Shermaine Lan Zhao

S

Principal at Riverbend Partners | ex-Rakuten

Riverbend Partners
Singapore · SGT (UTC+8)
7+ years experience
INSEAD Singapore
English, Mandarin
Messaging unavailable

Overview

I invest in AI applications at Riverbend Partners, usually at pre-seed and seed. Led or co-led 33 investments, 7 of them now at Series B or later. Backed 11 founders at pre-seed and seed. Before that: Rakuten and Canva. I coach a junior basketball team.

Good reasons to reach out
  • Second opinions on applied ML decisions
  • Questions about AI applications
  • Working sessions on venture capital
Please don't message about
  • Unpaid work or spec projects
  • Generic networking requests
  • Crypto token projects
Skills
applied MLventure capitalproduct

Experience

  1. Principal
    Dec 2025 - Present
    Riverbend Partners · 10 mo · Full-time · Singapore
    • Backed 53 founders at pre-seed and seed.
    • Led or co-led 35 investments, 8 of them now at Series B or later.
  2. Director of Product
    Sep 2022 - Oct 2025
    Rakuten · 3 yr 1 mo · Full-time · Singapore
    • Launched the care product in 14 markets.
    • Grew care revenue from $4 million to $17 million ARR.
  3. Product Manager
    Apr 2020 - Sep 2022
    Canva · 2 yr 5 mo · Full-time · Singapore
    • Ran 76 customer interviews before writing the first spec.

References

No references yet.

Education

  1. INSEAD Singapore
    MBA, Business Administration
    2021 - 2023
  2. KAIST
    BS, Computer Science
    2014 - 2018

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