The Yard Ventures Presents: 2021 in Review

Michael is a Co-Founder of Alumni Ventures and has been the Managing Partner of The Yard Ventures since inception. Working alongside a great team, Michael has invested in over 120 companies on the way to building large, diversified venture capital portfolios for our Yard investors. Prior to joining the early team at Alumni Ventures, Michael had been a venture investor, board member, and advisor while at firms such as Summit Partners, Polaris Venture Partners, Edison Partners, and Square One. He earned an AB from Harvard University, where he was a four-year letter winner in both Varsity Football and Varsity Baseball. Michael later received an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

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.

Prior to joining The Yard Ventures, Grant was an entrepreneur, management consultant, product manager, and VC investor. He was a founding member and editor-in-chief of the Morning Brew, a successful media startup which exited to Business Insider. As a senior consultant with Deloitte, he led projects focused on tech strategy. Within Deloitte, he incubated and managed a people analytics product, and co-chaired a new strategy practice focused on the future of work. As an active contributor to innovation within Harvard’s venture ecosystem, he has helped to operationalize a new tech-enabled, democratized investing platform, as well as a new venture debt firm — and has had the privilege to advise, support, and learn from many startups within the community. Grant earned his MBA from Harvard Business School, and his BA, Phi Beta Kappa, from the University of Michigan.

Deborah has over 25 years of experience working with social impact entrepreneurs and mission-driven leaders. Prior to joining AVG, Deb was an independent consultant for business development and growth strategies, guiding founders through the early startup and launch phases of new social ventures and nonprofit organizations. Her clients included an MIT professor and former dean launching a venture to transform the higher education landscape, social ventures focused on national security and foreign policy, and a national organization building a global joint initiative for world leaders. She has worked in higher education advancement, nonprofit management, and as a Capitol Hill lobbyist, beginning her career as committee staff in the US Senate. Deborah holds a BS in political science from Birmingham-Southern College and a MA in Communication from American University.