James is one of Silicon Valley's foremost experts in growth and network effects. He's a four-time serial entrepreneur. He is also a pioneer of user-generated models, viral marketing, a/b testing, crowdsourcing, and myriad other growth techniques now followed by nearly all technology companies.
Because of his expertise in these critical areas of company growth, he's been fortunate to invest in, advise, and mentor many of technology's definitive startups, and has revolutionized the trajectory of today's leading internet companies.
James is a growth junkie with an uncanny eye for what it takes to succeed. He has been investing before or alongside firms like Sequoia, Greylock, CRV, A16z, First Round, Mayfield, Shasta, and GGV.
The co-founder of Trulia, Pete is a serial entrepreneur who built one of today's most successful marketplaces. As CEO, Pete led the company from inception to one of the largest and fastest growing real estate websites in the U.S. with more than 50 million monthly unique users and a merger with Zillow in 2015 that valued Trulia at $3.5 billion.
Prior to starting Trulia, Pete was part of the founding team of lastminute.com, a leading European online travel site that was acquired in 2005 by Travelocity / Sabre Holdings for over $1 billion.
These experiences gave Pete a rarely acquired understanding of what it takes to scale a company from a great idea to a $1 billion+ exit, all from a founder's perspective.
One of the most prolific technology investors in Israel, Gigi is a two-time CEO, founder, board member, and super-angel. He served as the CEO of 888 Holdings (LSE: 888.L), one of the world's leading online gaming entertainment companies in the world until mid-2011 when he turned his hobby of investing in startups into his full-time job.
Prior to 888, Gigi served as Division President of Amdocs, a world leading billing and CRM provider (NYSE: DOX). Earlier he held various roles in Israel tech companies and founded several startups including Playtika (acquired for $4.4 billion by China Consortium / Cesars), Beach Bum, InceptionVR, and others.
Christen has been one of the leading connectors in Silicon Valley for over a decade, having started her career in technology in 2006 at a network that identified top emerging startups and introduced them to investors and corporate strategics. Among the startups she worked with at the earliest stages are LinkedIn, Twilio, Box, Pandora, AdMob, Loopt, Atlassian, and more.
In 2010, Christen co-founded 500 Startups where she led marketing and business development. Within just 18 months, 500 became one of the most well-known seed funds in the world. Within 5 years, the fund had $200 million under management and more than 1,500 companies globally. Christen also led international programs in which she tracked market trends and built critical relationships with key technology influencers across more than 22 countries.
Amy has spent the last decade building products that reached 100 million people across the finance and education sectors. She now leads the product team at NFX, whose mission it is to transform the way innovators are funded, inspired in part by her own frustrations as a founder. Among the products is Signal, the founder:VC fundraising network, and VC Lists, where founders can easily find the investors best suited for their sector and stage.
Prior to joining NFX, Amy was the CEO and founder of Blendspace (acquired by Tes), a leading online learning platform used by millions of teachers and students worldwide. Investors included YC's ImagineK12, Reach Capital / New Schools Venture Fund, and notable Silicon Valley angels. She was featured in Forbes 30 under 30 for her innovation in education.
Jeff Bullock is the Vice President of Finance at NFX Guild and is an experienced finance professional in the private equity and venture capital industry.
Jeff has over seventeen years of experience in finance roles within the private equity industry. He began his career with Ernst & Young LLP providing audit and financial due diligence services to private equity firms as they evaluated investment opportunities. He then served as an institutional limited partner in Bank of America’s Fund Investment Group where he led and managed investments in private equity, venture and real estate funds.
He joined a leading technology buyout firm, Francisco Partners, at its founding to lead the finance and operations of that firm. In that role he developed the financial and reporting infrastructure for the firm and its limited partners.
Maria joined NFX in 2015 as the founding Director of Operations. She was the first employee, overseeing operations, events, and scheduling. She is passionate about providing NFX companies with valuable resources, connections, and education. She believes strongly that the world is made a better place with the products and services that entrepreneurs create.
Prior to NFX, Maria ran events, operations, and funding distribution for a Menlo Park-based private family foundation. She also was an English-Spanish interpreter for a private interpreting firm.
Maria was born in Mexico and moved to Southern California when she was 11 years old. She later came to the Bay Area, studied Finance at SJSU, and became the first person from her town in Mexico to graduate from college.
At NFX, Kevin builds software to change the way startups and VCs connect. He is deeply interested in creating tools to set up founders and investors for success.
Prior to NFX, Kevin worked closely with startups as an advocate for technology and privacy policy at Fight for the Future, a digital rights organization. He later used his privacy expertise to coordinate marketing for ProtonMail, an end-to-end encrypted email startup.
Kevin is passionate about open source software. He has authored several open source packages and contributes regularly to libraries in the React ecosystem. He led NFX to become an early adopter of Facebook's open source GraphQL data querying language.
Christine is a Senior EA at NFX, overseeing all operations at the San Francisco office including scheduling, vendor management, meetings, and events. She is passionate about supporting the mission of NFX, and excels at providing operational know-how and calm to the necessary chaos of startup life - both for NFX & the portfolio founders.
A true renaissance woman, Christine previously was a public health program development consultant and also spent time researching HIV and Tuberculosis. Before that, she founded a baking company, Surf Muffins, and occasionally spoils the NFX team with her late-night culinary adventures. She finds peace of mind in yoga and lifting weights; inspiration in fashion, music, and literature.
Born and raised in Lake Tahoe, Eric developed a sense of adventure at an early age. He quickly moved into a creative mindset and followed his passion of filmmaking by attending Chapman University's acclaimed Dodge College of Film & Media Arts in Los Angeles. Creating commercials and creative visuals for multiple tech companies during his collegiate years, he generated a high density network in Silicon Valley that led him to relocate to San Francisco in 2016.
Eric's mission at NFX is to innovate the content surrounding the venture capital industry by implementing high quality film production, design, and animation through a creative approach to strengthen our brand, team, and audience.
Sachin joined NFX as the content lead in 2018. He produces essays, videos, and media content with a special focus on language, narrative, and depth analysis. Prior to joining NFX, Sachin studied the second-order effects of emerging technologies at Day One Insights.
Part history buff, part grammar authoritarian, and part linguistics nerd, Sachin has bylines from Forbes and The Huffington Post. He studied European History as an undergraduate at Arizona State University and classics as a graduate student at University of Arizona. When he’s not writing or reading, he enjoys exercising, traveling to non-exotic countries, and Rockets basketball.
Millie is full stack software engineer on the product team, dedicated to building the next invaluable tool for founders. She loves that she has direct input into what we build and can see the results immediately. She is also proud to be a part of such a diverse engineering team that is 80% women.
Prior to NFX, Millie was fortunate to have worked as a biofuels researcher for the Department of Energy's Joint BioEnergy Laboratory, an IT analyst at Say Media, and most recently a Listener Advocate at Pandora Radio. Notably, she is proud to have worked on a team at Pandora that allowed her to advocate for all different types of users and spearhead the improvement of their assistive services and features for the blind in the Pandora mobile app.
Erica joined the Product team at NFX as a fullstack software engineer in 2017. With a passion for learning about entrepreneurship and improving processes through software, she fit right in with the NFX culture.
She has a profound appreciation for technology’s impact on social change and ability to break barriers. At NFX, she hopes to connect founders and VCs more quickly and painlessly.
Natalie works on the Finance Team at NFX where she helps manage investments and oversee investor relations. Although initially brought on to help with Operations, she soon found her place as a Finance Associate and has since become proficient in AltaReturn's suite of technology solutions to help NFX with its fund accounting, portfolio monitoring, and CRM.
Prior to NFX, Natalie has worked as an Event Coordinator, Operations Specialist, and PR/Guest Relations Director in Taipei and Shanghai where she utilized her bilingual language skills in Mandarin and English.
Stan Chudnovsky is Head of Facebook Messenger. Prior to Facebook, Stan was VP of Growth and Global Strategy at PayPal after a company he co-founded, IronPearl, was acquired in 2013. Stan also co-founded several other successful companies including Jiff, NFX, Ooga Labs, and Wonderhill. Before that, Stan was building Tickle Inc., one of the first social media companies, and grew it to become one of the largest websites in the world by 2003. Originally from Moscow, Stan got his engineering degrees back in Russia and has been living in the San Francisco/Bay Area since 1994.
