Smart, Adaptive Capital

Steve Kuo leads the Technology Group at Hercules with more than 19 years of operational and structured finance experience. He has led over $1.2 billion in capital investments at Hercules and has worked with breakout companies such as Box, Lightspeed, IronPlanet, Machine Zone and Trulia. Steve has been involved with early stage startups with passionate founders and a great concept as well as billion dollar revenue businesses looking to finance their next big market. Prior to Hercules, Steve was a strategic member of Lightcross, a silicon photonics startup, where he led the product management team.

Before joining Lightcross, he was a principal at Comdisco Ventures.

 

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Catherine is a Senior Managing Director at Hercules and leads origination, venture relationships, and business development for the fund's Technology and Sustainable/Renewable Groups. Catherine’s investments include AppDirect, Arctic Wolf, C2FO, Couchbase, Fastly, Impossible Foods, Pivot Bio, Postmates, SingleStore, SeatGeek, Thumbtack, Udacity, Varsity Tutors, Wrike (acquired by Vista), and others. Before joining Hercules, Catherine spent over 10 years in senior operational roles within startup companies, including sales, business development, research and product management. At Cleantech Group, Catherine ran the company’s data business, where she lead the product, engineering, research and sales teams. Prior to Cleantech Group, Jhung was the Director of Sales at edo Interactive. Prior to edo Interactive, Catherine spent over five years on the executive team at Equilar, the leading research firm for benchmarking executive and board compensation. There, she built and managed the business development and client services divisions from the ground up, growing the business to over 600 clients. Catherine received an MBA from the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley, a BS in Agricultural Economics and a minor in Computer Information Systems from UC Davis.

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Thomas Harris is a Senior Managing Director in Hercules’ Technology Group at our Palo Alto offices, and brings more than 27 years of financing, syndications and technology investment banking experience to the firm. Tom joins Hercules after several years at Silicon Valley Bank, most recently as a Managing Director in the Syndications group, where he led more than $4 billion in syndicated senior and subordinated facilities for leading technology companies. Prior to SVB, he spent 6 years on BofA Merrill Lynch’s Investment Banking team, with more than $22bn of lead software M&A, LBO and IPO transactions completed, and more than $10bn in lead leveraged loan and bond transactions closed. Prior to BofA Merrill Lynch, he spent 8 years in high yield origination and capital markets at TD Securities in New York. Tom holds an MBA with honors from Columbia Business School and a BS in Finance and Economics from the Stern School of Business at NYU.

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Roy Y. Liu is a Managing Director in the Technology Group and a co-founder of Hercules. He has more than 30 years of operating and finance experience with technology companies. Before joining Hercules, Roy was a Vice President at GrandBanks Capital, a venture capital firm and a founding principal of VantagePoint Structured Investments, a debt fund affiliated with VantagePoint Venture Partners. Prior to that Roy co-founded Imperial Bank’s Emerging Growth Industries’ Boston office, where he focused specifically on debt financing for venture-backed companies. Roy’s operational experience includes roles as the Vice President of Finance and CFO to technology companies. He began his career at IBM in research and development, and is author of a patent for asynchronous communication systems. Roy is currently an Advisory board member, and sits on the investment funding committee of Northeastern University's student-led IDEA start-up incubator program. He has served in the past as a member of the board of trustees and Treasurer for the Mad River Glen Ski Cooperative. Roy holds a Bachelor’s of Science in Electrical Engineering and an M.B.A. from the University of Michigan.

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John Eggbeer is a Managing Director in the Technology group working in the DC office. He first joined Hercules Capital as an associate in October 2011 and is focused on deal origination, underwriting and portfolio monitoring of debt and equity investments in the mid-Atlantic, Southeast and Midwest regions. Prior to joining Hercules, he worked as an associate at MMV Financial, a Toronto Canada based venture lending firm. He began his career as an analyst in the Comerica mid-Atlantic Technology and Life Science office focused on lending solutions for venture backed technology companies. Eggbeer graduated from the University of Richmond’s Robins School of Business with a BS in Business Administration.  

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Lesya Kulchenko is a Managing Director at Hercules Capital with over 17 years of structured finance and investment experience.

Prior to joining Hercules in 2012, Lesya worked with two early stage venture capital firms: Nourish Capital, a start-up fund in San Francisco focused on investing in early stage consumer retail businesses, and Hopewell Ventures, an equity fund in Chicago primarily focused on high-growth businesses across a broad range of industries in the Midwest.

Prior to that, Lesya worked as a Corporate Credit Monitoring Manager for Raiffeisen Bank Ukraine, a subsidiary of Raiffeisen Zentralbank Austria. She began her career in product management at Rockwell Automation.

Lesya received a B.S. in Computer Engineering with a Mathematics minor from Marquette University. She was a recipient of a full international scholarship sponsored by the United States Information Agency/Freedom Support Act program.

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Michael Bowden is a Managing Director, Portfolio Management and currently focuses on debt and equity investments in the Life Science and Technology sectors. Michael joined Hercules Capital as an Analyst Intern in January 2007 and was promoted to the role of Associate in October 2009. Michael was promoted to Vice President in April 2011 and then to Managing Director, Portfolio Management in January 2019. Prior to Hercules, he held positions with Credit Suisse HOLT as an equity research analyst and with Bristol-Myers Squibb as a global sourcing and supplier management analyst. Michael graduated from Northeastern University with a B.S. in Finance.

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Greg Peterson, a seasoned executive with more than 16 years of financial services experience, is a Managing Director responsible for business development and loan underwriting in the technology market.

Prior to joining Hercules Capital in 2016, Greg served as Vice President at East West Bank, where he helped found and build the late-stage technology banking practice. Prior to East West, he was a Vice President in Silicon Valley Bank’s corporate finance division. Greg began his financial services career as an analyst in Bridge Bank’s technology banking group. He has also worked as a management consultant and economic analyst intern for the Ministry of the Economy of Luxembourg.

Peterson is a CFA charterholder and received a Bachelor of Arts in Economics from Cornell University.

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James Downing is the Managing Director for Europe, having set up the new London office.  He leads origination and venture relationships across the continent for Hercules.  Joining in November 2021, James focuses on investments into standout European technology companies. Prior to Hercules, James was a Director at Silicon Valley Bank, where he spearheaded the focus on venture capital relationships, and was closely involved with venture lending transactions across multiple sectors and life stages.  Earlier in his career James worked as a Relationship Director at Barclays Bank, where he ran a portfolio of mid-market companies across the tech and media sectors. James holds an LLB in Law from De Montfort University.

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Ruslan is a Managing Director for Hercules Capital, leading technology origination out of New York City and responsible for sourcing and executing investment opportunities. Prior to Hercules, Ruslan was a Managing Director for the Stifel Venture Lending team helping run origination and structuring efforts across the east coast for the venture bank. He also spent the prior five years at PacWest where he led the credit team across the PacWest east coast venture banking portfolio. Ruslan has over 12 years of credit investing experience across all stages of debt and company profile, previously working on the Direct Lending team at Golub Capital, a middle market private credit fund. He began his career in Investment Banking at Bank of America Merrill Lynch in the Leveraged Finance Group. Ruslan holds a BS in Finance from Pennsylvania State University.

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Mike Willard is a Managing Director with Hercules Capital’s Sponsor Finance team and focuses on all aspects of debt financing execution to support private equity investment in enterprise software and technology companies. Prior to joining Hercules, Mike was a founding team member of Silicon Valley Bank’s Sponsor Finance group where he spent seventeen years providing debt financing solutions to private equity-backed technology companies. Prior to SVB, Mike worked at Wells Fargo Capital Finance in underwriting and portfolio management roles within their Business Finance and Technology Finance groups. Mike earned an MBA from Clarkson University and a B.S. in business administration from Saint Michael’s College.

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Morgan Russom is a Managing Director in the Technology Group and is based in Boston. Since joining Hercules in 2017, Morgan has worked with numerous technology companies across a broad range of industries and at various stages of maturity. Prior to Hercules, Morgan worked in the Technology Finance Group at Bridge Bank and in the Investment Banking Group at AGC Partners. Morgan holds an AB in Economics from Harvard.    

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Noah Carville is a Managing Director in the Technology Group working in the Boston office. He is focused on investment origination, diligence, underwriting, and portfolio management across the spectrum of the technology market. Noah joined Hercules in January 2016 and was most recently promoted to Principal in January 2022 after being promoted to Vice President in June 2020. Prior to Hercules, he held positions with UBS Investment Bank as a Credit Risk Analyst and Manulife Asset Management as a Business Analyst. Noah graduated with honors from Northeastern University with a B.S. in Economics.  

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Luis Gonzalez is a Principal responsible for sourcing, structuring & underwriting, and portfolio management for growth and private equity backed technology and healthcare companies. Luis has over 10 years of finance experience in the public and private markets, investing in debt and equity across several industries. He started his career on the operating side with a fintech company. At Hercules, he has supported vertical application software, DaaS, fintech, healthcare services, digital health, and marketplace businesses. Luis lives in New York with his wife and two daughters and is a graduate from Stony Brook University and NYU.    

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James Feldman is a Principal in the Technology Group working out of the Boston office. He is focused on originating and underwriting investments in technology companies across a variety of industries and geographies. James joined Hercules as an Analyst in 2018 and was most recently promoted to Principal in 2025. Prior to Hercules, he worked at PNC as an Underwriting Analyst. James graduated with honors from Ohio State University with a B.S. in finance.

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Eddie Lopez is a Principal in the Technology Group and is based in San Mateo. He focuses on loan origination, venture relationships, and business development efforts. Prior to joining Hercules in 2021, Eddie spent five years at Wells Fargo’s Corporate Technology Division, serving as an Assistant Vice President responsible for diligence, underwriting, and structuring for many of the bank’s credit investments in the venture and mid-corporate technology market nationwide. Eddie graduated with honors from Wesleyan University with a B.A. in economics. He currently serves as Treasurer on the board of directors of SomosVC, a non-profit organization helping accelerate and elevate the presence of Latinos/as in venture capital.

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