Michael Ozechov

Michael Ozechov is a Partner and Co-Founder of Cornerstone Venture Partners, an early-stage venture capital firm founded in 2015 and headquartered in New York City, with additional presence in California and Israel. He co-founded the firm alongside partners Hanan Brand and Abhishek P., building a small, partner-led team focused on B2B technology. His work centers on investment analysis, portfolio management, and strategic guidance for early-stage enterprise companies, with particular attention to identifying market-driven products and helping founders with product development and market expansion.

Before Cornerstone, Ozechov built a career spanning venture capital and finance. He was an Associate at Jerusalem Venture Partners (JVP), a well-known international venture capital firm with deep roots in the Israeli tech ecosystem, where he gained hands-on venture and investment-management experience. He also worked in investment banking at Pall Mall Capital, focused on mergers, acquisitions, and capital raising, and earlier held a business-development role at exp Global, an engineering and consulting services company. This mix of banking, corporate development, and venture experience underpins his hands-on, board-level approach to portfolio companies.

Ozechov has served as a board member across a range of Cornerstone's portfolio companies, including Axonize (IoT), TEXTEL/Texel (live video streaming), DealHub (sales/CPQ software), OptimalQ (AI-driven sales reachability), User1st (web accessibility), Deskforce (cloud telephony), Valooto, and DBmaestro (DevOps for databases). His stated areas of interest include IoT, accessibility, and media technology.

He was educated at the University of Michigan, where he studied Industrial & Operations Engineering in the College of Engineering, with additional coursework in environmental economics/sustainability.

• Invests almost exclusively in early-stage B2B/enterprise technology companies — not consumer plays.
• Backs startups that, in the firm's words, "solve clear business problems, demonstrate strong initial traction" and show a pathway to product-market fit.
• Writes initial checks up to ~$1M, with the option to add capital in follow-on rounds — positioning as an active seed/Series A investor rather than a passive angel.
• Broad enterprise-tech mandate spanning Big Data, IoT/edge computing, sales & marketing automation, cloud infrastructure, DevOps, predictive analytics, 5G, and video streaming.
• Operates across a US–Israel corridor, reflecting his JVP background and Cornerstone's Israel presence — a strong fit for Israeli founders expanding to the US market.
• Takes a hands-on, board-level role, contributing to product development and go-to-market rather than writing checks alone.