Collin West

Collin West believes that a select group of founders and their teams will shape the future – and that those exceptional practitioners are underserved by the investment ecosystem. In 2020, Collin founded Ensemble VC with the goal of leveraging data science to accelerate the venture ecosystem’s ability to find exceptional teams and help them build transformative companies.

Collin has been on the founding fund team for three data-driven VC strategies. He began his VC career as part of the founding fund team at Correlation Ventures, where he helped lay the foundation for data-driven investing. He then became Founder and General Partner of the Kauffman Fellows VC Fund, which later evolved into Ensemble. Alongside these roles, Collin founded the Kauffman Fellows Research Center, where he authored influential data-driven research papers that continue to shape venture capital practices. Before his career in venture capital, Collin founded digital advertising and adventure travel businesses and worked as a strategy consultant at Accenture.

Collin holds an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management with an emphasis on innovation and entrepreneurship, earning the prestigious Four Pillars Award for exemplifying the school’s values. Outside of work, Collin channels his competitive spirit into Brazilian jiu-jitsu, mountain biking, and climbing mountains, often tackling one or two peaks each year. He splits his time between his work at Ensemble and his family in Austin, TX.