Trey Buck

Trey Buck is a 2008 mechanical engineering graduate of the Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, where he was a varsity men's soccer goalie (all-region and all-conference honors, senior captain), a member of the Triangle fraternity and the ASME student chapter, active in the Entrepreneurship Club, and a lead mechanical engineering intern at Rose-Hulman Ventures. After graduation he was selected for the Orr Fellowship, a competitive central-Indiana early-career talent program, and remains an Orr Fellows graduate and contributor to the community.

The bulk of Buck's operating career was spent in product roles in education technology. He spent roughly seven years at Blackboard (which had acquired Moodlerooms), rising from Product Development Analyst to Senior Product Manager. There he oversaw the company's flagship Blackboard Learn product and managed products including SafeAssign, xpLor, and Blackboard's mobile applications. He later worked as a product manager at Genesys. As of recent reporting (the 2025 Rose-Hulman profile), Buck is Chief Operating Officer of popcam, a Carmel, Indiana startup that builds AI-powered camera kiosks for professional photography and headshots — used for corporate IDs, conference photography, college job fairs, and school yearbooks.

Buck is one of the partners who relaunched Gravity Ventures, working alongside Phil Miller (a longtime Blackboard learning and innovation executive) and Bill Boncosky. Gravity Ventures itself was originally founded in 2008 by Mike Fitzgerald and Kristian Andersen and operates as a member-managed seed fund; it has grown to more than 60 members managing a series of seed funds across Indiana and Arkansas. Buck is also a board member of the CFA Society Indianapolis, where he has been involved in shaping the region's financial-professional community.

• Invests at the pre-seed and seed stage in technology and tech-enabled businesses, primarily in central Indiana.
• Typical check size of ~$75,000–$150,000 per company, made through a pooled, member-managed fund structure rather than as a solo angel.
• Gravity wants founders to be beyond the idea stage — partner Phil Miller has framed it as: *"We want someone to have more than an idea. They have to have a prototype."*
• The fund's stated philosophy emphasizes backing people, not just concepts: *"we don't just invest in ideas; we invest in people."*
• Decisions are made collectively by the membership — the group reviews three to four pitches per meeting and invests by majority vote, with no institutional investors. Members are working professionals who also lend operating expertise to portfolio companies.