We invest in founders rebuilding
foundational industries.

“Founders put their all into trying to make the impossible real, with little data and few resources compared to their ambition. I strive to match that with balanced resourcefulness and empathy. Being a great board member means showing up to listen and to be ready to act when needed.”

Dayna was one of the first venture capitalists to build a portfolio around the transformation of industrial sectors of our economy. She co-founded Construct to expand this focus and pursue the next generation of massive companies to be built in the tech sector, establishing the partnership with Rachel around complementary investing skills and an early-stage only focus. Prior to launching Construct, she was a partner at NEA where she backed companies creating new advances in manufacturing, automation, and vertically integrated consumer brands. She led investments in companies including Desktop Metal, Onshape, Framebridge, Tulip, Formlabs, and Guideline. In 2020, Desktop Metal (NYSE: DM) went public where she remains on the board as chair of the compensation committee. Onshape was acquired for $525m by PTC in 2019 and Framebridge was acquired by Graham Holdings in 2020.

Prior to joining NEA, Dayna was an investor at North Bridge Venture Partners in Boston. She started her career in product development and led design efforts at Blackbaud (NASDAQ: BLKB), the leading global provider of software to nonprofit organizations, as the company grew to over $130 million in revenue and completed a successful public offering.

She is a graduate of University of Virginia with a B.Sc. in Systems Engineering, and while there she built a startup using computer vision and eye-tracking for the physically handicapped. She received an MBA from Harvard Business School, where, today, she serves as a venture partner and an advisor to the MS/MBA program. Dayna is a founding member of All Raise, with the mission of improving diversity in venture capital.

“I love founders who aren’t taking the easy road. I know firsthand that it takes a different kind of entrepreneur and team, and a different kind of investor to navigate the challenges and opportunities of the real world and am inspired by those who set out on that journey.”

As an operator, Rachel had a passion for growth and has managed almost every function from operations to marketing, engineering, product, and customer support teams. Rachel and Dayna co-founded Construct to bring that experience to early stage investing, supporting founders as they set out and to build hyper scale. Before leaving Uber in 2020, Rachel was a long-time member of Uber's Executive Leadership Team having spent almost a decade at the company. She began as one of the company’s first 30 employees and her role quickly expanded to running the US & Canada Rides business in addition to Global Marketing and Brand, and Customer Operations, which represented nearly half of Uber's bookings, and just under half of the employees. Rachel then led the company's New Mobility organization, which includes the JUMP eBike and eScooter businesses as well as running Uber's Incubator which funds and develops new products and services on Uber platform.

Before launching Construct, Rachel invested in companies such as Calibrate, Urbanstems, and Caribou, where she serves on the board today. Rachel began her career at Bain & Company. She graduated magna cum laude from Amherst College as a 4-year All-American tennis player and earned her MBA from Stanford University, where she was an Arjay Miller Scholar. She was featured on Fortune’s 40 under 40 and was named by Fast Company as One of the Most Creative People in Business. Rachel is a native New Yorker, and Mom of 3.

"Our investment team supports founders. My job is to support the investment team, allowing them more time and energy to focus on founders. And I get a front row seat watching dreams materialize."

Kirby is a highly experienced venture capital executive capable of managing all operational aspects of a VC firm. He has 25 years in venture capital, including 18 years managing operations, with responsibilities ranging from fundraising, investor relations, regulatory compliance, legal, accounting, tax, IT, recruiting, and human resources. He started his career investing, including three IPOs. As such, he understands the unique needs of the investment team and how to support them. He has participated in over 1,200 investment committee meetings; there isn’t much he hasn’t seen before.

Prior to Construct, Kirby helped grow two VC firms from early stages into well-established firms with efficient operations. He has helped raise $1.8 billion across 7 funds and 11 co-investment vehicles. For 7 years, Kirby was the COO & CCO at ACME Capital. His senior leadership role in this early-stage VC firm covered all non-investment operations. For 18 years, Kirby worked at Bay City Capital, where he was Managing Director and Chief Administrative Officer. He started with this venture capital firm at its formation. His initial activities focused on investing and then expanded to operations as the firm grew.

Kirby holds an MBA from University of San Francisco, graduating 1st in his class, and received a BA in Molecular Biology from the University of California, Berkeley. In his free time, Kirby enjoys exploring the world with his wife, especially now that their children are grown.

"Founders pour everything into turning the impossible into reality. Solving the big problems in our world demands a special breed of entrepreneur, a resilient team, and a partner ready for the real-world rollercoaster. I am honored to back founders who are crazy enough to embark on this wild journey and create something extraordinary together."

Camila spent most of her career as an investor and operator in fast growth companies. Passionate about companies that were trying to solve the big problems in our world, she was drawn to startups such as Nubank, one of the largest global digital banks, where she was Head of Operations in the early days. There, she led a team of 300 people that managed everything from customer acquisition, customer management, billing, payments and collections. After Nubank, she worked on new products at Earnin, one of the first early wage access providers in the U.S., where she focused on helping the 70M Americans who live paycheck to paycheck.

As an investor, she worked in early stage ventures firms such as QED Investors and Redpoint e.ventures. At QED Investors, she built a portfolio of companies focused particularly on providing embedded financial services to big underserved markets. Some of her portfolio included Capchase, Atomicvest, Finkargo, Vixtra, 40Seas, and many others. Prior to that, she spent years working at Redpoint e.ventures in Sao Paulo, where she invested in some of today’s largest startups in Latin America.

Prior to her career as operator and investor, Camila worked at the Boston Consulting Group, and Endeavor, one of the leading global communities for high impact entrepreneurs.

Camila holds a Bachelor's degree in Finance from FGV-EAESP, one of the universities in Brazil, and a MBA degree from Stanford Graduate School of Business.

"I'm driven to support founders tackling important issues that secure and improve our way of life."

Dan has spent the last five years working across various stages of the capital markets, primarily focused on companies working in National Security, Critical Infrastructure, and AI. Prior to Construct, he was an Associate at a venture capital firm focused on the Cyber, Space, and Energy sectors, where he was responsible for leading a team of investment analysts driving portfolio support, due diligence, and research efforts.

Dan began his career at Goldman Sachs, where he spent 4 years, primarily on the Aerospace & Defense team in Global Investment Research. In this role, Dan worked on a team covering ~30 companies ranging from ~$500M to >$100B in market capitalization. He built and maintained financial models for the companies, tracked relevant industry data, discussed corporate strategy and opportunities with company management, and advised asset management clients across various strategies. With his particular focus being the Defense and Space sectors, Dan drove the equity research coverage launch process for Maxar Technologies (NYSE: MAXR), Virgin Galactic (NYSE: SPCE), and Teledyne Technologies (NYSE: TDY).

Dan received a BA, Magna Cum Laude, from Hamilton College where he studied Economics and Government, and was a captain of the baseball team. Dan is a CFA® charterholder

“Founders are giving their all to shaping the future in a way that only they can. They deserve thought partners and investors that give their all to support them—this humbles and motivates me everyday.”

Eugene has broad experience as an investor and operator in early stage companies, with a deep interest and focus on how emerging technologies enable reinvention. Most recently, he was on the founding team of The Engine, the venture capital firm affiliated with MIT. With the mission of accelerating the commercialization of research, he helped lead investments into companies such as Zapata, Form Energy, Commonwealth Fusion Systems, iSee, Kytopen, among others. Beyond this, Eugene helped build the system and infrastructure to support these companies through their earliest stages.

Before that, he served as Chief of Staff to the CEO at Galvanize—the premiere data science and data engineering education company—through a period of rapid growth and multiple rounds of financings. Galvanize was acquired by K12 (NYSE: LRN). Eugene started his career at Techstars and Foundry Group, helping to run multiple classes of Techstars Boulder—which included companies such as Digital Ocean, Salesloft, GoodApril (acqd by Intuit), and Polymorph Labs (acqd by Walmart)—then ran special projects at Foundry Group (such as FG Press, a boutique publishing firm for authors focused on entrepreneurship, venture capital, and journey of company building).

Eugene holds a BA in Economics and Political Science from University of Colorado—Boulder. There, he helped pioneer entrepreneurship education for fellow undergraduates and served on the Advisory Board for Silicon Flatirons.

“I admire founders’ ability to see a whole world within an idea that most others dismiss as a niche. While everyone can see the tip of their iceberg, founders build to unbelievable depths below the surface. As an investor, it’s a privilege to earn a founder’s trust in being one of the few who gets to see it all.”

Joachim was most recently the Chief of Staff and an Investor at America’s Frontier Fund, a venture platform focused on accelerating the progress of frontier-tech for the national interest. Joachim was part of the early team at AFF, where he led the investment process for early stage companies including Foundation Alloy, Tacta Systems, Venus Aerospace, and Revalia Bio, and helped secure a new partnership with the U.S. Department of Defense and Small Business Administration that unlocked $175M in matching capital. Through AFF’s Foundation, he also launched a new nonprofit workforce initiative to build up the manufacturing technician talent pipeline for critical sectors, starting with the semiconductor industry in Central Texas.

Previously, Joachim was the first business hire and Growth Lead at FutureFit AI, an early stage startup building AI-powered tools to help bridge talent supply and demand for the future of work. At FutureFit AI, he scaled the company from pre-seed to mid-7-figures ARR in 18 months, leading a public sector go-to-market strategy that spanned state and local government agencies across North America.

Joachim started his career as a management consultant at McKinsey & Company, where he supported strategy engagements for F100 companies, foundations, and higher education institutions. He graduated with honors from Washington University in St. Louis with a B.A. in Economics and in Chinese.

“Being a founder is one of the most challenging professional journeys one can take. It certainly was for me. But at its best, it can be one of the most rewarding experiences in the world. My job is to be a steady voice of support amidst the chaos, and provide fuel when it’s most helpful.”  

Leland has spent his career building and scaling early stage companies at the intersection of supply chain, manufacturing, climate, and food, and has always been motivated by technological applications at the physical and digital divide. Prior to Construct, Leland was most recently the co-founder of Mammoth, a venture backed supply chain platform leveraging real time data and AI to help growing consumer goods companies build more efficient, responsive, and resilient supply chains.

Before founding Mammoth, Leland was a key early operator at Bowery Farming, one of the largest indoor farming companies in the US. Joining as the 15th employee and Chief of Staff, he played a pivotal role in shaping Bowery’s core functions, from financing to supply chain to commercial strategy. Ultimately, as Head of R&D Operations and Corporate Development, Leland led a cross-disciplinary team of 20 operators, supply chain, engineers, and agricultural scientists in developing the company’s innovation and new products arm. By the time he left Bowery, the company had grown to 500 people and raised $700M in capital from First Round, General Catalyst, Temasek, and Fidelity.

Prior to operating, Leland began his career at boutique merchant bank DBO Partners, where he focused on cybersecurity M&A and financing advisory.  

Leland received a BA, Cum Laude, from the University of Pennsylvania in Science, Technology and Society with a minor in Consumer Psychology, and was a University Scholar with a concentration in hospitality entrepreneurship.

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"Founders are innovative thinkers and leaders. As they are scaling, I love to be in the seat to help build and actualize their dream by managing the details that matter most."

Ali is a seasoned administrative professional with experience as an executive assistant, office operations manager, and event specialist for the past 10+ years in the fields of government affairs, communications, and technology. Ali is an expert in project coordination and data management.

Prior to Construct, Ali worked as an Executive Assistant Business Partner at Uber where she spent 6 years working directly for members of Uber’s Executive Leadership Team. She began her career at Uber focused on culture and team retention which she grew into a role working directly with the Head of Operations for the US & Canada. She handled all administrative tasks and planned and executed leadership and company events and summits. While at Uber she also assisted several other teams including Micro Mobility, Internal Audit, and Global Strategic Finance.

Prior to Uber, Ali worked as an EA to the CEO of the Glover Park Group in Washington, DC, an EA at Netflix in their Content Operations and Media Engineering department in Los Angeles, CA, an EA to the COO of Worldwide Studios at Activision Blizzard in Santa Monica, CA and a legislative assistant and event coordinator at Mehlman Vogel Castagnetti, a bi-partisan lobbying firm in Washington, DC.

Ali holds a BA in Communications and Human Resources from James Madison University. She lives in Northern Virginia with her husband and 2 daughters.