Miriam Rivera is CEO, Co-Founder and Managing Director of Ulu Ventures, a top seed stage venture fund in Silicon Valley focused on innovation across the enterprise, fintech, consumer, health, and sustainability sectors. Miriam is dedicated to increasing diversity in both the entrepreneurial and investment communities. Ulu’s investment thesis is based on the concept that diversity is profitable, coupled with a data-driven, repeatable process for making investment decisions. More than 75% of Ulu portfolio companies are founded by diverse teams that include women, minority, URM and/or immigrant founders. The firm has more than $200M in assets under management and 10 unicorns in the portfolio. Ulu was the first Latina-led venture fund in Silicon Valley and Miriam is a recognized pioneer in both the tech and Latinx communities.
Before co-founding Ulu, Miriam was Vice President and Deputy General Counsel at Google, joining in 2001 as its second attorney. Her work to simplify contracts helped Google scale from $85m to $10b in 5 years. Her career has also included experience as a startup cofounder in her own right, as a senior attorney at a top enterprise software company in Silicon Valley, and as a practicing attorney with a leading Silicon Valley firm.
Miriam earned AB, AM and JD/MBA degrees from Stanford. She has been a trustee of the university and honored with the Stanford Medal, awarded to fewer than 1 percent of alumni, as well as elected to the Stanford Multicultural Hall of Fame, which recognizes diverse alumni leaders for their exceptional service to the university and society. Miriam is also the co- founder, former co-president and on the board of Stanford Angels & Entrepreneurs, an open-source network of Stanford alumni investors and entrepreneurs.
She serves on the board of the Kauffman Foundation, Acumen Fund America, and Sesame Workshop, the nonprofit that creates the iconic Sesame Street program. Miriam is also an advisor to the Launch with GS Advisory Council, a Goldman Sachs initiative to reduce the investing gap for Black and LatinX founders.
