Lisa Rich

Lisa Rich is a successful serial entrepreneur, investor, strategist and communicator. She is founder and Managing Partner of Hemisphere Ventures (https://www.hemisphere.com), an early stage venture capital firm focused on frontier tech: synthetic biology, robotics, drones and space. Hemisphere has invested in 200+ U.S. companies since 2014; their portfolio has 17 space companies, including: Axiom Space (the world's first commercial space station); Umbra (high resolution space based (SAR) imagery; Kubos (mission- and flight- control software for satellites); PlanetIQ (high definition weather forecasting); and Made In Space (In-space manufacturing).

In addition to Hemisphere Ventures, Ms. Rich is founder of Xplore (https://www.xplore.com), a commercial space exploration company focused on expanding knowledge of our solar system via commercial to the Moon, Mars, Venus, LaGrange points and near-Earth asteroids. She serves on the Board of Patrons of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation, has provided testimony to advance commercialization for the space industry, and in 2019 spoke at space industry events hosted by the U.S. State Department, NewSpace, The Center for Space Commerce and Finance and TechStars. A member/supporter of the Planetary Society, B612 and The Keck Foundation, Lisa holds a B.S. in English from Loyola University Chicago, a master's degree from the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago, and is proficient in French and Italian.