Michael Casella
Managing Director, Partnership Capital Ventures
Michael Casella is the founder and managing director of Partnership Capital Ventures, focused on early-stage startups investments and actively guiding and mentoring founders. Michael was a member of the early founding team and SVP of Operations at Green Dot Corporation, a Sequoia-backed company. At Green Dot, Michael had the unique advantage of actively contributing to the company’s growth from private company to public company (Startup -> Seed -> Series priced rounds -> pre-IPO -> IPO -> Post-IPO) where it achieved a $4B+ valuation (NYSE: GDOT). Each of these phases required a unique set of experience and skill sets, including diversifying revenue by pivoting into new channels, introducing new product offerings, and via multiple acquisitions, all while consistently re-engineering processes, improving the customer experience and expanding gross margin which makes his viewpoints uniquely helpful to founders.
Michael is a solutions-focused founder and senior executive with more than 22 years of success across the management consulting, retail, e-commerce, financial services, and technology industries. (B2C, B2B and B2B2C) He also serves on the Board of Directors for PetMio, Qoins Technologies and Waverly Labs.
Michael earned a B.A. in International Business from U.C. Berkeley. He also holds a Certification in High-Performance Coaching from the High-Performance Institute. Michael has a passion for contributing to and helping others by sharing his time, knowledge and resources, both professionally and privately.
Content & Articles by Michael Casella
LA Tech Week 2025 Day 2 Recap: Startup Growth – Tuesday Oct 14
After a packed AI Building Day, we continued LA Tech Week with Startup Growth Day, a full schedule of sessions focused on go-to-market strategy, founder journeys, and scaling startups in...
LA Tech Week 2025 Day 1 Recap: AI Building – Monday Oct 13
We hosted three full days of events during LA Tech Week, each one focused on helping founders learn, connect, and build with the latest in AI and startup growth. Day...
Using Customer Feedback to Build a Product that Customers Will Love
Customer feedback is the lifeblood of successful product development, but many startups struggle with collecting, validating, and prioritizing the constant stream of input from users, advisors, and internal teams. In...
How Shaun Merritt Vibe-Coded Karrot.ai As A Solo Builder
I recently had the opportunity to chat with Shaun Merritt, cofounder and CTO of Karrot.ai, a LinkedIn ABM tool. Shaun was kind enough to share a comprehensive breakdown of how...
7 Steps to Build a Product That Sells Itself
The Founder’s Mental Health Playbook: What I Learned After Nearly Burning Out
A hard-won guide to staying mentally healthy while building a startup I founded Stitcher, the podcast platform, in 2007 and ran it for seven years until we sold in 2014....
