Activate Capital
Raj has been investing in technology, energy, mobility, and industrial markets for 25 years. He is a passionate champion of the entrepreneur having founded three private investment firms as well as an educational nonprofit (Spotlight Foundation) after graduating business school.
Prior to co-founding Activate, Raj was a founder of Silver Lake Kraftwerk, a private equity fund focused on the energy and resource sectors. From 2000 to 2011, Raj was a Managing Director at Draper Fisher Jurvetson (DFJ), where he founded the firm’s cleantech and India investment practices. DFJ was an early investor in companies that created entirely new markets with visionary founders – Baidu, Skype, Tesla, SpaceX, Solar City, EnerNOC, Box, Athena Healthcare, Redfin, and Ping Identity. In 2005, Raj co-founded DFJ Element with Activate Co-Founder David Lincoln – the leading dedicated cleantech firm of its vintage. Raj has served on over 25 public, private, and nonprofit boards including SolarCity (SCTY), Ping Identity (PING), EnerNOC (ENOC) and current investments Generate Capital, Flexe, Nozomi, Ridecell, Scoop, Voltus, and Omnidian.
Raj holds an MBA as well as BS/MS degrees in Environmental Engineering from Stanford where he began his lifelong passion for renewable energy systems. He was previously a Sandia National Labs research associate and an Aspen Fellow. Raj’s passions include skiing the steeps, running, and cooking for his family in San Francisco.
Activate Capital
Activate is a growth-stage venture capital firm focused on the generational, digital transformation of the energy, transportation and industrial infrastructure sectors to create a more connected, intelligent, and sustainable 21st century economy. They invest in companies whose technologies are reshaping the traditional industrial economy into a digitized ecosystem of intelligent systems and ‘Smart Real Assets’. Core investment themes for Activate include Energy Transition, Smart Mobility & Logistics, and Industrial Intelligence & Automation.