Ascend Global Leaders
We invest in people. We build leaders. We grow the API future.
We back founders from the Asian & Pacific Islander community and the people who champion them. If you are building something meaningful, or you want to help someone who is, there is a place for you here.
Our mission
Ascend Ventures backs API entrepreneurs by combining capital with strategic guidance, mentorship, and access to Ascend's powerful network. We help founders scale their businesses, connect with enterprise partners, and create lasting impact across the ecosystem.
API refers to the Asian & Pacific Islander community. Ascend is the largest Pan-Asian professional membership organization in North America.
The model
A six-step path from a broad pipeline of founders to companies that come back and lift the next cohort, built on capital, mentorship, and Ascend's network.
Ascend sources a broad pipeline of promising founders.
A select cohort is chosen for Ascend Ventures support.
Capital helps founders build and accelerate their startups.
Successful companies reinvest through sponsorship, mentoring, or financial support.
Founders gain help with demos, introductions, pilots, and finding customers.
Leaders and subject matter experts provide strategic advice and mentorship.
Give-back fuels the next cohort. The cycle repeats.
Ascend sources a broad pipeline of promising founders.
A select cohort is chosen for Ascend Ventures support.
Capital helps founders build and accelerate their startups.
Leaders and subject matter experts provide strategic advice and mentorship.
Founders gain help with demos, introductions, pilots, and finding customers.
Successful companies reinvest through sponsorship, mentoring, or financial support.
What founders gain
Selected founders join a community built to help them scale. Capital paired with the people, guidance, and doors that turn a promising company into a lasting one.
Funding that helps founders build and accelerate their startups at the moments that matter most.
Strategic advice and mentorship from leaders and subject-matter experts who have operated at scale.
Help with demos, warm introductions, pilots, and finding the early customers that prove a business out.
Access to enterprise partners, operators, and investors across the largest Pan-Asian professional community in North America.
The people behind it
Ascend Ventures is guided by leaders with decades of experience across financial services, technology, and the API professional community.
Executive Director, Ascend & Ascend Foundation
Executive in Residence, NYU | Angel Investor
Steven Pae is Executive Director of Ascend and the Ascend Foundation, the largest Pan-Asian professional organization in North America, where he leads the mission of building great Asian leaders in corporate America.
Co-Founder, Ascend Ventures
AI Transformation & Innovation Leader
Yash Upadhyay is an AI transformation and innovation leader who spent 15 years at Prudential building an internal-audit function into an innovation engine.
Interested in helping?
Support promising API entrepreneurs through referrals, mentoring, network introductions, and client access.
