DL

Dave Lu

Managing Partner @ Hyphen Capital | Co-founder and President @ Expo | Co-founder of Stand With Asian Americans | Producer of Emmy-winning 38 at the Garden | Smithsonian APAC Board

San Francisco Bay Area

Lists including Dave

Work Experience

  • Founder and Managing Partner

    2020

    Investing in the next generation of Asian American founders. Have invested over $29M in 90+ companies since 2020. Our portfolio includes companies including Sanzo, MiLa, Drop, Persona, Super, Nitra, Slope, Boo, Omneky and many others. Two exits to date: Pry Financial acquired by Brex. Revela acquired by Oddity (NASDAQ:ODD)

2023

  • Member

    2023

2015

  • Co-founder & President

    2015

    Building AI for restaurant operators. Expo sits on your data and can answer your operations questions instantly. Partners include Popeye’s, Burger King, CAVA and Jack in the Box. Backed by CRV, Uncork Capital, True Ventures, Calibrate Ventures, Precursor Ventures, Jeremy Stoppelman (Yelp), Thomas Keller, and Steve Chen (YouTube) among others.

  • Co-Founder

    2021

    Wrote a letter denouncing Asian American hate crimes and committing to raise $10M to support non-profits fighting discrimination against AAPIs that was signed by thousands of business leaders and printed in a full-page ad in the Wall Street Journal. Signatories include the CEOs of Google, LinkedIn, DoorDash, Zoom, Universal McCann, Docusign, and hundreds of other companies as well as President George W. Bush, NBA players Andre Iguodala and Jeremy Lin and Hollywood director and producer JJ Abrams.

2023

  • Member

    2023

  • Advisory Board Member, Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center

    2022

    From our establishment in 1997 as an initiative critical to the mission of the Smithsonian until today, the vision for the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center has been to enrich the American Story with the voices of Asian Pacific Americans.

2021

  • Member

    2021

2021 - 2022

  • Executive Producer

    2021 - 2022

    Co-Produced Emmy-winning sports documentary about Jeremy Lin’s sensational stretch with the New York Knicks in 2012 known famously as Linsanity. HBO acquired the film. It won the 2023 Sports Emmy Award for Outstanding Short Documentary and was shortlisted for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Short.

2015 - 2015

  • VP of Marketing

    2015 - 2015

2006 - 2015

  • CEO and Founder

    2006 - 2015

    Co-Founder and CEO of one of the biggest entertainment websites in the world to over 35 million unique monthly visitors.

Latest Articles

SubstackApr. 2016

Take a Leap of Faith

SubstackMar. 2016

Routine is the Enemy of Time

SubstackMar. 2016

Build Something People Want