Benjamin Tseng

Benjamin Tseng is a Principal at 1955 Capital, a venture firm founded in Fall of 2015 focused on investing in technologies from the developed world that can help solve the developing world’s greatest challenges in areas like energy, food, agriculture, health, education, and manufacturing. The firm announced a close of $200M in anchor commitments and has invested in companies including novel crop protection company Crop Enhancement, energy storage company Gridtential, and novel protein/food technology company Sustainable BioProducts.

Previously, Benjamin was the Vice President of Product and Business Development for Yik Yak, a venture-backed startup building anonymous, hyperlocal communities for mobile devices which has raised over $70M in venture funding since its inception. As a member of the executive team, his responsibilities included driving the Series B fundraising (culminating in a $60M+ financing), guiding product roadmap / implementation, building and managing team of PMs, designers, and UX researchers supporting all product and systems development within company, and handling all partnership conversations and execution (including those with University of Florida, MTV, Comedy Central, and Bleacher Report)

Prior to Yik Yak, Benjamin was a Vice President at DCM, a leading venture firm managing over $2.8B in assets. His focus areas included frontier technologies, technology infrastructure, connected platforms, and new models for healthcare, and he worked actively with management teams at DCM companies including Whistle, Yik Yak, FreedomPop, Exablox, Enovix, 1Mainstream, Augmedix, Athos, and Rayvio.

Benjamin began his career at Bain & Company in the Bay Area after graduating Phi Beta Kappa with Highest Honors in Biochemical Sciences and a minor in Mathematical Sciences from Harvard University. Benjamin is also an advisor to a number of startups as well as the product management resource Product Manager HQ. He is an avid scifi & comic book fan, a (very) amateur coder, a blogger, and an unabashed knowledge junkie.