Ariana Thacker is joining Rhapsody Venture Partners in Cambridge, MA, from Los Angeles. We wrapped up the final, on-site interview in September, in a timely effort, before the snow comes and convinces her otherwise. It gets so cold here. How do you convince someone to move here? Why do we live here?
We’re very excited for Ariana to join us and to help scale our collaboration with industrial companies. She’s a powerhouse of entrepreneurial energy, with a strong engineering background. She has been a consultant across many hard tech industries and has helped start-ups to Fortune 50 companies bring new technologies to market. In LA, she’s worked on projects ranging from cosmetics tech to energy storage. Ariana graduated Magna Cum Laude from UCLA, with a B.S. in Chemical Engineering, and she is an active community leader to women in engineering.
Over the past year, Rhapsody has invested in startups out of Chicago, Pasadena, Columbus, New Brunswick and Cambridge. There are outstanding inventors everywhere. But the ecosystem in Cambridge, MA, is one of a kind. The density of experts and level of engagement by the supporting cast, from lawyers to accountants, make this the hard tech innovation hub. For hard tech, Cambridge is the center of the universe.