The investment marketplace that connects investors and experts with science & tech startups

Our Mission

What if you were able to unleash innovations, grow great businesses, and truly impact the way we live? And what if you could do it while potentially achieving investment returns? Propel(x) is making that vision a reality.

Propel(x) is an investment marketplace that gives investors the power to discover and fund visionary science and technology startups. As a premier platform for Deep Tech innovation, Propel(x) seeks to help the next generation of great companies.

We are on the cusp of scientific and technological breakthroughs that could
define the next century. Propel(x) is the investment marketplace that aims to help discover and fund these great innovations that move humanity forward.

Our Community

We are on the cusp of momentous scientific and technological breakthroughs that will define the next century. Propel(x) is the investment marketplace that aims to help discover and fund these great innovations that move humanity forward.

The Team

Swati Chaturvedi

Co-Founder, CEO

Swati has been a management consultant, an investment professional and is now an entrepreneur. Prior to starting Propel(x), Swati was an investment professional at Exigen Capital, where she worked on IT Telecom, Travel, and BPO deals. Before that, she was a management consultant working across a variety of industries. Swati is the co-founder of the MIT Alumni Angel Investors group. She founded and led the group 2013 – 2015, and continues to be on the screening committee. She has an MBA from the Sloan School of Management, an M.S. from MIT, an M.S. from UC Berkeley, and a Bachelor’s degree from the Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee. Outside of work, Swati loves to spend time with family, watch movies and read (when time permits, increasingly less these days).

Lisheng Wang

Co-Founder,
Investor Development

Lisheng has a background of 15 years in financial services, management consulting, and IT. His resume includes risk management at Wells Fargo, corporate strategy at KeyBank, consulting at The World Bank and Public Strategies, and software engineering at Microsoft. Lisheng co-founded the MIT Alumni Angels Group with Swati, where he currently serves on the steering committee. Lisheng has an M.S. in Technology and Policy from MIT and a B.S. in Chemistry from Fudan University in China. He is a huge fan of soccer and basketball, enjoys reading, and loves traveling with his wife and two young kids. He is devoted to community service and is on the Board of Trustees at Montessori de Terra Linda.

Jason May

VP, Engineering

Jason has over 20 years of experience implementing software solutions across a wide range of industries. In 1998, Jason co-founded Billpoint, an online payments startup that was funded by Sequoia Capital and acquired in 1999 by eBay for $125 million. Jason conceived, designed and led the implementation of Billpoint's software platform. Jason was a founding employee of Cambridge Technology Partners, where he spent nine years leading multi-million-dollar technology custom software implementations for major CTP clients including HP, Charles Schwab and Lockheed. Jason holds a B.A. in Computer Science from Harvard University, and holds 3 U.S. patents.

Mark Zhu

Director, Business Development

Mark Zhu recently joined Propel(x) as Director of Business Development to grow the participation level of institutional and international investors in the Propel(x) community. Mark will also be developing relationships with early stage companies in the Eastern US. Prior to joining Propel(x), Mark has been an investor with Gibraltar Ventures (Prudential Financial), Connecticut Innovations, and DTE Energy Ventures. Over the eight years, Mark had invested over $30 M in approximately 15 early stage companies in energy, materials, FinTech, and software areas. Some of the notable deals include A123, Blooom, Device42, Digital Currency Group, QD Vision, SDC Material, and SeeClickFix. Before starting his investment career, Mark had been a control and systems engineer with United Technologies and Praxair developing alternative energy solutions and advanced control systems. Mark was a co-inventor on four US patents. Mark received his MBA from Carnegie Mellon University Tepper School of Business and a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from Louisiana State University.

Andy Reed

Operations Manager

Andy joined Propel(x) with a diverse background in finance, entrepreneurship and operations. Prior to joining, Andy was an investment banker for Robert W. Baird, where he focused on M&A in the Industrials and Business Services groups. Andy is passionate about early stage company development and financing, especially in high-impact areas like life-sciences and energy. He previously worked with Picoyune, an early-stage Mercury sensor startup and helped develop their initial go-to-market strategy and identify early customers. Andy spent the first chapter of his career as a co-founder and manager of a cycling store in San Francisco. Andy holds an MBA from the Cornell Johnson School of Graduate Management, where he received the Roy H. Park Leadership Fellow award, and a B.A. from Oberlin College in Religion and Politics. Outside of work Andy spends as much time as possible cycling, open water swimming, playing squash and cooking with friends. When possible, he volunteers as a rooftop solar installer. He is a San Francisco “local,” but still enjoys finding new hidden corners of the city.

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