Sophie Yao

Sophie Yao serves as the Managing Director at Pegasus Tech Ventures China. She is responsible for overall operations, strategies, fundraising, deal-sourcing, and partnerships.

During her time in Pegasus, she has built a strong local team to provide funding and incubation services to help the global startups to grow and expand in China. Sophie specializes in global deal sourcing and investment with a focus on cutting-edge technologies such as AI new materials and robotics.

Sophie also oversees two incubators inside China. As of today, Pegasus China team has successfully helped 40+ international startups to secure and grow business in China, and incubated over 300+ cutting-edge technology startups. With the goal of inspiring innovation, Pegasus Tech Ventures China has built strong partnerships with large corporations such as AWS, IBM, Skoda Innovation Lab on Open Innovation project. Pegasus Tech Ventures China had hosted 5 Startup World Cup Regional events in Chengdu, Xian, Beijing and Hong Kong and attracted 1000+ startups participations.

Prior to joining Pegasus Tech Ventures, Sophie has had 10+ years of experience in investments, corporate management, and open innovation in Fortune 500 companies such as, Intel and Microsoft as senior manager roles.

Sophie is passionate about ranges of charities. She was a speaker and mentors at many gender equality and startup event, such as UN Women Conference, China Female Leadership Summit, Slush, Alibaba Yunxi Summit, AWS Startup Day, TechCrunch China Innovation Conference.

Sophie holds a Master of Material Science and Engineering in University of Queensland and Bachelor of Inorganic Nonmetallic Material Science and Engineering in Sichuan University.