Keith Laepple

About Keith Laepple

Entering his thirteenth year of angel investing and organizing in the Seattle startup community, Keith is excited to now be a co-founder and managing partner of Seattle\'s new VentureUs investor group, forming in the wake of the final SeaChange Fund in 2022.Keith\'s personal and group portfolios span SaaS, consumer products, medical, clean energy, ed tech, cosmetics, fashion, fin tech, and more. He\'s an early investor in longstanding women-led companies including Karissa Bodnar\'s Thrive Causemetics, Wavely Diagnostics, TomboyX women\'s apparel, OtoNexus Medical Technologies, GlamHive styling services, and Vidigami Media (B.C.), as well as TipHaus restaurant tip mgmt, ESS Inc. clean energy storage (Oregon), and other Northwest startups.Prior to angel investing, Keith spent over two decades as a Microsoft engineer, manager, and thought leader in operating system development and strategy spanning ten Windows releases. After building core platform technologies catalyzing the PC market in the 1990s, he led technical and business development teams creating hardware, content, partnerships, and industry standards for PCs, smartphones, entertainment, silicon, networking, and more. He holds bachelor’s degrees in Computer Science and Mathematics from Virginia Tech (1990).A twenty-nine year resident of Bellevue, Washington, Keith is a rescue dog owner, far-flung tourist, LGBTQ rights activist, EV, smart home and fitness geek, beach goer, e-biker, and occasional snowboarder.

Experience

1. Managing Partner

   Ventureus

   Jan 2024 — Present

   VentureUs is Seattle\'s new investor-led early stage funding group that makes building high-quality startup portfolios even easier, more collaborative, and fun. A diverse mix of SeaChange Fund alumni and other new and experienced investors from the Pacific Northwest and beyond, our members work together to make smarter decisions, engage in the startup community, grow investment skills, and provide efficient, positive impact to founders.

Education

• Virginia Tech

  B.S., Computer Science and Mathematics

  1986 — 1990

• University of Washington

  Computer Science Professional Masters Program

  1996 — 1998

Skills

• IT Strategy
• Partner Management
• Product Marketing
• Microsoft Technologies
• Start-Ups
• Device Drivers
• Wireless
• Go-to-Market Strategy
• Windows Phone
• Mobile Device Commercialization
• Technology Evangelist
• Agile Project Management
• Product Management
• Cloud Computing
• Software Engineering
• Angel Investing
• Technology Evangelism
• Program Management
• Strategy
• Strategic Partnerships
• New Business Development
• Consumer Electronics
• Business Development
• Product Development
• Team Management
• Mobile Devices
• Embedded Systems