Ira Ehrenpreis

Ira Ehren­preis is the founder and man­ag­ing part­ner of DBL Part­ners. Ira is a rec­og­nized leader in both the ven­ture cap­i­tal indus­try and the energy inno­va­tion sec­tor.  For many years, Ira led Tech­nol­ogy Part­ners’ ven­ture prac­tice invest­ing in energy inno­va­tion opportunities. Ira has served on the board and exec­u­tive com­mit­tee of the National Ven­ture Cap­i­tal Asso­ci­a­tion (NVCA), was chair­man of the 2010 NVCA annual meet­ing, and serves as the pres­i­dent of the West­ern Asso­ci­a­tion of Ven­ture Cap­i­tal­ists (WAVC).  Ira also serves as the co-chairman of the VCNet­work, the largest and most active Cal­i­for­nia ven­ture cap­i­tal organization. He is the founder and chair­man the World Energy Inno­va­tion Forum (“WEIF”) and has served on sev­eral indus­try boards, includ­ing the Depart­ment of Energy’s (DOE) Energy Effi­ciency and Renew­able Energy Advi­sory Com­mit­tee (ERAC), the National Renew­able Energy Lab­o­ra­tory (NREL) advi­sory coun­cil, the Clean-Tech Investor Sum­mit (chairman), the Renew­able Energy Finance Forum (REFF) West (co-chairman), the Clean­tech Ven­ture Net­work (advisory board chair­man),  Amer­i­can Coun­cil on Renew­able Energy (ACORE), the Energy Investors Forum (con­fer­ence chair­man), the Energy Ven­ture Fair, and the Cal­i­for­nia Cli­mate Change Advi­sory Board. Ira has invested in a wide range of com­pa­nies, includ­ing SpaceX, and serves on the board of Tesla Motors, Map­box. He is an active leader at Stanford University, where he has served on the board of visitors of Stanford Law School and has been an advisory board member of the Stanford Global Climate and Energy Project (GCEP).  Ira has also been a guest lecturer, including teaching the course on venture capital. In addition to the foregoing, Ira served for many years on the advisory board of the Forum for Women Entrepreneurs (FWE) and recently served as co-chairman of the Silicon Valley Technology and Entrepreneurship Forum (SVIEF). In 2007, Ira was named one of the “Top 50 Most Influ­en­tial Men Under 45″ and in 2014 was inducted into the Inter­na­tional Green Indus­try Hall of Fame.