James Simmons

Active Investor

Co-Founder & Managing Partner

San Carlos, California

James Simmons, Co-Founder & Managing Partner is an active investor based in San Carlos, California. This profile covers what James Simmons backs, at which stage, and how founders can reach out in 2026.

Mr. James Simmons is a Co-Founder and serves as Managing Partner at Simmons Goodspeed Ventures. Mr. Simmons also serves as Board Member at Sylvan Source. He is an Angel Investor. Jim Simmons has over 28 years of operating experience in high technology firms and served as an Entrepreneur in Residence for Draper Richards, an early stage venture capital firm, before co-founding Simmons Goodspeed Investment Management in 2006. He is a board member at Sylvan Source, LucidPort Technology, and eLOT, Inc., and has served as a board observer at WiDeFi (acquired by Qualcomm) and Nusym (acquired by Synopsys). Mr. Simmons served as Vice President, Marketing and Sales and Vice President, Marketing at Conductus and Superconductor Technologies from 1994 until 2002. In 2000, the market capitalization for Conductus exceeded $1.3 Billion. Previously, Mr. Simmons was Product Marketing and Applications Manager at Therma-Wave Inc. (now part of KLA-Tencor); Vice President, Marketing and Sales at Nanometrics; and Product Marketing Manager at KLA-Tencor. He began his career by holding a variety of marketing and manufacturing management positions in wireless, semiconductors, and computers at Hewlett-Packard. Mr. Simmons received a BS in Applied Physics with Honors from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in 1972 and an MBA from the Harvard Business School in 1974. He served as President of the Caltech Alumni Association from 2012 to 2013, as a member of its Board of Directors from 2008 to 2014, and remains a lifetime member. He is Co-Founder of the Caltech Alumni Entrepreneurship Group in Silicon Valley, and is a faculty member for LaunchGurus' Venture Capital Academy for venture capitalists in Russia and Eastern Europe. He is also a member of the Churchill Club and the Northern California Harvard Business School Association.