Brian Yee is a Partner at ACME focusing on investment opportunities in consumer, healthcare, fin-tech and vertical software. Brian currently sits on the board of Ever/Body, Forma.ai, Quip, SoLo Funds, Wag! (NASDAQ: PET), and Zendrive, and serves as a board observer for Brightside, MyMo, Favor Health, and Slync.io. He has also been involved with the firm’s investments in Airbnb, Billie, Cue, Forte, Included Health, OpenGov, PillPack, Robinhood, and Uber, among others.
Brian was previously an investment professional at General Atlantic, a $20 billion growth equity firm, where he focused primarily on mid-to-late stage growth investments in internet, software, and business services sectors. Before joining General Atlantic, Brian started his career at Goldman Sachs, where he worked on investments in growth-stage companies such as Uber (Series B), and advised companies like Workday, Twitter, Intuit, Intel, GoDaddy, and LAM Research on M&A, capital structuring, and financing decisions. Brian also previously worked in Goldman’s Investment Management division where he was a member of an 8-person investment team managing $4 billion in AUM for high net worth families, foundations, and institutions.
Brian is a graduate of Georgetown University and worked as a congressional intern for Senator John McCain. He lives in Phoenix with his wife and three children.
Brian was born in Walnut Creek, CA, but moved to Phoenix, AZ when he was three. He and his brother, Justin, however would spend every summer with their grandparents, who have lived in the same home near Ocean Beach since immigrating from China in the 1950’s. Some of Brian’s most formative experiences and fondest memories are from his summers spent in San Francisco.
Brian’s grandfather Milton was somewhat of a legend, or so the story goes. Milton used to bartend at Candlestick Park and Chinatown and would frequently bring his grandsons to hang at the bar. As a kid, Brian thought his grandfather was a hero as he knew a number of the players that would frequently stop by after a game to say hi, grab a drink, and of course give us a bunch of cool sports memorabilia. While it was amazing to be able to spend time with Giants legends like Will Clark, Matt Williams, and Barry Bonds, it was seeing Milton engage with his patrons that was truly memorable. Milton knew everyone’s name, treated them with respect and appreciation, and was easily able to captivate an audience with his amazing stories.
While Brian will never be as cool as his grandfather, but those summer days spent on a barstool have had a lasting impact on the way he conducts himself in life, trying to build meaningful, authentic connections with everyone he meets. Given this mindset, it will not come as a surprise that Brian has been with his wife Kiri for 17 years, after attending a Christmas dance their senior year of high school. Brian and Kiri now have three beautiful children, Cosette (6) and Palmer (4), and Pierson (2).
When Brian is not hustling for one of his portfolio companies or his kids for that matter, you can typically find him going down the “rabbit hole” of some topic that he recently discovered / re-discovered. While Brian may refer to it as an intellectual curiosity, his family and friends may call it more of an obsessive personality. Brian’s most enduring passions are for golf course design, sports cards and vintage watches; however, he has added a few more just this year. For example, after seeing Hamilton for the first time, Brian spent the next month re-learning everything about the founding fathers and is currently reading a biography on George Washington. Next up this year was Free Solo, the oscar-winning documentary about free solo climber, Alex Honnold. Brian has not only seen the movie five times (thanks in part to many cross-country flights), but has now seen virtually all mountain climbing documentaries and has read two books on the topic. After testing his abilities at a local rock climbing gym, it’s safe to say that he will not be going rope-free anytime soon. Brian’s current “rabbit hole” fascination is the Grateful Dead, and has seen the surviving members perform over a dozen times.