Grant AlleN
Grant Allen is a General Partner of SE Ventures, an over $1 billion AUM venture capital fund based out of Menlo Park, CA. Grant focuses on emerging technologies and their role in the digital transformation of industries, transportation, the built environment and the increasingly distributed electrical ecosystem.
An expert in corporate innovation and a venture investor for 16 years, Grant was most recently the global head of venture capital for Zurich-based ABB where he reported to the CTO and sat on the Technology Leadership Committee helping steer technology investment across the company. He was instrumental in growing ATV’s investment budget, team size, scope and impact; creating a partnerships and portfolio catalyst function; doubling the fund of funds platform; and helping ATV become the most active CVC in the robotics/applied AI space behind Google. Past investments include Bonsai AI (acq. by Microsoft), Industrial Defender (acq. by Lockheed Martin), Enbala Power Systems (acq. by Generac), Validus (acq. by ABB), Persimmon Technologies (acq. by Sumitomo), Trilliant (acq. by management), Northvolt, Natron Energy, CMR Surgical, Element Analytics, Kespry, Soft Robotics, Everactive, MineSense and Vicarious.
Previous experience includes Core Capital Partners, a $400M venture fund focused on enterprise software where his investments included writing the first investment memo for a Series A investment in OLO (NYSE: OLO), the best performing investment in the fund’s history with a market cap today exceeding $5B; Microsoft in their Mobile & Embedded Devices division; Jingle Networks (First Round Capital-backed search startup acq. for $63M); and several other start-ups. He is also a founding member of NextGen Venture Partners (acq. by Brown Advisory) and an advisor to a number of startups including Formic.
Listed on Global Corporate Venturing’s Powerlist 100 for three years and a member of the World Economic Forum’s Technology Pioneer selection committee, Grant has been an invited speaker in over a dozen countries and a featured writer for Bloomberg Businessweek. He holds degrees from Duke University’s Pratt School of Engineering and The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He has also completed executive education at IMD Business School in Lausanne, Switzerland.
An east coast native who has lived in Europe and Australia, Grant now lives in Los Altos, California.
Katherine Kennedy Allen, Ed.D.
Dr. Kate Allen is a long-time startup advisor, philanthropist and investor who has spent most of her career in healthtech with category defining startups such as Rally Health (formerly Audax Health; acquired by Optum/UHG) and Pacify (acquired by Advantia).
Her experience and direct founder engagement help startups hire, grow top line, expand partnership ship and prepare for acquisition, pulling directly on Dr. Allen’s deep academic background. Her doctoral research focused on optimizing the remote work experience to accelerate productivity and identifying key motivators for distributed work success and organizational loyalty.
A proud mother of three and a prolific traveler, Kate seeks out opportunities to work with global organizations to identify strategic back-to-work campaigns for those impacted by the pandemic and looking to write their next chapter. She and her husband have also proudly invested in hospitality opportunities including OneHope, Page Mill Winery, Easy Company and State of Mind.
Kate holds an undergraduate degree from Loyola Marymount, a Masters in Communication, Culture and Technology from Georgetown University, and a Doctorate in Education from Vanderbilt University’s Peabody School of Education.