Venture Investing in the Heartland: How the Midwest is Going from Rust Belt to Tech Belt

Overview:

Ron brings a dynamic blend of operational leadership, global business acumen, and values-driven investing to early-stage venture capital. As Managing Partner and Head of the AV Seed Fund at Alumni Ventures, he leads investments in bold, frontier technologies that span sectors and geographies. Ron’s experience ranges from founding and scaling unicorn-status startups to guiding impact-focused portfolios that generate both financial and societal returns.

Before joining Alumni Ventures in 2019, Ron served on the Investment Committee at Yard Ventures, AV’s fund for the Harvard community. His own entrepreneurial journey includes co-founding and leading TravelPerk, an enterprise travel management platform that reached multibillion-dollar valuation and global scale. Prior to that, he launched the B2B division of Booking.com and held strategic roles at McKinsey & Co., US Airways, the Maersk Group, and Lycos.

Ron studied entrepreneurship at Babson College and earned his MBA from Harvard Business School. A frequent speaker at global investor conferences and guest on top VC podcasts, he is also a passionate world traveler—having visited over 140 countries and all 50 U.S. states. He resides near Boston with his wife and three young children, and shares personal reflections and industry insights at ronlevin.substack.com.

Funds Actively Worked On:

• Seed Fund
• Yard Ventures

Investment Areas of Focus:

Ron’s investment strategy is grounded in the belief that moonshot ideas—when coupled with great execution—can generate asymmetric outcomes. He gravitates toward founders solving global-scale problems through advanced technology, with a particular interest in sectors such as:

• Enterprise software
• Fintech and edtech
• Life sciences and healthtech
• Clean energy and sustainability
• Space and advanced computing

He is especially drawn to companies that combine technical rigor with mission-driven ambition—ventures that challenge the status quo and improve lives across the economic spectrum.

His impact-focused philosophy is captured in his book, Higher Purpose Venture Capital, which highlights startups tackling root causes and symptoms of social and wealth inequality. Ron’s notable investments aligned with this “double bottom line” thesis include:

• Aprende Institute, empowering upskilling in underserved communities (edtech)
• Fido, extending digital identity and financial access in emerging markets (fintech)
• HopSkipDrive, transforming student and senior transportation (mobility) Provenance, enabling traceability and transparency in supply chains (cleantech)
• Surge Therapeutics, developing innovative cancer immunotherapies (biotech)

These companies reflect Ron’s broader vision: to support transformational technologies that deliver extraordinary outcomes—for both investors and the world.

Rebecca A. Fannin is a leading expert on global innovation, a top-selling author and media entrepreneur. She began her journalistic career in New York City and later Silicon Valley, where she followed the venture capital trail to become one of the first American journalists to write about China’s entrepreneurial boom, reporting from Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong. Inspired by the entrepreneurs she met and interviewed in China, Rebecca formed Silicon Dragon Ventures , a news, events and thought leadership platform. Rebecca’s career has taken her to the world’s leading hubs of tech innovation. She is a correspondent at CNBC.com, a Forbes columnist for 10 years, and her articles also have appeared in Harvard Business Review, Fast Company, Wired, Techonomy, Inc. and Red Herring, where she was international news editor during the dotcom boom.

Paul is the CEO and Co-General Partner of O’Leary Ventures.  O’Leary Ventures is the VC fund of Kevin O’Leary from Shark Tank and the fund has a mandate of investing in companies based in North Dakota.  Paul has 30 years of experience as a fiduciary, asset manager, and investor across a broad spectrum of asset classes for institutional investors and high-net-worth family offices.

Daniel Walsh has a diverse work experience. Daniel is currently the CEO and Founder of VeroSkills, based in Birmingham, Alabama. Previously, he was the Co-Founder and President of TrueCoders, a remote coding bootcamp, from September 2017 to March 2021. At TrueCoders, he focused on training students to become software developers and helping them secure jobs in the industry. Before that, he served as the Chief Marketing Officer at Credntia from September 2016 to September 2017. Prior to that, he worked as a Sales and Marketing Specialist at MicroPulse Technologies, Inc. from May 2015 to September 2016. Daniel also had a role as a Marketing Consultant at Platypi from December 2014 to May 2015.  Daniel started his career as the CEO of Zappend Inc. from July 2010 to December 2014, where he aimed to simplify the process of developing mobile applications for individuals with innovative ideas.