Meet our Team

Jim is the Founding Managing Partner at Maven Ventures and his passion is to help bold founders bring their Visions Worth Fighting For to the world. Jim is one of the leading consumer growth experts in Silicon Valley and is now widely known for naming Zoom as one of the earliest investors. Jim has been fortunate to have achieved six unicorn exits in his career in roles ranging from founder, executive, and investor. Before founding Maven, Jim had a successful startup career with executive roles at NBCi, Bebo, and Tango. Jim graduated from Duke University where he studied Psychology, and earned a J.D. from UC Davis.

Sara was the first employee at Maven and has built her career investing in early stage founders. She specializes in consumer software and emerging trends, with a focus on digital health, family tech, consumer web3, and alternative protein. Sara has worked with startups for over 13 years, including at The Idea Village in New Orleans where she developed a love for helping founders articulate and achieve a bold vision against all odds. She has an MBA from Stanford where she is a Lecturer in Management, and is a contributor to Forbes.

Robert has paved a unique path for himself in the Venture Capital industry as a Boomerang VC. Robert joined Maven Ventures in 2015 as an Associate, supporting the investment team. After three years in the role, he transitioned full time to a Maven portfolio company in the transportation sector, Skip. He has since boomeranged back to Maven as a generalist consumer investor with interest in mobility, personalized medicine, digital health, and fintech. Robert graduated from Duke University, where he earned a BS in Economics.

Cortney joined Maven Ventures in 2019 as the Executive Assistant supporting Jim and Sara. Cortney has supported executives in the Venture Capital and Private Equity field in Palo Alto for over a decade. She loves getting to work with excited early founders, and firmly believes in Maven’s desire to make the world better by investing in companies and people who have this same goal. Prior to the VC world, Cortney began her career in Private Wealth Management with Credit Suisse in San Francisco and Dallas.