Hem Suri

founder & managing Partner

Hem is an accomplished investment, board and executive management leader with two decades of experience as an entrepreneur, venture capital & private equity investor, board professional, investment banker, general management executive as well as a researcher. His passion lies in early stage companies where he loves “rolling-up his sleeves” to help create and executive 360⁰ strategies to maximize commercial outcomes. 

Hem’s industry experience spans software, technology services, food manufacturing, industrials, transportation, financial services, property & casualty insurance, restaurants, education tech, healthcare and digital marketing. Outside of his work with SGV, Hem also serves as a Venture Partner with NextGen Venture Partners, an early and late stage venture capital firm. Previously, he was the Co-Founder and Managing Partner of ClearVision Equity Partners (a boutique VC firm), a 2x Interim CEO of emerging companies, an executive of a KKR Private Equity portfolio company, an investment banker on Wall Street as well as a functional leader in multiple Fortune 500 companies in the US. 

Hem has also served on over 20 startup and social enterprise boards across US and is heavily involved with several prominent incubators and accelerators in Southern California supporting budding entrepreneurs. He has executed 50+ venture, private equity and M&A transactions with over $2B in total capital spanning thirteen years at Spark Growth Ventures, ClearVision Equity Partners, Deutsche Bank, a KKR private equity portfolio company as well as an independent board professional working with startups. 

Hem has an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School, an M.S. in Industrial Engineering from University of Illinois and a B.Tech. in Mechanical Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology, New Delhi. He is passionate about the environment, equality and education for under-privileged children and loves reading, traveling and active pursuits.

HOME BASE
San Diego, CA

Safa Mahzari

DIrector, Platform Operations

Safa is a well-rounded professional with first-hand experience as a startup founder, operator, investor, and advisor. Whether building or investing in startups, his motivation is to create positive societal change.

Prior to joining SGV in 2022, Safa was the Founder and CEO of Alluxo, a bootstrapped SaaS startup that unlocked the value of financial data for small business owners. In this role, he led product management, sales, marketing, and operations. Before Alluxo, he was an Associate at TVC Capital, a growth equity firm with a B2B software focus, and was responsible for deal sourcing, due diligence, transaction execution, and post-investment portfolio support. Previously, Safa served as VP of Corporate and Business Development at Eturi, where he led partnerships, financial planning, and investor relations, and helped the company raise $8M of capital. He was also the first hire at Boomr, where he spearheaded a variety of marketing and analytics initiatives.

Safa graduated summa cum laude from University of San Diego with a B.B.A. in Finance. When not at work, he likes to read, travel, and spend time with his family.

HOME BASE
San Diego, CA

Alessio Sanfilippo

BOARD ADVISOR

Alessio is an accomplished leader with fifteen years of general management experience across different industries and domains. He takes pride in helping organizations devise interconnected strategies that leverage big data and AI to solve customer problems. He is a technologist at heart, and passionate about transforming data into products and services.

After honing his skills in the online travel space, Alessio continued to expand his expertise by working on several FinTech, MarTech, and B2B SaaS offerings. Over the past 20 years, he has assumed executive roles within large multinational corporations such as Intuit, Expedia and SAP, co-founded two startups, launched an innovation lab for emerging technologies, and led distributed organizations across the US, Europe, and Asia. Alessio is currently the VP of Data & Research for WhatsApp at Meta, where he is responsible for the end-to-end data strategy behind WhatsApp. He has an M.B.A. from Embry Riddle Aeronautical University and an M.S. in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Pisa, Italy. Outside of work, he is an avid traveler, an inquisitive reader, and a proud husband and father.

HOME BASE
San Diego, CA

Gaurav Bhatia

BOARD advisor

Gaurav is an accomplished marketing and general management executive with a successful track-record across different stages of a company. He currently serves as the Chief Marketing Officer at PenFed Credit Union, the 2nd largest credit union in the US. Over the past 20 years, he has held senior leadership positions at several Fortune 500 companies, including AARP, Capital One, Sabre Holdings (parent of Travelocity.com) and NIIT Technologies. Gaurav is passionate about startups and advises companies across marketing, digital, data and customer experience domains to help unlock their true potential.

Gaurav holds a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Manipal Institute of Technology as well as a M.S. in Information Systems and an M.B.A. from University of Texas, Arlington. He is also a graduate of the Executive Leadership Program of The Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth. An avid runner, Gaurav also likes to teach and write in his spare time.

HOME BASE
Washington DC

Jaikaran Sawhny

BOARD advisor

Jaikaran is an accomplished technology executive with international savvy and a history of successes across growth, monetization, and innovation stages of a company. His product, technology, and partnerships experience spans over 10 years across India, the Middle East, Europe, and the US. He is the Chief Product Officer at iVisa and previously served as the Chief Platform Officer at JioSaavn, the third-largest music streaming service in the world and one of India’s latest unicorns. As an early employee and part of the executive leadership team at JioSaavn, Jaikaran played a key role in creating over $1.4B in shareholder value through product innovation and rapid business scaling leading to 200M+ active users.

Jaikaran has a Bachelor’s degree in Economics from University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is passionate about advising startups and nonprofits, specializing in early and growth-stage companies looking to scale users, subscribers and partners. In his spare time, he loves spending time with his wife and his young kids.

HOME BASE
Cleveland, OH

Jeff Haux

Board Advisor

Jeff is a seasoned executive with significant experience as a CEO, President and CFO managing growth, strategy, operational efficiency, M&A and capital market initiatives for companies ranging from small start-ups to large complex organizations. He has over 35 years of experience in technology, retail, management and finance working with both public and private companies. He is also an experienced investor, board member and advisor and is very involved with entrepreneurs.

Jeff started his career with Arthur Andersen, LLP in Silicon Valley and later Seattle in Audit and Business Advisory where his clients were predominately technology companies including Oracle, Vantive, SMART Modular Technologies, Digital Microwave, Liberate Technologies, Avenue A, B-Square, etc. Post Arthur Andersen, Jeff served as VP of Finance at OneName Corporation – an identity management software company funded by Eagle River (Craig McCaw's investment company), Nextel, XO communications and other VCs. He was later recruited to be the President and CFO of Mor Furniture for Less.  He grew Mor from a $38M specialty bedroom retailer operating as Bedroom Superstore to a $350M+ full-line furniture retailer operating in 7 Western states before leading its sale to Healthcare Co., Ltd., a public company listed on the Shanghai Stock Exchange. Jeff continues to serve as an active advisor to Mor. 

Jeff has invested and is a current or former board member of numerous companies including Mor Furniture, Wesco Management, P2Binvestor, Sightly, Bitmo, PUP Protector, Spotted Fox and Poe Advertising. He has investments in over 50 private companies and venture funds, and actively advises many of the companies.

Jeff is a graduate of Fresno State University with a bachelor’s degree in accounting and is also a CPA (inactive). He enjoys traveling, hiking, wine and great food.

Home Base
Reno, NV

Kimberly Davis King

BOARD ADVISOR

Kim brings a well-rounded venture capital experience as a partner-level investor, board member, advisor, and mentor to startups and high-growth companies. She is currently a Director of StartR at the UCSD Rady School of Management, and a lecturer at UCSD and SDSU and till recently, also served as a Partner at The Launch Factory. Previously, Kim was a General Partner with IDG Ventures from 1997 to 2006 where she played an active role in managing and investing a $120M captive fund focused on software and technology infrastructure. Her successful IPO investments included F5 Networks (FFIV) and VA Linux (LINUX). Prior to joining IDG Ventures, she established the San Diego office for Hercules Technology Growth Capital, worked as an associate at BankAmerica Ventures, served as a product manager in the Multimedia Publishing Group at Microsoft and spent four years as a consultant at Andersen Consulting in Silicon Valley.

Kim is particularly focused on impact investing -- she is involved with Founders First Capital FastPath as a Facilitator and Coach, is a current member of Broadway Angels, Alliance of Healthcare Foundation's impact investment committee as well as EvoNexus' selection committee. Kim is also an avid angel investor and is a current or former board or advisory member of numerous companies including GenesisX, New Voice Learning, Interos, Founders First Capital Partners, OmniSync, and Good Face Project.

Kim holds a B.S. in Industrial Engineering from Stanford University and an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School. She enjoys spending time with her family, traveling, teaching, reading, and wine tasting.

HOME BASE
San Diego, CA

Marcos Santos Rivera

board advisor

Marcos is an industry-renowned SaaS pricing expert and currently serves as the Founder and CEO of Pricing I/O – a leading advisory firm that provides tailored pricing strategies and execution support to SaaS founders across the globe. Marcos has successfully supported numerous organizations in their pricing efforts across 200+ SaaS products ranging from the automotive industry to the medical services field and everything in between. Prior to founding Pricing I/O, Marcos worked as an executive focused on portfolio operations with Vista Equity Partners and as a product management leader at a KKR private equity owned insurance technology company.

Marcos has a B.S. and an M.B.A. from University of California, San Diego. When not working with his clients at Pricing I/O, Marcos loves spending time with his young family and working on his upcoming book Street Pricing: A Pricing Playlist for Hip Leaders in SaaS.

HOME BASE
San Diego, CA

Pooja Sinha Skogstad

board advisor

Pooja is an adept investor, advisor and commercially driven operations leader, with fifteen years of experience in the technology, digital media, and financial services industries across the US, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland. Currently, Pooja is chief commercial officer & co-founder of an early-stage sustainable consumer delivery company in Norway. Previously, Pooja served as COO, N. Europe for the online classifieds division, as well as a VP at Schibsted Media Group — Scandinavia’s largest media conglomerate. Previously, she was a private banker at JPMorgan where she advised ultra-high net worth individuals and family offices in NY and across the EMEA region.  

A singular calling in her life has been education — she is an undergraduate Admissions Reader for Dartmouth College, a member of the College's EMEA Regional Campaign Committee, and a Director of Phillips Exeter Academy’s General Alumni Association. At this moment in her career, she is most drawn to technology serving the intersection of business and society, and to connect investors around shared purpose.  

A native New Yorker, she resides in Oslo, Norway with her husband and their three young boys. Pooja received her B.A. in French honors from Dartmouth College and an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School. 

HOME BASE
Oslo, Norway

Raj Pudipeddi

board advisor

Raj currently serves as the Chief Product and Marketing Officer for Align Technology as well as its Managing Director of the Asia Pacific region. Through his dual roles, Raj has global responsibility for Product, Marketing, Strategy and the Clinical teams as well as responsibility for the market development and operational execution of all Align Technology products and services in the Asia Pacific region. Raj also serves on the Board of Sonendo, a leading Dental technology company and developer of the GentleWave® System.

Raj is an accomplished executive with around three decades of business leadership and brand building experience across consumer goods and telecom. Prior to joining Align in 2019, he served as Chief Marketing Officer and Director, Consumer Business at Bharti Airtel, an Indian telecom leader. Raj started his career at Procter & Gamble and served in a number of leadership roles across businesses in North America, Asia and Latin America.

Raj earned an M.B.A. degree from the Indian Institute of Management, Lucknow and a Bachelor of Engineering degree from the Gandhi Institute of Technology in India. He lives in Cincinnati along with his wife, Swapna and their children, Nikki and Sid. He enjoys tasting and collecting good wine, reading and traveling.

HOME BASE
Cincinnati, OH

Vittal Kadapakkam

board advisor

Vittal currently serves as the Chief Finance Officer at Juul Labs, a company whose mission is to transition the world’s billion adult smokers away from combustible cigarettes, eliminate their use, and combat underage usage of its products. He had previously also served as Juul’s Chief Strategy Officer. He has a decade of experience in public and private financial markets with a focus on investing in technology companies while at Millennium Management, Corvex Management, and KKR. He began his career in consumer/retail investment banking at Goldman Sachs. 

Vittal has a B.A. in Economics from Princeton University and splits his time between Washington DC and NYC when not traveling for work.

HOME BASE
Miami, FL