John T. Chen, PhD

Managing General Partner

Dr. Chen is Managing General Partner and Co-founder of Phoenix Venture Partners (PVP).  He led or co-led the firm’s investments in and served on the boards of Senova Systems (acquired), Vixar (acquired by OSRAM), NBD Nano (acquired by Henkel), Imprint Energy (acquired by CCL), Sionic Energy, Furcifer Inc., Chromation, Amber Molecular, and Inkbit.  He is also a board member of L7 Informatics. 

He brings over 30 years of experience in venture capital, start-ups, industry, and R&D. Prior to co-founding PVP, Dr. Chen was a Kauffman Fellow at Battery Ventures, where he formulated Battery’s Advanced Materials investment strategy, sourced over 1,200 investment opportunities, led and managed several investments with applications in IT and CleanTech, e.g., Lion Cells, Stonybrook Purification and Nanoconduction (acquired), and managed several of the firm’s corporate partnerships. Dr. Chen began his venture capital career at DFJ New England and Navigator Technology Ventures in Boston. Prior to becoming a venture capitalist, Dr. Chen held leadership roles in business, technology, and product development at several startups and leading corporations in the Advanced Materials sector, including Luminus Devices, EM Logix, Surface Logix, and Raychem (acquired). He also led Advanced Materials technology scouting and business development in the areas of energy storage, fuel cells, photonics, self-assembly and, more broadly, nanotechnology in the Advanced Technology and Business Development Group at Tyco Electronics, following its acquisition of Raychem.

Dr. Chen earned his BS in Physics, PhD in Materials Science and Engineering, and MBA from MIT. In addition to his investment and board roles with PVP, Dr. Chen serves on the Commercialization Advisory Board for Oregon Built Environment & Sustainability Technologies (BEST), is an active mentor to several startups through the MIT Venture Mentoring Service, and is a long-time member of the Materials Research Society.

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