Charles Haythornthwaite

Charlie joined Chrysalix in 2008. He is responsible for leading the opportunity recognition and investment selection process in the Chrysalix RoboValley Fund. Charlie has a passion for anticipating how emerging technology can solve problems that matter and devising a marketing strategy to successfully establish new startups.

At Chrysalix, Charlie has led investments in and sat on the boards of GlassPoint, MineSense, and Primus Power. He is a current board director for GaN Systems and a past board director at Axine Water Technologies.

Charlie has strong technology, sales, and marketing background. Prior to joining Chrysalix, he helped found Soliant Energy, a solar energy startup based in California developing new PV modules with leading energy density, where he held the role of VP Business Development and Product Marketing. He was responsible for product-market fit and early customer development. In a previous role, he led business development for BIRAL, which developed new optoelectronic sensors with neural network data analytics for the detection of biological warfare agents.

Charlie has a Ph.D. in optoelectronics and materials science from the University of Southampton. He also has an MBA from Berkeley where he was a Haas Venture Capital Fellow and a Sainsbury Management Fellow, a highly competitive scholarship from the UK Royal Academy of Engineering.