Justin Shen

Partner. New York. Growth.

Justin joined Lightspeed’s growth practice in 2024 and is primarily focused on growth stage enterprise businesses. Previously, he was an investor at the SoftBank Vision Fund, where he focused on growth-stage enterprise software and worked closely with companies like Cato Networks and Remote.

Growing up, Justin saw how his parents persevered through adversity. They were first generation immigrants to the US and arrived with little more than two suitcases. In their first week they were robbed on the New York subway. Delivering food and working odd jobs, they managed to get themselves through graduate school and medical school (respectively).

Justin grew up in Philadelphia and moved to Shanghai in high school. During that period, he witnessed new technologies spread in unique ways across the country. Goods bought online arrived in hours not days. Messaging apps doubled as credit cards. Skyscrapers rose in weeks, not years. These experiences pushed him toward Silicon Valley.

Justin attended the University of California, Berkeley and after graduation took an Investment Banking job at Citi where he helped advise software companies on M&A, IPOs and strategic alternatives. Two years later he was recruited by SoftBank’s $150B AUM Vision Fund, where he worked on the enterprise software team and collaborated closely with the firm’s Israeli cybersecurity practice.

Justin is passionate about basketball — the sport helped develop habits that serve him well as a tech investor. His middle school basketball coach, Jeff Vance, remains the best mentor he’s had. “He was a down-to-earth and detail-obsessed coach who not only taught us the game of basketball, but also how to carry ourselves as men.”

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