Lister Delgado is a founder and general partner at IDEA Fund Partners. He is passionate about entrepreneurship and company formation, and has been an early stage investor and advisor to entrepreneurs since 2001. During his career as an investor spanning more than 10 years, Lister has led the evaluation of over 1,000 companies and has been a close advisor to more than 50 startups.

In his role at IDEA Fund Partners, Lister is responsible for all aspects of the venture process, from deal sourcing and negotiation to management of portfolio investments. Currently, Lister serves on the boards of three IDEA Fund Partners portfolio companies, Argyle Social, Oncoscope and Windsor Circle. In addition, he represents the fund as an observer in two other portfolio companies, NextRay and StatSheet. Previously, he served on the boards of Triumphant (a.k.a. Chorus Systems) and RadarFind (acquired by TeleTracking Technologies).

Since 2006, concurrent with his investment responsibilities, Lister has led the design and implementation of the NC IDEA grants program. Under Lister’s leadership, NC IDEA has awarded over $2 million to over 50 companies.

Lister brings to his job a broad range of technical skills in diverse industry sectors, from ASIC design to software development and systems engineering. Prior to IFP and NC IDEA, Lister worked for 5 years in the telecommunications and semiconductor industries, first at AT&T Bell Labs, and later at Lucent Technologies.

Lister received a Sc.B. in Electrical Engineering from Brown University, an M.S. in Computer Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin and an M.B.A. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.