Arif Padaria is a serial entrepreneur, technology evangelist, recovering venture capitalist, and angel investor. He has been involved in building and financing entrepreneurial ventures for 30+ years in the US, EMEA, and India. Most recently, Arif helped build Rize – a next-generation additive manufacturing company that was recognized by the World Economic Forum as a Technology Pioneer (2020). At Rize, Arif raised over $15M in venture funding, increased revenue by 125%, acquired 70+ customers, and recruited 40+ global partners.

As KAUST’s (King Abdullah University of Science and Technology) first Entrepreneur in Residence, Arif created KAUST’s inaugural Technology Investment Fund and built an ecosystem that would allow for venture investment, education, and job creating across the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

As a founding executive of the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center (MassCEC), Arif created MA’s first Clean Energy Investment Fund ($10M/year) via which he invested in a number of leading-edge clean energy ventures across the commonwealth. Arif has a significant track record in venture investing at Pilot House Ventures (~100M AUM), Microsoft ($30M/year), and TVM Capital (German-US $1.5B AUM). Early on in his career, Arif successfully built and sold a couple of enterprise software startups: Princeton Softech (acquired by IBM) and Evolutionary Technologies (acquired by Versata).

Arif earned his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Computer Science from Rutgers University, and an MBA in Finance from Columbia University.