Investors focused on Energy

Alex Luce is an investor, materials scientist, and technology enthusiast. As a Partner at Creative Ventures, he invests in entrepreneurs tackling the most pressing global macroeconomic trends, including demographic changes straining our healthcare system, secular labor shortages, and the effects of climate change. He has led investments in a number of deeptech categories including medical devices, semiconductors, robotics, synthetic biology, and clean energy. Previously, Alex led CalCharge, a public-private partnership focused on energy storage and manufacturing innovation working with National Labs, startups, and leading corporates. He also spent time with Prelude Ventures, the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Energy (ARPA-E), and a solar energy startup company. Alex holds a M.S. and Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering from UC Berkeley and a B.S. in Engineering Physics with Honors from the University of Arizona.

Joined Picus in 2016. Previously worked for McKinsey & Company in Munich.

Clara is co-founder and Managing Partner of the Urban Innovation Fund, a venture capital firm that invests in the future of cities. Previously, she co-founded Tumml, a startup hub for urban tech. In 2014, Forbes listed her as one of its “30 Under 30” for Social Entrepreneurship. Clara’s work energizing urban entrepreneurship has been featured in numerous press outlets, including MSNBC and TechCrunch, among others. She serves on the Board of Tumml, as well as the Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC) Bay Area Local Advisory Committee.

Dave is the Co-Founder & Managing Director of Offline Ventures. He was Founder & Partner Emeritus of Slow Ventures. He was the Co-Founder and CEO of Path which was acquired by Kakao in 2015. He co-founded Path with the mission of being a source of happiness, meaning, and connection through simplicity, quality, and privacy in technology and design. Path continues to serves tens of millions of people each month to this day.

Jacob is an early-stage investor and founder focused on the intersection of A.I. and practical commercial use cases. His expertise is in partnering with highly technical people to contribute everything “non-technical” in the first two years of a startup: Idea development, team building, customer development, value proposition development, storytelling, business model development, customer acquisition, and fundraising. Over the last 15 years, Jacob has helped to create numerous startups as a cofounder or senior executive, or in the construct of his role as co-Managing Director of the AI2 Incubator.

Julie is a co-founder and Managing Partner of the Urban Innovation Fund, a venture capital firm that invests in the future of cities. Previously, she co-founded Tumml, a startup hub for urban tech. In 2016, Living Cities named her as one of its "25 Disruptive Leaders." Julie's work energizing urban-focused entrepreneurship has been featured in numerous press outlets, including CNN and The San Francisco Chronicle, among others. She serves on the Boards of Tumml and Empower Work.

Brayton has spent his career in finance working with too-big-to-fail Morgan Stanley in wealth management and then to a FinTech startup selling private company securities. Then in 2012 he joined his co-worker, Adam Draper, to start Boost VC. Brayton got rid of his apartment and moved into the dorms that house the portfolio companies as he launched the startup to fund startups. He can still be spotted heading to a room he keeps after late nights in the office. At Boost VC, Brayton wears many hats but focuses on the 300+ portfolio alumni and their needs. If those don’t keep him busy enough, he also manages Boost VC’s finances, general operations, social media and investment decisions.

Peter co-founded Lux Capital with the idea that in order to have the biggest impact on the future, one should support the most scientifically and technologically ambitious ventures. Peter led Lux’s investments in Auris Health (acquired by Johnson & Johnson for up to $6 billion, making it one of top 10 VC-backed private M&A transactions of all-time), Everspin Technologies (NASDAQ: MRAM), Lux Research (acquired by Bregal Sagemount), Luxtera (acquired by Cisco for $660 million), Matterport (NASDAQ: MTTR), SiBEAM (acquired by Silicon Image), Transphorm (NASDAQ: TGAN), and Vium (acquired by Recursion).

Venture Capitalist and Physician/Scientist

I enjoy working alongside bright, curious people creating technologies that drag humanity forward. Ex-early stage company and fund attorney. Advised on hundreds of venture financings and company acquisitions from both sides of the table with total deal value far in excess of $1B. Prior notable clients include Airbnb, Bonobos, Cisco Systems, DataBricks, DataStax, Dell Technologies, Rent the Runway, Tastemade and WhatsApp. Now applying those skills and broad network to fund and support entrepreneurs operating at the intersection of computation and traditional life sciences. Guest Lecturer at University of Michigan Law School and mentor to University of Texas Venture Fellows. Angel check into PathAI.

Backing founders building a healthy, more sustainable future.

Zal is the solo partner at Refactor Capital, a seed-stage firm focused on climate, bio, and health investments. Previously, he helped launch the Bio Fund at a16z and prior to that, spent 10 years in product at Google, Netflix, and LinkedIn. He is an alumnus of the University of Pennsylvania.

Co-founder of PayPal, Palantir Technologies, and Founders Fund. First outside investor in Facebook.

Stonly is the Co-founder of Urban Us, an early stage venture capital fund that invests in mobility, construction and other urban sectors where technology like IoT, AI and Robotics can help make cities more efficient. Prior to investing, he was a 6 time founder (with 2 exits) including Veddio Cloud Solutions, a cloud-based aggregator for managedservices providers (MSP) which sold after a year of founder funded growth. Stonly has been recognized as a CNNMoney 30 under 30 and one of Govtech Magazine's 25 top leaders amongst other industry recognitions. He is also a guest contributor at Tech Crunch and an instructor at University of Chicago's Booth School of Business where he created an MBA course on how startups can build solutions to upgrade cities. Stonly and Urban Us are also the subject of a Harvard Business School course on urbantech investing.

Ian Rountree founded Cantos Ventures in 2016, with a focus on next-generation tech related to climate science, biology, aerospace, and health. Formerly director of partnerships at SoFi.

Managing Director at SOSV's IndieBio / General Partner at SOSV. As a General Partner at SOSV: first investor in early-stage companies such as Prolific Machines, Ozone Bio, Avalo.ai, Vertical Oceans, California Cultured, Sundial Foods, Canaery, OncoPrecision, Aja Labs, and others. Additionally, investor in mid-stage companies such as Chronus Health, Gatehouse Bio, Mycoworks, Lingrove, Voyage Foods, Endless West, Zymochem, Beeflow, Stamm, Catalog DNA, New Culture, Finless Foods, NotCo, and Clara Foods.

I am a serial entrepreneur turned venture capitalist. As a venture capitalist I partner at inception/early stage with pioneers who are changing the way people work, live and play. As an entrepreneur I co-founded 3 companies in my 20s, including VXtreme, which was acquired by Microsoft to become Windows Media, iBeam Broadcasting (NASDAQ:IBEM) and Rivio/CPA.com. I have had the fortune of championing entrepreneurs of over 60 companies, of which 18 have gone public and another 25 have been acquired. Some of my past notable investments include IPOs of Akamai, Lyft, HashiCorp, Makemytrip, Persistent Systems, Poshmark, SolarCity, Matrimony.com, Tejas Networks, and acquisitions of Brighter/Cigna, CloudGenix/Palo Alto Networks, CloudSimple/Google, Elastica/Symantec, Gigya/SAP, Nuvia/Qualcomm, Portworx/Pure Storage, StorSimple/Microsoft, Wichorus/Tellabs, Volterra/F5 and Zenprise/Citrix.

Co-Founder and Managing Partner at Congruent Ventures.

Khosla cofounded computer hardware firm Sun Microsystems in 1982 with Andy Bechtolsheim, Bill Joy and Scott McNealy. Khosla spent 18 years at venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (now called Kleiner Perkins) before launching his own fund.

Shaun leads Urban.Us funding startups that help cities upgrade for climate change. Before Urban Us, Shaun was an active angel investor, investing in more than 20 firms between 2007 and 2013.

I strongly believe in immigrant founders: I saw firsthand the sheer tenacity of my parents who built a business while raising two daughters in a country where everything was foreign to them. I viscerally appreciate the challenges and the hopes of those chasing the American Dream—for many immigrants, there is more at stake than just their company. I nearly drowned as a child. I sobbed all day, and the day after that, I asked to enroll in swimming lessons. There are moments where every founder feels like they’re drowning—I want to be their first call when that happens. I started doing research in immunology when I was in middle school. I did translational oncology at Genentech, and then studied a new protein target to slow Alzheimer’s in college. At Stanford, I was able to marry my interests in biology with statistics and computer science, and I am excited to meet entrepreneurs innovating at that intersection.

Carmichael bases Material Impact's strategy on his successful career as an entrepreneur-investor in materials, blending a unique business model of licensing university technology and commercializing it through targeted partnerships with Fortune 500 companies. His current investments includeSoft Robotics, Zero Mass Water, and Amastan Technologies. As a General Partner at North Bridge Venture Partners, Carmichael financed and built several successful companies that create innovative products by applying material science, including 1366 technologies, Foro Energy, and MC10. He also serves as co-founder and chairman of Diagnostics For All, a creative hybrid non-profit and for-profit business that is developing paper-based diagnostics for poor and rural populations in developing nations.

David is the Managing Director at B.E.V.

Jim leads policy and communications at BEV.

Rodi serves as Executive Director of Breakthrough Energy, leading the organization that encompasses all of Bill Gates’ climate and energy work. As part of these responsibilities, Rodi also serves as Managing Partner of Breakthrough Energy Ventures, a collection of funds and a division of Breakthrough Energy. Previously, Rodi worked at BMGI (now Cascade Investment), the investment office that manages Bill’s assets and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Trust.

Forest joined NEA in 1999 as a Venture Partner and became a General Partner in 2004. He is the NEA representative on the boards of AstroWatt, Audience, Chelsio Communications, Serious Energy and SuVolta. Forest focuses on information and energy technology investments. Forest Baskett received a BA in Mathematics from Rice University, a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Texas at Austin and is a member of the National Academy of Engineering.

Scott served as head of the firm’s technology investing practice for 10 years and has led NEA’s China investing activities for over a decade. He has personally led investments in companies like Bloom Energy, Data Domain, Fusion-io, Salesforce.com, Tableau Software, WebEx, and Workday. One of only four investors named to the Forbes Midas List every year since 2007, with 24 technology companies in his portfolio having successfully completed public offerings or mergers.