Lak Ananth

Lak Ananth is CEO and managing partner of global venture-capital firm Next47 and serves on the board of several companies that he's helped grow beyond $1 billion valuations. He is the author of "Anticipate Failure," a practical guide for business leaders on common patterns of failure in innovation.

As CEO and Managing Partner, Ananth leads Next47, the global venture firm with $1.2 billion in backing from Siemens. He is based in Palo Alto and has spent much of his career focused on identifying industry changing disruptions and acting on them as an investor or acquirer. Having partnered with entrepreneurs building both full-stack and software businesses, Ananth’s investment focus is on applications of AI/ML, vertical SaaS, robotics, mobility and other emerging areas of deep tech.

Prior to joining Next47 at its inception in 2016, Ananth founded and built Hewlett Packard Pathfinder, bringing together venture investing and revenue-generating business development for portfolio companies from HP customers. He was an investor in Adallom (acquired by Microsoft), HortonWorks (acquired by Cloudera) and Mesosphere. Ananth also previously worked in strategy and corporate development at Cisco Systems, where he led the acquisitions of Meraki and Starent Networks, and invested in Control4.

After cutting his teeth as an engineer working with startups during the .com era, Ananth has enormous respect for the passion, vision and tenacity of entrepreneurs. As an investor, he believes in establishing mutual trust with Founders so when critical business decisions need to be made, he can support them in making the best choices for building world-class new businesses.

Ananth holds an MBA from INSEAD and The Wharton School of Business. He is also a Kauffman Fellow (Class 12).