Announcing the EVC List

Sami Ahmad is a General Partner based in B Capital Group’s New York office.

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Sami brings nearly two decades of investment and leadership experience across the alternative asset classes. He was previously Co-Head of Co-Investments within the Alternative Investments & Manager Selection Group at Goldman Sachs and led the group’s growth equity and technology investments. In addition to his experience at Goldman Sachs and its portfolio companies, Sami was a senior member of Viking Global Investors, where he co-led the firm’s private investment effort, and he spent the earlier part of his career at J.P. Morgan and Salomon Smith Barney.

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Sami graduated from Harvard Business School with an MBA and summa cum laude from Hunter College with a BA in Economics. Outside of work, Sami enjoys spending quality time with his kids and rooting for his home teams.

Ahmed brings 8 years of PE and VC investing experience. At SEDCO Capital he was part of a $2B+ program that backed GPs and growth companies across Europe, the US, and Asia. 

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Ahmed is part of one of Saudi Arabia’s oldest business families, for whom he led the acquisition of McDonald’s national franchises in Singapore and Malaysia (500+ stores) and currently sits on the board.

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Prior to co-founding Niya, Ahmed was a prolific startup investor, backing companies including Humane, Selfbook, Route, Xendit, and Boom Supersonic. 

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He is an LP and IC/LPAC member in multiple emerging VC funds, including Valia Ventures, where he is also a Venture Partner.

My passion is working with first-time technology founders with strong product instincts, who treat every decision as a learning moment. These are essential traits of entrepreneurs who build great companies.

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I began my career as an investor looking for very early-stage consumer products and services that most people might perceive as crazy, funny, or even controversial; those strong reactions tell me there is a founder creating something disruptive. But I’m always looking for areas to learn about and am now equally as interested in investing in young companies working with emerging technologies and those that are applying consumer-grade experiences to business-focused services.

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I believe technology exists to make our lives better. Combine this with a hot market, and billion-dollar companies can be created. General Catalyst companies I’m involved with include Audius, Brighter (acquired by Cigna), ClassDojo, Collective, Cover, Discord, Dubsmash (acquired by Reddit), Hive, Livongo Health (acquired by Teladoc, NYSE: TDOC), Microverse, Remote, Sleeper, Snap (NYSE: SNAP), and Wag! (NASDAQ:PET).

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My intellectual curiosity and ambition to maximize serendipity (my life’s function) led me to be a perpetual student in multiple countries. I graduated from Stanford (MS in Management Science and Engineering as a Fulbright Scholar), the University of Cambridge (M.Phil. in Manufacturing Engineering and Management), and the National Technical University of Athens (Dipl.-Ing in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science). I also worked in Tokyo at the R&D headquarters for Yokogawa Electric Corporation. This random walk through the world has proven to be extremely helpful in my role as a venture investor.

Christopher Chang is the Founder of BEE CAPITAL PARTNERS, a co-op family office. 

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Previously, he was the Chief Operating Officer of venture capital firm BEENEXT, after being an Investor at GCM Grosvenor and an Analyst at JPMorgan Securities Japan.

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Outside of work, Christopher was selected to be part of the Milken Institute’s Young Leader’s Circle, an Associate Leader for The U.S.-Japan Council, and a recipient of the Forbes 30 Under 30 List. 

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He is also a Visiting Lecturer for Stanford University and a Program Member of the Georgetown University Alumni Association.

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Christopher received his Bachelor of Arts from Georgetown University and his Master of Business Administration from the University of Oxford.

Beezer leads Sapphire Partners‘ investments in venture funds domestically and internationally.

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Beezer began her career in financial services over 20 years ago at Morgan Stanley in its global infrastructure group. Since, she has held various direct and indirect venture investment roles, as well as operational roles in software business development at Hewlett Packard. Prior to joining Sapphire in 2012, Beezer managed the day-to-day operations of the Draper Fisher Jurvetson Global Network, which then had $7 billion under management across 16 venture funds worldwide.

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In 2016, Beezer led the launch of OpenLP, an effort to help foster greater understanding in the entrepreneur-to-LP tech ecosystem. 

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Beezer earned a bachelor’s in government from Wesleyan University, where she served on the board of trustees and currently serves as an advisor to the Wesleyan Endowment Investment Committee. She is currently serving on the board of the NVCA and holds an MBA from Harvard Business School.

Inspired by Knight Rider and Star Trek, Shahin grew up with a passion to endow superpowers to humanity through feats of engineering. He learned BASIC on an IBM PC XT clone he built at his aunt’s computer store and used to dial into Bulletin Board Systems when he was in the 4th grade. He learned about engines by taking apart an Alfa Romeo at his Uncle’s repair shop a few years later. He aspired to design microchips, software, and systems that could someday amount to the fictional K.I.T.T., and build warp drives that could propel humanity to far corners of the galaxy.

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Shahin has had the privilege of partnering with amazing founding teams for over two decades. After working for several software startups, he built his first startup in 2004 building upon his PhD research designing chips, systems, and software to capture and interpret brain signals. He later had the pleasure of meeting Lux’s founding team, who invited him to partner with them in 2006, where he has cofounded and led Lux’s investments into companies that have gone on to become publicly traded (e.g., NYSE:AEVA and NYSE:PL), and acquired by the likes of Intel (Nervana), Amazon (Zoox), Silicon Laboratories (Silicon Clocks), and Lattice Semiconductor (SiBeam).

Mar is Pear’s Founding Managing Partner. After earning a PhD in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University, Mar developed a groundbreaking technique of optimizing the design of analog semiconductors. Since then, she has accrued over 13 years of founder experience, co-founding three startups in mobile/ecommerce, enterprise software and semiconductor industries and has registered 14 separate patents.

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As Pear’s co-founder and managing partner, Mar brings operational and technical expertise to the Investment Team.

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Mar is passionate about teaching. She is in currently a Lecturer for Stanford University, teaching Lean Launchpad, one of the premier entrepreneurship classes at Stanford. Prior to that, she was a Consulting Professor at Stanford teaching the introductory course in Analog Circuit Design for nearly a decade.

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Mar serves on the board of trustees of Harvey Mudd College and the Advisory Board of the Electrical and Computer Engineering department at Carnegie Mellon University. She is a founder of Equity Summit, the premier conference for connecting URM Venture Capital GPs to LPs, and an initial founding member of All Raise.

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Mar is based in the Bay Area with her husband Matt and has three children. She has been recognized by MIT Technology Review as a Top Innovator Under 35, named a Champion of Innovation by Fast Company, awarded the Digital Automation Conference’s Marie R. Pistil Achievement Award, and recognized on the Forbes Midas List in 2021, 2022, and 2023.

Katie is a Managing Director and GP of Fund of Funds Investing at Felicis. Katie leads Investor Relations for the firm and has been part of the LP community since 2002. 

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She was one of Felicis' first investors through her role at SVB Capital, and brings more than 20 years of venture fund investment experience to her role. 

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She started her career at Cambridge Associates, helping a wide range of institutional clients build and evaluate their private equity programs. Katie earned her BA in Economics at Colby College and her MBA at Wharton. 

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She is a member of several organizations supporting women in private equity and is on the Executive Committee and Board of Safe & Sound, an organization working to prevent child abuse and reduce its devastating impact.  Katie has been featured in the WSJ and Nasdaq.

Frank is a Founding Partner and the Chief Investment Officer of QED Investors, a premier VC firm focused on the fintech ecosystem.

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QED has invested in 200+ companies over the past 15 years and currently has $4.3 billion under management. Frank has made Forbes’ Midas List each of the past six years as “One of the World’s Best VC Investors.”

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Previous to QED Investors, Frank was one of the early architects who helped create what became Capital One. In his 13-year Capital One journey, Frank was responsible for many “firsts” that helped lay the foundation for what Capital One is today.

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Frank graduated from the University of Virginia with degrees in Applied Mathematics (B.S.) and Systems Engineering (M.S.).

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He writes prolifically on Twitter as @fintechjunkie and posts additional content frequently on qedinvestors.com and fintechjunkie.com