frontier-technology
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Eli Dourado
Eli Dourado is an economist and head of strategic investments at the Astera Institute, where he deploys capital to push frontier technologies in energy, aerospace, and other capital-intensive, heavily regulated sectors. He describes his work as a 'sacred quest to increase the pace of American economic growth,' which he argues has stagnated since around 1973. A former regulatory hacker at Boom Supersonic and director of the technology policy program at the Mercatus Center, he is known for influential essays on geothermal energy, supersonic flight, cargo airships, and ending the Great Stagnation.
Eileen Tanghal
Eileen Tanghal is the Founder and General Partner of Black Opal Ventures, a women-led early-stage venture capital firm based in New York investing at the intersection of healthcare and frontier technology. With over 20 years of VC experience spanning corporate venture (Applied Ventures, ARM Holdings), national security investing (In-Q-Tel), and European VC (Amadeus Capital, Kennet Partners), she co-founded Black Opal in 2021 alongside Dr. Tara Bishop - a friend of 30 years from their days as MIT engineering students. The firm raised a $58M debut fund with backing from Eli Lilly, Bank of America, and J.P. Morgan, and invests in companies using AI, bioengineering, and advanced computing to reshape how healthcare is delivered and who can access it.
Jim Adler
Jim Adler is the Founder and General Partner of Toyota Ventures, the corporate venture arm of Toyota with $800M+ in assets under management and 90+ portfolio companies. A rocket-engineer-turned-serial-entrepreneur, Adler built the fund from a $100M seed in 2017 into a powerhouse backing frontier technologies in AI, autonomy, robotics, climate tech, and mobility. Known for his 'geek, suit, wonk' identity, he bridges deep technical expertise with sharp investment philosophy, insisting financial returns must precede strategic ones.
Karim Faris
Karim Faris is a General Partner at GV (Google Ventures), where he leads investments in enterprise software, AI, cybersecurity, data analytics, and frontier technology. A self-described 'grounded optimist,' he brings a rare combination of deep engineering roots - he published peer-reviewed neural network papers at Brown University and was a product manager for the Pentium processor at Intel - and decades of venture experience. He joined GV at its inception, and has backed companies including DocuSign, Duo Security (acquired by Cisco), Cohesity, FullStory, and SecurityScorecard, while serving on 25+ boards across his career.
Laurie Yoler
Laurie Yoler is a General Partner at Playground Global, a Palo Alto-based deep-tech venture capital firm backing companies working on fundamental technologies - robotics, AI, quantum computing, biotech, and beyond. A founding board member of Tesla and early backer of Zoox (acquired by Amazon for $1.3B), she has spent three decades at the intersection of engineering, strategy, and capital allocation. Before venture, she helped launch Visa's debit card division, built Sun Microsystems' server platform dominance, and ran Qualcomm Labs as President. She holds a summa cum laude degree from Washington State University and audits courses at Stanford across engineering, law, and neuroscience.
Matt Rappaport
Matt Rappaport is General Partner at Future Frontier Capital, a pre-seed frontier technology VC fund based in Berkeley, California. A former professional musician who studied West African Sabar drumming in Senegal, Rappaport brings an unconventional lens to deep tech investing - 20+ years of IP strategy expertise, a faculty role at UC Berkeley's Fung Institute, and a data-driven methodology using patent landscape analytics to identify emerging sectors before mainstream adoption. He co-founded FFC with longtime partner Mark Garner in late 2023, building a portfolio of 100+ early-stage startups across AI, biotech, robotics, climate, and advanced materials - achieving nearly 11X TVPI on previous investments.
Michael McBride
Michael McBride is a General Partner at GV (Google Ventures), where he leads early-stage investments in enterprise technology, AI, and open-source-powered companies. A Stanford-trained mechanical engineer who spent three decades building high-growth startups before pivoting to venture capital, McBride brought operational credibility from five years as GitLab's CRO - where he oversaw a 100x+ revenue run-rate expansion before its 2021 IPO. He joined GV in December 2023 and quickly became one of its most active dealmakers, leading GV's $319 million Cribl Series E - the firm's second-largest investment ever.
Noah Knauf
Noah Knauf is a General Partner and co-founder at BOND Capital, the San Francisco-based growth-stage venture firm he helped launch in 2019 alongside Mary Meeker, Mood Rowghani, and Juliet de Baubigny after spinning out of Kleiner Perkins. With more than two decades in finance and private equity, he brings a rare combination of Bain consulting rigor, nine years deploying $1.8 billion at Warburg Pincus, and front-row experience at one of Silicon Valley's most storied VC firms. At BOND, he leads investments in high-growth technology companies with a particular focus on healthcare, fintech, gaming, and frontier technology, serving on the boards of AKASA, Saildrone, Sidecar Health, and Sunday.
Peter Barrett
Peter Barrett is the Founder and General Partner of Playground Global, a Palo Alto-based deep tech venture firm managing over $1.2 billion across three funds. An Australian-born engineer turned investor, Barrett holds 100+ patents, gave Elon Musk one of his first jobs in the 1990s, and built the world's most popular IPTV platform at Microsoft before pivoting to backing founders working on problems that sit 'somewhere between improbable and impossible.' Playground Global's portfolio spans quantum computing, robotics, synthetic biology, and energy transition — representing Barrett's conviction that the computing and industrial revolutions are still ahead of us.