Winston Fu General Partner

Winston Fu is a General Partner at USVP, and he enjoys helping entrepreneurs build teams that are passionate, fun-loving and fanatical about their pursuit to build great companies.

Winston's investments focus is on the application of technologies in areas such as renewable energy, environmentally sustainable products, and semiconductors (and areas related to semiconductors). Winston, along with Van Kwok, leads USVP's activities in China.

"The renewable energy and cleantech sectors potentially offer start-ups access to markets of enormous scale. However, the significant risks in developing products that are simultaneously economical and eco-friendly should not be taken lightly."

Winston serves on the boards of Active-Semi International, CFX Battery, Maskless Lithography, Redwood Systems, Solyndra, Superprotonic, and Teknovus. During the past decade, Winston also served on the boards of Alchemy (acquired by AMD in 2002), Brion Technologies (acquired by ASML in 2007), Clear Shape Technologies (acquired by Cadence in 2007) and New Focus (NUFO made its initial public offering in 2000 and was subsequently acquired by Bookham in 2004).

Winston joined USVP as an associate in 1997, following his selection as a Kauffman Fellow in Venture Capital and Entrepreneurship, and he became a General Partner in 2000. Prior to joining USVP, Winston served in technical and marketing roles at Vixel Corporation, which made its initial public offering in 1999 (NASDAQ: VIXL) and was subsequently acquired by Emulex (ELX) in 2003. As director of product marketing, he was responsible for developing new applications for the VCSEL device product line at Vixel. Prior to helping launch Vixel, Winston researched and developed technologies in the areas of semiconductors, lasers and superconductors at Stanford University, Sandia National Labs and MIT.

Winston earned a bachelor's degree in Physics from MIT, a Ph.D. in Applied Physics from Stanford University and an M.B.A. from the Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University, where he was an Austin Scholar.

Winston is a former captain of MIT's NCAA volleyball team and a former assistant coach for two nationally ranked juniors' volleyball teams. Still a volleyball fan, he is an advisor to Front Range Volleyball, a nonprofit organization dedicated to teaching and coaching juniors. Winston is married and has two children.

Favorite volleyball player: Bob Ctvrtlik, playing opposite of volleyball legend Karch Kiraly, earned a gold medal in the 1988 match against the Soviet Union. "Ctvrtlik was not a flashy player. He just got the job done at truly a world-class level."

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U.S. Venture Partners
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Telephone: (650) 854-9080
Fax: (650) 854-3018
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