David Su

David Su is a Managing Partner at Apax Partners, where he leads the Apax Impact (Apax Global Impact) team. He joined Apax in 2021 to head its impact-investing platform, which backs companies that aim to deliver competitive financial returns alongside measurable social and environmental impact. The legacy CRM record tying him to "NVP / Norwest" reflects his prior employer — he is no longer at Norwest, and the [hidden] address dates from that period.

Before Apax, David spent twelve years (roughly 2009–2021) at Norwest Venture Partners, where he was a Partner and a founding member of the firm's growth-equity practice. There he invested across technology, business services, financial services, and consumer, and served on boards including Classy, Swing Education, and GAN Integrity. Earlier in his career he was an Associate at Spectrum Equity Investors, focused on the technology, media, and telecom (TMT) sectors, and an Analyst in the TMT Investment Banking Group at Goldman Sachs.

David earned an MBA from Harvard Business School and a BS with honors in Business Administration from the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley, with study-abroad stints at the London School of Economics and Peking University.

David has been open about the personal roots of his move into impact investing: the experience of parenting a deaf child who received cochlear implants shaped his commitment to backing companies that combine financial and social returns — what he describes as a different, "more meaningful" kind of unicorn.

• Impact + returns, weighted equally: Invests in companies "where valuation and social impact are equally regarded," seeking competitive growth-equity returns and measurable, intentional impact rather than treating the two as a trade-off.
• Growth-stage operators, not seed bets: Focus is on scaling, revenue-generating businesses (growth equity / growth buyout) — distinct from the early-stage/seed angel profile in the original stub.
• Sector breadth: Technology, software, business services, financial services, and consumer, with impact themes such as education, governance/compliance, and social good.
• Measurement discipline: Emphasizes rigorous impact measurement and reporting as core to the underwriting — he has publicly discussed how to measure impact using portfolio examples like Swing Education.
• Drawn to platform + authenticity: Cites Apax's "authentic" approach to impact combined with a large global firm's resources, culture, and reach as why he made the move.