Frank Levinson, PhD
Managing General Partner
Dr. Levinson is a General Partner and co-founder of Phoenix Venture Partners (PVP). He is also the founder of Small World Group, a seed investment group which has successfully partnered with PVP over the years. Dr. Levinson led or co-led investments in Rapsodo, Vixar (acquired by Osram), Daylight Solutions (acquired by Leonardo DRS), Sentinel, COTSWORKS, and Nexus Photonics. Dr. Levinson has an exceptional 30-year track record of starting and building Advanced Materials-enabled companies in photonics technology.
Most notably, Dr. Levinson was the founder, Chief Technology Officer, and Chairman of Finisar Corporation (NASDAQ:FNSR), which he built into a multibillion dollar optical components and subsystems supplier and grew revenue from zero to over $1B in annual sales. During his tenure at Finisar, Dr. Levinson built out the company’s manufacturing in Asia and oversaw the implementation of more than 12 corporate partnerships, including those with Honeywell, Sensors Unlimited, and Infineon. Prior to founding Finisar, Dr. Levinson held R&D positions at Raychem (acquired) and Raynet. Earlier in his career, he held R&D positions at Bell Labs and was also a founder of Netek Corporation in partnership with AMP.
Dr. Levinson earned his BS from Butler University and his PhD from the University of Virginia. He was one of the original funders of the CleanTech Open, now an international clean technology start-up competition. Frank currently serves as a mentor and angel investor to several Advanced Materials, IT, and CleanTech start-ups including Rapsodo, Matralix, Canopy Power.
He is also on the board of directors of Fabrinet (NYSE:FN) and is the chair of their compensation committee.
Sectors: Technology: Photonics, Electronics. Markets: Communications, Instruments, Sustainability.
Stages: Seed, Venture, Growth
