Investors focused on Payments

Named to venture capital’s 40 Under 40 by VC Journal in 2020, Aaron is the co-founder of PathSource, an edtech startup that rose to be the top career app in the App Store until its acquisition in 2017. Aaron also created the online game Fantasy Politics for the 2012 election. Inducted into the annual Innovation Rockstar list by the Boston Business Journal, Aaron has written for Entrepreneur Magazine, Fast Company and a range of business outlets. He holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and an MPA from Harvard Kennedy School of Government.

Enmi has invested in early-mid stage ventures for over 15 years, first as part of venture firms IDG Ventures and Boston Millennia Partners. Most recently, she invested as an angel in seed-stage digital health ventures. Besides investing, Enmi has worked with operating companies of varying sizes anchored around consumer marketing. At NYTimes.com, Enmi focused on the revenue strategy of new digital products. Thereafter, Enmi founded a consumer email startup called replyforall that served both users and brand marketers. That chapter proved a non-stop lesson in the paramount importance of a founder’s surgical focus and ability to let go of preconceived notions and roadmaps. Enmi also tinkered as a vendor of e-books to get versed in affiliate marketing, a powerful channel of highly repeatable and cost-controllable customer acquisition.

Jeff began his career helping large brands innovate while at Leo Burnett. He now helps innovators create brands. Over the course of Listen, Jeff has invested in 20+ startups; providing brand and business strategy for consumer-focused companies in a variety of industries.

Atin looks for outstanding Founders who are building big businesses - and are nice people leaving a net positive impact on our world. Most recently, he was a Principal at the hardware-focused VC firm Q Venture Partners. He continues to be involved with the amazing team at QVP, in the role of Venture Partner. If you're a hardware startup/investor, do reach out. An ex-entrepreneur, he loves the sport ultra-marathon trail running. He considers finishing a couple of 100K races his biggest (sporting/physical) achievements to date.

Pascal specializes in enabling founders to apply strategic thinking and best-in-class practices. A dedicated and high bandwidth partner, he developed his skill set as a management consultant in technology and finance, where he worked with industry leaders on their business strategy, Go-To-Market and M&A. Swiss born, he started his career at The Boston Consulting Group in Zurich working with Switzerland’s largest banks on their strategies, business transformations and M&A activities. In 2015, he moved to San Francisco and led BCG teams for the world’s largest tech companies focusing on integrating acquisitions, restructuring sales orgs and thinking through their go-forward strategies. In parallel, he was a Venture Partner at local VCs and an early investor in Darling Ventures. Today, he gets excited about applying the structured thinking, professionalism and tools learned to work alongside entrepreneurs in the early stages of their business.

James Murphy is Forum’s General Partner, and was the Co-Founder of Robly, a marketing automation platform based in New York City. James is an active angel investor and advisor to numerous early stage SaaS startups.

Brittany Laughlin is a Partner at Lattice Ventures, providing launch capital and connections to entrepreneurs serving industries underserved in innovation. Prior she served as General Manager at Union Square Ventures, an early stage venture capital firm with $1B+ under management. Some portfolio companies include Etsy, Twitter, SoundCloud, Tumblr,Lending Club, and Kickstarter. Her entrepreneurial endeavors include founding VetsinTech NYC, transitioning military veterans into technology jobs, and founded gtrot, a social travel recommendation engine sold to Groupon. She has a BA in Marketing and International Business from NYU Stern. Laughlin writes about building great companies, venture investing, tech, and travel.

Investing in and incubating early stage consumer companies.

Patrick is the co-founder of iStockphoto, was an EIR at Inovia Capital, and a Managing Partner at 500 Startups Canada.

Prior to Gradient, Zach led acquisitions and strategic investments as a member of Google’s Corporate Development team, where he focused on Google’s Cloud, Ads and Commerce businesses. Before Google, Zach advised software and internet companies as an investment banker, leading companies through M&As, IPOs, and other financing opportunities. Zach started his career as a quant and data scientist at a leading energy trading hedge fund, and also co-founded a social media startup. Zach serves on the Board of Directors at Openly, Elsa, and Wise Systems, among other companies. He received his bachelor’s degree in Computer Science and Applied Mathematics from the University of Virginia, his JD from the UCLA School of Law, and his MBA from the UCLA Anderson School of Management.

Founder since 2005 and investor since 2007.

Tim Draper founded Draper Associates, DFJ and the Draper Venture Network, a global network of venture capital funds. He funded Baidu, Tesla, Skype, SpaceX, Twitch, Hotmail, Focus Media, Robinhood, Athenahealth, Box, Cruise Automation, Carta, Planet, PTC and 15 other unicorns at the seed stage. He is a supporter and global thoughtleader for entrepreneurs everywhere, and is a leading spokesperson for Bitcoin, Blockchain, ICOs and cryptocurrencies, invested in over 50 crypto companies, and led investments in Coinbase, Ledger, Tezos, and Bancor, among others. He has received various awards and honors including the World Entrepreneurship Forum’s “Entrepreneur of the World,” and is listed as one of the top 100 most powerful people in finance by Worth Magazine, the top 20 most influential people in Crypto by CryptoWeekly, #1 most networked VC by AlwaysOn, #7 on the Forbes Midas List, and #48 most influential Harvard Alum.

Repeat entrepreneur turned venture investor. Prior to starting Oyster with Sophie, he co-founded Republic Crypto in 2017, where he served as Chief Strategy Officer. Previously led institutional fund products at AngelList, designed an algorithmic investing platform for Hone Capital, was Co-founder & CTO at FreshPay, the first Bitcoin debit card, was on the founding team as Architect & Head of Mobile Engineering at Chartboost (acquired by Zynga for $250M), and worked in engineering at Tapulous through its acquisition by Disney.

Co-founder and CEO of Affirm (NASDAQ: AFRM) Co-founder of PayPal (NASDAQ: PYPL)

Vincent is currently Managing Partner at Interlace Ventures, an early stage fund dedicated to commerce technology in North America. Prior to this fund, he created and developed the venture investment capacity of a single family office. He also held the position of CFO of the largest independent western-food importer in China (Revenue from $50m to $200m / Acquired by Savencia Group Bongrain) from 2010 to 2015. He started his career in auditing (+ transactions services engagements) at Deloitte Paris and Shanghai. As an auditor, he has been exposed to multiple industries from manufacturing to professional services with a specialization in retail.

Peter leads the Plug and Play China team to build a leading innovation platform and empower technology innovation in China.

Peter has nearly 20 years of experience in operation and international management in the TMT industry. He was the Global Vice President of Operations at Nokia Home Device Business Unit. Previously, he served as the Vice President and Chief Procurement Officer of APAC & Greater China in Alcatel-Lucent.

At Commerce, Dan focuses on technology innovations in the payments, financial services and insurance fields. He serves on the boards of Blooom, ClickSWITCH, Kin and Socure, and participates as an observer on several other portfolio boards, such as BillGO and MX Technologies. Prior to starting Commerce Ventures, Dan was a Principal at Highland Capital Partners, where he focused on mobile and payments-related startups.

He is passionate about working with founders who are shaping their industries and often don’t fit the Silicon Valley mold. During his time at Bessemer, Brian supported investments in Gainsight, Mindbody (IPO), Playdom* and helped found Columbia Lake Partners, a European venture debt fund. Prior to Bessemer, Brian worked in the private equity group at Blackstone and founded an online advertising agency.

A number of his investments have led to significant exits, including AppNexus (acquired by AT&T), Climate Corporation (acquired by Monsanto), Okta (NASDAQ: OKTA), RingCentral (NYSE: RNG) and Upstart (NASDAQ: UPST). David hasalso been recognized by Fortune and Forbes as one of the top technology investors. Prior to Khosla Ventures, David spent five years at Tellme Networks as VP of marketing and business development. Using the quantitative decision making framework, RIFLE, the company drove revenue to over $100 million, and was ultimately acquired by Microsoft for more than $700 million. Previously, he led AOL’s communications, community and instant messaging product divisions as they surpassed 50 million users worldwide. David’s career began in door to door sales, where one sales pitch led to his new career in technology via McCaw Cellular, now AT&T.

Undergrad at Carnegie Mellon, Grad school at the University of Michigan. Bumbled around in software and consulting before I found my calling in Fintech, then further refined it by becoming a VC :)