Joyance Partners

Arjun Arora is Managing Partner at Format One, which he founded. He advises funds, startups, limited partners, and Fortune 100 companies on strategy, go-to-market, product, monetization, and fundraising, and maintains an active individual investment portfolio that includes positions in Anthropic, OpenAI, Perplexity, Lyft, Flexport, Notion, and Anduril, among others. Previously, he was a partner at 500 Startups, founded and sold ReTargeter to Sellpoints, served as chair of the Saint Francis Foundation's board, and held roles in business development and investment banking; he holds a degree in electrical engineering and computer science with a focus on entrepreneurship and technology from UC Berkeley.

Bradley Welch has worked as a venture investor and operator for over 14 years, previously serving as a Partner at Tusk Ventures and an Investment Partner at Morpheus Ventures. He was a Principal at BMW iVentures focused on AI and DeepTech investments, built AI product roadmaps at Argus (later acquired by Continental AG), and began his career on Morgan Stanley's Equity Capital Markets desk as its Technology Sector Specialist. He holds a BA in Economics from Duke University and an MBA from Harvard Business School.

Charles C Smith has been a New York-based angel investor since the mid-2000s, investing in more than a dozen companies and holding roles or board seats at ten others. He founded Extension Entertainment, a social music discovery platform, and owns The Ineo Group LLC. His prior operating roles include Vice President at Etsy, Vice President of Sales at Tacoda, and Executive Vice President of Corporate Development and Planning at RealMedia.

Jon Low is an executive coach and advisor to founders and their core teams, with professional experience across design and engineering, training and facilitation, and systems modeling and decision-making. At Format One, he works with founding teams from seed to scale on areas such as fundraising, board leadership, team alignment, culture development, conflict resolution, and accountability.

Michelle Zhou is Co-founder and CEO of Juji, Inc., a California-based company building Cognitive AI Assistants delivered as chatbots, and works in Human-Centered AI at the intersection of AI and Human-Computer Interaction. She has authored more than 100 scientific publications and 45 patent applications covering conversational AI, personality analytics, and interactive visual analytics. She previously spent 15 years at IBM Research and the IBM Watson Group leading Human-Centered AI work, including IBM Watson Personality Insights, and holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Columbia University.

Alice Ko has over 15 years of business development experience across industries including food and entertainment, with skills in financial analysis, mergers and acquisitions, venture investments, and marketing. She has lived in Hong Kong, Australia, and Japan and speaks Cantonese, English, Japanese, and Mandarin. She holds an MBA from Keio Business School and a dual bachelor's degree in Business and International Studies from the University of Technology Sydney.

Andrew Nealon has worked in technology development in New York City for more than a decade. Before Joyance, he founded and ran operations for Insert Culture, a New York development firm focused on API and data development. At Joyance, he handles special projects, data analysis, and the technical needs of portfolio companies. He holds an MS in Media Management and Theory from the New School and a BA in Speech and Rhetoric from Oregon State University.

Kosho Sato is an investor at Joyance Partners. Before joining the firm, he led projects at a CPG company spanning startup investments, business development, financial modeling, and business unit reorganization, and previously worked at Japan's Ministry of Finance on the use of national properties. He holds a BA in Economics from Waseda University in Japan and an MBA from IMD Business School in Switzerland.

Shunya Tachibana has more than 15 years of experience across financial accounting, management consulting, and business development. He began his career at Deloitte and later worked at Accenture on projects spanning new business development, business process reengineering, and systems integration. At a Japanese CPG company, he worked with the corporate R&D team, led business development projects, and managed financial governance and the operation of investment units. He holds a BA in Commerce from Hitotsubashi University and is a CPA in Japan.

Thibaud Aguettaz focuses on European investments and has worked as an M&A professional for over a decade, holding advisory roles at banks and consulting firms as well as a position at a major FMCG company, where he completed strategic M&A deals, joint venture agreements, and organic growth initiatives. He holds a Master's in Industrial Engineering and a Master's in Corporate Finance, and is an ACCA member.

Thibault Vanvincq focuses on next-generation food and beverage startups. He previously handled Corporate Development at a large FMCG company, working on M&A, contract manufacturing and licensing agreements, and new category market entries, and has experience in early-stage investing across North America and Europe. He began his career at an independent merchant bank in Paris and holds a Master's degree from HEC Lausanne in Switzerland.

Julius Bachmann is the founder of Bachmann Catalyst, an advisory firm serving entrepreneurs and CEOs on high-stakes decisions. He has previously worked as an investor and technology CFO, and has advised over 200 entrepreneurs and venture investors on strategic decision-making. Bachmann has published essays in Forbes, Capital, Sifted, and Business Insider, and is writing a book on leadership and relational responsibility.

Anne DeGheest is a healthcare executive, entrepreneur, and angel investor focused on the digital health sector. She founded MedStars in 1986, which works with corporations and entrepreneurs building life sciences companies, and in 2010 founded HealthTech Capital, an investor group funding and mentoring healthtech startups. She holds an MBA from Harvard and a Master's in Business Engineering from the University of Brussels.

Avi Golan spent nearly 20 years in Silicon Valley in leadership roles at companies including Google, Intuit, and Air New Zealand, leading organizations, products, and programs across multiple verticals, following 12 years in technology and leadership roles at software startups. He sits on the boards of several private companies from early to late stage and mentors founders on go-to-market, globalization, product, and technology. His investment focus areas include AI, big data, robotics, and life sciences.

Deborah Lafer Scher works on building public/private partnerships aimed at accelerating growth and implementing large-scale solutions. She has held C-Suite roles in the private sector and served as Executive Advisor to four U.S. Presidential Cabinet Secretaries across two administrations, most recently as Executive Advisor to the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, where she led the Secretary's Center for Strategic Partnerships. She currently serves as a Board Director and Senior Advisor for several organizations.

Dor Sela is a global executive with a background in consumer goods and retail/ad tech, having worked at P&G, Reckitt Benckiser, and Carrefour over 15 years before leading global consumer marketing at MasterCard. More recently he has spent about a decade helping scale early-stage companies, focusing on brand building, retail strategy, DTC growth, influencer marketing, and emerging technologies including AI. He currently serves on the boards or advisory boards of several companies and lectures at the Leeds School of Business at CU Boulder.

Ed Keller specializes in word of mouth, influencer marketing, and consumer insights, with experience as both an entrepreneur in social data and analytics and an executive at agencies where he built and sold businesses, launched data platforms, and managed global teams. He currently leads The Keller Advisory Group, providing board and advisory services to growth-stage companies in SaaS, data/analytics, and market research. He is also a Visiting Scholar at UPenn's Annenberg School for Communication and has authored two business books.

Elizabeth Lim has more than 20 years of experience in brand marketing and business strategy across the beauty, wellness, and e-commerce sectors, with senior roles at Shiseido, L'Oréal, Estée Lauder, and Hain Celestial. She previously served as SVP at the beauty brand Essie, which was acquired by L'Oréal during her tenure. Since 2016 she has worked as an operator, advisor, and fractional CMO, helping high-growth brands with positioning, product innovation, creative direction, and business modeling.

Gary Dushnitsky is an Associate Professor of Strategy and Entrepreneurship at London Business School and a Senior Fellow at the Mack Institute for Innovation Management at the Wharton School. His research focuses on entrepreneurial finance, including corporate venture capital, crowdfunding, and accelerators, and has been published in journals such as Organization Science, Strategic Management Journal, and Nature Biotechnology. He is Co-Editor of the Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal, a Senior Editor at Organization Science, and advises corporations in financial services, FMCG, clean tech, and pharma on corporate venturing.

Juan Cueva is Senior Director of Early Innovation Partnering at Johnson & Johnson Innovation's California Innovation Center in San Francisco, where he works on pharmaceutical innovation across neuroscience and discovery and product development, negotiating licensing, collaboration, and investment deals. He previously served as Investor and Board Observer at Action Potential Venture Capital, focusing on bioelectronic therapeutic technologies, and held roles in venture capital, management consulting, and business development at Ultragenyx Pharmaceuticals. He also mentors underrepresented students in STEM.

Kevin Dasch has more than 20 years of experience in technology companies across software, social media, and gaming. He held leadership roles at startups including YouEarnedIt, Mass Relevance (later merged with Spredfast), and IMVU, and previously led the corporate strategy group at Dell Inc. He holds a B.A. in History from Princeton University and an M.B.A. in Finance and Accounting from the McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas at Austin.

Kevin Li began his career in KPMG's Private Enterprise and Deal Advisory practice, drawing on a background in accounting, due diligence, and strategy. He now focuses on investing in health companies. He holds a BA in Economics and a BS in Business Administration from UC Berkeley Haas and an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.

Maria Zhang is VP of Engineering at Google and has held VP of Engineering roles at Meta, LinkedIn, Tinder, and Yahoo. She was a Venture Partner at IDG Capital and founded Alike, a mobile local recommendation app acquired by Yahoo in 2013, with earlier engineering and product roles at Microsoft, Zillow.com, and NetIQ Corp. She earned degrees in Mathematics, Computer Science, and Economics from the University of East Michigan and Tsinghua University.

Mark Blake previously served as Global Head of Strategy, Corporate Development, and Venture Investing at S&P Global, and held corporate development and strategy leadership roles at Nielsen, Cardinal Health, Medco Health Solutions, and Avaya. Earlier in his career he worked as a turnaround consultant at AlixPartners, an investment banker at Merrill Lynch, and a consultant at Price Waterhouse. He holds a bachelor's degree in government from Harvard University and an MBA in finance and accounting from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.

Nobuhiro Takanuma focuses on FMCG-related technology and businesses. He has over 20 years of experience across consumer goods, next-generation food, airline, and management consulting, including helping establish a seasoning joint venture in Indonesia and working on business portfolio changes at FMCG conglomerates in Japan; his consulting work involved due diligence, market forecasting, and financial modeling. He holds a BA in Management from Keio University.

Patrick Nicoll has a transactional legal background covering project finance, capital markets, bankruptcy, and restructuring. He previously worked as an attorney in the New York office of Latham & Watkins and studied law at the University of Notre Dame Law School.

Philip Kalikman is a University Assistant Professor of Real Estate, Finance, and Economics at the University of Cambridge, researching areas such as mortgage default and prepayment, housing market dynamics, macroprudential policy, and financial crises using structural, computational, and AI/ML models. Before his PhD he worked at a real estate hedge fund, as a consulting economic policy advisor to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and U.S. Senators, and in fintech venture capital. He holds an MA, MPhil, and PhD in Economics from Yale University and a BA in pure Mathematics from the University of Chicago, and he advises fintech startups, venture capital firms, hedge funds, and real estate firms.

Richard Pieters has held C-suite positions at DSM, GE, and Zymergen, leading cross-functional teams across chemicals, materials, and biotech. His background spans organic growth and M&A strategies, with roles across Europe, Asia, and the Americas. He holds an Aerospace Degree from the University of Applied Sciences in Haarlem and an MBA from the University of Twente in The Netherlands, and is a certified 6Sigma Master Black Belt.

Shan Yang has worked in commercializing genomics and diagnostic technologies, having led U.S. market entry and revenue growth for spatial transcriptomics at Complete Genomics and worked on oncology marketing and medical affairs at Illumina and Invitae. Her background covers business development, AI-driven analytics, and startup valuation. She holds a Ph.D. in Biochemistry from Penn State and an MBA from Wharton, and focuses on early-stage health-tech investments.