SignalFire expands team with new investors and portfolio support staff

After a decade of disciplined venture investing and applied AI research, SignalFire is growing its team. We’re welcoming nine new team members strategically chosen to help our early-stage firm capitalize on new opportunities in AI, healthcare, and other core sectors. They’ll also help us build a community of founders, corporate partners, and mentors as part of our new AI Lab.

While industry peers cut staff, we’re scaling our team and AI technology to find and partner with entrepreneurs who are using AI to transform enterprises. We’ve spent the past 10 years building and training our proprietary Beacon AI data platform, and we’re now applying Beacon in even more ways for investing, recruiting, marketing, and community-building.

We’re excited to welcome Sooah Cho as a Partner, focused on early-stage health and life sciences tech; Veronica Mercado as a Principal and Chief of Staff to CEO Chris Farmer, focused on enterprise AI through SignalFire’s AI Lab; Lisa Liu as a Principal, focused on venture and growth-stage software investments; Bradford Jones as a Principal, focused on early-stage AI/ML and vertical SaaS; Lauren Nguyen as the Head of Marketing, using AI and integrated systems for founder outreach; Asher Bantock as the Head of Research, developing data insights from our AI to support our investment team and portfolio companies; Sadasia McCutchen as our Head of Ecosystem, cultivating our corporate, advisor, and mentor network; and Mario Espindola as the Senior Director of Talent, who will shape our portfolio companies’ talent strategies, and Andrew Reid as Director of GTM Recruiting, will be assisting portfolio companies with talent acquisition initiatives across go-to-market functions.

In addition to welcoming these new members to the SignalFire team, we pride ourselves on fostering an environment where our team can grow and thrive. Three of our existing team members have recently been promoted to new roles. Libby Hadzima Perkins has been named General Counsel (formerly Vice President, Legal); Yuanling Yuan (YY) has been named Partner, Venture (formerly Principal) as she focuses on AI and health tech; and Heather Doshay now serves as a Partner, People and Talent (formerly Managing Director), guiding portfolio companies on HR strategy.

Assembling this team will unlock the next phase of our AI Lab, designed to connect tomorrow’s AI leaders with the partnerships, talent, capital, and other resources they need to start building today. We’ve earmarked $50M to match experienced founders with strategic corporate partners who will become their future critical data asset providers, design partners, and pilot customers. Veronica oversees the program while Sooah and the rest of our investment team use our Beacon AI data platform to identify the founders and sector experts on the cutting edge of applied AI.

These new hires and promotions strengthen our commitment to finding the best investment opportunities from seed to scale and to providing the deepest possible support to founders in our portfolio. We know generational companies are often built during tough economic times. Now more than ever, SignalFire is engineered to provide the talent and technology to ignite startups’ growth.

Welcome our new team members

Sooah Cho—Partner: As a product builder, GTM strategist, and policy nerd turned investor, Sooah will expand our early-stage health and life sciences tech investment practice. Previously, Sooah led fast-growing B2B software investments at Underscore VC. Sooah was also a product leader at Devoted Health, which was recently valued at over $12B, and CVS Health, where she launched its nationwide prescription delivery and virtual care products. 

Veronica Mercado—Principal and Chief of Staff to CEO Chris Farmer: Veronica will lead efforts related to early-stage enterprise AI investments through the AI Lab. Previously, she spent several years leading special projects and strategic growth initiatives at Thoma Bravo in San Francisco. Veronica began her career at Bain & Company in Boston, where she advised a variety of private equity, hedge fund, and technology clients.

Lisa Liu—Principal, Venture: Lisa will focus on venture and growth-stage software investments. Prior to joining SignalFire, Lisa spent more than five years at General Atlantic in New York, where she invested in growth-stage and pre-IPO software and consumer internet investments globally. She also helped build the firm’s first thematic sourcing program and earlier-stage investing efforts.

Bradford Jones—Principal, Venture: Bradford is largely focused on early-stage AI/ML and vertical SaaS investments. Prior to joining SignalFire, he was an investor at Insight Partners, where he deployed about $600M in capital across application software, data infrastructure, security, and consumer internet investments. Bradford is a former D1 athlete, operator, and entrepreneur with experience investing in and working with founders of early-stage, growth, and pre-IPO companies.

‎Lauren Nguyen—Head of Marketing: Prior to joining SignalFire, Lauren built the self-service growth team at Cloudflare responsible for all self-serve revenue across its product portfolio. Previously, she built and led marketing teams at high-growth startups such as Pantheon, Mattermost, and Sauce Labs, focusing on building and scaling data-driven and results-oriented marketing practices with an emphasis on developer-focused products.

Asher Bantock—Head of Research: Asher will apply our Beacon AI data platform to develop insights to inform the firm’s investment strategy and support our portfolio companies’ needs. Prior to joining SignalFire, Asher worked as a data science leader at companies like Square’s Cash App, Facebook, and SoundCloud.

Sadasia McCutchen—Head of Ecosystem: Sadasia’s goal is to cultivate vital relationships with key customers, corporates, and strategic partners to drive portfolio growth. She leads the firm’s Mentor and Specialist program and supports the portfolio via scaled efforts that: propel product-market fit, scale revenue, and foster potential future investments. Prior to joining SignalFire, Sadasia was the VP of Community and Growth at CapitalG, where she envisioned the firm’s community strategy and built networks of portfolio founders, industry experts, and customers to drive portfolio growth. 

Mario Espindola—Senior Director of Talent: Mario will be assisting portfolio companies with talent acquisition strategies. Prior to joining SignalFire, Mario served as the Head of Talent Acquisition for healthcare technology company Wheel, and Head of Global Talent for Autodesk Construction Cloud. He is an experienced talent acquisition professional with a background in startups and publicly traded organizations.

Andrew Reid—Director of GTM Recruiting: Andrew will be assisting portfolio companies with talent acquisition initiatives across go-to-market functions. Prior to joining SignalFire, Andrew was the Head of Talent at growth equity fund Lead Edge Capital and worked on executive placements at retained search firms Artisan Talent and SPMB.

Congratulations to our recently promoted team members

Libby Hadzima Perkins—General Counsel: Libby works closely with the investing and operations team, board members, LPs, and portfolio entrepreneurs and CEOs on a range of legal activities across the firm. She joined SignalFire in 2021 to oversee the legal affairs of the firm. Prior to joining SignalFire, Libby advised high-growth companies and their investors at Cooley LLP in the San Francisco office on private financing of all stages, mergers and acquisitions, public capital markets transactions, and corporate governance matters.

Yuanling Yuan (YY)—Partner, Venture: YY focuses on venture and growth-stage investments in health tech. She joined SignalFire in 2019 and previously held the title of Principal. Prior to SignalFire, she worked on the investment team at Blackstone’s Strategic Opportunity Fund, where she evaluated late-stage and IPO investment opportunities. At Blackstone, she also spent time on the Emerging Markets team, evaluating macroeconomic and political risk in countries such as China, Brazil, and Egypt.

Heather Doshay—Partner, People and Talent: Heather leads the people and recruiting programs for the portfolio. She joined SignalFire in 2021 as a managing director. Prior to SignalFire, Heather served as a Vice President, People at Webflow. Actively involved in the people and talent leadership community, Heather is SHRM senior certified, serves on the PeopleTech Partners Advisory, and has served on the Forbes HR Council. She was honored as a top Talent Operator on the inaugural 2020 Anchor List and Top Women Leader in SaaS in the 2018 SaaS Report.