Supporting Founders with a vision for a better future
Our team
We are a group of experienced investors, entrepreneurs, and technologists that have successfully built and sold companies in southern California. Our expertise covers a range of key domains for early stage companies including: product concept and development, fundraising, business model development, sales and marketing, operations, mergers and acquisitions. We invest in early to series A companies, mostly in the areas of AI, automation, and intelligent producitivity. We are hands on and work with every time directly through our investments or our K5 Lab program.
Managing Partners
RAY CHAN
As an active angel investor with a successful 25 year track record as a king/queen maker, Ray is committed to partnering with entrepreneurs to lead them to success. Working in tandem with these entrepreneurs, Ray loves sharing his passion and knowledge with the next class of game-changers. Ray has extensive experience within the tech startup industry. Ray is currently a member and Board Member of Tech Coast Angels and ACE Fund I and II Investment Committee. In 1985, he co-founded NetSoft, a leader in communications solutions between PCs, mainframes, and AS/400 systems. NetSoft was acquired by NetManage Inc (NETM).
Follow him @rtchan
Amir BANIFATEMI
Amir is a successful entrepreneur whose work experience includes more 25 years product to market experience and 12 year of investing and advising startups. His focus has always been identifying and developing future and emerging solutions that can impact society with special emphasis on machine learning, robotics, predictive business intelligence, knowledge sharing & education. He helps teams in product strategy, pricing, business model, go-to-market, and fund raising. He is founder of the AI For Good movement and co-founder of the Global Summit series with the UN IT. He is also co-chair at the Global Partnership on AI for Responsible AI and advocates for AI as a public good.
PARTNERS
ROBIN PIMENTEL
Robin Pimentel is an active investor and recently VP of Network Engineering at a recently acquired startup (Gaikai, a SCE Company). Robin's prior employers include Onlive, Facebook, Google and Yahoo; with experience designing large scale MPLS-TE, BGP, ISIS, Datacenter Networking and Load Balancing architectures. Follow him on Linkedin
STEVE BLOCK
Steve Block has more than 40 years of broad, legal, management and executive experience at Fortune 500 corporations and a major New York law firm. Mr. Block has had extensive experience in domestic and international mergers and acquisitions and joint ventures. He serves on the Boards of Directors of both private and public companies including the Board of Directors of Senomyx, Inc. (NASDAQ:SNMX) and ChromaDex Corporation (OTC:CDXC.OB),
Chairman of the Board of Blue Pacific Flavors and Fragrances, Inc., and a director of Allylix, Inc., XSCapacity, Inc., Vigilistics, Inc. and Masher Media, Inc. (of which he is co-founder). Mr. Block holds a Juris Doctor degree from Harvard Law School and a Bachelor of Arts degree cum laude from Yale University. Follow him on Linkedin
ELIM KAY
Elim Kay oversees a number organizations that span across venture capital, private capital, business advisory, and philanthropy. He has been involved in various internet and technology companies since 2002 across operational, investment, and advisory roles. He actively supports and advises several higher-learning education institutions, medical institutions, and intergovernmental agencies.
FRANCIS DUHAY
Francis G Duhay, MD, MBA , is an accomplished clinical surgeon, scientist, medical innovator, and senior business executive, with expertise in general business management, clinical and regulatory affairs, medical affairs, healthcare economics and reimbursement, new business development and corporate strategy.
Double board-certified in general and cardiothoracic surgery, Dr. Duhay served on senior faculty at Duke University School of Medicine. With 32 US and International medical device patents, he has invented and developed devices used in thousands of heart operations annually. His first company, Corvascular, a joint venture with Duke, focused on the nascent field of minimally invasive cardiac surgery and was later acquired by Medtronic. After completing his MBA, Dr. Duhay joined Edwards Lifesciences (EW; market cap, $20B) as General Manager in Transcatheter Heart Valve Therapy, which currently is a $2B business. Promoted to Chief Medical Director, his role was expanded to include Global Medical Affairs, Clinical Affairs and Operations for Heart Valve Therapy.
JASON THANH LA
Jason La is a serial entrepreneur with twenty years of entrepreneurial, management, and consulting experience in information technology. He has co-founded and led Merchant Service Group LLC, a multilingual payment company that has grown from a three-person startup to a 300-network organization serving merchants in 48 states.. Prior to Merchant Service Group LLC, Jason was a consultant at Internet start-ups and Fortune 500 companies. He has delivered custom application development and large scale integration projects for clients such as CNF’s Con-way, Emery Worldwide, and DirecTV.
Jason is an alumnus of Harvard Business School and MBA graduate of Cornell University. He has recently been named to the OC Register Metro's 2014 “Forty under 40” list of top young executives, entrepreneurs, and professionals
Stijn Vanorbeek
Entrepreneur - Investor. Experience in product development and scaling hardware & media ventures. Specialties include product development, business planning, and new venture assessment. Beginning in the motion-picture and television industry, Stijn worked in different technical roles and consequently started and sold several business in that arena. His last venture FX-Motion Inc, an industry leader in the field of robotic and remote-controlled camera systems for the broadcast and motion picture industry was acquired by Ross Video in 2011. Before founding FX-Motion, Stijn worked as an Assistant Cameraman and Cinematographer on feature films, advertising and music videos. Stijn holds degrees in Electronic Engineering, Film and Television technology, Product Development and Business Administration. In 2003, he was under consideration for a Scientific Academy Award (OSCAR). He is fluent in Dutch, English, and French.
Ryan Breed
Ryan Breed is a versatile executive, passionate about new businesses, new technologies and startups. He has liberal arts, electrical engineering, and business degrees from Occidental College, Caltech, and the Anderson School of Management. His career has been focused on working with high-power teams to realize the potential of new ideas and technologies across a variety of industries. For the last 5 yeas he's been dedicated to the executive team at Gaikai, recently purchased by Sony Computer Entertainment, developing the foundational game-streaming technology behind their highly successful PlayStation Now game streaming service, the "Netflix of video games". He currently leads their Business Intelligence and Cloud Engineering teams.
Prior to Gaikai he was the founding partner in a hedge fund focused on automated trading strategies within the options markets. Prior to that the President of Automotive Technologies International, focused on future safety technologies such as collision anticipation and avoidance, self-driving cars, and occupant sensing. Ryan's teams have worked with a wide variety of technologies, including: embedded systems, pattern recognition, materials science, networking, high frequency radar, large-scale SAAS platforms, and many others.
ANDREW HOROWITZ
A twenty-year telecommunications entrepreneur and founder of Office Telephone Management (OTM) in 1983, a shared-service provider of integrated voice and data communications products and services to tenants of multi-tenant office buildings in Southern California. Sold business to Intermedia Communications (later acquired by Worldcom) in 1995. Since then, involved in an assortment of domestic and international telecommunications consulting engagements, mentoring activities, and investment opportunities involving local telecom and other startup companies. A member of both the Orange County chapter of the Tech Coast Angels and Investors Circle, Chairman of the the advisory board of the Venture Finance Institute of the Claremont Graduate University, founding partner of the LA Chapter of Social Venture Partners, and board member of the Social Enterprise Institute.
HANS IMHOF
Hans Imhof holds an Electrical Engineering Degree from the University of in Zurich in Switzerland. Mr. Imhof rose through the ranks at Borg Warner Corporation in the 1960’s to become the Chief Engineer of their Electronics Division in Southern California. Following this, he formed Electrical Power Engineering, EPE, which he successfully grew to become the third largest manufacturer of Uninterruptible Power Supplies in the world. EPE was sold to the Merlin Gerin division of Group Schneider of Paris, France in 1990. Following the successful sale of EPE, Mr. Imhof has continued to be actively involved in a number of successful startup businesses including NetBrowser Communications, and others.
RENA ZUABI
Rena joined the K5 team in 2013, first as an associate and head of investor and portfolio relations. Rena continues to help as a Venture Partner. She earned her MBA in finance from the University of Cambridge and has advised and managed programs for Fortune 500, startup, and multinational nonprofit organizations in the United States, Europe, and Middle East in strategic operations, partnership and business development, and customer success.
More than 60 mentors and experts currently in our investment network provide cutting edge and pragmatic advice and support. Training provided to startups include product development, revenue model, customer development, business development and partnership.