Board-level counsel for founders building castles in the sky.
Twin Lakes Ventures is an advisory practice for early-stage entrepreneurs — providing hands-on strategy, go-to-market, and fundraising guidance from an operator who has sat on both sides of the table for three decades.
The founder's journey begins with an idea, an inspiration and a hope. With conviction, focus and hard work those aspirations can become reality. TLV works side-by-side with entrepreneurs as they pursue their dreams, overcome obstacles and find success. We've walked this path ourselves, seen our share of success, and set-backs. Our value is in helping entrepreneurs as they overcome these challenges.
ENGAGEMENT MODEL
Scaled to what the company actually needs.
Not every founder needs the same thing at the same time. TLV's involvement flexes from a seat at the table to a phone call when it counts.
Outside Board Seat
Full fiduciary partnership — governance, CEO coaching, and succession planning alongside the founding team.
Advisory Board
Regular strategic input on go-to-market, fundraising strategy, and team-building without a formal board mandate.
Consulting Engagement
Focused, time-boxed work on a specific strategy assessment, raise, or leadership transition.
WHERE WE HELP
Typical areas of engagement.
Not every founder needs the same thing at the same time. TLV's involvement flexes from a seat at the table to a phone call when it counts.
Go-to-market strategy
- Sales model design
- Channel strategy
- Market segmentation
- Competitive analysis and positioning
Governance
- Board composition and management
- Founderitis counseling
- Corporate culture
Financial planning
- Business model design
- Fund raising strategies — seed through later stage
- Financial modeling
- KPI design
Founder / CEO coaching
Direct, one-on-one coaching for the founders and executives building and running the company.
WHERE WE LEAN IN
Five terrains, one operating pattern.
TLV backs founders working at the edges of disruption — wherever the market is still being defined and a steady hand at the board table matters most.
01
Information Tech
Disruptive information technologies
Software and infrastructure companies rewiring how enterprises operate, analyze, and connect.
AI / ML SaaS . IaaS . PaaS . Fintech . Payments . Crypto . Healthcare IT
PORTFOLIO:
02
Clean Environment
Clean environmental technologies
Ventures reducing resource strain — from energy systems to the renewable supply chain.
Renewables . Resource efficiency . Decarbonization . Climate
PORTFOLIO:
03
Travel & Digital Media
Travel and digital media innovation
A category TLV's founder helped create — companies reimagining how people discover, move through, and read about the world.
Consumer travel . Marketplaces . Digital Media
PORTFOLIO:
04
Social Justice
Social justice endeavors
Mission-aligned ventures where commercial durability and social impact are built in from day one.
Impact . Access & equity
PORTFOLIO:
05
Financial
Financial & investment partners
Co-investment relationships and capital partners that extend TLV's reach and give founders access to additional funding sources.
Venture capital . Growth debt
PORTFOLIO:
REPRESENTATIVE COMPANIES
Snapshot of the current portfolio.
Several portfolio companies remain in stealth; the descriptions below stay true to the work without naming names ahead of their own announcements.
BEYOND THE PORTFOLIO
Projects we're building ourselves.
Alongside advisory work, TLV incubates its own tools and experiments — built the same way we counsel founders to build: lean, fast, and in the open.
AI · ETHICS
A Moral Foundations Theory framework for fingerprinting AI agents, faith traditions, and political systems, surfacing where models and communities align or diverge on core moral values.
AI · MEDIA
A companion tool applying the same moral fingerprinting methodology to news outlets, mapping outlet coverage against the underlying moral foundations it emphasizes.
TRACK RECORD
Three decades of building alongside founders.
As Managing Director at Advanced Technology Ventures since 1996, Steve Baloff has helped deploy more than $1.7B across five active funds in information technology, life sciences, and cleantech.
$1.7B+
CAPITAL DEPLOYED
5
ACTIVE FUNDS
12
EXITS
$3B+
SHAREHOLDER VALUE CREATED
Tripwire
Thoma Bravo
Nominum
Akamai (AKAM)
Cedexis
Citrix (CTXS)
Striva
Informatica (INFA)
Seeker Software
Concur (CNQR)
Epigram
Broadcom (BRCM)
Omneon Video
Harmonic (HLIT)
Velogic
Keynote (KEYN)
UpShot
Siebel Systems
ViryaNet
NASDAQ: VRYA
Qumu
NASDAQ: QUMU
ABOUT THE TRACK RECORD
From first check to exit.
Representative investments shown span the range from pre-revenue, concept-stage, seed-stage companies all the way through to later-stage, expansion-financing round growth companies.
The exits described generated in excess of $3 billion to shareholders.
WHO'S AT THE TABLE
A Small Team, Deliberately.
TLV stays lean so every engagement gets direct, senior attention — no associates standing between the founder and the decision-maker. The TLV team has contributed to the success of some of the fastest growth companies in Silicon Valley and beyond: Travelocity, Adyen, Sephora/LVMH, PlanetLabs, Box, Knotel, Covalent Systems, Clearslide, Bleacher Report, Nominum, Piazza, Livingly Media, WePay.
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