Michael Jeon
Member of the Council at Bancroft Library
Michael Jeon
Member of the Council at Bancroft Library
San Francisco, California
Overview
Work Experience
Managing Partner, Silicon Valley
2019 - Current
Solasta Ventures is the US arm of AJU IB Investment, one of South Korea's largest and best-performing VC firms, with $2B in AUM and investment teams across Seoul (HQ), Boston (life science/therapeutics) and San Francisco (all digital tech). Currently leading Solasta Ventures Silicon Valley (based in San Francisco) as inaugural partner, focused on AI/ML/computing, digital transformation, enterprise SaaS/solutions, and disruptive/enabling core technologies.
Member of the Council
2024
Excited to be part of the Council of the Friends of The Bancroft Library at my undergraduate alma mater, the University of California, Berkeley. The Bancroft Library is the primary special collections library at Berkeley, and one of the largest and most heavily used libraries of manuscripts, rare books, and unique materials in the United States. Looking forward to supporting and advocating for Bancroft.
Forum Ambassador / Panelist / Moderator
2021
As the largest business forum in Asia, the WKF brings together global leaders to address the importance of knowledge and knowledge-sharing in meeting the challenges and opportunities of a rapidly changing world. Previous WKF Keynote Speakers include George W. Bush, Hillary Clinton, Theresa May, Tony Blair, Francois Hallande, Nicolas Sarkozy, Janet Yellen, Jim Kim, Bill Gates, Jack Ma, John Hennessy, Stephen Schwarzman, Larry Fink, Larry Ellison, Jerry Yang, Nathan Blecharczyk, Eric Yuan, Thomas Piketty, etc. As a Forum ambassador, I've been honored to be able to invite and put together/moderate panels and fireside chats with some of the most distinguished leaders in technology, government, education and venture capital, including a former head of DARPA, former and current presidents of universities, managing general partners of tier-1 venture capital firms, a former White House fellow, a two-time academy award recipient, a former congresswoman of the ROK, etc.
Investor
2015
- Various private investments in startups, bridge fundings, secondary shares, SPACs, etc. - Venture Partner at Capital A Partners (a cross-border VC focused on Nordic startups) - LP and IC Member at Strawberry Creek Ventures (investing in Berkeley alum-founded firms) - LP in KohFounders Fund (a pre-seed fund focused on emerging ecosystems)
Business Development / Business Operations for Cisco Webex / Cognitive Collab
2017 - 2018
Responsibilities included managing post-merger integration (MindMeld becoming part of Cisco Cognitive Collaboration), suppporting Cisco business development in AI, serving as AI spokesperson providing executive briefings to Fortune-500 Cisco clients.
COO at MindMeld (acq. by Cisco)
2015 - 2018
MindMeld delivers an ML platform to power deep-domain conversational AI. As head of company operations, led and/or oversaw key business functions including BD/sales, corp dev, FP&A, HR and post-acq integration, from pre-product revenue to securing of 7-figure Fortune-500 customers and ultimate exit via M&A. 5/12/2017: MINDMELD AND CISCO JOIN FORCES http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/about/corporate-strategy-office/acquisitions/mindmeld.html
Head of Samsung Ventures Europe / Director at Samsung Ventures America
2007 - 2015
- Director of Digital Media investment (Silicon Valley, 2014-15) - Founding Head of Samsung Ventures Europe (London, 2010-14) - Senior Investment Manager (Silicon Valley, 2007-10) Invested $100m+ globally (US, UK, Germany, Israel, India) across enterprise software, AI, mobile, media tech, wireless semi, systems, materials and energy. Served as board member or observer on invested companies and realized exits through large acquisitions and IPOs. Set up, built foundations for and led Samsung Ventures Europe in its founding years. Investments/portfolio included: Envivio, LiveMedia, Widevine, Impinj, Pure Digital, Cambridge Broadband Networks, Novaled, PrimeSense, Younicos, Mecatronix, OpenX, Docusign, Magisto, MindMeld
Strategic Partnerships
2005 - 2007
- Office of the CTO of Samsung Electronics (2007) - Global Alliances under President of Mobile business unit (2005-07) - Played key role in building partnerships with Yahoo, Google, HP, etc.
Product Marketing
2003 - 2003
MBA intern at SAP Global Marketing
Software Engineer
1999 - 2002
- Recruited as company's first college-hire software engineer - Part of application-infrastructure team building Java servlets during Web 1.0 era 3/16/2000: i2 BUYS SUPPLYBASE https://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1125128