who we are
Pathbreaker Ventures was one of the 1st deep tech funds founded in Silicon Valley. Our team has helped build, fund, and acquire category-defining companies solving critical global problems.
Pathbreaker’s LPs & Advisors have been building product and structuring deals at iconic technology companies including Meta, Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Apple, Oculus, Uber, Stripe, LinkedIn, Square, Twitter, DoorDash, amongst others. They are eager to support the founders with which we work.
Pathbreaker is led by Founder &
Managing Partner, Ryan Gembala
Ryan founded Pathbreaker Ventures in 2015 to invest in emerging hardware and software technologies — believing that AI, robotics, and computer vision in particular would transform traditional industries over the coming decades. To Pathbreaker, Ryan brought a decade of experience co-founding & operating companies, investing from pre-seed to growth stages, and acquiring venture-backed companies at Meta (Facebook). In 2023 and 2024, Ryan was named a Top 100 Seed Investor by Business Insider.
Prior to starting Pathbreaker, Ryan was a deal lead on the corporate development team at Meta (Facebook) where he worked with product and engineering leadership to landscape technology ecosystems and execute acquisitions. His focus was emerging technologies: AI/ML, Computer Vision, VR/AR, and novel hardware. Acquisitions worked on include Oculus, PrivateCore, LiveRail, Teehan Lax, and NimbleVR.
Before Facebook, Ryan was an investor and operator at Azure Capital, an early stage venture firm with $750M+ under management where he focused on consumer and enterprise problems. Ryan operated, worked with, and/or invested in companies such as TripIt (acquired by Concur for $120M), Cooking.com (acquired by Target), Get Satisfaction (acquired by Sprinklr), Telly as VP of Business Development & Partnerships, and Convercent as VP of Business Development & Partnerships.
Ryan began his career as a social entrepreneur — bootstrapping and co-founding H.E.R.O. for Children, a non-profit focused on emotional health and quality of life support for children infected and affected by HIV/AIDS. H.E.R.O. recently celebrated 23 years of ongoing services, and Ryan continues to serve on the board.
Ryan earned his M.B.A. from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business where he began seed investing with Hyde Park Angels and won the Global Venture Capital Investment Competition (VCIC) out of 56 MBA programs. He graduated Summa Cum Laude with Honors from the University of Georgia with a B.B.A. from the Terry College of Business.
Ryan was born in the manufacturing town of Michigan City, Indiana, and he grew up in Atlanta, Georgia. He and his wife live in the San Francisco Bay Area with their three young children.
Here’s to the pathbreakers!