Team
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Russell Sprole

Founder and Managing Partner

As the Managing Partner of Virta Ventures, Russell is responsible for all investment and Limited Partner responsibilities. Russell brings over 12 years of experience in investing and operational roles. 

Most recently, Russell was one of the first employees and ultimately CFO at Full Harvest, the leading B2B marketplace for produce in North America. At Full Harvest, he led finance, accounting, HR, and legal and often many other hats as the team scaled from 5 to over 60 people and Full Harvest raised over $45 million in capital. 

Prior to Full Harvest, Russell was VP of Business Development and Business Operations at RePower through its successful sale to Soligent and VP of Strategy of Product at Admirals Bank, focused on the bank’s rapidly growing solar and home improvement lending business. Russell also led FP&A and Sales Operations at Stem (NYSE: STEM) during a critical early growth period for the company, which debuted on the public markets in 2021. 

Prior to Stem, Russell spent four years at SunPower developing and financing hundreds of megawatts of solar across all three business lines - utility, commercial, and residential.

Russell holds an MBA from Wharton Business School and a BA from Yale University.

Our Venture Partners and Advisors

Venture Partner

Avra Durack

Investor, Elemental Excelerator
Avra is currently an Investor in Residence at Elemental Excelerator and serves as a Senior Advisor at The Ad Hoc Group, climate tech consulting firm. Previously, Avra was a Director at National Grid Partners. Avra has held senior leadership roles at Stem and One Block Off the Grid. Avra has a MBA from the Stanford GSB and a BA in Urban Studies from Stanford.
Venture Partner

Scott Pinizzotto

Sr. Investment Dir., ENGIE New Ventures
Scott leads all aspects of ENV's strategic venture capital investments for N. America. Scott has 20+ years of experience defining, developing and launching new products and services in energy, sustainability and consumer products industries. Scott has a BS in Mechanical Engineering from Penn State and MBA from UC Berkeley, Haas.

Eric Buras

Head of Data Science & ML, Arkestro
At Arkestro, Eric is building ML recommendations into enterprise procurement. Prior experience at a unicorn data science studio platform, built a supply chain visibility product, and researched malicious activity in cyber domains for the DoD. Eric holds a Master’s Degree in Computational and Applied Mathematics from Rice and a BS in Mathematics from Georgetown.

Aimeé Christensen

Founder & CEO, Christensen Global
Aimée has three decades of climate and sustainability experience in policy, law, investment, philanthropy and business including at Baker & McKenzie, Google, The White House, The World Bank, and the U.S. Department of Energy. Aimée holds a JD from Stanford Law School and BA from Smith College.

Lee Hoffman

Co-Founder & President, Runwise
Over the past 18 years, Lee has co-founded and managed technology for companies as diverse as Time Warner, Razorfish Studios, and Terabolic, Inc. Most recently, Lee co-founded and served as CEO of Veri, a venture-backed NY mobile startup that in 2018 was acquired by The Knot. Lee has a BA in Computer Science from Brown.

David Jaramillo

‍Co-Founder & CTO, Verne
Backed by Amazon Climate Pledge Fund and other top investor, Verne is developing a hydrogen platform solution for heavy-duty transportation, starting with Class 8 Trucks. David is a Breakthrough Energy Innovator Fellow and was named to the Forbes 30 under 30 in Energy. He completed his PhD in inorganic and materials chemistry from UC Berkeley and obtained a BA in chemistry from Harvard.

Deepa Lounsbury

Managing Director, LabStart
Deepa runs LabStart, connecting entrepreneurs with scientists to launch climate tech startups. Previously she led Products & BD at Extensible Energy and managed the $25M CalSeed program. She also held positions developing new products at Enphase Energy, building new businesses at GE, and investing at Angeleno Group. Deepa holds a MS in Energy and Resources from UC Berkeley and BS from USC.

Grace Park-Bradbury

Fmr. COO & GM - West, BlocPower
Grace’s is an experienced climate tech executive focused on equity and access within a just clean energy transition. Most recently, she was COO and General Manager - West of BlocPower. Prior to BlocPower, Grace served in leadership roles at Solar Mosaic, Sunrun, Oracle Utilities and Enernoc. She is a graduate of UC Berkeley.

Charlie Warren

Co-Founder & CEO, Convex
Charlie founded and built Convex into the leading commercial contractor sales platform in the world. He has over 10 years of experience in building data, energy analytics and enterprise software. Charlie holds degrees from MIT, Harvard and Bowdoin and has been featured by The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, and the U.S. Department of Energy.

Supporting climate tech entrepreneurs from day zero