Nnamdi Iregbulem

A self-taught programmer and lifelong technology nerd, Nnamdi joined Lightspeed in 2020 and is focused on investments in technical enterprise software, including developer tools, application infrastructure, and machine learning. Nanmdi is inspired by meeting and working with brilliant founders and “nerding out” with them about what they’re building, and helping them connect technical and product insights to a commercial market opportunity.

Born and raised in Los Angeles, Nnamdi earned his undergraduate degree from Yale University, where he studied economics and computer science. He then worked for the technology, media, and telecommunications investment banking group at J.P. Morgan in New York, advising clients like EMC and Comcast. He later joined the investment team at ICONIQ Capital, where he deployed over $500 million into high-growth technology companies including GitLab, Fastly (NYSE: FSLY), Alteryx (NYSE: AYX), ezCater, Uber (NYSE: UBER), SurveyMonkey (NASDAQ: SVMK) and Epic Games, among others.

Nnamdi then earned his MBA from Stanford, where he also completed coursework in Stanford’s Computer Science department, including classes on natural language processing with deep learning, convolutional neural networks for visual recognition, and web applications. During business school, he also worked in product at developer-centric technology companies GitLab and Confluent. 

Growing up, Nnamdi learned to build desktop computers and websites for fun. “I’ve always wanted to understand how things work, from the basic concepts up to the larger machinery that integrates those smaller logical units,” said Nnamdi. He applies the same thinking to companies, emphasizing product, and technical innovation over pure numbers or traction. “I love to dig deeper and understand things from first principles. This skill is emphasized both in economics and engineering, and I apply it to nearly everything I do.”  

When he’s not investing in or advising startups, Nnamdi enjoys writing essays and software, which can be found on his personal site: whoisnnamdi.com. He also enjoys reading economics and machine learning papers, getting into healthy debates with friends and family, and dancing to hip-hop, afrobeats and electronic dance music.