Alex rejoined Sapphire in 2022 after receiving her MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business. She focuses primarily on enterprise infrastructure, data & analytics, and security, shared with investment areas across enterprise SaaS applications, HealthTech, and Life Sciences software. She grew up in St. Louis, Missouri and played on the varsity women’s tennis team as an undergrad at Harvard, where she was a pre-med, Psychology major with minors in Computer Science and Neurobiology. Prior to business school, Alex spent 3 years on the growth team at Sapphire, where she actively worked on investments in Contentful, Monday.com, Highspot, and Sword Health. Additionally, she worked closely with the teams at Livongo and LeanData, among others. Since her return to the Sapphire team, Alex has worked closely on the firm’s investments in Defense Unicorns and Huntress, and is a Board Observer for Defense Unicorns, CircleCI, Clari, Yugabyte, and PubNub. Alex was honored with the 2023 NVCA Rising Star award, which recognizes the next generation of venture capital professionals who are rising through the ranks and are widely considered by their peers and others as emerging leaders of the venture capital industry.

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While at Stanford, Alex made a number of investments in early stage software companies, co-led the Stanford MBA Fund, and earned a Certificate in Public Management and Social Innovation in addition to her MBA. She also spent time during business school working across the product, go-to-market and business operations teams in a strategy role at Productiv, a B2B SaaS management platform. Prior to grad school, she was part of the technology investment banking group at Credit Suisse in San Francisco, where she worked on a number of high-profile IPO & M&A transactions. Alex is a Board Advisor for a non-profit called Women in Sports Tech, which provides funding and growth opportunities to young women pursuing careers in sports and technology. She is passionate about empowering under-represented individuals across the venture and technology landscapes, and is a proud member of the LGBTQIA+ community. Alex possesses a near inhuman stamina for binge-watching docuseries, a blossoming obsession with F1, and a constant desire for macaroni & cheese. She holds the Strava record for the slowest time ever required to complete a well-known bike loop near Stanford’s campus.

Ally is one of the founding team members of Up.Partners. Ally leads early stage investments within the Up.Partners mandate of "transforming the moving world." Ally has helped build up the Up.Partners investment team and has helped sourced, diligenced, or over 20 companies in the Up.Partners portfolio including Metropolis, Beyond Math, Axiom Space, Kolors, and Skydio. Prior to UP.Partners, Ally worked at Sherpa Capital where she helped transition the firm’s brand, serving as a founding member of ACME Capital. Before entering VC, Ally held a variety of roles at Google. She led a corporate strategy team for the Ads business; working with product managers to redirect product roadmaps and leading international competitive sales training. Ally also worked with Google.Org to facilitate grant awards to sub-saharan African entrepreneurs across 4 African countries, and worked with YouTube to lead video strategy for fast growing consumer brands.

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Ally is an active member of AllRaise and distributes their weekly newsletter to over 4,000 young women looking to break into finance. She also founded two nonprofits: Off The Record (an event platform designed to remove the stigma of mental health issues) and Above The Median (aimed at democratizing access to executive women leadership.) When not chasing deals, Ally is running marathons, uphill and downhill skiing, and backpacking around the world.

Brian is a Principal at Underscore VC, a Boston based VC firm that backs bold entrepreneurs at the seed stage with an aligned community designed to fit each startup's unique needs. At Underscore, Brian focuses on vertical software, digital transformation and enterprise applications that leverage AI. Brian loves helping founders win, whether leveraging his operational experience to navigate day-to-day challenges, thinking strategically about team building and go to market or honing a fundraising pitch and process. With a background in operating, investing and strategy consulting, Brian leverages each aspect of his experience to relentlessly support founders on their path to building enduring businesses. At Underscore, Brian works closely with Coda, Apploi, CloudZero, Aircon, Luminai, Clockwork, Slang, and several unannounced. Brian joined Underscore VC from First Round Capital in San Francisco, early investors in Uber, Roblox, Square, Warby Parker and hundreds more. At First Round, Brian worked with partner Bill Trenchard and led diligence for a range of investments across vertical software, fintech, AI, and workflow automation including Sprig, Evolution IQ, Siteline, Edify and many more. He also supported a wide range of portfolio companies and witnessed firsthand the growth of transformational businesses such as Looker, Flexport, Superhuman, Upstart, Verkada, Airbase, Nova Credit, Labelbox, Crossbeam, and more. Prior to First Round, Brian was hired by the founders of Strava to lead go-to-market for a new line of business, Strava Metro, and took the business from a small handful of pilot engagements to hundreds of customers worldwide. Brian began his career as an analyst covering fintech at a leading internet bank and as a B2B SaaS marketing and sales consultant for a top Hubspot partner agency.

Carli is an Investor at M12-Microsoft's Venture Fund, where she focuses on early-stage investments in AI, developer tools, and gaming. She was instrumental in M12's shift to a fully thesis driven fund and continues to develop emerging technology theses. Carli has been a key contributor to M12's deal flow, having sourced M12’s investments in Private AI, Modl.AI, and Nixtla, and contributed to the firm's investments in Typeface, Kooply, Guardrails AI, and Inworld AI (among others). Carli joined M12 from Microsoft’s business development team, where she led strategic partnerships for Microsoft's consumer productivity and search businesses. Prior to Microsoft, Carli helped launch multiple startups while earning her Bachelor of Science in business administration from UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business.

Daphne Che is a principal at MontageVentures, an early stage VC fund based in Menlo Park. She has been at Montagesince the early days of Fund 1 (joined in 2014 as an intern). She currentlyleads the commerce investment arm at Montage, focusing on consumer, e-commerceenablement, and marketplaces. She also co-leads Montage’s healthcare arminvesting in new care delivery models and healthcare infrastructure. Daphnestudied Chemistry at UC Berkeley for undergrad. From there she went on toreceive a PhD in Physical Chemistry from Stanford, where she was a NationalScience Foundation fellow and was part of the US Delegate in the Lindau NobelLaureate Meeting in Chemistry in 2013. She grew up in Vietnam and has sinceadopted the Bay Area to be her second hometown

Dave Mullen is a Principal at SVB Capital where he covers Enterprise Software and Fintech for the platform’s direct investing strategy. In addition, Dave is an active advisor on business strategy and fundraising to founders throughout the ecosystem, with notable focus on helping founders sell into the financial services enterprise. Dave also serves as a vertical lead on the EVCA, as an active contributor to TechCrunch, an advisor to the United Nation’s B-Tech Project, as a mentor and programming board member at StartOut, and maintains an active blog on all things enterprise software on Medium.

Dion joined Leadout Capital in 2022. As a Principal, Dion leads investments in early-stage companies across all sectors. At Leadout, he has sourced and/or worked on investments in Expo.dev, Stellation Care, Creatify AI, First Bite, Streamlane, and Liferaft. Prior to Leadout, Dion worked at Rippling and Thoropass (fka Laika). He started his career as a founding investor of Olive Capital, where he supported investments in Akasa Health, Orchid Bio, Ender, and Rewind. Dion holds a BA from UC Berkeley. He is originally from Indiana and spent his childhood in Beijing.

Emily Zhen is a Principal at Zeal Capital Partners, where she leads healthcare investing with a focus on Health Equity and also invests in Fintech and the Future of Work & Learning. Prior to Zeal, Emily was a healthcare investor at NEA. Previously, she was a healthcare investment banker at Goldman Sachs and worked in various operating roles in digital health, clinical research, and government. Originally from the Chicago suburbs, Emily graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with dual degrees in biology and business from The Wharton School. Advancing health equity and promoting diversity is a personal mission for Emily as a first-generation American. She is an advisor for Gold House Ventures Accelerator for Asian American Pacific Islander founders and the healthcare co-lead for the Emerging Venture Capitalists Association.

Hansae Catlett is a Partner at HOF Capital where he invests across sectors and stages, with a particular focus on leading the firm’s early stage investment strategy in applied AI, B2B application software (horizontal and vertical), dev tools & infra, and deep tech.Prior to joining HOF Capital, Hansae was a Vice President at Bessemer Venture Partners, helping to lead the firm’s investments in cloud and AI. His investments and/or board positions included Guild, Jasper, Luxury Presence, MaintainX, Nala, Productboard, Rilla, ServiceTitan, Sila, Shopmonkey, Spot AI, TRM Labs, and VendorPM.

He also supported Bessemer’s investments in Canva, EvenUp and Syndio.Before Bessemer, Hansae helped lead the investment strategy of Scott Cook’s family office with a focus on enterprise SaaS, biomedical informatics, and edtech. He has worked with the investment teams at Slow Ventures and Omidyar Network, and has held product and business strategy roles at various startups.Hansae is a co-founder and general partner of The MBA Fund, a seed-stage fund that partners with promising alumni and student entrepreneurs from top universities, with notable investments in Create Inc, FlutterFlow, Hightouch, Jeeves, Seso and Vooma, among others.Hansae earned his MBA and MPP from Stanford and graduated with honors from Harvard with a degree in biomedical engineering and philosophy.

Jaja is a Principal and founding member of 25madison ventures, a pre-seed and seed fund based out of NYC. Previously, she was an investor at Headline in SF. She started her career at Google and also worked at Clover Health. Jaja holds a BA in Molecular Biology from Yale University.Jaja is a Principal and founding member of 25madison ventures, a pre-seed and seed fund based out of NYC. Previously, she was an investor at Headline in SF. She started her career at Google and also worked at Clover Health. Jaja holds a BA in Molecular Biology from Yale University.

Jeremy invests in companies adding machine intelligence to business and vertical software, especially in industries where software adoption has historically been limited. His efforts have led to investments across vertical software (Motive, fka KeepTruckin), AI and automation (Spot AI, Regie AI, Esper, VergeSense, TechSee, and Solvvy), and at the intersection of machine learning and digital health (Viz.ai, OM1, and Proscia). Prior to joining Scale, Jeremy worked on the Sales Strategy and Business Operations team at Salesforce, where he drove initiatives in sales operations, partnerships, and growth, serving as the embedded strategy lead for the SMB business and the sales development organization.

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Additionally, he worked as a data scientist at Analysis Group, focused on health economics, healthcare outcomes research, and drug pricing. Jeremy started his career as a policy researcher at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, where he concentrated on consumer credit, college loan accumulation, and education policy. Jeremy holds a B.A. in Economics and minor in Public Policy from Dartmouth College, where he graduated summa cum laude. Outside of work, Jeremy enjoys cycling, tennis, and just about any outdoor adventure you can throw at him.

Karthik Ramakrishnan is an accomplished investor who joined IVP in August 2019. Quickly becoming a rising star, he was one of the youngest people promoted to Partner in IVP’s 43-year history. Karthik has played a crucial role in deploying over $700M of capital across numerous enterprise and consumer technology companies, such as Attentive Mobile, Checkr, CrowdStrike, Curology, DeepL, Dream Games, Jasper, MasterClass, Monte Carlo Data, Niantic, Paper, SEON, Skydio, Veriff. Karthik has demonstrated success in both identification and access across sectors like AI and gaming. He led IVP’s investment in Dream Games’s Series B in 2021 and was instrumental in securing IVP’s position in Jasper’s Series A and DeepL’s Series B. He recently published the IVP Enterprise AI 55 list and continues to lead IVP’s category research in AI. Born in India and the first person in his extended family to graduate from college outside of India, Karthik earned a double B.S. in Finance and Economics from NYU’s Stern School of Business.

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His passion for venture investing comes from engaging with exceptional entrepreneurs and helping them achieve their goals. Karthik's impact extends beyond investments to company-building, both inside and outside the boardroom. He serves on numerous Boards and is a trusted partner to founders, closely helping them with hiring top talent and scaling their companies. He also serves as a Mentor for NYU’s Endless Frontier Labs, helping early-stage startups scale and access the NYC tech ecosystem. Now based in New York, Karthik is passionate about the NYC tech ecosystem and believes it will continue to grow significantly in the coming decade. In his leisure time, he enjoys completing the New York Times crossword puzzle, playing board games, and participating in racquet sports.

Kesar is an investorI at Upfront Ventures focused on pre-seed and seed healthcare and gaming companies. Based in Los Angeles, Kesar has sourced and supported Upfront’s investments into CertifyOS, Ayble Health, Hathora, and 4 stealth startups. He also supports Upfront’s broader healthcare and gaming portfolio, which includes Rula, Pragma, Reveleer, OCP, and Bionaut Labs. Prior to joining Upfront in 2021, Kesar was a Product and Engagement Lead at LA-based healthcare startup Akido Labs, where he was responsible for the development of Akido’s patient engagement and clinic management platform, which improved access to primary care, maternal care, cancer services, and labs. He also led Akido's efforts to support COVID-19 vaccine and testing distribution for underserved populations. In addition, Kesar served as a Venture Fellow at Virtue VC, and a Venture Partner at Necessary Ventures, where led sourcing and diligence for all healthtech investments. He graduated from Washington University in St. Louis with a bachelors in Medical Anthropology and Healthcare Management.

Kevin Zhang partners at the inception stage with founders building the next generation of fintech and business software products. Key investment themes include financial services enablement (Column Tax, Finley), automation (Magical, Alloy Automation), and data infrastructure (Hightouch, Lightning AI).

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Prior to BCV, Kevin led product as the first business hire at Fundera, a financial services marketplace. Fundera was acquired by Nerdwallet (NASDAQ: NRDS) in 2020.

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Outside of work, Kevin is a board member of the Columbia College Alumni Association and an organizer of Columbia in Tech.

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Kleida Martiro is a Partner at Glasswing Ventures with specialized expertise in data science, entrepreneurship, and product management. As the former Head of Data Science at SocialFlow (acquired by Piano.ai), she led the machine learning efforts for the software platform, including its AI-powered proprietary content classifier for automating editorial content categorization. Prior to SocialFlow, Kleida served on the Strategy and Analysis team at Digitas, part of Publicis Groupe, where she contributed to strategic initiatives for Bank of America. Kleida oversaw the utilization of new technology tools to enhance performance, including advanced analytics and the creation and implementation of digital content across social channels. Kleida graduated cum laude from Mount Holyoke College with a BA in Economics, Mathematics, and Spanish and holds an MBA with honors from the Kellogg School of Management. She has been listed among Business Insider’s “41 Most Important VCs in Boston”, honored as a 2023 Rising Star by The Venture Capital Journal, and is a Boston Business Journal “40 Under 40” honoree. Currently, Kleida serves on the Steering Committee of the Boston Chapter of All Raise, committed to amplifying the success of women in the tech and venture ecosystems.

Lisa is a Principal at FirstMark, where she focuses on early-stage investments in SMB and vertical software, B2B marketplaces, and commerce infrastructure. Lisa joined the investment team in 2018 and has partnered with many of firm's portfolio companies, including Loop Returns, Justworks, Pigment, EvolutionIQ, Workit Health, and Alloy Automation. She actively works with Loop Returns, UtiilizeCore, CognitOps, and Sonar as a Board Director or Observer. Prior to joining FirstMark, Lisa was a Product Manager at NYC-based venture-backed startups Handy (acquired by ANGI Homeservices) and Peloton (NASDAQ: PTON). Previously, Lisa was a Senior Associate Consultant at Bain & Company, where she performed due diligence for private and growth equity firms and advised Fortune 500 companies on corporate strategy. Lisa graduated summa cum laude from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania with a B.S. in Finance and Management.

Paraj Mathur is a Vice President at BIP Ventures - focusing on early and growth stage investments in software and marketplaces. At BIP, Paraj works closely with the management teams in board and advisory capacity for growth investments like ShiftMed and Mood Media, and early stage investments like Eventeny, Aucto, and Dropstat. Before BIP, Paraj was an early-stage investor at Candela Partners investing in AR/VR and digital media startups and at Ulysses Holdings investing in media and entertainment startups. Paraj earned a Bachelor's in Business and Computer Science from Franklin & Marshall College. He writes about startups and venture on his blog - parajmathur.com.

Investor at Smash Capital, a new $1.5B+ AUM fund focused on growth-stage investments across B2B software, consumer internet, fintech, and digital health. Prior to Smash, I was a venture investor at AirTree Ventures ($2B AUM), management consultant at Bain, and co-founder & CEO of an online marketplace business (sold in an acquisition).

Riley is a Principal at Valia Ventures. He divides his focus between supporting the company’s existing portfolio and searching for the next entrepreneur to back – something that takes a real eye for detail and intuition for good ideas. Before joining Valia, Riley was an Associate at Arctaris Capital Partners and the founder of Crash Alert. Over the past seven years, Riley has mentored hundreds of start-up founders as a volunteer for the MIT Enterprise Forum, SCORE and MassChallenge, and has been actively involved as a board member and mentor for several non-profits. After buying and building a small business in the lawn and garden industry, Riley attended Bentley University, and spent his time starting companies and becoming ingrained in the Boston startup ecosystem. Outside of his work at Valia, Riley enjoys traveling the world (he’s on 41 countries and counting) and trying to keep up with an expanding reading list. His competitive side pushed him to become a college soccer player, a professional motorcycle racer, and a sponsored snowboarder, but Riley’s now learning to embrace a slower pace in the interest of balance. Nowadays, you’ll likely find him on weekends exploring northern California’s coasts and mountains, and planning his next trip. Connect with Riley on LinkedIn / Twitter, or email at riley@valia.vc

Sofia is a vice president at Bessemer Venture Partners, where she invests in seed to growth healthcare and life sciences companies. She is the co-author of State of Health Tech report, Benchmarks for Growing Health Tech Business, and how to scale health tech businesses to $100M and beyond, a study of 100+ best-in-class companies to understand key metrics relevant for scalability in healthcare software and tech-enabled services. Sofia began her career as a consultant at Bain and Company, where she worked on strategy, operations, and due diligence projects across healthcare and technology.

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Prior to joining Bessemer, she was an investor at BoxGroup Ventures and the co-founder and co-president of Nucleate, a national life sciences entrepreneurship program helping PhDs, Post-docs, and students commercialize scientific projects. Sofia earned her MBA from Harvard Business School and her BA with high honors in Chemistry from Harvard University. While in school, she conducted research alongside Bob Langer, a serial entrepreneur and one of 12 Institute professors at MIT widely recognized for his contributions to drug delivery and tissue engineering fields. She was born and raised in Guatemala, went to boarding school in Singapore for the last few years of high school, and has traveled to over 35 countries. In her free time, she enjoys listening and dancing to reguetón and traveling to new places with her fiancé Alex.

Thomas Englis is a Principal at Clearvision Ventures, a multi-stage investment firm focused on category leading companies relevant to energy and sustainable infrastructure. He has lead research initiatives into emerging categories of sustainable infrastructure resulting in investments in companies such as Zūm, Persefoni, Viridios, Sitetracker, Aclima, and Assaia. Thomas also contributed to investments in Ascend Elements, Gradiant, ChargePoint (NYSE: CHPT), Claroty, and Tomorrow.io. Prior to joining Clearvision Thomas was an Analyst at GE Ventures, the VC arm of General Electric (NYSE: GE) that invested and incubated businesses across energy, advanced manufacturing, healthcare, aviation, and digital infrastructure. Thomas grew up in Connecticut and attended Vanderbilt University where he majored in Economics and Chinese.

Tyler is a Vice President at Unusual Ventures, focusing on investments in enterprise AI, vertical SaaS, and Fintech. Prior to Unusual Ventures, Tyler spent three years investing as part of Assurant Ventures, primarily focused on investments in fintech and vertical SaaS, seeing multiple successful exit events from his early-stage investments. Before that, Tyler was a part of the strategic consulting group at Deloitte where he worked on strategy and operations engagements with technology and financial services clients. Tyler holds an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business and a BS in Finance and Business Analytics from the University of Virginia, where he graduated as an Echols Scholar. In his free time, Tyler enjoys spending time with his wife, exploring local restaurants, being active outdoors, and supporting his favorite sports team, Liverpool FC.

Vig Chandramouli is a Partner at Oak HC/FT, a venture and growth equity firm with $5.3B+ in AUM, where he focuses on venture and growth equity investments across healthcare services and technology companies. Vig joined the firm in 2014 and currently serves on the board of Osso VR and Syllable and is a board observer at CareBridge, Main Street Health, Notable, Quartet, Reveleer, Unite US, Veda, Vesta Healthcare, and VillageMD.

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Before joining Oak HC/FT, Vig was an Associate with LLR Partners, a middle-market growth equity firm, where he focused on investments in healthcare services companies.

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Vig received dual Bachelor of Science degrees, magna cum laude, from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School and the School of Engineering and Applied Science.

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Vivek is a Partner at Commerce Ventures, an early stage fund that invests in companies modernizing the financial services & retail industries. At CV, Vivek focuses on FinTech & InsurTech – as well as where these two categories intersect with other verticals. Vivek was previously a member of the investment banking team at Financial Technology Partners where he worked on ~$1B of private capital raises, M&A, and IPOs for FinTech & InsurTech companies like GreenSky (Acq’d by Goldman Sachs), Marqeta (MQ), Yapstone, Enservio (Acq’d by Solera) and others.

Wesley Tillu serves as Partner at S32. He was an investor at In-Q-Tel. He also worked at Google where he managed partnerships and operations for its e-commerce platform, Google Express. He worked as a private equity investor at GIC, Singapore's investment arm. He started his career as an investment banking analyst at Merrill Lynch. He received an MBA from Wharton, an MA in International Studies from the University of Pennsylvania, and a Master of Engineering and BS in Operations Research & Engineering from Cornell University.