Proven operators with deep expertise

Background

Jawwad brings 15+ years of finance and investment experience, with a background spanning hedge funds, venture investing, and growth-stage company building. Prior to DTF, he was a Partner on the Investments team at Republic Capital, a $1B AUM platform that deployed capital into 35+ companies worldwide.

Experience

• Partner at Republic Capital ($1B AUM platform)
• Early investor in Firefly Aerospace (Series A, B, C)
• Investor in Axiom Space (Series B & C)
• Co-led K2 Space seed round with First Round Capital
• Early angel investor in Chime (multi-billion fintech)
• Head of Growth at Republic Realm/Real Estate
• Partner–Head of Growth at Compound (acquired 2020)

Background

Mahsa Zeinali is a Managing Partner at DTF Advisors with over 17 years of experience in the finance industry. She has deep expertise in institutional operations management, investor relations, and alternative investments, with a focus spanning venture capital, private equity, private credit, and hedge funds.

Experience

• Senior VP Capital Partnering at Reverence Capital Partners
• Head of Investor Relations at 3L Capital
• Managing Partner at Sunset Capital Partners
• Managing Partner & CEO at Rosen Capital Advisors
• Investment Banking Analyst at The Sage Group, LLC
• M&A group at Houlihan Lokey
• Honors Business Administration, Richard Ivey School of Business

Background

Hovig works with early and growth stage companies across the Aerospace, Defense, Space Technology, and Infrastructure sectors. His strategy involves seeking out differentiated companies with extraordinary teams that are focused on developing dual use technologies for the benefit of national security and advancement of humanity.

Experience

• Senior VP at Bank of America Global Commercial Banking
• Led Aerospace, Defense, and Space Technologies team in Los Angeles
• Portfolio of 25 clients with +$1B in loan commitments
• $300M in deposits under management
• 10 years United States Marine Corps service
• FINRA series 7 and 63 licenses

Background

Ryan O'Halloran serves as General Partner and Chief Operating Officer of DTF Advisors, where he brings deep experience in institutional capital management, investor relations, operations and business development. He has over a decade of experience backing early-stage companies, with an emphasis on deep tech, space, and blockchain infrastructure. He was an early investor in Firefly Aerospace, K2 Space, Axiom Space, and Mysten Labs, among numerous other ventures.

Prior to DTF, Ryan was a Co-Founder at Brennan Investment Group, the second-largest private industrial owner in the U.S. He participated in over $2 billion in industrial transactions and led joint ventures with institutional partners including Goldman Sachs, Investcorp, Aetna, Gulf Finance House, and Gatehouse Bank.

Ryan was a member of Irish Angels for nearly a decade, supporting early-stage companies within the Notre Dame entrepreneurial network.

Experience

• Early investor in Firefly Aerospace (Series A), K2 Space (Seed), and Axiom Space
• AI-related investments include Anthropic, xAI, Perplexity, Groq, Anduril, Lazarus AI, and Lambda
• Participated in over $2 billion in real estate transactions, including $1.4 billion in round-trip deals
• Joint ventures with Goldman Sachs, Investcorp, Aetna
• MBA Cum Laude, University of Notre Dame

Background

Taha brings a rare combination of technical excellence, startup operator experience, and investment analysis expertise, having started his career at 18 as engineer #2 at Compound under DTF Co-founder Jawwad Khan and witnessing his first acquisition by age 19.

Since then, he served as first analyst at T-Bird Capital, a Bay Area angel syndicate that has grown into a $20M seed-stage fund (now StoryHouse Ventures), and at Republic Capital under Jawwad Khan, where he was exposed to the new era of commercializing deep tech startups. As CTO of First Generation Investors, a 501c3 nonprofit bringing financial literacy education to underserved communities, he helped the organization scale from UPenn Wharton to 30+ chapters nationwide.

As an engineer, he led technical teams and developed battle-tested decentralized finance applications at Everyrealm. Most recently, as an Applied AI Engineer, he helped build robust enterprise LLM platforms for PE firms and hedge funds, real-time B2B sales intelligence used by unicorns like Ramp, and gathered spatial training data for 'world model' LLMs.

Experience

• Applied AI Engineer at ProSights (YC'24), ActivelyAI
• Analyst at T-Bird Capital, Republic Capital
• CTO at First Generation Investors
• Engineer #2 at Compound (acquired)
• Philosophy & Public Affairs, Claremont McKenna College