David Cohen is the Founder and CEO of Techstars, a multi-billion dollar asset manager and pre-seed investor that provides capital, programming and mentorship to early-stage founders via a global accelerator network. Since founding Techstars in 2006, the company has invested in more than 5,000 startups, including notable investments in 29 unicorns such as Alloy, Chainalysis, Classpass, DataRobot, Digital Ocean, Outreach, Pillpack, Remitly, SalesLoft, SendGrid, Uber, Twilio, and Zipline.

David is a life-long entrepreneur. Prior to Techstars, he was the Founder and CEO of earFeeder which was later sold to SonicSwap. Before that, he was a co-founder of Pinpoint Technologies which was acquired by Zoll Medical Corporation (NASDAQ: ZOLL).

Hogil is responsible for investment and support for startups in IT and various other fields. With his experience of M&A and business development at Rakuten and Z Holdings, he supports many startups at different stages in developing their products, organization, and business models.

Hogil joined GB after working for Rakuten Group and Z Holdings. At Rakuten Group, he was involved in cross-border M&A, e-commerce business, and founded and managed Rakuten Ventures’ Japan fund. During his tenure at Z Holdings, he served as Director and COO of Z Venture Capital, overseeing both the investment division and administrative division.

Hogil enjoys outdoor activities and trying out anything that is new to him. He is strongly committed to working with entrepreneurs to make the world a better place and build a bright future.

Amber joined Lightspeed in 2025 as an Enterprise Partner, where she backs highly technical founders working to build the next generation of enterprise software and infrastructure, particularly in markets that we believe will either be created by, or rapidly automated through, AI.
Amber began her career in venture at Bloomberg Beta, then invested in post-product-market-fit companies at CRV before joining Lightspeed. Long-standing friendships with partners Bucky Moore, Raviraj Jain, and Taggart Bonham – and respect for the firm’s depth of thought on emerging markets – made the decision straightforward.
Growing up near Florida’s Kennedy Space Center, Amber spent weekends studying rocket launches and, by high-school sophomore year, was training a neural network to predict orbital-debris collisions for satellites. Her original love was physics academia, but one month into Stanford, she incorporated a company to sell that predictive data to satellite operators, since she preferred the real-time impact of entrepreneurship to the longer arc of academia. That builder’s mindset led her into a career in venture.

Noriya Tarutani is Deputy Director-General of the Innovation Department at JETRO, where he oversees its startup programs. With over 20 years of experience in startups and international business, he has supported more than 500 Japanese companies in expanding globally.

During his time in San Francisco and Silicon Valley, he collaborated with global accelerators such as Techstars and Berkeley SkyDeck to establish programs focused on product-market fit validation and fundraising. He also promoted the J-Startup initiative internationally, supporting Japanese startups in their global expansion.

After returning to Japan, he played a key role in connecting global accelerators, venture capital firms, and corporations with Japan’s startup ecosystem. He contributed to the launch of programs including Techstars Tokyo and Alchemist Japan. He has overseen JETRO’s startup programs since April 2023.

In 2026, he received the Techstars Give First Award in recognition of his contributions to founders and the startup community.