Rajeev Madhavan is a founder and General Partner of Clear, where he focuses on early stage technology investments.

Rajeev brings operational skills from founding, building and running (as CEO) two highly successful companies. He has the uncanny ability to deeply understand what entrepreneurs are trying to do, and to steer them onto a successful path. He has been a venture investor in over 35 companies.

Rajeev’s notable exits include Apigee (IPO), YuMe (IPO), Virident (acquired), Magma (IPO), Groupon (IPO), VxTel (acquired), LogicVision (IPO) and Ambit (acquired).

Prior to founding Clear in 2014, Rajeev founded three successful startups. The most recent, Magma Design Automation, became the 4th largest Electronic Design Automation company in the world under his leadership.

Rajeev served as Magma’s Chairman and CEO from when he co-founded the company in 1997 through its acquisition by Synopsys in February 2012 for $580 million. Magma was listed on Nasdaq in 2001 and was ranked as the 2nd fastest growing Technology Company in 2005 by Forbes. Magma provided core infrastructure software to mobile pioneers such as Apple, Qualcomm, and Samsung, which was used to design the core processors at the heart of the smartphone era.

Prior to founding Magma, Rajeev co-founded and served as President and CEO of Ambit Design Systems, which was acquired by Cadence in 1998 for $280 million. Rajeev also co-founded and served as Director of Engineering of LogicVision, Inc. (IPO). Rajeev is a recipient of the Red Herring Top Innovator award, the lifetime achievement award at NITK, India and various other awards.

Rajeev earned a bachelor’s degree in electronics and communication from KREC, Surathkal, India, and an M.S.E.E from Queen’s University, Ontario, Canada.

When Rajeev is not working he can be found with his wife and two children, trail running, tending to his rose gardens, or holding court with technologists figuring out what comes next.

Chris Rust is a founder and General Partner of Clear, where he focuses on early stage technology investments. Chris’s operational specialties are recruiting, product marketing, business development, follow-on fund raising, and scaling. He has been the lead investor in over 35 companies.

Prior to founding Clear in 2014 Chris spent 14 years as an early stage technology investor with exceptional mentors at Sequoia Capital and USVP. He also spent 12 years in operating roles as a development engineer, network architect, and product manager.

Chris was a co-founder and Lead Architect of broadband access pioneer Roadrunner, now known as Time Warner Cable Internet. Roadrunner grew to 14 million subscribers, over $4 Billion in 2015 revenue, and is the key driver of Charter Communication’s $56.7 billion acquisition of Time Warner Cable.

Chris also held engineering and product management roles in Carrier Access (IPO CACS) and ComCore (acquired by National Semiconductor), US WEST Advanced Technologies and MITRE Corporation. He has been an invited speaker at over 100 industry conferences on topics related to emerging technology and building great companies.

A life-long learner, Chris earned a B.S.E.E. with distinction as a Massachusetts Board of Regents Honor Scholar and an M.S.E.E from the University of Lowell, an M.S. Telecommunications Engineering and an M.E. Engineering Management from the University of Colorado, Boulder. While at the University of Lowell he was the recipient of the President’s Medal.

When Chris is not working he can be found with his wife and three children, doing outdoor sports (i.e. mountain biking and skiing) with friends, cooking, or reading.

Vijay Reddy is a Partner at Clear Ventures, where he focuses on early stage technology investments in AI + X”, or AI applied to a specific industry or function. Prior to joining Clear Ventures, Vijay Reddy was Partner at Intel Capital where he has been an early backer of leading AI and DeepTech companies including 4 unicorns and 2 IPOS that have raised in excess of $3.5B of capital and are currently valued in excess of $20B.

Some of Vijay Reddy’s notable deals at Intel Capital included Sambanova, DataRobot, Lilt, Joby (Nasdaq: Joby), Aeye (Nasdaq: LIDR), Hypersonix, KatanaGraph, Landing.ai, BabbleLabs (Acquired by Cisco), Matroid, Avaamo, Opaque, Inferencio and Common Sense Machines.

He began his career as an entrepreneur after dropping out of the PhD program to co-found his first startup. He also has held several senior Business Development and Product Development roles in the communications, software, and semiconductor industries. He takes a founder-first approach while being actively involved with the startup community as a mentor and advisor. A Kauffman Fellow, Vijay received his MBA from Chicago Booth (Finance and Entrepreneurship) and has a BS & MS in Electrical and Computer Engineering with top honors.

Zach Poley is Chief Technology Officer at Clear, where he focuses on developing tools and technology that help Clear and our portfolio companies succeed by using data to drive increased access to talent, customers, and follow-on financing.

Zach’s operational expertise is building information technology and data systems from the ground up, including cloud native infrastructure, data science and machine learning algorithms and pipelines, and web servers and client facing products.

Prior to joining Clear in 2020 Zach spent 15 years building software with startups and large companies.

Zach co-founded and served as Chief Technology Officer at Paysa where he built a platform to help job seekers optimize their careers. He also led teams in engineering and product management roles at Walmart Labs where he helped develop Walmart’s first personalized digital to physical Marketing and Advertising Platform, WMX.

Zach earned a bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor and has continued to learn all he can about computers, technology and building strong engineering teams ever since.

When Zach is not working he can be found with his wife and dog, working on various projects, reading, or enjoying the outdoors.

Noor began her engineering career at Tandem Computers and later worked at Retix and US Robotics where she gained operational experience spanning R&D, product development and customer support. She went on to work on Wall Street at Merrill Lynch, helping technology companies with their IPO and M&A.

Later she moved to investing in public technology and life science companies.  Noor was a Portfolio Manager at Matthews International, where she co-managed the Small Companies Asia Fund, as well as the India Fund, with assets of $200 million and $500 million, respectively.  Prior to that, she had managed the Global Science and Technology Fund at Wasatch Advisors with assets of $200 million.  During her tenure managing the Global Science and Technology Fund, it was in the top quartile for 7 out of the 9 quarters.  The Small Companies Fund had a return of 68% from its launch until her departure vs the MSCI All Country Asia ex Japan Small Cap Index return of 53%.

Most recently, Noor was Vice President of Corporate Development at Meetyl, a fintech startup in San Francisco and worked at Stanford University, managing a $300M budget for the GSB.

Noor received her BS degree in Computer Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign and an MBA from the University of Chicago.

When Noor is not working, she enjoys swimming, traveling, and cooking new recipes.

Khalig takes the lead on new founder sourcing and deal origination. Khalig also works directly with Clear Portfolio companies to help them with all aspects of operational performance and efficiency. He succeeds by using proprietary Clear tools to drive increased access to talent, customers, and follow-on financing. He represents CLEAR at Demo Day events, and runs the Venture Fellows and CLEAR MBA internship programs

Most recently Khalig worked on the Foreign Direct Investment team for the Northern Irish Government, facilitating investment relationships between FTN 500 technology companies and the UK, with the end goal of helping Silicon Valley-based tech companies expand into new global markets. 

He has experience working in Venture Capital from his time at Ignite XL Ventures, a global seed fund and incubator dedicated to advancing companies at the intersection of technology, beauty, and wellness. He has a background both working with and for startups and is incredibly passionate about the entrepreneurial journey.

Khalig received a BA degree in Global Commerce and Data Analytics from Denison University in Granville, Ohio where he was a member of the Varsity Lacrosse team and a Crown Fellow.

In his free time, Khalig coaches youth Lacrosse in Menlo Park, competes in Squash and Tennis, and enjoys Biking, Hiking, and the natural beauty of the Bay Area.

Matt has an entrepreneurial spirit and started his first business in high school repairing video game consoles and mobile phones. He continued this small side hustle into his Mechanical Engineering studies at UC Berkeley where he discovered the power of coding and decided to pursue a career in software engineering.

While learning the basics of web development, he met an industry veteran specializing in lead generation and SEO who he would go on to start a new venture with. They worked together to build Business Optimizer, a digital agency providing small businesses with tools and technologies to generate more leads online.

In 2019, Matt’s software engineering skillset was sharpened at YC-backed coding boot camp BloomTech (formerly Lambda School). Before joining Clear Ventures, he developed software for real estate investors and became versed in the world of private money lending.

As a lifelong learner, Matt is always exploring new areas of interest and expanding his knowledge. When he’s not working or studying, he enjoys swimming, snowboarding, solving puzzles, and DIY projects.