Dr. Lake Dai

Biography

Lake Dai is a venture investor and professor of artificial intelligence, with extensive experience as a technology operator. He is the founder and managing partner at Sancus Ventures, a venture firm focused on early-stage investments in software, infrastructure, artificial intelligence, and blockchain technologies. Lake began his career in product engineering and has years of product marketing experience, notably at Apple, before joining the burgeoning internet industry in 1999 as an employee number 84 at Alibaba. He led a product team that built Alibaba's B2B marketplace into a $1.2 billion business and was instrumental in driving new product innovations, including Auction, Travel, and Messenger. After his tenure at Alibaba, Lake joined Yahoo! in 2002, where he helped increase the company's market share significantly. Following a stint at Overture that culminated in its acquisition by Yahoo!, Lake rejoined Yahoo! to lead global partnerships in several countries. With two decades of operational roles, he transitioned to venture capital to share knowledge and make an impact on early-stage tech companies, while teaching applied AI at Carnegie Mellon University. Lake also serves on the boards of private tech companies across sectors like autonomous driving, neurotech, and bioinformatics, and contributes to non-profit organizations empowering technology leaders.

Research Interests