Crystal English Sacca is an American venture investor and author. She is known for her work in advertising, her ''

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

'' bestselling book, for being an early investor in

Uber Uber Technologies, Inc. is an American multinational transportation company that provides Ridesharing company, ride-hailing services, courier services, food delivery, and freight transport. It is headquartered in San Francisco, California, a ...

and

Blue Bottle Coffee Blue Bottle Coffee, Inc., is a coffee roaster and retailer once headquartered in Oakland, California, United States. In 2017, a majority stake in the company was acquired by Nestlé (68%). It is a major player in third wave coffee. The company f ...

through

Lowercase Capital Lowercase Capital was an American venture capital firm that provided seed and early-stage funding for several successful startups, including Twitter, Twilio, Kickstarter, Uber, Instagram, and Stripe. It raised over $1 billion in capital, and s ...

, and for her philanthropy.

Early life and education

Sacca attended the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at

Georgetown University Georgetown University is a private university, private Jesuit research university in Washington, D.C., United States. Founded by Bishop John Carroll (archbishop of Baltimore), John Carroll in 1789, it is the oldest Catholic higher education, Ca ...

. She graduated with a B.S. in Foreign Service.

Career

Advertising and the arts

Through the early 2000s, Sacca worked in advertising, serving as art director to clients such as

Audi Audi AG () is a German automotive manufacturer of luxury vehicles headquartered in Ingolstadt, Bavaria, Germany. A subsidiary of the Volkswagen Group, Audi produces vehicles in nine production facilities worldwide. The origins of the compa ...

Intel Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California, and Delaware General Corporation Law, incorporated in Delaware. Intel designs, manufactures, and sells computer compo ...

Barclays Barclays PLC (, occasionally ) is a British multinational universal bank, headquartered in London, England. Barclays operates as two divisions, Barclays UK and Barclays International, supported by a service company, Barclays Execution Services ...

HBO Home Box Office (HBO) is an American pay television service, which is the flagship property of namesake parent-subsidiary Home Box Office, Inc., itself a unit owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. The overall Home Box Office business unit is based a ...

Sprint Sprint may refer to: Aerospace * Spring WS202 Sprint, a Canadian aircraft design *Sprint (missile), an anti-ballistic missile Automobiles *Alfa Romeo Sprint, automobile produced by Alfa Romeo between 1976 and 1989 *Chevrolet Sprint, a rebadged v ...

, and

Napster Napster was an American proprietary peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing application primarily associated with digital audio file distribution. Founded by Shawn Fanning and Sean Parker, the platform originally launched on June 1, 1999. Audio shared ...

. She received a

Cannes Cannes (, ; , ; ) is a city located on the French Riviera. It is a communes of France, commune located in the Alpes-Maritimes departments of France, department, and host city of the annual Cannes Film Festival, Midem, and Cannes Lions Internatio ...

Lion, Two Gold Cannes Cyberlions, and other awards. She was named an ADC Young Gun, one of AdWeek’s "Best Creatives You Don’t Know." More recently, she served as producer of the stage production of

Mike Birbiglia Mike Birbiglia (; born June 20, 1978) is an American comedian, actor, director, producer and Emmy-nominated writer. He has written and performed a series of award-winning solo shows worldwide. His six solo shows, ''Sleepwalk With Me'', ''My Gi ...

’s The New One in 2018.

Investing

Sacca is a partner at angel investing fund Lowercase Capital and the co-founder of Lowercarbon Capital, a fund dedicated to environmental investing. She co-led early investments in companies including Uber and Blue Bottle. More recent investments include Linear Labs, a producer of next-generation electric motors.

Books

Sacca has co-authored and designed books on wine and whiskey. Her 2013 wine book, ''The Essential Scratch & Sniff Guide to Becoming a Wine Expert'', was a New York Times Bestseller. The follow-up book, ''The Essential Scratch & Sniff Guide to Becoming a Whiskey Know-It-All'', was published in 2015.

Philanthropy and political activism

In 2019, Sacca was appointed to the Board of Trustees of the

Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum is a design museum at the Andrew Carnegie Mansion in Manhattan, New York City, along the Upper East Side's Museum Mile. It is one of 19 Smithsonian Institution museums and one of three Smithsonian facil ...

. She is a founding member of The Design Vanguard. The organization describes itself as dedicated to furthering a "more just and beautiful world" through the efforts of creative leaders. In response to the

Trump travel ban As President of the United States, Donald Trump has taken several executive order, executive actions restricting entry into the United States by certain foreign nationals. His First presidency of Donald Trump, first-term travel bans predominan ...

(aka "Muslim ban") of 2017, she produced her well-known "Everyone Welcome" painting. She and spouse

Chris Sacca Christopher Sacca (born May 12, 1975) is an American venture investor, company advisor, entrepreneur, and lawyer. He is the proprietor of Lowercase Capital, a venture capital fund in the United States that has invested in seed and early-stage ...

have signed the

Giving Pledge The Giving Pledge is a charitable campaign, founded by Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, to encourage wealthy people to contribute a majority (i.e. more than 50%) of their wealth to philanthropic causes. , the pledge has had 236 signatories from 28 ...

, committing to give a majority of their wealth to charity.

Personal life

Sacca is the spouse of

, a former venture investor and founder of Lowercase Capital. They have three daughters together.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Sacca, Crystal English Living people American investors 21st-century American women philanthropists American women investors Year of birth missing (living people) 21st-century American businesswomen 21st-century American businesspeople 21st-century American philanthropists Georgetown University alumni