Shawn Merani is the Founder and Managing Partner of Parade Ventures, a pre-seed & seed stage focused venture capital firm.
Previously, Shawn was a co-founder and partner at Flight Ventures, investing in early stage software, internet and mobile companies across a variety of sectors. He has also made select later stage investments. Shawn’s investments include Dollar Shave Club (acquired by Unilever), Sapho (acquired by Citrix), Moveworks, Side, Trusted, Tonal, Plastiq and others.
As an operator, Shawn was a founding partner of Liquidnet’s Private Shares marketplace, which enabled over 750 of the world’s leading asset managers to invest in high-growth, pre-IPO companies. He was able to grow the marketplace to $150MM+ GMV in the first two years. Prior to Liquidnet, Shawn was Senior Director of Business Development at ReachLocal. Shawn has a BA in Economics and a BS in Business Administration from the University of California at Berkeley, as well as an MBA from UCLA Anderson School of Management. Shawn enjoys spending time with his family, riding his Peloton, fantasy sports and supporting the Cal Bears.