Jonathan Meltzer

Jonathan Meltzer (Wharton, W'99) is the Managing Partner of Chestnut Street Ventures, Alumni Ventures' fund focused on the University of Pennsylvania alumni ecosystem. He is responsible for sourcing, conducting due diligence on, executing, and managing the fund's venture capital investments. Alumni Ventures is one of the most active venture firms in the U.S. by deal volume, having raised more than $1 billion from individual accredited investors across 18+ university communities.

Meltzer brings nearly 20 years of investment experience. He began his career as an investment banker, spending roughly five years as an analyst at Wasserstein Perella and then as an associate at Goldman Sachs. He subsequently spent about 12 years investing in private companies — managing over $300 million of venture capital, private equity, and credit investments at a $1 billion single-family office, and investing throughout the capital structure of private companies at Ulysses Management and American Capital, where he frequently served as a board member or advisor.

He earned his BS in Economics, cum laude, from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania (completed in three years) and an MBA with honors from Columbia Business School. His deep Penn ties underpin Chestnut Street's mandate: he has said the "Penn ecosystem is one of the biggest globally," with entrepreneurs "coming out of almost every part of the university," and he emphasizes building long-term relationships and supporting portfolio companies' growth.

• Invests across all stages, from pre-seed to later-stage, noting: *"We invest across all stages so what's applicable for a seed round is potentially different than for a Series D."*
• Diversification-first strategy: the objective is to give investors a "well-diversified portfolio of at least 30 companies" across sectors, stages, and geographies.
• Requires a Penn connection and co-invests alongside brand-name lead VCs (e.g., Sequoia, Greylock, Andreessen Horowitz), leveraging Alumni Ventures' access to competitive deals.
• Two-part screen for founders: *"first, is there a compelling value proposition? … And the second is, how does the company make (or intend to make) money?"*
• Personally drawn to innovation in life sciences, agriculture, and logistics, and to automation of "dull, tedious, or dangerous" tasks (e.g., robotics).