Rick Lewis
General Partner
Get their honest, personalized take on your startup.
Sign in to pitch Rick →At a glance
- Full Name
- Rick Lewis (Richard W. Lewis)
- Title
- General Partner
- Firm
- U.S. Venture Partners (USVP)
- Firm Type
- Venture Capital (early-stage)
- Investment Stage
- Seed and early-stage (Series A/B)
- Sector Focus
- Enterprise SaaS, cybersecurity/security, e-commerce, media, and consumer services (social, mobile)
- Geographic Focus
- United States (primarily Silicon Valley / San Francisco Bay Area)
- Location
- Menlo Park, California (San Francisco Peninsula)
Background
Rick Lewis is a General Partner at U.S. Venture Partners (USVP), a long-established Menlo Park–based venture capital firm. He joined USVP in 2004 and was promoted to General Partner in 2012. He is a two-time software company founder with a deep technical background in computer science, and he brings that operator's perspective to his investing, focusing on software (enterprise SaaS and cybersecurity) and consumer services (e-commerce and media).
Before venture capital, Rick co-founded two software companies in his twenties — Design Variations and Common Point Technologies — with one achieving a successful exit. He spent roughly six years in software engineering leadership roles at Autodesk and worked as a consultant to Walt Disney Imagineering. Earlier in his career he held positions at Sun Microsystems, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, and McKinsey & Company.
Rick holds a B.S. in Computer Science and Engineering from UC Davis (summa cum laude), an M.S. in Computer Science from UC Berkeley, and an M.B.A. with Distinction from Harvard Business School. He is also a Kauffman Fellow. He and his wife (herself an entrepreneur) and their daughters live on the San Francisco Peninsula.
Investment Thesis & Focus
- Invests at the seed and early stages (through Series A/B) out of USVP's institutional funds.
- Sectors: enterprise SaaS, cybersecurity and fraud/security, e-commerce, media, and consumer social/mobile services.
- Strong bias toward technical founders and repeat entrepreneurs — reflecting his own two-time-founder and computer-science background.
- His stated philosophy: *"This business is all about the people, and you have to earn the right to work with the best."* — i.e., he prioritizes founding teams and building a reputation that earns access to top entrepreneurs.
Notable Investments
- Darwinium — cybersecurity / digital fraud prevention (current board seat).
- Slang AI — AI voice/phone answering for restaurants and businesses (current board seat).
- Tiny Fish — AI/web-data automation startup (current board seat).
- Stensul — email/marketing creation platform (current board seat).
- Primary — consumer/apparel or commerce company (current board seat).
- Mealogic — food/consumer tech (current board seat).
- Happy Returns — returns/reverse-logistics platform; acquired by PayPal.
- HotelTonight — last-minute hotel booking app; acquired by Airbnb.
- Pluto TV — free ad-supported streaming TV; acquired by Viacom.
- Rimeto — enterprise employee directory; acquired by Slack.
- ThreatMetrix — digital identity / fraud prevention; acquired by RELX (LexisNexis).
- Trunk Club — personalized apparel service; acquired by Nordstrom.
- Yammer — enterprise social network; acquired by Microsoft.
- Edison Software — email app; acquired by Yipit.
- MeetMe — social discovery network; acquired by ProSiebenSat.1.
- Intermolecular — materials/semiconductor R&D; IPO, later acquired by Merck KGaA.
- Instantis — project/portfolio management software; acquired by Oracle.
- Victrio — voice biometrics/fraud detection; acquired by Verint.
Unlock the full research
Get how to approach them, recent activity, sources, contact links — plus pitch their AI twin for a candid read on your raise.
One-time. Stays unlocked for you.