GNVC Finals Livestream

Lance Dietz joined KB Partners in 2018 as part of the investment team. He currently serves as a board member for KB Partners’ portfolio companies Asensei, Compliable, Stadium Live, Status Pro and Tribe Fitness, and as a board observer for Alembic, ANGLR, PandaScore, PickUp, and Rupie. Previously, he served as a board observer for Repeat.gg (acquired by Sony Interactive Entertainment).

Prior to joining KB Partners, Lance was an investment banker with J.P. Morgan where he managed M&A and capital raising transactions for companies in the building products, packaging and distribution sectors. Previously, he served for five years as an Engineer Officer in the U.S. Army with assignments in Germany, Afghanistan and the U.S.

Lance is an honor graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point where he was recruited to play men’s Division I basketball, and holds an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. He is an improving golfer, intermediate snowboarder, avid traveler and dabbling magician.

Melissa Harris began her career as a journalist, capping 15 years in media as a business columnist for the Chicago Tribune. While earning her MBA from the Chicago Booth, Melissa joined a real estate private equity firm as vice president of marketing.

Facing a mountain of MBA student debt and with a newborn infant, Melissa took the greatest risk of her life: She left the world of private equity to start her own company. Three years later, M. Harris & Co. has become one of the fastest-growing marketing firms in the Midwest.

Jason Heltzer began his career in venture capital in 2001 and is currently a managing partner at Origin Ventures. Heltzer is a board member or observer for Tovala, Vivrelle, Prisidio, Idelic, Blackcart, and several unannounced investments.

Heltzer’s prior investments include Tock (acquired by Squarespace), Cartavi (acquired by Docusign), Base CRM (acquired by Zendesk), Brightnest (acquired by Angie’s List), Alert Logic (acquired by Welsh-Carson), and FeeFighters (acquired by Groupon). Heltzer also worked closely with TradeKing (acquired by Ally Bank). Before his venture capital career, Heltzer spent three and a half years as a software engineer and software architect for Deloitte Consulting. He also led engineering and business teams at 1stUp, a San Francisco-based startup.

Heltzer received a BS in computer science, with highest distinction, from the University of Michigan. Heltzer also received an MBA in finance and entrepreneurship, with high honors, from Chicago Booth, where he was a Siebel Scholar and Wallman Scholar. In addition to his professional responsibilities at Origin, Heltzer is an adjunct professor of entrepreneurship at Chicago Booth, where he teaches the venture capital and private equity lab class.

Jason has an interest in movies, and has watched every Best Picture movie from 1927 to present, plus about 200 documentaries. In addition, for most of his life, Jason has been addicted to video games, which is what prompted him to teach himself how to code when he was 13.

Venetia Kontogouris is the managing director of Venkon Group LLC, a company that invests in real estate and early stage ventures, with an emphasis on technology and cloud-based services. Current investments include Zumigo, Ruby Seven Studios, Flow Inc., Be Health, Energy Savvy, and Simple Mills. Prior to her employment with Venkon Group, Kontogouris was the senior managing director for Trident Capital, where she oversaw venture capital investing. She was one of the original members and co-managing partner for Funds IV, V, and VI with over $1.5 billion of venture investments under management. During her time at Trident Capital, she was responsible for many successful investments and exits including, Odyssey Logistics, Outsource Partners International, Microland, Advantec, Infotrieve, Sphere, Viant, Daou Systems, Vality, PBN/Taleo, IPro, Invention Machine, and CrossMedia.

Dipa leads the Corporate Development and Ventures group at Advocate Aurora Enterprises (AAE). AAE is a subsidiary of Advocate Aurora Health, one of the largest health systems in the United States. She supports the AAE category leaders in sourcing, diligence, negotiating, and post- transaction reporting for a variety of different transaction types. Dipa was formerly a Managing Director at Sandbox Industries, a Chicago-based venture capital firm which is the investment manager to the Blue Venture Fund. The Blue Venture Fund is a unique collaboration between BCBS companies, BCBSA, and Sandbox.  Sandbox is an independent company that provides healthcare-related investment management exclusively for the Blue Venture Fund. Prior to Sandbox, Dipa was at Amgen Ventures, the corporate venture fund of Amgen. At Amgen, Dipa worked closely with the global commercial and marketing organizations to identify companies in the digital health space for Amgen’s commercial products. Dipa started her career in the Global Healthcare Group at UBS and the Healthcare Fund at Paul Capital Partners, which invested in late-stage pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies.

Dipa earned a BS from the New York University Stern School of Business and an MBA from Chicago Booth where she received the Chicago Booth Leadership Award of Distinction. Dipa is also a Kauffman Fellow.

She lives in Chicago, IL with her husband and twin toddler boys.

Koichiro “Koh” Nakamura has led numerous investments including Coinbase, Palantir, and Square. He is also actively involved with Zoom, Fastly, Insightly, One Concern, Chainalysis, and Clearbanc among others. Koh, a Waseda University Law and Chicago Booth MBA graduate  and two times finalist of NVC, was a member of Kauffman Fellows Class 12, and was given the Jeff Timmons Memorial Award in recognition of his outstanding contributions to that program. 

He was an early pioneer in Japan’s IT scene as a member of the founding team of Yahoo Japan, and led the seed investment into Scigineer. He co-founded Sozo Ventures in 2012 to guide globally ambitious founders looking to maximize Japan and Asian expansion opportunities. Koh, who says, “Iconic companies go global, and global markets go through Japan,” points to Palantir as the portfolio company that took the long-term view, which has rewarded them with a $150M joint-venture in Japan, and over $550M in the pre-IPO round from Japanese partners.

Koh, having shepherded hundreds of companies through international expansion, has shared his expertise in Nikkei, MarketWatch, Forbes Japan, Venture Capital Journal, Newspicks and many other publications.

Sonia Nagar is a Venture Capitalist, angel investor, and board director. Sonia is currently a General Partner at Pritzker Group Venture Capital responsible for sourcing, diligence and oversight of the firm’s investments in marketplaces, consumer products and services, and emerging technology companies. Before joining PGVC Sonia was vice president of product and head of mobile apps for RetailMeNot, responsible for leading an app redesign that earned a People’s Voice Webby Award for Best Shopping App. Sonia joined RetailMeNot in 2014 following its acquisition of Pickie, the venture-backed mobile shopping start-up she co-founded in 2011. Prior to Pickie, Sonia was a senior associate for Booz & Company, and worked in product management, investment banking, and engineering roles with Amazon, Goldman Sachs and General Motors.

Kathleen Swan is a partner in the Chicago office of Locke Lord LLP where her practice focuses on corporate finance, venture capital, private equity, and institutional private placements. Kathleen has represented clients within a number of diverse industries, including health care, retail, pharmaceuticals, manufacturing, and utilities operations. She has represented both venture capitalists and angels in connection with their respective purchases of common and preferred stock; institutional investors in connection with the purchase of both senior and subordinated secured and unsecured notes; and investment bankers in connection with the sale of several corporations.

Guy has been with HPVP since its beginning in 2011. Prior to HPVP, Guy worked for the Boston Consulting Group where he focused on corporate strategy across a variety of industries. Previously he served as an associate and investing member with Hyde Park Angels, and spent his early career as a mechanical engineer with Raytheon and General Electric. Guy has led investments in a number of software companies and manages HPVP’s investments in Fixer, MarketWagon, Upfront Healthcare, and Zipnosis, among others. He writes about venture capital and startups at vcwithme.co.