our team
Connecting founders with early investment customers talent perspective growth expertise
Winning Together
At Tola Capital, we offer more than just funding to founders in our portfolio. Our team consists of seasoned professionals with a wide range of skills and experiences, making us a Swiss Army Knife of sorts for startups looking to succeed.
While the ethos of partnership extends across the entire Tola ecosystem, our culture of partnership begins at home and the concept of “my deal” does not exist. Involvement shifts to whichever expert best fits a company’s current stage, not to whoever originated the deal.
We build strong relationships with founders – we are always there for tasks as simple as answering a phone call or text, to complex engagements like pulling in an advisor to build a data strategy. Our role is not that of back-seat driver but showing up with the map, providing perspective, and helping to answer big questions that may come up along the way.
Many of our founders have gone on to become our investors and we pride ourselves in our core value – we are all in on partnership and this extends to ourselves, founders, advisors, investors, and everyone with whom we do business.
Team
Sheila Gulati
Managing Director
Aaron Fleishman
Partner
Akshay Bhushan
Partner
Sophia Lu
Vice President
Jake Nibley
Vice President
Stacey Giard
Venture Partner
Phil Sorgen
Venture Partner
Karolin Beck
Venture Partner
Vahé Torossian
Venture Partner
Tashi Schmidt
CFO and Partner
Qian Jiang
Vice President Finance
Daniel Jowers
Controller
Navigating Disruption
Tola was built by operators who ran technology companies at scale, not just financed them, giving us a firsthand understanding of what it takes to grow an enterprise technology business from zero to global.
Depth of preparation is a baseline, not a differentiator. We show up immersed in the market, the technology, and the potential.
Having guided portfolio companies through past technology transitions, we understand the difficult work required to build what comes next while sustaining what already works. We’ve built the engine while flying the plane.