San Francisco, California, United States
Cassandra Carothers is the Managing Partner of Departure Capital, a San Francisco based venture capital firm investing in frontier technologies that build existential resilience and security, spanning critical & industrial infrastructure, planetary rejuvenation, and the future of human health. Prior to founding Departure, she held investment roles at Upheaval Investments, Millennium New Horizons, Bay Bridge Ventures, and Spock Ventures, where she gained experience in fund formation, fundraising, diligence, and portfolio management. Cassandra serves as a mentor and advisor to global programs such as the Creative Destruction Lab, Techstars, Starburst Aerospace, IEEE Entrepreneurship & Tech Transfer, Alchemist Accelerator, Hello Tomorrow, and others, where she helps technical founders navigate commercialization and scale. Before becoming an investor, Cassandra was an operator—driving revenue growth at venture-backed startups, leading U.S. market expansion for international firms, and advising executives on emerging technologies, software modernization, and global strategy. She has lived and worked across the Americas, APAC, and EMEA, and is deeply experienced in multicultural business and negotiations. A graduate of Brown University playing for four years on the D1 golf team, Cassandra is a lifelong athlete, third degree black belt, and enjoys fitness, sports, the outdoors, and adventure travel. In her free time, you can find her reading SciFi, scientific white papers, and Murakami, amateur-coding, photographing nature, flying drones at sunrise, and exploring unfamiliar (to her) countries and cultures.
Departure Capital invests in frontier tech for existential resilience. Focus areas include: 1. Critical and industrial infrastructure of Earth and beyond (aerospace, robotics, automation/AI, next-gen compute, quantum technologies, supply chain, advanced manufacturing, materials, dual-use) 2. The rejuvenation of planet Earth (climate tech, deep & industrial decarbonization, synbio) 3. The future of human health and wellbeing (life sciences, food security) Portfolio includes: Privateer, Fauna Bio, Crow Industries, MoldCo, U-Ploid Biotechnologies, Orbillion, Endiatx, Concha Labs, Maxterial, and NodeQ.
Material Change Institute is a yearlong executive fellowship program dedicated to amplifying diverse business professionals in investment leadership roles across Venture Capital and Private Equity.
Millennium New Horizons is designed to back the next generation of entrepreneurs building emerging technologies that will shape the world for years to come. The fund is eager to partner with fast-thinking founders building high-growth companies primed to seize massive market opportunities. We are excited by unique and creative solutions to large, painful problems, that are proven by meaningful revenue traction, and loyal customers who keep coming back, or can't wait to get their hands on the product or solution. Fund II Portfolio: Mistral, CoreWeave, Opus Clip, Creatify, LionRocket Fund I Portfolio: Acceptto, Craft, Deep Instinct, Distyl, Gori AI, Indus AI, Joby Aviation, May Mobility, Mendel, Pagaya, Phantom AI, Plus, Populi, Rapid Robotics, Spark Cognition, Estrella Biotech, Syntiant, Test AI, Unqork, Zenith AI, Ziva Dynamics MNH was spun out of Millennium Technology Value Partners, a firm with >25 years of history and investments in Facebook, Twitter, Alibaba, Pinterest, and Spotify.
Upheaval Investments is a Chicago-based venture fund providing long term funding and support to massive companies with advanced underlying technologies. We’re on a mission to back bold founding teams that are challenging the status quo, revolutionizing conventional wisdom, and building companies that will fundamentally disrupt industries or create new markets. In addition to fundamental disruption, we prioritize clear, compelling paths to commercialization and massive potential to scale for maximum impact. We specifically endeavor to find and support quick-thinking founders who understand precisely what pain point they’re solving for their customers. Portfolio includes SpaceX, Atomos, HaptX, Passbase, Reniac.
Corgibytes is a technology consultancy and software development shop that that helps companies make their existing custom software systems more stable, scalable and secure. Corgibytes specializes in upgrades, bug fixes, performance enhancements and other maintenance activities (code health analysis, version upgrades, migrations, adding test coverage, encouraging CI/CD and strong TDD practices, building new features, etc.) designed to help tech companies generate revenue, lower operating costs, and reduce risk. Corgibytes' focus is on understanding the operational challenges, and recommending the right technology strategy to achieve the business goals.