Rob Coneybeer

Founder and Managing Director, Shasta Ventures

Rob is a founder of Shasta Ventures and a 23-year veteran of the Silicon Valley venture capital industry. At Shasta Ventures, Rob focuses on investing in robotics, space, and the future of transportation. Early in his career, Rob served as an engineer in the Astro Space division of Martin Marietta, where he helped build the first A2100 satellite, a platform which is still in production today at Lockheed.

Rob spends his weekends car-racing and believes similar skills are needed to be a successful entrepreneur. As he explains, “Racing requires you to focus and make good decisions quickly.” Rob led Shasta’s Series A investment in Nest (acquired by Google for $3.2 billion in 2014). His current investments include Accion (ion engines for in-space propulsion), Fetch Robotics (robots for warehouse logistics), Starship Technologies (local delivery robots), and Turo (peer-to-peer carsharing company).

Rob earned an MS degree in Mechanical Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology and a BS degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Virginia. He also holds an MBA degree from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, where he was named a Palmer Scholar.

Rob Coneybeer

The rise of smartphone cameras decimated the entry-level digital camera market. In contrast, sales of DSLR and other high-end cameras have thrived. High-end cameras provide interchangeable lenses and have the…

Sharing economy companies like RelayRides are a lot harder to build than they appear. They’re similar to peer-to-peer product marketplaces, but transactions are based on temporary usage rather than an…

RelayRides Challenges the Sharing Economy | OneLap

Every industry is ripe for disruption, and food preparation is no exception. Traditional recipes are static and driven by standard portion sizes. With experience, a good chef knows how to…

Ubooly Cuddly Learning For Kids | One Lap

12:55 pm PDT • October 10, 2014

Carly Gloge and her team at Ubooly are pioneering a new product category – interactive toys that leverage the capabilities of modern smartphones. I’ve always been intrigued by Ubooly, because…

Ubooly Cuddly Learning For Kids | One Lap

Narrative’s Clip-On Camera | One Lap

10:52 am PDT • October 3, 2014

In this week’s episode of One Lap, Martin Källström of Narrative joined me at Thunderhill Raceway. I met Martin earlier this year while he was visiting San Francisco from Sweden.…

Startups

One Lap With Circa’s Matt Galligan

4:01 pm PDT • September 18, 2014

In the first installment of One Lap, Matt Galligan joined me at Thunderhill Raceway to talk about his mobile news application, Circa. I first met Matt in Boulder, Colo., in…

One Lap With Circa’s Matt Galligan