EQUAL - Key Persons
Investor Adam Chadroff This is some text inside of a div block. This is some text inside of a div block.
Adam is an investor at Equal Ventures, where he focuses on insurance and fintech. Prior to Equal, Adam held operating roles at venture-backed fintech companies, most recently as Head of Operations at Counterpart, a commercial insurance startup. Adam was an early member of the product team at Policygenius, where he helped to launch no-medical-exam life insurance products with leading carriers. Previously, Adam was an institutional equities trader and an associate in the Global Capital Markets division at Morgan Stanley.
Adam holds an MBA from the Wharton School, and a BA in International Relations from Stanford University. Adam lives in Brooklyn, New York. Outside of work, he can be found reading in Domino Park or exploring the Catskills.
Investor Ali Afridi This is some text inside of a div block. This is some text inside of a div block.
Ali is a Principal at Equal Ventures where he focuses on investments across the firm's core verticals. Ali is in his second stint at Equal, previously being a part of the team from 2018-21. In between his time at the firm, Ali was an EIR at Fractal where he was a part of the founding team and CEO of Drenchworks, a project management system for specialty contractors in construction.
Ali got his start in VC as an intern at General Catalyst Partners and then worked full-time at Lightbank, a Chicago-based VC firm. On the side he maintains an industry-wide VC newsletter called SandHill.io that aggregates the latest theses from 700+ VCs.
Investor Chelsea Zhang This is some text inside of a div block. This is some text inside of a div block.
Chelsea is an investor at Equal Ventures, where she focuses on supply chain and ecommerce. Previously, she was at L.E.K. Consulting, a strategy consulting firm, where she focused on advising corporations and private equity firms on growth and M&A strategy within consumer retail. On secondment from L.E.K., she worked on the Museum team at the Obama Foundation to help build the new Obama Presidential Center. Chelsea first encountered venture in college, when she took a year off to work at a VC-backed company in the kids' media space.
Chelsea started her Equal journey as an MBA intern during her first year at Wharton and graduated from the University of Chicago with an Economics BA. She splits her spare time between lurking on sports Twitter, consuming sci-fi novels, and getting to Inbox Zero.
Investor Grace Penders This is some text inside of a div block. This is some text inside of a div block.
Grace is an investor at Equal Ventures focusing on climate investments. Prior to Equal, Grace was a climate investor at Energize Capital, where she was most recently a Senior Associate. She covered investments related to electrification, carbon management, resource efficiency, and digital industry, and built several theses around electric vehicle charging, energy flexibility, and circular economy. Previously, she was a Strategy Consultant at Accenture, where she worked with 14 electric utilities to accelerate their clean energy initiatives.
Grace holds a BA from the University of Chicago, where she studied Economics and Spanish Literature. She currently lives in Brooklyn NY and enjoys community gardening, true crime tv, and exploring national parks in her spare time.
Venture Partner Richard Kerby This is some text inside of a div block. This is some text inside of a div block.
Richard is Co-Founder and Venture Partner at Equal Ventures. Prior to co-founding Equal Ventures, Richard was an investor at Venrock, where he led seed-stage and Series A stage investments in 6Sense, Amino Apps, Beckon, Burner, Luxe Valet, and Salsify.
Prior to joining Venrock, Richard was an investor at Institutional Venture Partners (IVP), where he focused on identifying and evaluating later-stage investments. While at IVP, Richard worked with IVP portfolio companies such as Dropbox, FleetMatics, PopSugar, Shazam, and Yext. Prior to joining IVP, Richard worked in the Investment Banking Division of Credit Suisse.
Richard is a proud Georgetown alum and is a rabid Hoyas basketball fan. Richard is also the founder of Stealth Mode, a community of more than 1,500 African American founders, operators and investors.
Managing Partner Rick Zullo This is some text inside of a div block. This is some text inside of a div block.
Rick is Co-Founder and Managing Partner at Equal Ventures. Rick invests across Equal's four verticals and serves on the boards of Threeflow, Leap, Smarthop, Ghost, Starday, David Energy, MVMNT, Odyssey Energy Solutions, vQuip and several others yet to be announced.
Prior to co-founding Equal Ventures, Rick was an investor at Lightbank, an early-stage venture fund based in Chicago, where he led investments in companies like Riskmatch (acquired by Vertafore), Vettery (acquired by Adecco), Neumob (acquired by CloudFlare), Expel and Catalytic amongst others. In addition to those investments, Rick served on the boards of Snapsheet and Benchprep and angel invested in several industry-leading companies like Rigup, Clearcover, and Project44.
Prior to Lightbank, Rick worked with investment firms Foundation Capital, Bowery Capital, and Lightview Capital, investing in technology companies across the capital spectrum from seed-stage to buy-out and began his career as a strategy consultant at Deloitte Consulting.
Rick received an MBA with Honors from Columbia Business School and graduated from the University of Richmond where he studied Economics and Leadership Studies. When Rick isn't working with founders he can usually be found in Brooklyn with his wife, Lauren, their daughter, Sutton, their son, Hayes, and their dog, Archie.
Simran is an Investor at Equal Ventures. Prior to joining Equal, Simran was introduced to venture through internships at Greenspring Associates, SoGal Ventures, and VC-backed startup Predata. Simran also worked as Managing Partner of JHU's student-run fund, A-Level Capital. At A-Level, Simran led numerous investments in early-stage companies founded by Hopkins students, alumni and faculty.
Simran is a graduate of Johns Hopkins University, where she received a B.A. in International Studies and Sociology through the Global Social Change & Development program. Outside of venture, Simran is an avid foodie and loves to explore the depths of SoundCloud.