About

Sonny Vu is an accomplished entrepreneur and investor, with a focus on supporting founders who are building companies with radical solutions that have a positive impact on the planet. As the founder and CEO of Alabaster, a family office that invests in early-stage companies, Sonny has invested in and advised 47 companies, mostly at the seed, series seed, or Series A stage. His investment themes include materials science, industrial biotech, sensors/semiconductors, HVAC, and enterprise AI. Currently, Sonny is the CEO of Arevo, an advanced manufacturing technology company that automates the design and production of large continuous carbon fiber thermoplastic composite parts. Under his leadership, Arevo has raised $70 million in funding and demonstrated its products through brands like Superstrata.bike, Scotsman.me, and Mishima.studio. Prior to Arevo, Sonny co-founded several successful startups, including Impact Biosystems, Elemental Machines, Misfit, AgaMatrix, and FireSpout. Misfit, a fashion-driven wearables and smart home devices company, was acquired by Fossil for $260 million, and Sonny served as President and CTO for Fossil Group afterward. Sonny has raised $257 million in funding across 22+ rounds for companies he has founded and has assisted Alabaster portfolio company founders to raise even more. Before starting his entrepreneurial journey, he worked at Microsoft Research in NLP under Kai-Fu Lee, worked on a PhD in linguistics at MIT under Noam Chomsky and Ken Hale, and studied math at UIUC. In addition to his professional pursuits, Sonny enjoys spending time with his family, doing math (algebra, number theory), learning languages, and playing games. He is always willing to help and welcomes anyone to drop him a note.