steven Jorgenson

Founder and Managing Director

Before founding Starbridge Venture Capital in 2017, Steven was a business advisor to many aerospace startups and an angel investor in companies including Planet, Airmap, BridgeComm, Planetary Resources, Lynk Global, and others.

Previously, Steven was a Portfolio Manager at Woodridge Capital, Viridian Fund, Ronin Capital, and Stafford Trading where he delivered consistent market-beating returns across a variety of funds and market strategies including fixed income, equity, and derivatives portfolios. Steven has worked on the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT), the Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE), and was the founder of Fifth Point Advisors LLC, a Registered Investment Advisor company. Steven has degrees in Bacteriology, Biology, and Business from UW-Madison. 

Michael Mealling

General Partner

Michael co-founded Masten Space Systems, was CTO of Seraph Group (a seed stage VC fund), is the CEO of the Waypaver Foundation, and the President of the Moon Society. He has helped build several startups over the years ranging from telecom consulting to social media.

His experience building companies and teams from scratch, raising money for those companies, and investing in similar companies has given Michael a view both the successes and failures at every stage of building sustainable companies. 

He received an MBA from Georgia Tech in 2011.

NEIL KAPLAN

General Partner

Prior to joining Starbridge, Neil has been a business advisor and investor in numerous companies including startup accelerator LaunchPad, Chromatik, MobLabs, Audyssey, Songza (acquired by Google), Ostendo, Seed, Umbra, SpaceX, and Wonder (acquired by Atari). Previously, Neil was a General Partner at Third Wave VC.

Neil has vast experience in raising capital, M&A, helping portfolio companies to achieve year over year growth, and guiding companies towards a successful exit. Neil currently sits on the Board of Flying Elephants, and previously sat on the Boards of Washington D.C. Children’s Rights organization First Star. Neil attended the Anderson School of Management and received his B.A. from UCLA.

 

Management Team

Lindsey Yee

Principal - San Francisco

Lindsey is based in the San Francisco Bay Area and previously worked at NASA Ames Research Center on the Intelligent Systems Research and Development Support Contract. She’s active in the Space Generation Advisory Council (SGAC) which promotes students’ and young professionals’ visions for international space policy at the United Nations Office of Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA) and in industry. Her years of experience in the space industry, having worked at NASA and abroad, this has enabled her to identify key sectors open to further innovation while her years at NASA and SGAC have provided a valuable network within the space industry.

Lindsey completed her masters in Space Studies at the International Space University and her undergraduate degree at Boston University in International Relations Business and Economics in East Asia.

Samir Chokshi

Venture Partner - New York

An experienced investor at prominent hedge funds and family offices with a background as corporate lawyer at Sullivan & Cromwell and investment banking at Merrill Lynch / Bank of America.

Samir is also an early stage investor/advisor in over nine technology startups, a member of New York Angels, Magara Capital Managing Partner/CIO, and Portfolio Manager at 40 North

Scott Livingston

Scott is the CEO of Livingston Securities, The Livingston Group of Companies, and Scott Livingston Asset Management (SLAM). Scott Livingston Asset Management (SLAM) is acting as the co-General Partner for Starbridge Venture Capital.

Scott has been financing innovation across multiple industries: stem cells, longevity, regenerative medicine, genomics, and other life sciences technologies over the past 20 years. He has facilitated over 150 public market transactions since 2011.

Scott is a Board Member of the Nanobusiness Alliance and the New York Nanobusiness Alliance. He holds FINRA registrations Series 4, 7, 24, 27, 53, 55, 63, 65, 79 and 87.

He has a B.A. from the University of Albany, SUNY

Richard Godwin

Richard Godwin has been a serial entrepreneur and businessman since childhood. He has successfully created and built small medium and large companies over several industries in both Europe and North America.

He became interested in space exploration when he was seven years old and avidly followed the Apollo Program to land people on the moon as well as many space programs since then. He has served as a Director on the Board of both the National Space Society and the Space Frontier Foundation. He created and managed an asteroid research program known as “The Watch” which raised funding for asteroid discovery and characterization and presented its findings to the U.S Congress on Capitol Hill.

With his brother Robert, he owns Apogee Books, a space book publishing company which today has over 400 technical space exploration books in print, as well as operating TheSpaceLibrary.com - an enormous repository of space industry data.

He has worked as a business consultant for Elon Musk at SpaceX building a business model for their nascent DragonLab spacecraft program. He served as CEO and Director of Zero Gravity Solutions Inc., ostensibly the world’s first public company creating new products and technology on the Space Shuttle and the International Space Station for use on Earth. He also served as CEO and President of Zero Gravity Life Sciences at that time.

He is currently Senior Managing member of Space Technology Holdings, a California based space technology development company as well as one of its subsidiaries Rideshare2Orbit, a space transportation company. He also serves as a business consultant and Director of several cutting edge NewSpace and aerospace companies.

Howard Kuo 郭家豪

Howard joined Starbridge in May as Principal in charge of Starbridge's Asia office. He contributes global sales and marketing and manufacturing expertise and is responsible for investor relations and deal identification across Asia. In addition to Starbridge, he manages an angel fund, energy storage solution companies and sits on the boards of companies in the US, Taiwan and China.

Howard is an entrepreneur and has held senior positions at energy storage, manufacturing and semiconductor companies in the US, China, and Taiwan. He turned around a battery manufacturing startup in China. He grew an IoT sensor device businesses for Maxim Integrated to +70% gross margin, achieved multiple #1 market share of analog and power device applications and $120M for STMicroelectronics.

Howard enjoys volunteering and has been a philanthropist since 2002 with an emphasis on children’s education. He is a founding member of Bullis Charter School and held several school board positions in Silicon Valley.

Howard received his Bachelor of Industrial Engineering degree from Georgia Institute of Technology in 1995.