Team
Team
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Christian Lawless
General Partner
Prior to founding Conversion Capital, Christian was a Managing Director at Lehman Brothers and Nomura where he led sales and trading teams across asset classes. As an investor, he specializes in driving revenue growth and expansion for early stage companies across AI/ML, Fintech, and National Security. He has led investments for the firm in companies including Ramp, Blend (NYSE:BLND), Figure, Improbable, Wisetack, and currently serves as a Director at Vesta, Haven, Pylon, Raylu, and Booster Fuels. Christian graduated from Ohio Wesleyan with a degree in Economics.
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Eugene Marinelli
Operating Advisor
Eugene was previously cofounder and CTO of Blend (NYSE: BLND), a Silicon Valley technology company propelling consumer banking into the digital age. He is also the cofounder and CEO of Realm Alliance, an integrated security company for critical industries. As an investor, Eugene advises our portfolio companies on establishing robust, scalable teams and technology. Eugene graduated from Carnegie Mellon with a B.S. and M.S. in Computer Science.
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Erin Collard
Operating Advisor
Erin was previously cofounder and CFO of Blend (NYSE: BLND), a Silicon Valley technology company propelling consumer banking into the digital age, where he currently serves on the Board of Directors. As an investor, Erin focuses on early-stage enterprise and fintech companies helping with financial scale and partnerships. He has over a decade of deep financial and technology experience, having served as both Head Trader and Managing Director at Peter Thiel's fund, Clarium Capital. Erin graduated from the University of Sheffield, and holds a Masters in Economics from University of Warwick.
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David Talpalar
Investment Principal
David focuses on fintech investments across proptech, consumer lending, and e-commerce. He previously spent 3 years as a venture investor at Citi, where he invested in companies such as Roofstock, ICON, Notarize, PayJoy, Cart.com, and more; he also helped portfolio companies grow by facilitating strategic partnerships. David graduated from Duke University with a degree in Mechanical Engineering and Economics.
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Carly Grossfield
Investment Analyst
Carly is an analyst on the investment team where she focuses on early stage fintech, healthcare, and software investments. She previously worked at Greenhill & Co. where she focused on healthcare and tech M&A. She is a graduate of Duke University with a degree in Economics and Finance, with a minor in Computer Science.
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Max Humphrey
VP of Finance
Max is the VP of Finance at Conversion Capital. He has an extensive background in fund financial reporting, investor relations, audit, tax and firm operations. Max spent 3 years at Bain Capital on the finance team for the Venture and Crypto business units. He began his career at RSM as an auditor in the financial services practice. Max is a certified public accountant and graduated from the University of New Hampshire with a B.S. in Business Administration and a M.S. in Accounting.
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Adam Yarnold
Venture Partner
Adam is the founder of Fin3 Technologies, Inc., a web3 infrastructure and applications company for financial services. Adam spent 19 years in finance running businesses focused on consumer, real estate, and corporate lending and securitization. He is a graduate of Stanford and Carnegie Mellon Universities and served in the United States Army.
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Andres Sucre
Venture Partner
Andres is founder and CEO of Reservamos, a leading travel technology solution that enables the digitization of the bus industry in Latin America through Reservamos.com (OTA) and Reservamos SaaS. He is also an independent member of the board at HSBC Mexico. As a Venture Partner, Andres is focused on the increasing cross-border investment opportunities between Mexico and the U.S. Before founding Reservamos, Andres was an AVP at Deutsche Bank. He studied Management Engineering at WPI and holds an MBA from MIT Sloan.
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Bruno de Martino
Venture Partner
Bruno is the Chief Product Officer at Fast Growing Trees, the leading e-commerce retailer of trees and plants. Before that, he worked at companies like Attentive (SMS marketing platform), Instagram (Shopping team), and Token (open banking startup). As a Venture Partner, Bruno supports early stage startups, with a focus on software products that helps companies who make, move and/or sell physical products. Bruno holds a degree in Computer Science from Stanford.
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Troy Bannister
Venture Partner
Troy graduated from Georgetown University with a M.S. in Biophysics. He is the cofounder and CEO of Particle Health, the leading API infrastructure company for the healthcare industry, facilitating the exchange of clinical data across EHRs. After transitioning to Chairman in 2023, Troy is now focusing on early stage healthtech investing.
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Steven Li
Venture Scout
Steven is an experienced software engineer who currently works on Generative AI Safety at Meta; previously, he built the Treasury product at our portfolio company Frec; worked on search science at Amazon, payments orchestration at Meta, and ML for compliance at Capital One. He is an active angel investor and writes a column at Forbes, where he has interviewed dozens of successful founders of billion-dollar startups, covering their journeys.
