Ross O'Brien

Investor

Ross O'Brien is the Founder & CEO of Bonaventure Equity, LLC (“BVE”), a boutique venture capital firm. He is a lifelong entrepreneur and through venture investing is on a mission to be personally responsible for co-creating 1000 millionaires through entrepreneurship.

He established his thought leadership in VC through authoring, “Cannabis Capital,” one of the preeminent books helping to educate entrepreneurs in cannabis on the capital raising process. He is a frequent contributor to the EMI media platform and is a judge on Entrepreneur’s Elevator Pitch web series program.

Prior to closing the first BVE Select Fund focused on cannabis companies, Ross served a group of family offices responsible for all of their self-directed venture capital, private equity and real estate investments and lead twenty-two (22) syndicated financings across a variety of sectors and industries with a focus on healthcare.

Ross has a broad spectrum of private company expertise ranging from starting and operating high growth businesses, numerous venture capital and private equity transactions, advising portfolio companies on mergers and acquisitions transactions, and capital introductions.  He has taught entrepreneurship and finance at Florida Atlantic University, holds several board positions and has spent his career primarily working with family offices and early stage growth ready founders.  He has been an advisor for programs on investing, entrepreneurship and impact investing at MIT (2011) and Harvard (2014) and was on the steering committee that launched TechRunway at Florida Atlantic University, where they still teach the Entrepreneurship Bootcamp program he initially designed and authored.

Prior to relocating to Florida, Ross worked on Wall Street with a boutique New York investment banking firm, was a Manager at Geller & Company and an Assistant Vice President at JPMorgan Chase.  He was a founder of a digital technology company, which he and his partners exited in 2006. He began his career at Sony BMG and has international experience working in the UK, Europe, Hong Kong and Canada.

Ross earned an MBA from Fordham University and obtained a BS in Business Marketing & Management from Ferris State University. Ross lives with his dog Gibson in West Palm Beach Florida and enjoys motorcycling in his spare time.