Steve Vassallo from Foundation Capital VC (NEW TIME + BIGGER ROOM)

Steve Vassallo

General Partner

Foundation Capital

Steve is a General Partner at Foundation Capital, a leading early stage venture firm investing in consumer and enterprise. A designer-driven investor, Steve is the author of The Way to Design, a book is for entrepreneurial designers who want to know what it takes to start a company, and for non-designer entrepreneurs and executives who want to understand how to make design a core value of their business. He is also the convener and host of Product Minds, a Foundation Capital series of conversations with industry leaders about the art, science, and drive that go into building great products.

Steve launched his first startup when he was 13 years old. His snow blowing service taught him what it meant to be entrepreneur ÔÇö and to grasp every opportunity he found, even if his hands got cold and numb in the process. That kid grew up to be an entrepreneur who works at the intersection of business, technology, and design. SteveÔÇÖs innovations have won him over 77 patents and several design awards, including the Business Week Design of the Decade Award, red dot design award 2009, IDEA99 Gold and Bronze Awards, NeoCon Gold and Most Innovative New Product Awards.

Steve came to Foundation Capital in 2007 from Ning, a social platform he helped launch in 2004 and where he was Vice President of product and engineering. Before Ning, Steve was Director of Engineering at Immersion [IMMR], which pioneered tactile feedback and human touch technology. Previously, Steve was a project leader and design engineer at IDEO, where he developed more than a dozen successful products for companies including Cisco, Nike, BMW, Steelcase, McDonalds, and Caterpillar.

Today, Steve is on the board of directors of Sunrun [RUN], Sentient Energy, Pocket, Mode Analytics, Bolt Threads, and AutoGrid. Past investments include Control4 [CTRL] and PrivateCore, which was acquired by Facebook.