Who We Are

We are founders, engineers, product & go-to-market experts, and investors. Every team member brings extensive operational and investing experience.

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Alex Lazovsky

Managing Partner

Alex Lazovsky is a co-founder and Managing Partner of West Coast Equity Partners (WCEP), a private equity firm based in Silicon Valley. He is also the co-founder and Managing Partner of Scale-Up, a Silicon Valley venture capital firm based in Palo Alto, California. WCEP and Scale-Up’s partners have invested in nearly 100 technology companies, a number of which have since become unicorns and decacorns. Alex has led investments in SpaceX, Trax Technologies, OpenWeb, Verbit.ai, Upgrade, Outschool, PSI Quantum, Cybereason, eToro, SiSense, Silk.us, and other great companies.
He holds B.Sc. in Computer Science from Tel Aviv University, which consistently keeps 8th spot in a world ranking of top universities producing entrepreneurs and startup founders. His MBA is from The Kellogg School of Management at NU consistently ranked in the top 5 business schools in the US.

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Sergey Yushin

Managing Partner

Sergey is a co-founder and Managing Partner of West Coast Equity Partners (WCEP), a private equity firm based in Silicon Valley, where he led investments in Rubrik, Momentus Space (NASDAQ:MNTS), Scopely, Dataminr, and other tech unicorns. Sergey is a finance and corporate expert with rich hands-on experience in private equity and venture capital investments. He was a CFO of RusHydro, world’s second-largest hydroelectric power producer with $6B revenue. Prior to that Sergey was CFO of Alrosa Investment Group – a part of Alrosa the world leader in diamond mining with $5B revenue. Earlier Sergey held management positions at SobinBank, VneshTorgBank, Bcen-Eurobank Group. He owns successful businesses ranging from restaurants to airplane engineering. Sergey holds M.Sc. from Moscow Power Engineering Institute.

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Anton Baranchuk

Managing Partner

Anton is a co-founder and Managing Partner of West Coast Equity Partners (WCEP), a private equity firm based in Silicon Valley, where he led investments in Datarobot, Coursera (NYSE:COUR), Robinhood (NASDAQ:HOOD), Klarna, People.ai and other great companies. He is also the co-founder and Managing Partner of Scale-Up Unicorn Fund. Anton is a serial technological entrepreneur. He is Founder and CEO in several companies, including 2 successful Exits. Anton is CEO & Founder of AnyChart. He is President & CEO of AterGeo. Prior to that he was Chairman & Co-Founder Activatesoft, and earlier he was Co-founder and CEO of Softidenty. Anton is investor in several technology companies (DevOps, AI) in Europe and North America. He holds M.Sc. Economics from Irkutsk State University, Russia and PhD in Math from Irkutsk State University, Russia.

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Ilyah Pashkovsky

MANAGING PARTNER

Ilyah is a Founding Partner of Scale-Up VC & Scale-Up Unicorn Fund. He has led investments in Sedona Systems (acquired by Cisco), RaftTech, First Digital Assets Group, ColorChip (acquired). Ilyah has more than 15 years of experience in theoretical and applied computer science and engineering, with a focus on disparate systems in telecommunication, data processing and human interfaces. He has architected technological solutions in leading European telcos, and led innovations at Solesys S.A. and eQoppa Ltd. He holds a BSc from Tel Aviv University in Israel.

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Lilia Shirman

VENTURE PARTNER

Lilia is a Go-to-Market expert and thought-leader for enterprise SaaS, AI, & infrastructure tech. As an operating executive and later as founder and CEO of the Shirman Group, Lilia drove top line growth and shareholder value creation for VMware, EMC, Amazon, Oracle, CA, Symantec, Applied Materials, and Accenture, as well as many early and growth-stage ventures. Lilia was turn-around CMO at MariaDB, and Managing Director at Golden Seeds, one of largest investor networks in the US. Lilia is an investor in ZineOne, Mirantis, Cadenza Innovations, GummiCube, Full Circle Insights, JoyLux, and OtoNexus. She is the author of 42 Rules for Growing Enterprise Revenue, and an advisor for the Stanford Global Entrepreneurial Marketing program. Lilia holds a BS in Engineering from UC Berkeley and an MS in Management Science from Stanford University, where she was an Honors Cooperative Fellow.

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Rick Marini

VENTURE PARTNER

Rick is a serial tech entrepreneur with over 20 years of operating and investing experience. Rick is the Co-founder & Managing Partner of Catapult Capital and currently serves as the COO of Grindr and on the Board of Directors for JibJab. Rick is also the Founder & Managing Partner of Protocol Ventures, the first fund of funds focused on crypto assets. He is an active angel investor in 50 tech start-ups including 12 unicorns, and was named a 2018 “Top 50 Angel Investor” by Forbes. Previously, Rick was the Founder & CEO of BranchOut, a professional network acquired by a publicly-traded recruiting company, and Founder and CEO of Talk.co, an enterprise messaging app acquired by Hearst Corporation. Rick ran the Digital Innovation Group at Hearst from 2014-2016. In 1999, Rick co-founded Tickle.com, which grew to over 200 million registered users and was acquired by Monster Worldwide. Rick graduated from University of New Hampshire, magna cum laude, and earned an MBA from Harvard Business School. He was National Co-Chair of Technology for Obama.

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Nimrod Gindi

VENTURE PARTNER

Nimrod Gindi is the Senior Vice President of M&A and Head of Investments at Mellanox Capital. Nimrod led the 7B acquisition of Mellanox by Nvidia. He also led the acquisitions of Ezchip ($800M), Kotura ($80M), IPtronics ($47M), and Voltaire ($218M). He has also led over a dozen investments, including WekaIO, Excelero, CNEX Labs, and Pliops. Prior to Mellanox, Mr. Gindi worked at Rafael Advanced Defense Systems. Mr. Gindi graduated with a Bachelor of Computer Science from the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology.

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Steve Yaskin

VENTURE PARTNER

Steve is a serial entrepreneur, combining 20 years in investing, founding, and developing successful start-ups in HealthTech, Digital Health, applied data analytics. Steve is the CEO & Founder of Health Gorilla, and Board Member and Advisor to innovative Health Tech companies, from seed to growth stages. Previously, Steve was an Entrepreneur in Residence at F50 – a Silicon Valley based venture platform and organizers of global entrepreneurship conferences. Steve was CTO and Founder at Queplix corporation, and CEO of Priority Consulting. He is a member of the Forbes Technology Council. Steve earned an MS, in Physics from Drexel University, and a BS in Computer Science at Brooklyn College.

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Ben Kamis

RESEARCH ANALYST

Ben Kamis is a part-time academic and overtime geek. He has helped over a dozen start-ups around the world to increase value and rock their ecosystem. Ben coordinated public-private liaison initiatives and VIP relations for an international development bank. His publications include papers on internet regulation, cybersecurity, international law, semiotics. As Editor at The Käte Hamburger Research Centre “Dis:connectivity in Processes of Globalisation”, Ben translates and writes scholarly and promotional texts for this new international research institute focusing on disconnections in a globalized world. . He holds a PhD from Goethe University Frankfurt (summa cum laude), MSc from the London School of Economics.

Our Why

We believe people have the power to transform lives and the world for the better through technology. Together with our investors, we support visionary innovators in creating the future.

Value-Driven
We invest in companies that consistently create real value for all stakeholders, looking past the smoke to companies that truly fuel transformation
Collaborative
We work closely with portfolio companies, investors, and other funds to help both the companies and the people thrive.
Transparent
We believe complete information and open communication are the foundations for creating sustainable success.