redbud-vc
(9)
Zack Schmitz
Zack Schmitz is the co-founder and CEO of Public Grid, a renewable-energy platform that lets apartment renters switch to 100% clean electricity through their existing utility account at no added cost. A former Deloitte consultant with an MIT master's spanning electrical engineering and human-centered design, he built Public Grid (formerly Cottage Energy) to attack the unglamorous middle of the energy market: the roughly 20 million U.S. renters in deregulated states who never get a say in where their power comes from. The platform brokers clean energy in bulk, splits the savings, and follows residents from address to address.
Hemkesh Agrawal
Hemkesh Agrawal is an engineer-turned-venture-operator who went from arriving in the US from India in 2019 to holding a patent, founding multiple startups, and becoming Head of Engineering at Redbud VC in Columbia, Missouri. A Board of Trustees Scholar at Michigan State University with a perfect 4.0 GPA, he co-founded UniServices (an Uber-for-odd-jobs platform for college students) and Village (AI-driven HOA management), and was one of only 15 selected out of 4,000 applicants for the Survive & Thrive entrepreneurship bootcamp at age 16. He bridges deep technical skill with startup hustle, embodying the rare builder who can go from Arduino prototypes to VC infrastructure.
Jim McKelvey
Jim McKelvey is the co-founder of Square (now Block, Inc.), a serial entrepreneur, master glassblower, author, and philanthropist from St. Louis. He built Square after losing a $2,000 sale at his glass studio because he couldn't accept American Express - and turned that frustration into a payments company that beat Amazon when it tried to copy them. He's also founded Invisibly, co-founded LaunchCode (a nonprofit that guarantees tech jobs), serves as an Operator Advisor at Redbud VC, and is a former Chair of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
Jai Malik
Jai Malik is the founder and CEO of Amca (Advanced Manufacturing Company of America), an aerospace and defense manufacturer that launched in April 2025 with $76.5M from Caffeinated Capital, Founders Fund, Lux Capital, and Andreessen Horowitz. A serial entrepreneur and self-described 'industrial capitalist,' Malik previously founded Countdown Capital (2020-2024), an early-stage hard tech venture fund, after stints as an early team member at AI defense startups Accrete and Forge.AI. He also serves as Venture Partner at Redbud VC in Columbia, MO. Amca's thesis: acquire legacy aerospace suppliers and rebuild them from the inside out, starting with a 60-year-old avionics supplier in El Monte, California.
Jordan Lewis
Jordan Lewis is the General Counsel of Redbud VC and Vice President & General Counsel of The Premiere Group, both based in Columbia, Missouri. A dual-licensed attorney (Missouri and Illinois) with a decade-plus of experience, he bridges the worlds of law, tax, and venture capital - handling M&A, fund structuring, governance, and legal strategy for a pre-seed VC firm that bets on founders shaped by struggle. Before Redbud, he cut his teeth as a litigator at Carmody MacDonald in St. Louis and has been a published voice in Missouri In-House Counsel on biometric privacy and employment law.
Kiley Grimes
Kiley Grimes is the Head of Ecosystem at Redbud VC, the early-stage venture fund co-founded by the founders of EquipmentShare, based in Columbia, Missouri. A 2025 Mizzou BSBA graduate, she built Soundcheck - a 24/7 on-demand music practice studio in Columbia's North Village Arts District - from a $6,500 seed check to profitability in under a year, winning $10,000 at Entrepreneur Quest along the way. Equal parts operator and community builder, she now channels that founder instinct into growing Redbud's startup ecosystem across the Heartland.
Levi Malott
Levi Malott is a Missouri-native software engineer turned startup operator and venture capitalist who tested Falcon 9 rocket systems at SpaceX, built ML infrastructure at BetterUp, scaled Pachama's engineering team from 7 to 40 people as VP of Engineering through a $700M valuation, then co-founded Weave Bio as CTO - an AI platform accelerating pharmaceutical regulatory filings that raised a $10M seed round in 2023. Today he serves as Venture Partner at Redbud VC in Columbia, Missouri, backing early-stage tech founders from the heartland.
Lori Coulter
Lori Coulter is the co-founder, CEO, and President of Summersalt, the St. Louis-based direct-to-consumer swimwear and apparel brand built on data from 1.5 million body measurements. She turned a pre-teen concession stand hustle into a generation-defining brand that has sold over 4 million garments, raised $30M+, and landed in Vogue, Elle, and Forbes. She now serves as an Operator Advisor at Redbud VC and adjunct faculty at Washington University's Olin Business School, championing equitable venture funding for female founders.
Maria Heyen
Maria Heyen is an early-stage investor at Lightbank in Chicago, previously the first hire at Redbud VC in Columbia, Missouri, where she helped deploy $5M+ across 35+ companies. A Pacific Northwest native who worked 80-100 hour weeks to fund her own education, she went on to co-found the Husker Venture Fund at UNL and build a reputation as one of the emerging voices in Midwest venture. She invests at the intersection of vertical SaaS, fintech, and infrastructure in overlooked industries, and writes the Soapbox newsletter on career, culture, and capital.