Sand Hill Angels

Entrepreneur, leadership coach and non-profit board member with 20+ years of experience starting and operating businesses.

Co-founder and SVP of engineering at Centrify with 25+ years in high technology across engineering, executive management and entrepreneurship.

Engineering leader at Facebook's Reality Labs and a longtime Silicon Valley technologist and investor.

Akash Pai is founder of ZERObrush, a digital health company that uses AI and 3D scanning technology to manufacture custom oral care devices. He has raised over $11 million with backing from P&G Oral Care and manufacturing partnership with HP, and previously led product organizations at Microsoft and Intuit, where he built the Advertising Exchange and Payment Data Platform respectively. Pai holds 14 patents and is currently an angel investor and board member at NuFund Venture Group.

Serial entrepreneur and technology investor; co-founder, chairman and CEO of Iron Speed, Inc., a maker of enterprise application development tools.

Holds a PhD in electrical engineering (power electronics) from Caltech; investor and startup adviser with 50+ US patents awarded.

Amanda Huang is an investor at Sand Hill Angels focusing on AI infrastructure and applications. She brings experience as a founder and operator, having launched two technology ventures including one that went public, and has conducted field research across Southeast Asia and South America. Huang holds an MD and now applies her background in building and scaling businesses to her investment practice.

Amos Ben-Meir is an investor and board director at Sand Hill Angels. He has been involved in six startups as an early employee or founder, with four resulting in exits. Since 2012, his startup investment portfolio has encompassed more than 350 companies, and he serves as an advisor and mentor to entrepreneurs in the San Francisco Bay Area startup ecosystem.

Ankit Khedia is an ML Research Lead at Deccan AI focused on generative AI, diffusion models, vision-language systems, and large language models. He previously held engineering positions at Meta, Google, Amazon, and Goldman Sachs, where he built machine learning systems for search, recommendations, and real-time risk. Khedia is an angel investor in early-stage deep tech ventures with interest in AI applications across creative, healthcare, and enterprise sectors.

Anne Woo is Director in Mission Management for Commercial Payloads at Muon Space. With over 15 years of experience in engineering systems, digital transformation, and cost optimization, she has worked across program management, product strategy, and manufacturing innovation. Her background includes expertise in model-based systems engineering, cost modeling, supply chain optimization, and cross-functional team leadership across complex product development cycles.

Anuj Shah is an angel investor focused on AI and machine learning companies and an advisor to RethinkYearbooks.com and AiMon. He spent over 12 years contributing to Netflix's recommendations system and is a member of Sandhill Angels.

Atika Sanchetee is a Product Lead at Stripe focused on self-serve growth for early-stage startups. Previously, she led product teams at Meta in commerce and monetization, and began her career in investment banking at JPMorgan. She is an active angel investor and board member at Sand Hill Angels.

Angel investor focused on internet, big data, alternative energy and life science.

Baron Cannon is an angel investor with Sand Hill Angels who focuses on technology-driven companies addressing underserved markets in regulated sectors. He brings experience from Catholic secondary education as a teacher and administrator, with background in curriculum development, educational technology, and finance operations. His investment approach emphasizes data-driven platforms and vertical software solutions that provide compliance-secure, capital-efficient alternatives to traditional industries.

CEO of mCube, Inc. with 20+ years of senior management in the semiconductor industry; interested in IoT companies leveraging MEMS motion sensors.

VP of Operations at InMoment and runs a consulting firm providing strategic growth advisory to C-level executives.

Finance and operations executive experienced in corporate development, M&A and CFO/COO roles; currently invests in and advises emerging companies.

Cindy Law is an investor at Sand Hill Angels focused on early-stage startups. She brings eleven years of technology investment banking experience, having advised on over $50 billion in transactions spanning M&A, equity, and debt financings. Her background includes work with leading public and private technology companies on M&A strategy, capital raising, investor relations, and financial reporting.

Craig Harding is a member of Life Science Angels and invests across all sectors through multiple syndicates including NuFund, Sand Hill Angels, Duke Capital Partners, and Salt Lake City Angels. He has background in corporate legal matters, financings, intellectual property, stock option administration, and HR.

Daniel Baker is the founder and former leader of FlightAware, a global flight tracking and aviation data platform acquired by Collins Aerospace in 2021. He holds FAA certifications as a commercial pilot and flight instructor. Baker serves on the board of directors of the National Business Aviation Association and previously served on the boards of the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, the General Aviation Manufacturers Association, and Aspen Public Radio.

CPA and partner at Seiler LLP with 20+ years of accounting experience advising closely held and emerging growth companies.

Dhwani Vyas is a business leader with experience building and scaling hardware and software system businesses. As CEO of FlatFrog Laboratories, he led a strategic repositioning of the company's product and go-to-market strategy, overseeing development of a complete technology stack and scaling commercial deployment and supply chain partnerships across Asia before the company's acquisition. He previously held general management roles at Cypress Semiconductor, NXP Semiconductors, and Philips Electronics, and currently serves in operating, advisory, and board roles with hardware-software companies focused on commercial scaling.

Networking industry veteran with marketing, business development and venture capital management experience in data networking and internet infrastructure.

Executive experienced in innovation, business development and M&A; active startup investor with a portfolio of 25+ mostly digital-technology companies in Brazil and the US.

Elham Ghassemzadeh is an angel investor at Sand Hill Angels with extensive product leadership experience in SaaS, enterprise software, and health tech. Her background includes scaling product teams and organizations while managing customer and partner ecosystems across global markets. She holds expertise in product strategy, organizational development, and identifying strategic alternatives in competitive software markets.

Eric Klein is a Distinguished Scientist at GRAIL who previously served as Emeritus Professor and Chairman of the Glickman Urological and Kidney Institute at Cleveland Clinic and as a Fellow at Stanford University's Distinguished Careers Institute. His background includes expertise in urologic oncology, clinical trial design, cancer biomarker development including isoPSA and OncotypeDX Prostate, medical device development, and healthcare leadership. He is currently focused on advancing blood-based multicancer early detection technologies.

CTO and founder of MeshDynamics, which provides software for mission-critical wireless mesh networks.

High-technology executive with 20+ years in sales, business development and leadership roles.

Engineer and entrepreneur who founded Match.com and Clean Power Finance and has been an angel and VC investor in over 100 companies since 1993.

Gaurav Arora is a Senior Software Development Manager at Workday who leads software development teams building and maintaining tools platforms for application development. His experience includes release planning, project scheduling, progress tracking against milestones, and cross-functional coordination between product management and quality assurance. He has provided mentorship on technical and non-technical matters across multiple organizations.

George Carpenter is President of TCA Venture Group Orange County and has founded and led multiple biomedical startups with combined exit values exceeding $1 billion. He has developed companies integrating clinical data assets with machine learning and clinical algorithms, and currently serves as a limited partner in venture funds focused on small molecule and diagnostic investments utilizing artificial intelligence.

Hand surgeon leading Tri-Valley Orthopedic Specialists' hand surgery team, treating conditions of the hand, wrist and arm.

NY-based venture investor and founder of Evolution Corporate Advisors with investments in 25+ private companies; former head of the private equity group at Cowen & Co.

Gurman Mudahar leads iPhone Product Operations at Apple, where he manages global manufacturing readiness, cost optimization, and integration of emerging technologies. He has background experience in product operations, data science, and finance. Mudahar also invests in early-stage companies and venture funds focused on AI, software, and emerging platforms.

Hari Ganti is a Product and Strategy Leader at Amazon Luna with over 20 years of experience in cloud infrastructure, GPU-accelerated compute, and distributed systems. At Amazon, he leads product and strategy initiatives focused on high-performance cloud infrastructure, achieving significant cost reductions and performance improvements through ML-driven scaling and edge compute optimization. His background includes roles at Dolby, Qualcomm, and work across spatial audio, 4G/5G, and satellite technologies, with a track record of scaling businesses to $100M+ in revenue.

Angel investor with a portfolio spanning healthcare, IT and clean-tech; former senior engineering manager at Google who led its early testing services teams.

Software engineer specializing in scalable web, mobile and desktop applications, requirements gathering and QA.

Coordinates Sand Hill Angels RAW.

Ilan Sarveswaran is a Data Engineer at Apple with two decades of IT industry experience. He specializes in building scalable data pipelines and applying AI/ML technologies to business problems. Sarveswaran serves as an angel investor supporting startups across multiple sectors.

Iolanda Antunes is a Product Manager focused on AI-native systems at LinkedIn, where she develops products spanning agents, memory systems, workflow automation, and creative tooling. Her work centers on translating frontier model capabilities into human-centered products with emphasis on safety, reliability, and trustworthiness. She has experience in early-stage product development, prototyping with modern AI builder tools, and defining interaction patterns between products and AI models.

Istvan Szanda is a growth-stage operator with over 15 years of experience scaling technically complex, regulated healthcare and medical device businesses. He specializes in organizational design and operating systems, focusing on decision rights, incentives, and execution cadence to transition R&D-driven innovation into scalable revenue platforms. Szanda serves as an angel investor and B2C co-chair at Sand Hill Angels, and advises founders on governance and value creation.

Former president and CEO of Tensilica, which he led through a turnaround culminating in its sale to Cadence in 2013.

James Lougheed brings three decades of semiconductor and electronics industry experience, including leadership roles at MaxLinear, Exar Corporation, and Cirrus Logic. He is founder and chair of YaJa Ventures, through which he invests across deeptech, fintech, and sportstech sectors, with portfolio holdings exceeding 100 technology companies and sports franchises. Lougheed also holds positions at Silicon Catalyst, Scalare Partners, and multiple advisory boards, and holds equity stakes in Leeds United Football Club and Venezia FC.

Angel investor interested in big data, machine learning, fintech and life sciences, with software and ML experience at Facebook, Airbnb and Expedia.

Jane Beal is a Broker Associate at Coldwell Banker Realty with expertise in Silicon Valley real estate, including bank-owned properties, short sales, and 1031 exchanges. She brings prior experience in finance and office management, along with knowledge of property construction, flipping, and management. Beal offers cross-cultural communication skills in Mandarin Chinese and Japanese, and specializes in contract negotiation and risk analysis.

Serial entrepreneur and GE-trained leader who built businesses and led turnarounds at General Electric and General Motors divisions.

Private investor with a background in venture capital and private equity, skilled in cross-border investment; Haas School of Business graduate.

Executive with 25+ years developing and managing software for distributed systems, middleware and embedded devices across internet, mobile and enterprise.

Joav Bally is Group Vice President of Product Management & Engineering for Platform & Analytics at Oracle NetSuite, where he leads a global organization developing agentic and LLM-powered enterprise solutions. With over 20 years of experience as a product and engineering executive, he oversees the strategy and delivery of AI-driven capabilities including developer assistants, analytics agents, and enterprise AI connectors designed for production-scale deployment. His work focuses on translating AI innovation into platform solutions that enable customers and partners to build and customize AI-powered functionality within enterprise systems.

Venture capital professional with more than 21 years of industry experience.

Leader in information management and business intelligence and president of NAVinture, a technology firm focused on advanced analytics.

Manages Infinite Community Ventures, a social venture fund focused on sustainability, equitable empowerment and the arts; advocate for women and BIPOC in leadership and STEM.

Karl Lehenbauer is the principal architect of FlightAware's flight tracking technologies and cofounder of the company. He has spent decades designing and managing development of large, real-time applications in aerospace, energy, and oilfield sectors, and founded the first Internet service provider in the Southern United States in the 1990s. His technical contributions include work on the Tcl programming language, multiple open source projects dating to the mid-1980s, and engine monitoring systems at GE Aircraft Instruments. He currently invests through Sand Hill Angels and competes in Trans-Am TA racing, winning the 2015 Texas Region points championship in the Super Unlimited category.

Runs finance and bookkeeping for Sand Hill Angels.

Runs operations, screening and membership for Sand Hill Angels; with the group since 2013.

Entrepreneur experienced across IoT, marketplace, services, fashion and diversity and inclusion.

Technology professional and early pre-IPO Cisco Systems employee with expertise in enterprise software and networking; active angel investor.

Komal Kashiramka is CEO and Founder of Poshan, Inc., which operates Poshan.us and RotiTales.com. She brings over 20 years of technology experience from roles at Meta, Microsoft, and GoPuff, where she built and scaled cross-functional teams and delivered products serving millions of users globally. Earlier in her career, she developed mobile applications at Bolly Geeks by identifying market gaps and focusing on user-centered design.

Founder and CEO of Dexati, a mobile photography apps company; former software architect at Autodesk and Sunrun.

Engineering and program management professional with ten years of software/firmware development experience.

Lenord Melvix is a Senior Staff Software Engineer at Google with over 10 years of experience in machine learning, computer vision, and geospatial data. He is an active angel investor with Sandhill Angels focusing on seed-stage enterprise software companies, and an ICF-certified career coach offering services to Google employees.

Financial services veteran with 30 years, mostly at GE Capital across Asia, deploying capital in private equity, high-yield lending, project finance and distressed debt.

Lewis Liu is a product leader currently at Microsoft who previously led product development for the Gemini API on Vertex AI at Google. He has founded and scaled multiple products from inception, including Gemini, PaLM, Enterprise Knowledge Graph, Document AI, and AutoML, several of which generated revenue. Liu advises startups and focuses on developer experience and product strategy in generative AI platforms.

Malathi Jivan is Vice President of Product Management at Ford Credit, where she focuses on AI and payments strategy. Previously, she held product roles at Amazon, Uber, and eBay, and holds 10 U.S. patents in areas including predictive AI, digital identity, e-commerce, and payments infrastructure. She began her career as a software development engineer.

Senior software product executive with expertise in cloud computing, mobile commerce and gaming, messaging platforms and system management.

Executive with 25+ years growing businesses across control systems, telecom, networking and manufacturing; began her career at GM Advanced Manufacturing Research.

Entrepreneur and software engineer who founded and sold CodeSourcery to Mentor Graphics, where he managed a business unit of ~150 people.

Former director of Twitter University who co-founded Marakana (acquired by Twitter); board member and investor at Sand Hill Angels.

Mary Guan is a Senior Director of US Marketing and Market Development at CMR Surgical, where she leads the US launch of the company's robotic surgical platform. Previously, she held positions at Intuitive, Abbott, and Danaher, with experience in strategy, commercialization, and business development across medical devices, diagnostics, and biopharma. Her background includes product launches in interventional cardiology, interventional pulmonology, in vitro diagnostics, and soft tissue surgery, with geographic experience spanning the US, Asia Pacific, and Europe.

Michael Wang is co-founder, CEO, and CTO at MirraViz. He brings 25 years of experience in research and development, technology strategy, and manufacturing scale-up operations. His background includes leadership roles focused on cost optimization and production yields.

Minni Shahi is Vice President of Product Management at Workday. With over 20 years of experience in product management and engineering, Shahi holds an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and a Master's degree in Computer Science.

Engineer-turned-entrepreneur-turned-investor with 23+ years in the technology and tech investment space.

Founder and former CEO of Annams Systems Corporation/Sunflower Systems, which he founded in 1992 and sold in 2019.

Nick Kim is the founder of a stealth-stage company working on AI and consumer products, and advises startups on fundraising and AI adoption. He previously spent more than five years in venture capital at DIP Capital, where, as the fund's first analyst, he deployed €50M across 10 portfolio companies in four countries, including Hero, Refurbed, and Everli. His earlier career included M&A at PwC and corporate development at Princelet Partners, and he holds an MSc from the London School of Economics.

Nick Steiner is a Partner at BPM LLP and an Angel Investor at Sand Hill Angels. As a CPA, he has served mid-market technology companies with expertise in revenue recognition, accounting, auditing, SEC matters, and GAAP compliance.

President of International Computer Technology, a systems integrator partnering with major Japanese firms; involved in M&A and investments across the US, Japan and China.

Oriana Li Halevy is a strategic advisor and investor at Caritas Ventures with a background in corporate law, cross-border business consulting, and interpretation. She focuses on two investment tracks: frontier technology, data economy, and applied AI, alongside intellectual and ethical formation of emerging leaders. Her professional experience bridging complex ideas across cultures and disciplines informs her work as an investor, advisor, educator, and mentor.

Patrick Ryan is an attorney and angel investor who serves as fractional general counsel to early-stage founders in aerospace, fintech, health, and frontier technology sectors. Previously, he led security, privacy, and policy initiatives at Google and TikTok, taught at CU Boulder, and represented the U.S. and Google in international internet governance matters. He is licensed to practice law in California, New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Colorado.

Software and electronics industry veteran with 30+ years; began his career at Bell Laboratories developing IC design verification software.

Senior executive experienced in building high-growth SaaS software and telecommunications hardware and services businesses.

Private equity leader with experience as both a general partner and limited partner over the past 12 years.

Chairman of FusionOps Inc and board member of Cadence Design Systems.

Raj Kapany serves as a member and investor at Sand Hill Angels and holds board positions at Lightwave Construction Inc., IKitchens Inc., Phonehut, UC Santa Cruz, the Sikh Foundation, and CoreOptix. His background spans founding and leading companies across sales, business development, and general management, with experience in startup finance, strategic partnerships, and mergers and acquisitions.

Raj Rao is Senior Director of Enterprise Software at NVIDIA's Enterprise Computing Product Group. With over 25 years of experience, he has held core engineering, general management, and strategic business development positions across AI, deep learning, data science, graphics, cloud, and mobile industries.

CEO of QASource, recognized for over 20 years as an expert in building and managing high-performing engineering teams.

Ralph Eschenbach is Vice President at Sand Hill Angels and serves on the Board of Directors at Peloton Technology. He has held various technical and general management positions and maintains board roles in several private high-technology companies. His expertise encompasses small company management and corporate governance.

Executive with a technical background in photonics, semiconductors, telecom and life science; author of 150+ scientific publications and holder of a PhD in physics.

Revital Padovitz is founder and product advisor at Invergency, where she coaches founders, product leaders, and technology professionals on leadership, organizational dynamics, and strategic decision-making. She spent two decades in product leadership roles at Meta, Microsoft, and startups, and has facilitated programs including "Influence Without Authority" for product leads at Fortune 500 companies and a cohort on AI navigation for Women in Product. Padovitz also invests in early-stage health and technology startups and serves on advisory boards for nonprofit communities.

VP of product development at Xpedion Design Systems, building RFIC design and analysis tools for the wireless and semiconductor industry.

Rolando Bonilla is Chief Strategy Officer at Voler Strategic Advisors. He previously held positions in San Francisco government, including service on multiple city commissions and as chair of the Finance Committee of the San Francisco Juvenile Probation Commission overseeing a $30+ million budget, and later served as communications director for a San José Council member and chair of the San José Planning Commission. He founded a public relations firm in 2010 and holds a BA in Politics from the University of San Francisco and a JD from San Francisco Law School.

Technologist with deep technical expertise, business acumen and leadership skills.

Insurance industry executive with 25+ years of experience, published author and speaker, and instructor for Wharton's CEBS program.

Sameer Nanda is a Venture Resident at Geek Ventures and an angel investor with thirty years of engineering leadership experience at NVIDIA and Google, where he worked on systems software, operating systems, and cloud infrastructure. He focuses his investment activities on agentic workforce automation, AI infrastructure and developer tools, and cloud-native systems. Nanda engages with founders and investors to evaluate early-stage companies and support technology development.

Sanjay Khanna is Vice President of Product Management at Extreme Networks, bringing over 30 years of experience in product management and engineering across data center, service provider, and telecom sectors. He has led multiple products through conception, development, and launch, and manages teams of product managers. His domain expertise encompasses networking technologies including SDN, NFV, virtualization, MPLS, BGP, and cloud networking architectures.

Sapna Kaupur is founder and chief executive officer of DexterityX LLC. She has held operations leadership roles at Google and multiple high-growth technology companies, with expertise in operating model design, organizational scaling, and financial strategy across SaaS, AdTech, and AI-enabled eCommerce. Her experience includes acquiring and operating a multi-brand AI-enabled eCommerce portfolio and integrating six consumer brands into a unified operating platform.

Sayed Khatwa is Director of Program Management for Geo at Google, leading the program management organization supporting the Google Maps developer ecosystem and B2B business. He previously spent nearly six years at Meta as Senior Manager of Technical Program Management for Developer Infrastructure, where he oversaw portfolios in data privacy and reliability engineering and managed technical integrations for M&A activity. Earlier in his career, he served as Vice President of Operations at Ericsson, leading large-scale digital services programs and implementing a capacity-based operating model that scaled across North America and globally. Khatwa holds a bachelor's degree in Telecommunications Engineering from Alexandria University and an MBA from Concordia University.

Scott Mirer is a member of Sand Hill Angels with prior experience at Netflix. He holds an MBA from UC Berkeley's Haas School of Business and an MS in Applied Mathematics from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. His background includes executive roles in partner programs, product management, business development, professional services, and software engineering, with expertise in partnerships, product management, and leadership development.

Scott Scheeler is an executive advisor at Nokia with experience in hardware product development and multi-national team leadership. He previously led hardware platform development at Cisco that generated over $20 billion in annual revenue while managing teams across five geographic regions, and served on multiple boards and advisory roles. His background includes expertise in enterprise technology, sustainability integration across product lifecycles, and representation on corporate sustainability initiatives.

Srini Srinivasan is CEO of nHansa, where he focuses on safety and performance in autonomous transportation systems. With over 35 years of experience across product management, engineering, and general management, he has worked in automotive, industrial automation, and aerospace sectors, with expertise spanning embedded software, data analytics, control systems, and safety certification. Previously, he founded EASI, an analytics company for wireless networks, and served as founding CEO of TimeSys, an embedded Linux firm serving automotive and aerospace markets; earlier, he co-led an engineering team at Westinghouse Electric on digital safety systems for nuclear power plants. Srinivasan holds an MBA from Wharton and engineering degrees from the University of Houston and IIT Madras.

Founder and managing director of Bodega Partners; active in Silicon Valley as a startup CFO, angel investor and professor.

Marketing and strategy leader for high-tech companies with consulting experience at McKinsey and Accenture; has worked in startups for over 12 years.

Suraj Kholwadwala is a Research Engineer II at Shockwave Medical, a Johnson & Johnson MedTech company, where he works on preclinical development of medical devices. His responsibilities include designing and executing animal and cadaver studies, developing protocols, coordinating with external laboratories, analyzing data, and collaborating across R&D, regulatory, intellectual property, marketing, and human factors functions. He focuses on evaluating the clinical significance and technical feasibility of early-stage device concepts.

Tianyu Zhao is a mechanical engineer at Advanced Energy with manufacturing expertise and experience in cross-functional project management. He is a member of Sand Hill Angels.

Cross-functional operator and angel investor; product management leader at SoFi with an affinity for fintech, B2B SaaS and biotech.

Senior portfolio and relationship manager at CIBC Private Wealth Management's San Francisco office with 19 years of experience.

Global head of finance at Imaginable Futures, overseeing the firm's finance and accounting.

Vyoma Gajjar is a Senior Principal AI Architect at ServiceNow, where he works on generative AI and agentic workflow deployment for enterprise customers, building Python-based tooling to translate customer workflows into evaluation requirements and deployment-readiness criteria. Previously, he led Forward Deployed Engineering at Galileo AI, focusing on generative AI evaluation and observability for enterprise deployments across RAG and agent systems, and spent nine years at IBM building and deploying AI systems in regulated environments including governance infrastructure and applied machine learning systems. His work centers on bridging the gap between AI prototypes and production systems, with expertise in agent evaluation, retrieval-quality measurement, AI observability, and deployment-readiness assessments for generative AI workflows.

Holds computer science degrees from Chinese universities and is a Bay Area real estate investor and broker/manager.

Wei Wang is the owner of AI & Infrastructure GTM Advisory at Tulip Bloom Marketing, bringing over 20 years of enterprise technology go-to-market experience across VMware, Cisco, and SAP. His background includes category creation work with major analysts, management of complex multi-persona sales cycles, and portfolio expansion from $50M to $650M in regulated product lines. Over the past 2.5 years, Wang has focused on the energy transition and data-center infrastructure as a writer and advisor, with particular expertise in the intersection of energy, AI infrastructure, and hyperscaler procurement.

Ya Tuo is founding partner and CEO of YaJa Ventures, an investment firm focused on deep tech, fintech, and sports. With over 20 years of experience across arts, hospitality, fashion, sports, and technology sectors, Tuo has invested in more than 100 technology startups and sports franchises, and holds positions as a general partner at FanClub Sports Capital and an investment partner in Leeds United Football Club and Venezia FC. Tuo has completed Stanford University's VC Unlocked Program and Food & Health certificate, speaks Mandarin, Cantonese, and English, and serves as a judge at pitch and demo days.