Jessica Straus, previously an entrepreneur in residence at GE Ventures, US-based industrial and power technology producer General Electric’s corporate venturing arm, has joined Dundee Venture Capital as a venture partner.
Dundee Venture Capital is a seed-stage fund with offices in three midwestern US cities: Omaha, Chicago and Minneapolis. Straus will be based in Silicon Valley and her role entails growing portfolio companies and exploring new innovation ecosystems on behalf of the firm.
Straus wrote in a post on LinkedIn: “As venture partner in San Francisco, I am focused on strengthening [Dundee’s] network on the coasts so we can help our companies get from seed to series A and beyond.”
Straus joined GE Ventures in July 2017 to concentrate on diversity and inclusion (D&I) initiatives for portfolio companies in a bid to increase competitiveness. She helped GE Ventures team up with Ideo CoLab, a subsidiary of design consultancy Ideo, to produce a D&I content portal dubbed Flux.
The departure of Straus from GE Ventures follows those of former unit head Sue Siegel and other senior members including Alex Tepper, Jessica Zeaske and Lisa Suennen, and the unit was reported in June this year to be in the process of selling its portfolio.
Photo of Jessica Straus courtesy of LinkedIn.
