Spike Ventures Team

Bio: Todd has more than 20 years of experience as a venture capital investor, entrepreneur, and senior technology operating executive, as well as deep knowledge of intellectual property and IP licensing. He has worked with capital structures ranging from seed stage investments to public offerings and has experience in many sectors, including consumer media and web, optoelectronics, telecoms, cleantech, and healthcare. Most recently, he was founding Managing Partner of Grey Sky Venture Partners, a life sciences and digital health fund that pioneered a venture finance model combining early-stage capital with fund-owned intellectual property. He also served as a senior business leader in a technology incubator fund, where he led efforts to build, fund, and spin out several new deep tech businesses. Todd received his BA from Hendrix College and holds an MBA from Stanford Graduate School of Business.

Bio: Alim is a Senior Principal at Spike Ventures, AVG’s fund for Stanford alums. Before joining AVG, he worked at American Express Ventures and GE Ventures focused on enterprise, B2B, fintech and AI/ML investments. Prior to investing, Alim worked in tech at Google, where he generated revenue for advertisers and managed a $100M book of business. He also spent time at PayPal in product marketing and Instart Logic, a startup backed by a16z and KPCB, where he focused on business development and partnerships. He holds a BS in Business and Accounting from the University of Southern California where he graduated magna cum laude, an MS in Management Science & Engineering from Stanford University and an MBA from The Wharton School.

Bio: Stacey Tsai has over 15 years’ experience in finance. She was most recently at Morgan Stanley and JPMorgan Private Bank, where she advised global families and executives on asset allocation and investment strategies. Stacey is a graduate of Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service. She received her MBA from the Wharton School and her MPA from the Harvard Kennedy School. She was also a U.S. Fulbright Scholar to Singapore.

Bio: Taylor graduated from Southern New Hampshire University with a B.S. in Finance/Economics. Prior to joining Alumni Ventures Group, Taylor spent the early part of his career at Fidelity Investments as a licensed Financial Advisor, providing existing 401k clients with financial planning advice.

Bio: Ward graduated from Hamilton college with a B.A. in History. Prior to coming to AVG, Ward was a financial advisor at Merrill Lynch where he was part of a wealth management team that advised technology and pharmaceutical executives on strategies to optimize their equity compensation plans.

Bio: Cameron has an extensive background in venture investing, digital finance, software management, and industrial artificial intelligence. His recent projects include mobile financial retention research in sub-Saharan Africa for The Gates Foundation and the financial fraud prediction system for Starbucks. He served as founder and CEO of ClickStream Technologies (acquired by Microsoft) and went on to lead Microsoft’s Telemetry practice, managing all inbound data systems globally. Cameron serves as an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at StartX, is a Venture Studio Advisor at Stanford’s GSB, and co-manages the Oxford Angel Fund. He serves on the External Technology Advisory Board for Accenture. Cameron holds a BA from Dartmouth College, an MBA from Oxford University and MS in Statistics from Stanford.

Bio: Rishi started his career in consumer internet at Mozilla and later as Head of Business Development at Cooliris (acq. Yahoo). He transitioned to mobile with Qik, leading Business Development and then becoming Head of Product, leading development of the first US mobile video chat app. After Qik was acquired by Skype, Rishi became Principal Program Manager of Mobile before Microsoft acquired Skype ($8.5B). He is now Co-founder and Managing Partner of HiFi Ventures, a boutique VC firm that builds and advises early-stage companies. Rishi graduated from Stanford, where he was VP of the Business Association of Stanford Entrepreneurial Students.

Bio: Lyon Wong has an extensive investment track record of working with companies across multiple stages, focusing on founder growth and product market fit. He co-founded Spectrum 28, a $170M early stage venture fund with investments in Plangrid, Rhumbix, Karius, Freenome, Duetto, Reflecktive, Bizzy (acq. by Sendgrid), and more. At Lightspeed, he invested or worked with companies such as Blend, Affirm, Comprehend Systems, Kitematic (acq. by Docker), and Branch. He is a Creative Destruction Lab Fellow and a C100 member. Lyon received his MBA from Stanford’s Graduate School of Business and Systems Design Engineering degree from the University of Waterloo.

Bio: Lonnie works at Intellectual Ventures, where she helps support funds that create and commercialize intellectual property. At IV, she helped launch a $160M fund with Microsoft and other investors, formed TerraPower (financed by Bill Gates and others) and the Global Good Fund (with Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation). She also developed a novel legal structure for sponsored invention that has been used by the BBC and others. Earlier, she was COO at Azulstar, SVP and General Counsel at Blue Frog Media, VP of Corporate Development at AT&T, and Associate at Preston Gates and Ellis. Lonnie has a JD from the University of Washington and a BA from Stanford.

Bio: John is a tech investor, founder, and CEO with decades of experience in funding, launching, and leading companies. As an entrepreneur and CEO, he focused on database technologies, including Tokutek (as CEO) and StreamBase Systems (as Co-founder) with Turing Award-winner Michael Stonebraker. At Accel Partners and Summit Partners, he sourced and/or led investments in Rapt Corp. (acq. by MSFT), Counterpane Internet Security, and comScore. He now focuses on foundational and infrastructure technologies such as machine learning, blockchain, and databases. He has an undergraduate degree in Applied Mathematics from Harvard and an MBA from Stanford.

Bio: Gina is the Founder & CEO of Mighty Networks, the fastest way to create and grow a community-powered brand on your own deep interest network on mobile and web. Previously, Gina and Marc Andreessen co-founded Ning, a pioneering social platform for niche networks online. Under her leadership, Ning grew to 90 million people across 300,000 active communities in entertainment, politics, and education. In addition to Mighty Networks, Gina serves on the board of directors of Scripps Networks, The Food Network, and The Travel Channel. Gina has also appeared on Charlie Rose, CNBC, and CNN. She received her BA and MBA from Stanford.

Bio: Leo was recruited as one of the first five engineers to build and scale the infrastructure for MyFitnessPal. Under Leo, the successful mobile app scaled eight-fold and he led a big data initiative to turn terabytes of mobile and web data into actionable insights for users such as Kafka, Kinesis, Hadoop Spark, Tableau, and redshift. MyFitnessPal was acquired by Under Armour for $475M. The last four big data/AI startups where Leo served as core contributor all led to successful IPO or M&A (combined valuation of $1B+). Leo is now mentoring local college graduates and young adults in Hong Kong and China about innovation-driven entrepreneurship.

Bio: Cyril is the Co-founder of Landis and Managing Partner at Berd Industries, a global real estate investment firm. Earlier, he was a Director at Crown Acquisitions, a NY-based real estate investment firm. Before joining Crown, he worked at Houlihan Lokey, where he advised companies on M&A, equity and debt capital markets, and restructuring transactions. Previously, he worked in Credit Trading at Citigroup. Throughout his career, he has completed over $10B in transactions. He is also now an advisor to early stage companies and a director at TP NYC, a real estate investor. He holds an undergraduate degree from Emory University and an MBA from Stanford.

Bio: Frank is an experienced PE and VC fund manager. He has founded or co-founded three PE firms and invested in early stage tech in Silicon Valley; real estate developments in Hong Kong, Mexico City, and the US; plus technology and leading-edge agricultural projects in the Middle East. Frank was the founding President of the Western Association of Venture Capitalists, the first VC trade organization in the world (now over 100 Silicon Valley venture firm members). Frank spent two seasons playing professional football (Steelers, Broncos), and he and his family have now endowed a scholarship for Stanford student athletes. He has a BA from Stanford and an MBA from UCLA.

Bio: Sebright Chen is the Founder and Chairman of Summer Atlantic Capital where his primary focus is on investing in the Technology, Media and Consumer sectors. Mr. Chen has extensive experience in investment management, corporate advisory and technology industries. Prior to founding Summer Atlantic Capital, he began his career as an analyst at Signalert Asset Management, and has subsequently held executive positions with asset management companies and technology firms in China resulting in the development of extensive contacts in China and the United States. Creating important international relationships within the asset management and investment banking sectors. Mr. Chen received his Bachelor’s degree from Binghamton University in 2013 and has studied Innovation and Entrepreneurship at Stanford University from 2014 to 2015.  Mr. Chen is also the advisor or board member of different startups in the consumer and technology sectors, as well as the venture partner in different technology-driven funds.

Bio: Ebony is excited about the nexus of innovation, technology, and global affairs. She is a Director at WestExec Advisors, a boutique consulting firm that provides strategic advice to multinational investment and technology firms on emerging technology issues. She started her career at Goldman Sachs, working on cross-functional, global strategy teams. In her free time, Ebony likes to volunteer with youth development causes, including youth mentorship and education. Ebony graduated with an MBA from Wharton and a Masters in International Relations from Johns Hopkins SAIS. Her undergraduate degree is in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford University.

Bio: Jorge works as a growth product manager at Ro, a healthcare startup. Previously, he worked as a product manager at Ancestry where he focused on the search and recommendations experience. Jorge founded Ancestry’s Latinx affinity group, was on the steering committee for the Ancestry Women in Technology group, and is part of the Latinx affinity group at Ro. Jorge holds a B.S. in Symbolic Systems and an M.S. in Management Science and Engineering from Stanford University.

Bio: Ying is a first-generation college student and immigrant from China who is currently a postdoc at the Salk.  Ying enjoys volunteering, baking, playing with animals, dancing, any outdoor activity, ice skating, and watching TV! Ying believes in mentorship and advocates for inclusion, equity, diversifying academia and solidarity.

Bio: Joyce is a project manager (certified PMP) of the CISCO Compute & Cloud Global Go-To-Market team. Before joining Cisco, she had work and internship experience at BCG, Deloitte IT consulting, IDG Capital, and its portfolio. Joyce excels at: using data analysis to help start-ups and global companies identify business challenges, designing go-to-market strategy, and making strategic pivots. Joyce is passionate about the bridging market, particularly for the U.S. and East Asian Market.

Bio: Elijah is currently the co-founder of Iris Technologies, a construction tech SaaS platform focused on process management. A 3x founder, his former endeavors included patenting and manufacturing a new design for the tampon, and founding a nonprofit focused on FGLI student persistence and college preparedness. Prior to his entrepreneurial work, Elijah began his career in Private Equity consulting, and worked at an early-stage company focused on delivering data analytics to global sports. Elijah received a BS from Stanford University in Management Science and Engineering.