LD

Lake Dai

Founder, Sancus Ventures | AI Professor, Carnegie Mellon University | Board Chair & Director | “100 Women in AI” Award 2025

San Francisco Bay Area

VC
Angel
Investor
Product Operator

Invests in

Stages:

Pre-seed
Seed

  • Min Investment:

    $250,000.00

  • Max Investment:

    $1,000,000.00

  • Target Investment:

    $500,000.00

Skills

Board of Directors
Venture Capital
Audit Committee
Technology Committee
Product Management
Agile Project Management
Marketplace
Online Advertising
Lead Generation
Monetization
Search
SEO
SEM
B2B
Localization
Online Marketing
E-commerce
Marketing
Social Media Marketing
Digital Media

Education

Lists including Lake

AH
AE
AF
AJ

Based in SF

3077 people

AM
AT
AS
AR

All Seed Investors

19691 people

AT
AE
AE
AL

All Pre-Seed Investors

7972 people

PS
PS
PC
PM

Pre-seed Investors in San Francisco

993 people

Investments

zCloak Network

Seed

Total Funding: $6M

Cased

Seed

Total Funding: $2M

Workera

Series A

Total Funding: $40M

Venti Technologies

Seed

Total Funding: $37M

Blue J

Series A

Total Funding: $7M

Ubiquity6

Series A

Total Funding: $38M

Work Experience

SV
Sancus Ventures

2022

  • Founder, Managing Partner

    2022

    Sancus Ventures is a pre-seed and seed-stage fund focused on software infrastructure and AI native applications—backing the next generation of foundational software companies at the earliest inflection points. Exits: Monterey AI (acquired by Reforge), Predibase (acquired by Rubrik), and Taiko (TAIKO).

CM
Carnegie Mellon University

2016

  • Adjunct Professor, Applied AI & AI Governance

    2016

    Part-time Faculty of CMU Integrated Innovation Institute and Information Networking Institute, teaching Applied AI and AI Governance courses; Advisory Board Member, CMU TECH (Technical Entrepreneur Coaching Hub).

G
Google

2025

  • Mentor, Google AI Accelerator

    2025

A
AngelList

2024

  • Advisory Board Member

    2024

BA
Benevolent AI Future

2023

  • Co-founder, Vice Chair

    2023

    Benevolent AI Future brings together builders and funders for AI solutions that serve the public good.

G(
GIA (Gemological Institute of America)

2022

  • Board Governor (Audit & Risk, Finance, and Governance Committees)

    2022

    Established in 1931 and operates in 11 countries, GIA is the leading institution that protects the gem and jewelry buying public through research, education and laboratory services.

SA
Stanford Alumni Association

2022 - 2024

  • Leadership Team Member, Stanford Women on Boards

    2022 - 2024

    2022 - 2024: Led the Technology Experience Group, grew members from 200+ to over 700 board directors and board candidates in the technology sector.

LP
LDV Partners

2016 - 2022

  • Partner

    2016 - 2022

    Invested in early stage deep tech startups. Exits: Ubiquity6 (acquired by Discord), Voxeet (acquired by Dolby), Fabric Genomics (acquired by GeneDx) Board Director: Elemind Technologies (Neurotech), Venti Technologies (Autonomous Driving). Board Observer: Alcatraz (Security AI), Blue J Legal(Legal AI), Fabric Genomics (Healthcare AI)

S
Shinect

2015 - 2017

  • Co-founder, Sinect Startup Accelerator

    2015 - 2017

    Pre-seed to seed SaaS startup incubator, partnering with leading VC firms and corporations.

Quixey

2013 - 2016

  • Senior Director, Search Infrastructure

    2013 - 2016

    Head of Search Operation Unit - Deep Search Platform (Content Acquisition, Semantic Pipeline, Search Science & Engineering, API)