Company Info for dextro.co | IcebreakerMembers
Benjamin Tseng is a startup product leader & AI technologist with over a decade of experience as a deeptech/cross-border VC.
He is a versatile executive with experience in startup product management and strategy; as a researcher applying deep learning methods to healthcare; and as a venture investor with focus on cleantech, semiconductors, hardware, and healthcare.
Ben has significant experience working with startups in both operating and advisory capacities. His prior roles include product and operational leadership roles at Yik Yak (location-based social media, raised over $70M in VC), Clint Health (health IT), Maximus (consumer telemedicine, raised $20M in VC) and Stir (financial services for creators, raised $20M in VC). He has also served as an advisor to companies like Whistle (pet-tech, acquired by Mars), Dextro (computer vision, acquired by Axon), and Companion Labs (computer vision applied to pet-tech, raised $14M in VC).
He is a published researcher collaborating with Stanford’s OPTIMA group in developing AI/NLP-based methods to understanding electronic medical records. He was also an Associate Fellow with the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change where he contributed to their work in Technology and Public Policy.
Ben spent nearly a decade in venture capital at 1955 Capital and DCM, two cross-border venture capital firms, where he had a special focus on deeptech (e.g., cleantech, semiconductors, hardware, and healthcare) and worked actively with the two firms’ portfolio companies on fundraising and strategy.
Ben started his career at Bain & Company in the Bay Area after graduating Phi Beta Kappa with Highest Honors in Biochemical Sciences and a minor in Mathematical Sciences from Harvard University. He is an avid scifi & comic book fan, an amateur programmer, occasional blogger, and an unabashed knowledge junkie. 
Co-founder and CEO of Vistar Media, the leading end-to-end programmatic ecosystem for digital out-of-home, with 15+ years of experience in the adtech and software space.
My personal journey in the ad tech space started in 2007 when I co-founded Invite Media, a technology that enabled advertisers to use “real-time bidding” to buy display ad space and to optimize display ad campaigns across multiple advertising exchanges. After selling this infrastructure to Google in 2010, I ventured into the digital out-of-home landscape, an untapped medium at the time.
Over the past 10 years, Vistar Media has scaled to over 100 employees with DOOH inventory in five countries and is constantly expanding. Our mission is to help the world’s leading brands engage with consumers in compelling ways through digital out-of-home and to maximize the potential of every media owner’s inventory.
I hold multiple leadership positions outside of Vistar, including board positions with the Out of Home Association of America (OAAA) and Geopath. I also advise a handful of growing companies and stealth startups.
Past advisory positions include my appointment to the DPAA’s Board of Advisors, 2018 Digital Global Digital Out-of-Home Council Leadership by Digital Signage Federation, and an advisor to AdTheorent, an industry-leading machine learning platform.
