Brian Lew
Managing Partner, Founding Team Member
Oceans Ventures
Brian Lew is a Managing Partner and Founding Team Member at Oceans with experience in acquisition, investment, corporate development, engineering, sales, and marketing.
Sara Barek
Managing Partner, Founding Team Member·Oceans Ventures
Hastings-On-Hudson, New York, United States
Bio
Professional summary
Sara Barek is a Managing Partner and Founding Team Member at Oceans, where she is responsible for operations. Oceans' profile emphasizes her experience building operational processes that help teams work together efficiently. She previously spent nine years at ClearForest, a natural language software company acquired by Thomson Reuters, where she managed enterprise customer engagements and engineering delivery. She later held leadership roles at Thomson Reuters and worked on strategic partnerships and product development at Harmony Labs.
Investment focus
Stage, sector, and overall fit
Stage
formative-stage startupsearly-stage startups
Sector
technology startupsoperationsclient-facing enterprise software
Thesis
Early-stage startups needing operational structure and cross-functional executionTechnology startups at formative stages
Notable companies
Selected portfolio companies the partner has backed
ClearForestThomson ReutersHarmony Labs
How to approach
Framing and angles for outreach
Pitch framing
Emphasize operational discipline, customer-facing execution, or building lightweight process for scaling teams.
Personalization hooks
- 1Experience translating customer requirements into delivered enterprise software outcomes
- 2Operations and process-building for cross-functional teams
- 3Interest in hiking, cooking, gardening, travel, and the Hudson Valley
Background
Career, education, and skills
Career history
- OceansManaging Partner & Founding Team Member2018 – Present
Education
- Middlebury CollegeDegree
Skills
Venture CapitalOperationsCross-functional ExecutionCompany Building
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