In this episode of Conductive Conversations, Carey Lai, Founder & General Partner of Conductive Ventures, sits down with Joshua Lee, the comics-loving entrepreneur and former CEO of Ardius. Joshua opens up about his leap from a 14 year tax career at Ernst & Young to building and investing in startups, an inspiring path shaped by his single mom upbringing and experiences as an Asian American founder.

He dives into aligning passion with career, lessons from the venture capital world, and the tricky balance between family and work. As a founder and investor, Joshua leaves founders with one powerful insight: “Your cap table is everything—it’s the only thing that truly matters at the end of the day.”

​​Joshua and Carey met while in UCLA and have been life-long friends since.

About Joshua Lee

Joshua Lee is the co-founder and CEO of Ardius, which sold to Gusto in 2021. Prior to Ardius, Joshua served as a senior executive for over 13+ years with Ernst & Young, a leading global consulting and advisory firm. It was there he focused primarily on understanding the impact of various credits and incentives for both start-ups and Fortune 100 companies alike. After starting his own venture fund(s) soon thereafter, he noticed his portfolio of companies did not have the same access to these types of credits and decided to set out to democratize taxes.

A seasoned leader in start-up operations and funding, Joshua has had multiple exits as both an investor and founder. He continues to focus on fintech because it blends all of his accounting/tax knowledge with his passion for technology. Joshua currently serves on the boards of directors/advisors of numerous companies and holds multiple degrees in Business-Economics, Accounting, and Taxation.

About Carey Lai

Carey Lai is a Founder and General Partner at Conductive Ventures focused on finding overlooked entrepreneurs who are building capital-efficient businesses who punch above their weight. With deep experience in software and tech-enabled services, Carey brings a results-driven, hands-on approach to scaling businesses empowering founders who dare to dream big and make the nearly impossible a reality.

Carey’s journey to becoming a seasoned venture investor over the past 20 years has been anything but conventional. Before founding Conductive Ventures, he spent over seven years diving into the world of tech investing at Institutional Venture Partners (IVP), where he specialized in later-stage, high-growth companies in the enterprise software realm.

He was involved with companies like ArcSight (ARST), At Road (ARDI), Business.com (DEXO), Concur (CNQR), Cortina Systems (acquired by Inphi), Danger (MSFT), Data Domain (EMC), Mobile365 (SAP), SuccessFactors (SFSF), Synchronoss (SNCR) and Yodlee (YDLE)

After IVP, Carey continued to sharpen his investment experience at Intel Capital, where he honed his focus on the most promising Internet and enterprise software companies. His portfolio included 500Friends (acquired by Dentsu), Box (BOX), BrightEdge, Gigya (acquired by SAP), Kabam (acquired by Netmarble), Nexmo (acquired by Vonage), Onefinestay (acquired by AccorHotels), Sprinklr (CXM), and SweetLabs.

Carey’s roots trace back to Bank of America Merrill Lynch, where he worked in the Technology Investment Banking Group. It was here that he got intimately involved in the software and financial technology sectors, handling high-profile offerings for tech giants like some of the leading technology companies in the world, including Blackbaud Software (BLKB), Computer Associates (CA), Hewlett Packard (HPQ), Sungard Data Systems (SDS), and Tibco Software (TIBX).

This episode of Conductive Conversations was produced by Carissa Lai for Conductive Ventures.

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