Dakin Sloss is an entrepreneur, investor, and philanthropist. He is Founder and General Partner of Prime Movers Lab, the world’s leading partner of breakthrough scientific startups. He has led investments in transformative companies including E-Space, Gilgamesh, Tarana, Halo, Focused Energy, Paradromics, Quantum Space, and Boom Supersonic.
Prior to founding Prime Movers Lab, Dakin served as founding CEO of Tachyus and OpenGov. He is also a philanthropist through the Satchitananda Foundation dedicated to delivering food, freedom, and flourishing to our global human family. Dakin studied Mathematics, Physics, and Philosophy at Stanford University. Dakin has been recognized as one of Yahoo Finance’s THE NEXT: 21 people who will have a significant impact on the worlds of finance, business, sports, or politics in the year ahead and was featured on CNBC. In 2016, Dakin was recognized as the featured Forbes 30 Under 30 energy entrepreneur. In 2017, he was named as a San Francisco Business Times 40 Under 40 honoree.
Zia Huque is a General Partner of Prime Movers Lab where he focuses on growth-stage investing. Zia brings a wealth of experience in later-stage financing, having been in the business of risk investment and risk management across credit, rates, equities, and derivatives asset classes for the vast majority of his career. Zia also brings his operational expertise to Prime Movers Lab, having had vast executive, strategic and operational responsibilities across multiple businesses and regions of a top-five global investment bank managing tens of billions of dollars and thousands of employees. He serves on the boards of Tarana Wireless, Lyten, E-Space, CarbonCapture, and Paradromics.
Zia served as the President and Chief Executive Officer of Deutsche Bank Securities Inc, the US Broker Dealer of Deutsche Bank, from early 2018 until his departure from Wall Street in 2019. At Deutsche Bank, Zia was also Head of Equities, Fixed Income & Currencies for the Americas from 2016 to 2018 and Global Co-Chief Operating Officer of Corporate Banking and Securities from 2012 until 2016. During Zia’s 30-year finance career on Wall Street, he held multiple executive positions in the United States, Europe and Asia while leading investment banking, sales and trading functions spanning many industries, products, and clients.
Zia received his BA in Economics and in Political Science from Williams College. He resides in Wyoming with his wife and two daughters and is active in the local community.
Tony Robbins is an entrepreneur, best-selling author, philanthropist, and the world’s #1 life and business strategist.
For over 4 decades, more than 50 million people have enjoyed the warmth, humor, and transformational power of his business and personal development events. Mr. Robbins is the chairman of a holding company comprised of 40 privately held businesses with combined sales exceeding $5 billion a year. He has been honored by Accenture as one of the “Top 50 Business Intellectuals in the World”; by Harvard Business Press as one of the “Top 200 Business Gurus”; and by American Express as one of the “Top Six Business Leaders in the World” to coach their entrepreneurial clients. More than 4 million people have attended Tony’s live seminars, and more than 50 million people from 100 countries have experienced the absolute power of his teachings. Tony Robbins’ coaching methods have been proven at the highest levels of success in every game imaginable. Tony works alongside business magnates like Danny Meyer of Shake Shack, Jenny Fleiss of Rent the Runway, Joe Gebbia of Airbnb and Salesforce.com founder Marc Benioff, coaching them to continually improve, innovate and grow. His work has touched the lives of top entertainers and athletes – from Aerosmith to Pitbull, from Serena Williams to the Golden State Warriors.
Justin Briggs is a scientific entrepreneur and investor working at the nexus of biology, chemistry, and engineering. He is a Partner & VP of Biology at Prime Movers Lab and supports portfolio company Zafrens full time. He also serves on the boards of Lygenesis, Iridia, and Morphoceuticals.
Over the last 15 years, Justin was an operator at nearly a dozen biotech, nanotech, robotics, and software companies with multiple exits and over $100 million in venture backing. Justin also supported venture creation at startup studios such as Deep Science Ventures and Accele Venture Partners. Justin developed novel therapeutics and regenerative medicines in disease areas including oncology, neurology, autoimmune, cardiometabolic, and infectious diseases across ten countries and four continents.
Prior to joining Prime Movers Lab, Justin developed next-generation biologic medicines, novel pharmaceuticals, diagnostics, and other technologies at companies including Antiverse, Tetherex Pharmaceuticals, Accele BioPharma, Otologic Pharmaceutics, Pamlico BioPharma, Synereca, Jortan Pharma, Altheus Therapeutics, Crescendo Biosciences, and Southwest Nanotechnologies. Justin co-founded TomorrowScale Ventures and startups Chorus Labs, SnapLab Technologies, and Patch Botanics. Justin is knowledgeable across many discovery, development, commercialization, and scaling activities relevant to deep tech and life science companies, has a degree in biomedical sciences from the University of Oklahoma, an MBA with high honors from Oklahoma City University, and is a co-inventor on multiple issued patents.
Gavin is a Partner & Chief of Staff at Prime Movers Lab where he leads portfolio support, helping founders with public relations, government relations, and fundraising. He helps founders tell their stories to key audiences, including media, consumers, investors, and policymakers. He also serves on the boards of Venus Aerospace, Robust.AI, Twist, Zafrens, Casimir, ProRata.ai, NuCube, Water From Air, Dalan Animal Health, Polpis, and Wacomet, and he is a board observer for Pyka and NobleAI.
Prior to joining Prime Movers Lab, Gavin was a Vice President at Method Communications where he supported the firm’s startup clients on issues related to media relations, public affairs, and crisis communications. Gavin previously worked for Edelman’s Washington, DC technology practice, representing some of the world's largest technology brands, such as Samsung, Adobe, and the Business Software Alliance. He also worked as a lobbyist for companies like eBay, Verisign, and Pitney Bowes. Gavin started his career on Capitol Hill with the Senate Finance Committee’s press office for Senator Max Baucus (D-MT), advising the majority staff on media strategies to pass trade, healthcare, and tax legislation. He graduated with a master’s degree in political management from The George Washington University and earned bachelor’s degrees in communication (journalism) and political science from Washington State University.
Roger is the Vice President of Engineering at Prime Movers Lab, where he partners with founders to help evaluate breakthrough technologies, shape technical roadmaps, and build world-class engineering organizations.
Roger began his career at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, developing SAR classification and remote-sensing workflows for cryospheric research. Wanting to understand how the instruments behind that data were built, he pursued a master's degree in mechanical engineering and a role at JILA, where he built hands-on expertise in fabrication and metrology. That combination of remote sensing knowledge and hardware skills brought him to a deep-tech startup, where he led the design, manufacture, and integration of miniaturized microwave radiometers. These instruments were the first of their kind to fly commercially and deliver data to defense and civil government customers. Over eight years, he progressed from technical contributor to engineering leadership and the executive team, scaling the engineering function and leading multi-million-dollar programs with international partners.
His technical breadth spans remote sensing and data science, mechanical design and systems engineering, RF and microwave systems, microfabrication, thermal management, and environmental testing. He has taken complex hardware from concept to deployment, and built the regulatory and organizational frameworks to support it.
Roger holds an MS in Mechanical Engineering with a focus in design, microsystems, and remote sensing, and an MEM in Engineering Management, both from the University of Colorado Boulder. Outside the office, he is an IFMGA-certified professional mountain guide, a volunteer search-and-rescue team member, and an Eagle Scout.
Taylor is the CFO and Partner of Prime Movers Lab. She helps manage the firm’s financial operations across accounting, reporting, and financial planning.
Before joining Prime Movers Lab, Taylor served in controller and accounting roles with P Soros Investments and Long Light Capital. She oversaw accounting functions for the family offices, while also handling HR functions for family office employees. She began her career as a tax accountant with RSM US where she focused on private equity companies and high net worth individuals. Taylor earned a master’s degree in Corporate Accounting and an undergraduate degree in Accounting with a minor in Judaic studies, both from The University of Miami. She is a licensed CPA in the state of New York and a Level III CFA Candidate.
Brantley is Operations Manager and supports partners across a wide variety of functions such as operational and administrative processes, HR assistance, and event coordination.
Prior to working with Prime Movers Lab, Brantley worked as Personal and Executive Assistant to professional athlete Travis Rice and was Coordinating Producer for the snowboarding competition Natural Selection Tour. She has over a decade of office management experience in Jackson, Wyoming, the place she called home for 17 years. Brantley currently resides in her hometown of Lynchburg, Virginia near her siblings and parents. Brantley is passionate about working with others and brings her skills of organization, enthusiasm, and problem-solving to every team she is a part of. She is an avid outdoorswoman, animal therapy advocate, bicycle enthusiast, and yoga instructor. Brantley graduated from James Madison University with a B.A. in Sociology.
Kara is the Executive Assistant to Founder and CEO, Dakin Sloss, providing high-level support to Prime Movers Lab’s leadership team, investors, and overall portfolio. She brings more than ten years of experience supporting C-suite executives, beginning as a Personal Assistant for Tony Robbins and his executive office, and later working with VC funds, IdealabNY, and IdealabX. Kara also later served as Personal Executive Assistant to entrepreneur Bethenny Frankel before joining Prime Movers Lab.
Kara holds a Bachelor of Arts in Italian Studies from Central Connecticut State University and studied abroad at the Università per Stranieri di Perugia. Outside of work, she enjoys spending time with her husband and two young sons, exploring new adventures together.
