Trae Vassallo

Trae Vassallo is Co-Founder and Managing Director of Defy, an early stage venture capital firm with investments in companies including Owl Cam, Airspace Technologies, and Securly. She is an engineer, an entrepreneur, and an investor, and her passion is collaborating with the world’s best entrepreneurs alongside her partners at Defy. Trae has public company experience having been on the board of directors at Telstra, an international telecommunications company. She was previously a General Partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. Over her investing career, Trae invested in number of leading companies including eero, Molekule, Nest Labs, Dropcam, Aggregate Knowledge and Opower. A "design thinker" and engineer at heart, Trae thrives at the intersection of great products and big markets.

Before joining KPCB, Trae was a Co-Founder of Good Technology, a KPCB portfolio company that provides end-to-end wireless email services to the enterprise. Trae began her career at IDEO, where she developed ground-breaking products for companies including Palm and Dell. Trae holds 13 patents across a broad array of technologies and disciplines.

Trae strives to empower women in technology. In addition to Defy, she co-hosts Equity Summit, an annual event that brings $2T of AUM together for relationship building and authentic conversation between leading LPs and women GPs. In 2015, Trae co-authored the study "Elephant in the Valley" to help highlight the underlying data around the experiences of women in technology.

Trae earned a Bachelor’s degree and Master’s degree in mechanical engineering with honors from Stanford University and an M.B.A. from the Stanford Graduate School of Business. Trae participated on the Trust of the Stanford Business School and as an advisor to the Mechanical Engineering Department at Stanford. In addition to working with inspiring entrepreneurs, Trae is passionate about adventuring with her husband, Steve, and three children.