Managing Director, Strategic Capital

About Golden Gate Ventures

Golden Gate Ventures is an early-stage venture capital firm founded in 2011, with more than 150 portfolio companies and a team across Asia and MENA. We work with founders beyond the initial investment, drawing on an international network to help them raise capital, build strategic relationships, and realize value.

The mandate

Across our established portfolio are companies ready for consequential follow-on financing, strategic partnerships, or acquisition conversations. We are looking for someone who has made transactions happen and wants a platform on which to do it repeatedly.

Your first priority is to help selected portfolio companies access alternative pools of capital, particularly strategic investors and corporate venture teams. You will also identify partners and buyers whose involvement can create enterprise value or a path to liquidity. A standout outcome would be an acquisition that returns meaningful cash to GGV funds and measurably improves DPI.

This role focuses on origination and developing opportunities through the first stages of a deal. You will understand each company, sharpen its story, map the right counterparties, make thoughtful approaches, qualify interest, and help founders turn an introduction into a serious conversation. The founder and company team lead the later stages of negotiation and closing.

What you will do

Originate portfolio financing

• Work with the partners to choose a small set of priority companies. Selection will reflect GGV's needs, your network and domain expertise, and a shared view of which outcomes are achievable.
• Get close enough to each company's business to give useful advice on positioning, timing, investor fit, and the kind of capital or strategic relationship it needs.
• Build targeted maps of strategic investors, corporate venture teams, family offices with relevant operating interests, and other nontraditional sources of capital. This role is not centered on conventional VC fundraising.
• Shape the financing narrative and light outreach materials, run a disciplined outbound process, take initial qualifying meetings, and join a CEO follow-up when that helps make a strong handoff.

Develop strategic outcomes

• Cultivate corporate development teams and senior decision-makers, especially in China and East Asia, who could become investors, commercial partners, or acquirers of portfolio companies.
• Identify meaningful customers, distribution relationships, joint ventures, strategic investments, secondaries, and acquisition opportunities where they fit a company's goals.
• Prepare both sides for productive discussions and stay close enough to advance opportunities without overselling a company or making commitments on its behalf.

Build a durable origination engine

• Use direct outreach, existing relationships, targeted events, speaking, and useful content to create a steady flow of relevant conversations.
• Maintain clear records of priority companies, target counterparties, qualified interest, handoffs, and outcomes. Share what you learn about strategic capital and buyer appetite with the partnership.

What success looks like

Within your first year, you have been directly responsible for two or three completed follow-on financings or strategic transactions. Founders can point to introductions, advice, and early work that materially changed the result. An exceptional result includes an M&A outcome that creates a meaningful distribution and improves fund DPI.

We will also look at the quality of your pipeline before transactions close: how well you understand the companies, the relevance of your counterparties, the strength of qualified interest, and whether founders and partners trust you to represent them.

Who you are

You have personally originated and closed complex deals, whether a company financing, acquisition, strategic partnership, or major enterprise sale. The founders, clients, buyers, or partners involved can explain the role you played. We care about commercial judgment and follow-through, not a contact list.

Backgrounds that could fit

• Placement agents or capital advisers who have helped companies access strategic investors or other alternative pools of capital.
• Investment bankers or M&A advisers who have worked on completed financings or acquisitions and know how to engage buyers and company leaders.
• Corporate development or corporate venture professionals who have completed acquisitions, strategic investments, or significant partnerships from inside a large company.
• Corporate or enterprise sales leaders who have personally won large, complex deals with senior decision-makers. Financing or M&A experience is welcome but not required.
• Strategic partnerships or business development leaders who have originated and closed substantial commercial relationships.
• Venture, growth investing, or portfolio support professionals who have materially helped companies raise follow-on capital or reach strategic outcomes.

How you work

• You build trusted relationships with senior corporate and capital decision-makers. An existing China network is valuable, but the ability to build one is equally important.
• You are commercially sharp and systematic about outbound work, yet selective about whom you approach and what you promise.
• You listen to founders, grasp the substance of their businesses, and offer candid advice. People like working with you because you follow through and earn trust.
• You are credible in a boardroom, comfortable doing the preparation behind a deal, and effective across cultures.

Location and opportunity

You could be based in mainland China, Hong Kong, Singapore, or another East Asian hub. The role will build opportunities across markets, with China and East Asia important areas of focus. Existing relationships there are valuable, and GGV's network can help you build them.

You will have access to a large and varied portfolio, an international team, and relationships across many markets. The role offers significant room to build your own approach alongside the partnership. Compensation can reflect transaction results through a performance-linked bonus, with the potential to grow into a Partner title as your impact develops.

Scope

This role is dedicated to portfolio-company capital and strategic outcomes. It does not include raising Golden Gate Ventures funds from LPs, routine LP relations, or fund reporting. The investment partner responsible for each company continues to support its follow-on financing. This hire works alongside the partner and founder, adding dedicated origination and outbound capacity before handing qualified opportunities to the company team for diligence, negotiation, and close. Founders retain responsibility for their companies’ financing and strategic decisions.