Meet the team

  • Managing Partner, Co-Founder

    Steffen Pauls is the Managing Partner of 7GC based in Berlin and founded the firm in 2015 with the purpose of bringing growth investment opportunities to a network of key decision makers, industrial families, and entrepreneurs in Europe.

    Steffen spent 11 years at KKR, most recently as the Head of Germany and a member of the European Media and Digital Team.

    Steffen is a serial entrepreneur, who has founded several businesses, among others he co­founded and acted as CEO of firstfive AG (sold to PE investor) and more recently he founded Moonfare (www.moonfare.com), a financial services technology firm, which he currently runs as the acting CEO. Steffen began his career at BCG.

    He received a Masters degree from University of Mannheim in Germany, MBA from ESSEC in France, Doctoral degree from University of Trier in Germany and wrote his master thesis and worked as a Research Assistant at Harvard University in the US.

  • Managing Partner, Co-Founder

    Jack Leeney is the Co-Founder and Managing Partner of 7GC.

    Based in California, Jack led 7GC's investments in Hims (NYSE: HIMS) and Cheddar (sold to Altice USA), Capsule, Roofstock, The Mom Project, Jio Platforms, Jackpocket (sold to DraftKings), Because Market, Moonfare, Sway, and Anthropic.

    Jack also served as the CEO and Chairman of 7GC & Co Holdings (NASDAQ: VII, merged with Banzai), has served on the boards of 5 public companies, and serves as Board Director for 7GC portfolio companies, The Mom Project, Because Market and Sway.

    Before 7GC, Jack was the Head of US Investing for Telefonica Ventures, which had 3 IPOs and 6 M&A exits. He began his career at Morgan Stanley as a tech investment banker and worked on the IPOs of Tesla, LinkedIn, and Pandora.

    Jack was named to Venture Capital Journal's "Rising Stars 2021" list, has contributed to the WSJ, FT, and Bloomberg, and has advised the Governments of the UK, Spain, and Portugal on local venture capital programs.

  • Partner

    Chris Walsh is a Partner based in San Francisco, where he invests in early growth focusing on promising financial services, consumer, digital media, and vertical SaaS companies primarily in the U.S.

    Since joining 7GC in 2020, he led the firm’s investments in Poolside (Series B), Anthropic (Series D), Lucra Sports (Series A), and Fluidstack (Series A). He has also led diligence on 7GC’s investments in Jackpocket (acq. by Draftkings), The Mom Project, Because Market, Roofstock, Sway and Moonfare. Chris currently sits on the board of Lucra Sports and as a board observer for The Mom Project.

    Previously, Chris was a founding member at Empros Capital, a boutique merchant bank, where he helped lead all diligence and portfolio management. During his time at the firm, he helped advise and invest in pre-IPO venture-backed technology companies including Blend, Airbnb, Turo, and Palantir. Before that, Chris began his career as a technology investor at Disruptive Technology Advisers in 2015, where he was the firm’s first investment hire. Today, the firm has over $690M in AUM and was the second largest shareholder at the time of Palantir’s IPO in 2020.

    Chris earned his BA from Wesleyan University where he studied economics.

  • Head of Investor Relations & Operations

    Caroline Rausch joined the 7GC team in September 2022 to lead Fundraising, Investor Relations and Operations.

    Prior to 7 Global Capital, Caroline spent six years within Business Development and Investor Relations within the hedge fund industry. Caroline most recently served as the Director of Business Development for the EMEA & Asia regions at Infusive Asset Management. Prior to Infusive, Caroline served as a member of the business development and investor relations team at Quadra Capital Partners, another long-short asset manager.

    Prior to entering Finance, Caroline worked within the fashion industry for 12 years. She is a CFA charter holder.

  • Chairman of the LP Advisory Board

    H.S.H. Prince Heinrich von und zu Liechtenstein was born in Leoben, Austria, and received an MA in business administration from the University of Graz, an MBA from IESE Business School, and a doctoral degree in business and economic sciences from the University of Vienna. He currently works as a professor of financial management at the IESE Business School in Barcelona.

    He is active in several supervisory and advisory boards of family holdings or foundations and of one private equity firm. H.S.H. Prince Heinrich von und zu Liechtenstein worked in wealth management and owners strategy with a family holding. He also worked for The Boston Consulting Group and has founded and sold two companies. He is board member of the Liechtenstein Academy Foundation.

  • Senior Advisor

    Michael Polansky is the CEO of the Parker Group, the San Francisco-based organization that manages the business, investment, political and charitable interests of Silicon Valley entrepreneur and philanthropist Sean Parker. As CEO, Michael’s role is to build the business, organizational or investment models to support Sean’s vision to find creative and novel solutions to challenges spanning a wide variety of areas across technology, life sciences, economic development, civic engagement and public policy.

    Since 2008, Michael has worked closely with Parker to build a large portfolio of private technology companies across consumer internet, life sciences, and advanced technology.

    ‍In 2013, he co-founded the Economic Innovation Group (EIG), a bipartisan public policy organization that initially proposed and architected Opportunity Zones.

    In 2015, he co-founded and helped launch the Parker Foundation, a $600 million private philanthropy vehicle dedicated to the aggressive pursuit of large-scale systemic change in Life Sciences, Global Public Health, and Civic Engagement. Most recently, he co-founded the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy, an unprecedented collaboration between the country’s leading immunologists and cancer centers: Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, Stanford University, University of California, Los Angeles, University of California, San Francisco, the University of Pennsylvania, and the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center.

    Michael serves on the board of several technology companies and major nonprofits including Economic Innovation Group, and the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy.

    Prior to joining the Parker Group, Michael was a Senior Investment Associate at Bridgewater and a Principal at Founders Fund where he focused on consumer internet and emerging technology. He is a graduate from Harvard University with a degree in Applied Mathematics and Computer Science.