OVO Fund

Eric Chen is a pre-seed venture investor at OVO, a Menlo Park-based firm he has run since around 2014 that specializes in first-institutional checks at the earliest ("negative one to zero") stage. Over roughly a decade, OVO has backed startups that collectively raised more than $5.7 billion, with a portfolio including 8 unicorns and 2 IPOs across companies such as PayJoy, Sourcegraph, Addepar, Everlaw, and Juniper Square. Chen is known for hands-on diligence — he personally visited PayJoy's first store to try the product before writing their first check. OVO is currently investing from its third fund of $52 million, writing checks of $250k–$750k.

Gianfranco Filice is a Partner at OVO Fund, where he invests $250K–$750K in pre-product, pre-revenue founders, typically as the lead investor. OVO provided the first check into companies including Palantir, Wish, Sourcegraph, Addepar, Everlaw, and Signifyd, as well as Haize Labs, Tilde Labs, Context AI, and Accordance. Before OVO, Filice worked in TMT investment banking at Barclays and growth equity investing at Realization Capital, and he holds a degree in Economics from Stanford University.

Rene J Caissie is the Co-Founder and CEO of Medeloop, a HealthTech company. His stated interests include healthcare policy, regulatory frameworks for medical research, and the development of HealthTech products.

Adam Kaufman is the founder and general partner of the Up2 Opportunity Fund, an early-stage venture capital fund, and manager of Ohio Ovo Fund III, LLC. He is a limited partner in Ovo Fund and Ovo Fund 2, where he also serves on the LP Advisory Committee as a Venture Partner, and he advises and serves on the boards of growth-stage companies. Kaufman hosts the Up2 podcast, founded the Up2 leadership gathering, has served as Cleveland Chapter president of the Entrepreneurs' Organization, and has guest lectured at Oberlin College's Entrepreneurship Program.

Steve Ciesinski is founder and managing partner of Vencrest Partners, where he invests in and advises international venture capital funds and private technology companies. He previously served as president of SRI International and held C-level positions at Applied Materials, Octel Communications, and Resumix, and began his career at Procter & Gamble before working at Booz, Allen & Hamilton and Earlybird Ventures. He has been a faculty member at Stanford's Graduate School of Business for 15 years, teaching venture capital and entrepreneurship, and holds a BSEE and AB from Union College and an MBA from Stanford University.