ Network of Boston.
Notable Deals: Mapquest, Connotate

Bio: Wayne has held positions in both successful startups and thriving tech firms and brings a wealth of operational experience building teams, executing deals, and developing clients. He is committed to the growth of the venture and tech community in Chicago, serves as an advisor to a number of startups, and is a founding board member of Great Lakes Academy Charter School. Previously, he led analysis, negotiation, and deal execution for the global content acquisition team at Netflix. Before that, he was VP of Business Development at Silver Chalice Ventures, a digital media startup owned by the Chicago White Sox. Wayne began his career in the US Navy, serving as a Surface Warfare Officer. He holds a BS in industrial engineering from Stanford and an MBA from Kellogg.
Notable Deals: Relayr, Exicure

Bio: Ludwig is an experienced entrepreneur, venture investor, and strategic business consultant. Most recently, he was Founder and CEO of Mistral Mobile, delivering mobile fintech solutions to 12M+ people in emerging markets. Earlier, he was General Manager, Digital Financial Services and Business Development & Strategy Lead at Nokia, where he drove global sales, product management and development, and business development. In addition, he oversaw Growth Projects for the Executive Board. At LVMH Venture Fund & LPS Group, Ludwig was a venture investor and product manager. He also served as a Strategy Consultant to The Boston Consulting Group. Ludwig began his career launching and developing a number of startups and small businesses. He has a BA in Political Economy from Brown and an MBA from Columbia. He holds several patents and is an active investor.
Notable Deals: gate5, EMR Ventures

Bio: Carly has spent her career with technology companies, in business development and product roles. Prior to joining Blue Ivy Ventures, Carly worked at dataxu, a marketer-aligned data and analytics company, where her responsibilities included overseeing strategic partnerships, managing multiple BD relationships and leading product development efforts. Carly has a bachelor’s degree from Dartmouth College, where she was on the women’s varsity rowing team.
Notable Deals: Honor, Humatics

Bio: Laura brings operational perspective as a CEO, Chairman, and executive in technology startups. As Managing Partner at Ripplecreek Partners’ technology practice and General Partner at FA Technology Ventures she worked many tech sectors: mobile, consumer, internet, SaaS, cloud-based, marketing and enterprise software. She also served as CEO at Handango, creating the first marketplace of mobile apps. At Microsoft, she co-founded Sidewalk.com and MSN HomeAdvisor as part of an elite swat team spun out of Bill Gates’s office. Laura holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and AB in Government from Dartmouth (‘89).
Notable Deals: RealSelf, Propel

Bio: Isaac is an experienced investor and analyst, leading research, sourcing deals, and coordinating diligence for venture and growth equity firms. Prior to joining Castor, he was an Investment Consultant to Tiger Global Management and founded Buttonwood Gaming, developing a digital economic simulation game with collaborators at MIT and worldwide. Earlier, Isaac served as Senior Analyst, Business and Research at Catalyst Investors, and an Associate at Samson Capital Advisors (now Fiera Capital). Isaac has an MBA from MIT’s Sloan School of Management, an AB from Brown University in Economics and Political Theory, and is a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) charterholder.

Bio: David has over 25 years of experience as an investor, advisor, and board member, with expertise across early and late stage venture capital, growth investing and secondary deals, as well as in technology operations and entrepreneurship. Before joining Blue Ivy, David was Senior VP Corporate Development and Business Development for DataXu, a marketer-aligned data and analytics company.Prior to his time at DataXu, he was a Director with the global venture and private equity firm 3i, and Managing Partner at Great Point Capital (established to manage a venture portfolio spun off from 3i.) This includes Board Directorships with ten companies, as well as strategic advisory work at both the Board and operating levels. His pursuit and passion is helping disruptive technologies and ideas to scale commercially. Prior to his tenure with 3i, David was Co-Founder and COO of Exygy, focused on GPS and wireless technology. He also worked in the Private Equity group at GE Asset Management, where he specialized in late stage venture and growth capital opportunities. David received his BA in History from Yale in 1991, and an MBA from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth in 2000.
Notable Deals: Wellpartner, Carbonite, Dataminr, Rigetti

Bio: Chris has over 20 years’ experience in tech investing, product development, and sales engineering. He has invested over $60M in companies from seed to venture stage. Most recently, he was Vice President at Edison Partners, where he focused on investments for Enterprise 2.0 and mobile. Previously, Chris was a Director of Business Development with biomedical venture accelerator BioEnterprise and Director of Business Development with Chrysalis Ventures. Earlier, at JumpStart, a nationally recognized venture development organization, he sourced and executed seed investments. Chris has an SB EE from MIT (’88) and an MBA from the University of California at Berkeley’s Haas School of Business.
Notable Deals: MoneyLion, eSentire, Uptivity, HealthMedia

Bio: Prior to joining Fission Ventures, Zachary was the Director of Investments at Alpha Square Group, a New York based multi-family office investment fund. Zach was in charge of leading private investments in mid and late-stage US technology and healthcare companies. Prior to Alpha Square, Zach helped launch a venture investment platform for a large private Chinese asset manager in Silicon Valley. He has also worked at a tech-focused growth and buyout private equity fund in New York. Zach comes from a background in M&A with experiences in investment banking, management consulting and corporate development. He has an MBA from Columbia Business School and a Bachelors in Finance from Ohio State University.

Bio: Wesley has a background in both technology and investing. Previously, he served as a product manager at BlackRock Solutions. While at BlackRock, he helped grow and scale their enterprise risk analytics platform, including facilitating the on-boarding of a $300 bn AUM client. He later transitioned to a traditional investment role where he worked as an investment strategist for the fixed income division of Goldman Sachs Asset Management, which manages over $400 bn in AUM across macro and credit strategies. He is also the author of the blog The Unofficial VC. Wesley received his BS from the College of Engineering at Cornell University.
Notable Deals: npm, Better Mortgage, Tempo Automation

Bio: Sohila completed her undergraduate studies in Molecular Cell Biology and Neurobiology at Berkeley (’07), her doctoral studies in Neuroscience and Neuro-engineering, and her post-doctoral fellowship in Systems Neuroscience, Bioinformatics, Computational Modeling at Cal Tech. By the age of 25, she had published over a dozen first author publications in leading scientific journals. By the age of 30, she founded three biotech and digital health companies (one has exited, the others are in diligence for acquisition). Sohila serves as an advisor to several biotech, digital health, and several accelerators, including UC Berkeley’s accelerator. She has also worked for leading VC firms, including Pacific Capital Hong Kong, BCG Digital Ventures, and Khosla Ventures.
Notable Deals: Contraline, Sana.io, SQZ Biotech, Smart Skin Biome