Alex Taussig

Board Partner. Menlo Park.

Alex is a Board Partner at Lightspeed and the former Co-Head of the firm’s Consumer Practice. He has more than 16 years of experience partnering with global technology companies from inception through over $1 billion in revenues across a diverse range of sectors, including apparel, banking, consumer goods, construction, education, food services, logistics, manufacturing, and retail. Over the past decade at Lightspeed, he has invested more than $600 million across category-defining marketplace and software startups in US, Europe, and LATAM, including Faire, Vinted, Whatnot, and Zola. Across these engagements, Alex works closely with founders and management teams to architect durable moats, scale go-to-market motions, improve unit economics, strengthen governance frameworks, recruit talent at all levels, and prepare businesses for the transition to public markets.

In addition to his role at Lightspeed, Alex serves as an Independent Director and strategy committee member at United Rentals (NYSE: URI), the world’s largest equipment rental company and a core partner to the global construction and industrial economy. With approximately $16 billion in annual revenue in 2025 and a network of over 1,700 branches across North America, Europe, and Australia/New Zealand, United Rentals enables customers to operate in an asset-light manner by pairing a high quality equipment fleet with integrated service, safety, and digital capabilities. Before joining Lightspeed, Alex was a Partner at Highland Capital Partners, a 36-year old venture capital firm with offices in the US and Europe, where he supported several successful companies, including thredUp (IPO, 2021) and Carbon Black (IPO, 2018; acquired by VMWare, 2019).

Alex earned a BA in physics summa cum laude from Harvard College, an MS in materials engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and an MBA from Harvard Business School, where he was a Baker Scholar (top 5%). He has also served on the Board of Trustees of Chanticleer, the world’s preeminent Grammy Award-winning all male choir. His guidance helped steer the non-profit through the coronavirus period, shifting from in-person to digital performances and music distribution.

Alex is a native New Yorker who moved to Silicon Valley nearly 15 years ago. He splits his time between San Francisco and Healdsburg. Outside of work, Alex practices Muay Thai regularly and enjoys listening to progressive rock music, traveling the world, and spending time with his wife and two children.

Lightspeed and its affiliates engage and retain the services of consultants, operating advisors, operating partners, operating executives, venture directors, venture partners, partners or senior advisors (together the “Venture and Operating Partners”) to assist the Firm in sourcing and evaluating new investments or supporting Lightspeed’s leadership in other ways, including by providing strategic insights related to portfolio companies, investment opportunities and other matters, as well as supporting portfolio companies directly post-investment. Most Venture and Operating Partners are non-employees.

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Deep Dive
  • Favorite Album "Lateralus" by Tool
  • Favorite Book "A Brief History of Time" by Stephen Hawking
  • Favorite Hobby Muay Thai

Investments

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