At Half Court Ventures we are dedicated to being the first believers in an AI founder’s vision and supporting them as they transform the world with their technology.
Our Team
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Rob May
GENERAL PARTNER
Rob May is a product engineer, serial entrepreneur, and the founder of Half Court Ventures. The first company he built was Backupify, the world’s first cloud-to-cloud backup and recovery solution for SaaS applications, growing the business to over 9,000 customers and 90 employees before being acquired by Datto. Rob went on to found Talla (acquired by Seva), Dianthus, and BrandGuard.ai, developing AI products for customer support, eCommerce, and marketing, respectively.
In his spare time Rob publishes the Investing in AI newsletter, hosts the AI Innovator’s Podcast, runs the AI Innovators Community which he founded, and is a diehard college basketball fan. Prior to founding his first company, he worked as a hardware engineer and holds a B.S. in Electrical Engineering and an M.B.A. from the University of Kentucky.
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Josh Lessing​
GENERAL PARTNER
Josh Lessing is an entrepreneur, scientist, and inventor. Josh began his career launching Soft Robotics, a deep tech spin-out from the laboratory of Prof. George Whitesides. At Soft Robotics he developed the company’s core technology platform which today can be found at Procter & Gamble, General Mills, Cargill, Domino's, and Tyson Foods. Next, he founded Root AI, the creator of the first universal harvesting robot, Virgo, before being acquired by AppHarvest where he served as CTO leading robotics, computer vision, and software development.
In his spare time Josh is an avid rock climber, snowboarder and splitboard mountaineer. Josh holds a Sc.B. in Chemistry from Brown University, a Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry from MIT, was a Post-Doc in the Department of Chemistry & Chemical Biology at Harvard University, and has authored 11 peer-reviewed publications and 40 patents.
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