Daniel Leff, PhD

Venture Partner

Daniel is a Venture Partner based in Globespan Capital Partners’ Palo Alto Office. He focuses on investments in Cleantech/Renewable Energy as well as in hardware components and subsystems (with an emphasis on semiconductor-related technologies). A former entrepreneur himself, Daniel is passionate about working at the interface of business and technology with start-up companies focused on becoming market leaders. He brings strong technical expertise, extensive investment experience, and a focused commitment to helping the firm’s entrepreneurs achieve success in a dynamically changing global marketplace.

Daniel serves on the board of Ampulse and is also actively involved with a number of Globespan portfolio companies including Calisolar, Nantero, and ZeaChem.

Prior to joining Globespan in 2008, Daniel was an Executive Vice President and Managing Director at Harris & Harris Group, Inc., a publicly held venture capital company (NASDAQ:TINY). While at Harris & Harris Group, Daniel established the company’s first West Coast office and focused on investments in advanced materials, cleantech, and semiconductor-related technologies. He served on the Boards of Adesto Technologies, Cswitch, Innovalight, Nanomix, and Solazyme. In addition, Daniel was a Board Observer at Bridgelux, Cambrios, Molecular Imprints, Nanogram, and Neophotonics.

Earlier in his career, Daniel was with Sevin Rosen Funds and Redpoint Ventures. He also previously held engineering, marketing and strategic investment positions with Intel Corporation.

Daniel earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Chemistry from the University of California, Berkeley. He also received a PhD in Physical Chemistry from the University of California, Los Angeles and an MBA from The Anderson School at UCLA, where he was an Anderson Venture Fellow. Daniel has been awarded two technology patents and has been published in several scientific journals.

Daniel lives in Palo Alto with his wife and son. He enjoys exercising, reading, playing golf, traveling with his family to tropical locales, and investing in the stock market.