Our Team

"The biggest ideas are always a little strange at the start. It takes unconventional and lateral observation to recognize outliers at the earliest stages."

Tara Tan is an early-stage investor and Managing Partner at Strange Ventures, a first-check investment firm focused on hard software. An industry veteran who has built and backed startups in emerging technologies for 15 years, she has partnered with companies at every scale —from "post-it stage" startups to Fortune 100 enterprises — to bring paradigm-shifting technologies to market.

Previously, she drove investments at global design and strategy firm, IDEO, where she was founding partner at IDEO CoLab Ventures, a top-decile early-stage fund and venture studio building in blockchain and AI since 2015. Prior to that, she led design at deep tech startups, and founded an interactive media company, building one of the world's first location-based iOS game in 2012.

Tara is a frequent contributor and speaker on the intersection of creativity, technology, and capital, and has appeared at SXSW, SF Design Week, DevCon, and more. She was co-chair of Women in Design at Harvard, where she earned a Masters in Computational Design.

“Intetionally moody.”

Burton Rast is a design leader and speaker living in San Francisco, California. He's passionate about solving for unmet human needs in new ways, and with new technologies.

Burton frequently lectures at conferences, companies, and universities, both stateside and abroad, to connect with, and be inspired by, artists and designers, the world over.Burton spent seven years at IDEO as a Principal Designer, and another five in design leadership at Google. He presently serves as a Design Partner at Strange Ventures, and lecturer at Chartwell Speakers.Perhaps worth noting, Burton cooks a mean omelet; so mean, in fact, that he once made them for the entire IDEO studio.

“Ship or perish”

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Teck Chia is a serial entrepreneur and angel investor. He founded Gabbly, a chat app that reached over 70 million users, as well asDimension.ai, Papers.ai, HashTrust, OpenAppMkt, and others. He was previously a Product Manager at Facebook, where he led the team that created the Mobile App Install Ads product. He joined Facebook via the acquisition of his startup, OpenAppMkt, at the time the largest independent app store for mobile HTML5 apps. He is an angelinvestor in startups including Uber, Snapchat, Postmates, Kraken, and Kite.

He holds a BSc. and MEng. degrees in Computer Science with a minor in Cognitive Science from Cornell University

“The right story doesn’t just get you noticed—it makes you unforgettable."

Kathy Osborne is the Founder of Kamel PR, a boutique consultancy transforming public relations for early-stage tech startups and venture capital firms. Guided by a mission to drive meaningful impact, Kathy has helped clients launch over $1 billion in funding announcements, supported hundreds of startups, and produced 100+ events with top partners.

Recognizing the inefficiencies in traditional agency models, Kathy founded Kamel PR to deliver authentic, agile, and results-driven communications strategies tailored to today’s innovators. As an Operating Partner at Strange Ventures, Kathy guides early-stage AI companies on go-to-market and communications strategies. She also serves on the Young Professional Board at Embarc Collective, supporting Florida's tech ecosystem, coaches Southwest Florida entrepreneurs, and teaches high school innovators as an adjunct professor for DoingWIT.

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