Episode 114: Embark Ventures: Raising Seed Capital and Building MVP for Scientific Founders

Yipeng Zhao is a Managing Partner at Embark Ventures, a Los-Angeles based venture capital firm focused on early-stage companies. Embark Ventures particularly interested in Frontier/Deep Tech companies such as cyber-security, AI/ML, Robotics and Data Analytics. Yipeng co-founded Embark Ventures in 2017 where he manages Embark Ventures’ new investments and portfolio companies. Since founded Embark Ventures, Yipeng lead 8 investments and is on the board of directors of multiple venture-backed companies.

Prior joining Embark Ventures, Yipeng serviced as Executive Vice President of ZMXY Global Investment, Inc., a China-based private equity investor where he has been actively involved in equity investment in both China and US. Some cases including the equity investment of YangQuan City Commercial Bank and a mixed-use REITs portfolio
in Taiyuan, China. Yipeng also helped ZMXY Global Investment set up their venture investment arm (ArcheMatrix Investment Group, LLC) in Los Angeles as a part of the global strategy.

Yipeng also worked at UCSD as research statistician focused on Nonparametric and Semiparametric estimation and inference problem in Econometrics. While at UCSD he spent time on the application of big data in customer behavior research and game-theoretical econometrics approach to customer behavior research. Yipeng also has extensive research experience in financial risk management and time series data
Analysis.