Lara Druyen

Lara Druyan is a Managing Director with Silicon Valley Data Capital, a seed and early-stage venture capital fund. She is an investor in the sponsor group of Prime Impact, a SPAC that went public in September of 2020 and is joining the Board of a SPAC scheduled to go public at the end of April. Previously, she worked for RBC where she was a Managing Director and Head of Innovation, responsible for the Bank’s digital transformation. She led the development of innovation strategy and execution as well as the identification and evaluation of start-ups and venture capital investments that drove the Bank’s technology, analytics, payments and infrastructure roadmaps. Her team drove 14 new products into production.

Previously, she was the Founding Partner of G&B Partners, an investment and advisory firm. She also served as a Venture Adviser to SRI International and as Vice Chair of the Board of Trustees and Chair of the Investment Committee for the San Jose’s Federated Employee Retirement System (a $2.5B pension plan). Previously, she was an Investor in Residence at US Venture Partners and a General Partner with an early-stage venture capital firm. Lara also worked at Silicon Graphics as a product manager and released a dozen software products.  Some of the companies in which she has invested in include: Xactly (XTLY), Powerset (MSFT), Skout (MEET), Cultivate, Doorstead, NavTrac, RevGenomics and Deduce. In 2018, she was named as one of the “Innovators to Watch: 44 Executives Shaping the Future of Banking” by Bank Innovation and to Constellation’s “Business Transformation 150”. Lara serves on the Global Alumni Boards of the Harvard Business School and of the University of Chicago.

Lara holds an AB in Economics with Honors from the University of Chicago and a Master of Business Administration from the Harvard Business School.