Dan Burton is the Founder and CEO of Zeitview. Previously, Dan served as a Marine Corps Infantry Officer in Iraq and Afghanistan, worked at Goldman Sachs, and attended NYU and HBS.

Caroline is the CEO and cofounder of Arcade. She is a big believer in the product led growth economy, and Arcade is enabling that. Before Arcade, she was a VC at Sequoia, a marketer at Atlassian, and graduate of Stanford Graduate School of Business and Princeton.

Ian Cinnamon is the CEO and Co-Founder of Apex, a spacecraft bus platform manufacturer offering productized, configurable satellite bus platforms. With a focus on meeting the needs of the rapidly expanding space industry, Ian leads a team, backed by $125M+ from the world’s best investors, dedicated to providing proliferated, attritable solutions to both the commercial and government sectors.

Prior to his work with Apex, Ian founded Synapse Technology Corporation, a company specializing in artificial intelligence for security and defense. Ian led the company through acquisition by Palantir. Earlier in his career, Ian co-founded Superlabs, which was sold to Zynga, where he served as Director of Product after the acquisition.

Ian is a Forbes "30 Under 30" honoree, and an alumnus of Y Combinator. He received his B.S. from MIT and his MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

AJ Cooper is the cofounder and CEO of Artisan Insight, a technologist with a PhD in electrical engineering, and the inventor of a new type of integrated circuit. His career began in cleanrooms, developing molecular electronics and advanced semiconductor systems for industry leaders like GlobalFoundries and FLIR. His innovations have diagnosed problems on 300mm wafer production lines and powered battlefield night vision systems. AJ later cofounded a luxury smartwatch company, ultimately taking it to acquisition. At Uber and Lyft, he led hardware innovation, producing hundreds of thousands of advanced e-bikes and scootrs while scaling battery swapping and charging networks like Citibike. Now, AJ has returned to the cleanroom, driven to pioneer the next wave of electronics innovation.

Dan is co-head of Global Banking & Markets. He is a member of the Management Committee and chair of the Firmwide Client Franchise Committee. Dan joined Goldman Sachs in 1992 in New York in the Corporate Finance Group within the Investment Banking Division (IBD) and then moved to the Capital Markets Department in 1994. He held a number of responsibilities within Capital Markets, including working in Hong Kong initially from 1994 to 1995, working with private equity clients in New York in the mid-1990s, working on the Goldman Sachs initial public offering from 1998 to 1999, managing a number of the technology capital markets businesses from 1999 to 2001, managing the consumer, retail and healthcare businesses from 2002 to 2004, and working in Tokyo as head of the Japan Financing Group from 2004 to 2007. Prior to being named co-head of IBD for Asia Pacific Ex-Japan in 2012, Dan was head of the Financing Group in Asia Pacific. In early 2014, he relocated to San Francisco to become global co-head of the Technology, Media and Telecommunications Group. Dan served as co-head of IBD from 2018 to 2022. He was named managing director in 2001 and partner in 2004. Dan earned a BA in Economics from Duke University in 1992.

Lindel has been investing in venture funds and venture-backed companies for more than two decades, building an extensive network of limited partners, venture capitalists, and founders. He joined Foundry as a partner in 2015 and is active across the portfolio, working closely with the portfolio of partner funds.

Prior to joining Foundry, Lindel managed a broad private investment program for the University of Texas Investment Management Company (UTIMCO). At UTIMCO, he developed his love for early-stage investing as he built the endowment’s venture capital program. He was fortunate to sponsor early investments in many of the now leading venture capital firms, including IA Ventures, True Ventures, Union Square Ventures, and, of course, Foundry.

Lindel received his MBA from the University of Texas at Austin McCombs School of Business and his BBA in accounting and finance at Texas Christian University. He is a CPA and a CFA charter holder. Lindel previously served as Vice-Chair of the Institutional Limited Partner Association and is a member of the St. David’s Foundation Investment Committee and the University of Colorado Foundation Investment Committee. Lindel resides in Longmont, Colorado with his incredible wife and two amazing daughters. The hiking, fishing, and skiing almost make him forget how much he misses the tacos, music, and lakes of Austin.

Steven Eidelman is the Founder & CEO of Modern Animal, a veterinary care provider that is bringing humanity back to veterinary medicine. Founded in 2019, the company owns and operates a network of general practice clinics and has developed a digital platform that supports both clients and employees to deliver a great client experience and the best place for veterinary teams to practice medicine. Modern Animal has ~600 employees across 26 clinics in California and Texas and is expanding to Arizona and Colorado this year. Prior to Modern Animal, Steven co-founded Whistle, a consumer electronics company that developed pet tracking and health monitoring devices and was acquired by Mars. Earlier in his career, he worked as an investor at Spectrum Equity and a consultant at Bain & Company. Steven graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 2007 and lives in Los Angeles, California with his wife Julia, two sons Leo and Roman, and dog Layla.

Mina Fahmi is the co-founder & CEO of Sandbar, an interface company which aims to close the gap between humans and AI. Mina previously worked on human-computer interaction and deep learning at Meta/CTRL-labs. His work also includes brain implants (Kernel), neuroprostheses (MIT Media Lab), augmented reality (Magic Leap), and LLMs.

Nat is a Senior Principal at Cerity Partners and co-head of the Private Markets Research Team. Before joining Cerity Partners, Nat was a Managing Director at Agility where he served as the co-head of the Private Capital team and specialized in venture capital fund and co-investment opportunities. Prior to that, he was a Senior Associate at Strategic Investment Group, an OCIO provider in the Washington DC area, where he was responsible for investment due diligence in private equity, venture capital and illiquid real assets. Nat started his career at IXI Corporation, where his analytics supported market sizing and asset allocation studies on behalf of various bank clients.

When he’s not scouring the world for investment opportunities, Nat enjoys coaching youth basketball and being outdoors with his wife, three young children, and labradoodle.

Education & Highlights

B.A. in Economics from the University of Virginia

Chartered Financial Analyst®

Member of the CFA Institute

Alex Hawkinson is the Founder and CEO of BrightAI, where he leads the mission to awaken critical infrastructure with our physical AI platform, transitioning operations from reactive to proactive. With over 25 years of experience in IoT, AI, SaaS, and cloud-based technologies, Alex leverages his expertise to transform industries with intelligent, forward-thinking solutions that redefine resilience and efficiency.

Before BrightAI, Alex founded and led SmartThings, a revolutionary IoT platform that reshaped the connected home landscape, known in the tech industry as “father of IOT”. Under his guidance, SmartThings grew into a global standard, supporting over 1 billion connected devices and fostering an ecosystem of 250,000 developers. Acquired by Samsung in 2014, SmartThings today reaches more than 350 million households across the globe.

Alex’s entrepreneurial influence extends to his co-founding roles at EfficientAI, advancing energy-efficient computing, and OurSky, a platform pioneering space-based technologies. As chairman of these ventures and a board member of companies like iFit, Strikepoint Group Holdings, and Pelsis Group, Alex continues to innovate at the intersection of technology and infrastructure.

Through his role on the Advisory Council for Carnegie Mellon University’s College of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Alex shares his expertise and passion, mentoring the next generation of innovators. Whether building groundbreaking companies or empowering others, Alex’s career reflects a steadfast commitment to reimagining possibilities and creating a smarter, more resilient world.

Archie McKenzie is the CEO of General Translation, Inc., a web infrastructure startup which helps companies launch their products in multiple languages. He was born in the UK, lived in Kenya and New Zealand, and graduated from Princeton University with a degree in Computer Science.

D.A. Wallach is a venture capital investor and an acclaimed recording artist who Fast Company named one of the 100 Most Creative People in Business. While an undergraduate at Harvard, D.A. studied with professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr., and received the Andrew Ramroop and Alain Locke prizes as the top graduate in his department. Prior to leaving school, Pharrell Williams discovered D.A.’s band Chester French and signed the group to Interscope Records, where they released two full-length albums. He has toured with Lady Gaga, Weezer, and Blink 182, performed on TV Shows including Jimmy Kimmel Live and Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, and appeared in Rolling Stone and Vogue.

In 2011, D.A. stopped touring in order to focus on his other passion, investing. He has since built a parallel career as a venture capitalist, backing a series of industry-defining technology companies including Spotify, SpaceX, Ripple, and The Boring Company. Since 2015, D.A. has focused on biotechnology and healthcare, seeking to reinvent medicine through breakthrough start-ups like Beam, Doctor on Demand, Devoted Health, and Neuralink. As co-founder and General Partner of Time BioVentures, he brings this experience to a new generation of talented entrepreneurs in the life sciences.

Outside of business, D.A. appeared as an actor in the film La La Land, which received 14 Academy Award nominations. He publishes essays on a range of topics on his website www.dawallach.com, and is the co-founder of the non-profit Franca Fund for preventive genomics, an advisory board member of No Patient Left Behind, and a member of the Board of Trustees of the Santa Fe Institute.

Kobie has been a partner at Upfront since 2016, with a core investing focus in SaaS, marketing technology, and emerging technologies including VR and AR. Notable investments include Cordial, Wave, MetaImpact and Martie.

Prior to joining Upfront, Kobie was an investor at Accel, helped found OpenView Venture Partners, and was an investor at Insight Venture Partners. Over his career he invested early in companies including Exact Target (sold to Salesforce for $2.5B) and Oculus (sold to Facebook for $2B). Previously, Kobie was the Chief Marketing Officer at LA-based REVOLVE, one of the largest global fashion e-commerce players. Kobie graduated from Harvard College.

Nick is a partner at Upfront Ventures. He focuses on early-stage investments in hard tech and critical infrastructure sectors like advanced manufacturing and robotics, aerospace and defense, energy and resources, and communications. Prior to joining Upfront, Nick was at Crosscut Ventures leading seed investments. Before Crosscut, Nick was an early employee at Warby Parker, where he was the general manager of the Home Try-On business. Nick also served as an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Human Ventures and as an investor with the Dorm Room Fund, First Round Capital’s student-run investment fund. Nick graduated with a degree in economics from UC Berkeley and earned his MBA from The Wharton School.

Stuart has been a Partner at Upfront since 2014, where he runs all non-investment activities. Before joining Upfront, Stuart was CMO at CareerArc, a social recruiting platform and CMO at Internships.com, the world's largest internships marketplace which was acquired by Chegg. He was also COO at BuildOnline, a SaaS document management company that was acquired by SWORD Group. Earlier in his career, Stuart was an attorney with the international law firm Herbert Smith, where he worked on M&A and corporate finance transactions. Stuart received a first class honors degree in International History and Politics from the University of Leeds and a law degree with distinction from the College of Law in London, England.

Aditi Maliwal is a partner at Upfront Ventures, investing in early stage companies across financial technology and enterprise software. Aditi partners with founders at their earliest stages of inception and supports them throughout the stages of company building. While at Upfront, she has partnered deeply in this way with Arcade, Clair, Renew, Stem, WriterAI and ZestAI amongst others.

Before joining Upfront, Aditi was at Google, first on the Corporate Development team leading acquisitions across various sectors including AI, commerce and fintech, and then on the Next Billion Users team building products for users in emerging markets. Prior to Google she worked in early stage venture at Crosslink Capital where she invested in Chime, BetterUp, and PowerToFly among other companies. She began her career in investment banking at Deutsche Bank, in the technology banking group. She has a B.A. from Stanford University.

Nina runs financial operations and analytics at Upfront. Before joining Upfront, Nina was CFO at Omaze, a venture backed company innovating at the intersection of gaming and charitable fundraising. Before Omaze, Nina was VP Finance at TOMS, which sold to Bain Capital in 2014. Nina started her career in Investment Banking at Goldman Sachs. She received an AB in Economics from Princeton and an MBA from The Wharton School.

Mark Suster is a Partner at Upfront. He previously was the founder & CEO of two successful enterprise software companies, the most recent of which was sold to Salesforce.com where Mark became VP, Products. Prior to being a founder, Mark was a software developer at Accenture where he lived and worked in Europe, Japan and the U.S. Mark is a graduate of UCSD and has an MBA from the University of Chicago.

Kevin Zhang is a partner at Upfront, where he has a focus in healthcare and interactive gaming. Notable investments include Bionaut Labs, Canvas Medical, Pragma, and Seriously (acquired by Playtika). Prior to joining Upfront in 2012, Kevin was at The Boston Consulting Group, where he advised on strategy, M&A and operations for technology, healthcare, and industrial goods clients in the US and Asia. Previously, Kevin worked at Verisk Health (now Cotiviti), a healthcare software startup in Boston, focusing on data analytics product development selling into payers and providers. Kevin studied Biology at Harvard College.