ADA PARTNERS - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Venture Partner
- Healthcare
Ben spent over 6 years working in executive search, making a number of placements at board & senior executive level for founder-led, venture-backed businesses. He supports the Ada Ventures portfolio through strategic coaching & advisory work around talent, people, culture and hiring.
Job Titles:
- Managing Partner and Founder of Precursor Ventures
Charles Hudson is the Managing Partner and Founder of Precursor Ventures, an early stage venture capital firm focused on investing in the first institutional round of investment for the most promising software and hardware companies. He invests in people over product at the earliest stage of their entrepreneurial journey. Under his leadership, Precursor Ventures has raised four funds and has over $175 million under management.
Job Titles:
- Founding Partner
- Member of the Investment Team
Job Titles:
- Head of Portfolio & Brand
Job Titles:
- Co - Founder and Chair of the Emerging Companies & Venture Capital Group at Lowenstein Sandler LLP / Co - Founder of First Close Partners and the Historic Fund
Ed Zimmerman co-founded and chairs the Emerging Companies & Venture Capital Group at Lowenstein Sandler, where he's been a growth company, startup and venture lawyer for 30 years. Chambers ranked Ed among the 22 best lawyers in Startups & Emerging Companies-USA-Nationwide (the only NYC-based lawyer listed (2018)). Best Lawyers in America named Ed 2017 NYC Venture Capital Lawyer of the Year.
Ed co-founded First Close Partners (see Wall Street Journal coverage) (2020), which invests into venture funds owned and run by underrepresented managers across the world, and The Historic Fund (a nonprofit supporting Historically Black Colleges & Universities (HBCUs) by donating fully-funded LP interests in a portfolio of VC funds into HBCU endowments). Outside of First Close Partners, Ed has personally invested in 100+ VC funds and 170+ startups, predominantly in the US, Europe, and Africa.
Ed serves as: an Adjunct Professor of VC at Columbia (since 2005), on the Wall Street Journal's Panel of Experts (80 columns published), founder/Chair of VentureCrush (since March 2000), Interim Chair of the Board of Center for Policing Equity (which uses data and science to make law enforcement less deadly, less racist and less omnipresent), and a Board member at Fisk University (an HBCU in Nashville, TN), Black Women Talk Tech, The Orchid Foundation, and, previously, Harvey Mudd College.
Job Titles:
- Venture Partner
- Community
Marta is a planet-aligned entrepreneur and investor, deeply committed to building a more sustainable future. She is the co-founder and Co-CEO of Paebbl, a company dedicated to restoring carbon by repurposing captured CO2 into essential raw materials. Paebbl was built on the belief that CO2 can be transformed into a valuable resource, aligning with Marta's mission to create a positive environmental and societal impact.
Beyond her work at Paebbl, Marta is a passionate advocate for increasing diversity in venture capital, and working with exceptional teams with strong visions of re-imagining venture capital from the lens of long term sustainability, both planetary and socio-economic. She serves as a Venture Partner in Climate at Ada Ventures and is a member of the Board of Stewards at 2050.do, the leading planet-aligned evergreen investment firm.
Marta's career and track record in venture capital spans over a decade, beginning at DN Capital and most recently serving as a Partner at Northzone. Her experience as an early-stage investor has shaped her approach to entrepreneurship and sustainability, driving her efforts to create a better future.
Marta is based in Stockholm. Outside of work, Marta is a mother of two, an avid runner/HIIT-enthusiast, and always on the lookout to learn more about health and wellness data.
Job Titles:
- Founding Partner
- Member of the Investment Team
Job Titles:
- Member of the Investment Team
- Principal & Head of Product
Michelle is an experienced investor in venture capital funds, having spent the past 25 years in the industry. Up until June 2024 Michelle was a Partner at Top Tier Capital Partners, where she focused primarily on the firm's venture fund investments in Europe. Between 2016 and 2022, Michelle was Head of Venture at the Church Commissioners for England, the Church of England's investment fund, where she built the endowment's venture capital programme.
Michelle was also Director of Venture Funds at British International Investment (formerly the CDC Group) between 2016 and 2020, where she helped launch the organisation's venture capital fund investment programme focused on emerging managers in Africa and Asia. Prior to that, Michelle was Director of Fund Investment at VenCap. Michelle is an advisor to a number of venture firms, including Ada Ventures in the UK, CRE Ventures in Africa and Pravega Ventures in India.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Wider Team
- Head of Operations & Impact Lead