Sacramento Inno Under 25 highlights some of the entrepreneurs and technologists under the age of 25 in the local innovation community.
Brooke VanSant, 24
Brooke VanSant is a familiar face at regional technology events, attending many of them and keeping an eye out for intriguing startup companies and founders for Folsom-based venture capital firm Moneta Ventures.
To some extent, she does the local prospecting, looking for companies to pay attention to — and possibly fund in the future. She often shows up at pitch events, networking events, local accelerators and she was a judge for the inaugural Pitch Elk Grove event this spring and several others in the region.
Her work ethic is apparent in that she’s pretty well known in the local startup ecosystem, and she’s only been living in the area since September 2021, when she started at Moneta straight out of college.
She started at Moneta as an associate, after graduating at the top of her class with a 4.0 grade point average at Santa Clara University’s Leavey School of Business. While at school she interned and worked at the university’s Venture Accelerator program. She also spent a summer internship in Bangalore, India, at a social impact consulting firm. She also consulted for an affordable housing social enterprise in Uganda, and she completed an internship at networking giant Cisco Systems Inc.
“Given her past internships and work experience … the expectations I had for her were high to begin with. In the time she has been at Moneta, Brooke has exceeded those expectations beyond imagination,” said Sabya Das, partner at Moneta and its West Coast lead. “She brings a perspective to the team that is far beyond her years and her work ethic, work product, teamwork and leadership skills are truly world-class.”
At Moneta, VanSant has overseen multiple initiatives “that would typically be handled at the partner-level,” Das said, adding that she led the investment sourcing and diligence process for over half of the investments made in the past year.
She also conducts and leads weekly meetings with Moneta portfolio companies, and she is the direct supporter of six local portfolio companies for the VC firm.
VanSant is drawn to social impact efforts, particularly where business can be used to help people improve their lives, she said. That’s one of the reasons she attended Santa Clara University, and it was behind her international internships.
And as the youngest person on the Moneta team, she’s been the one to improve the firm’s social and public relations presence, tripling its engagement on LinkedIn in a year.
