“The Friendly VC”

Dominique Villela is a capital-focused executive and technologist. He is the founder and managing partner of Shot Ventures, a Silicon Valley and Arizona venture capital firm.

Supporting ex-executives from JP Morgan, Amazon, VISA, MySpace, and Microsoft, Dominique advances digital transformative leadership, while building financial partnerships with global top-tier venture capital and financial institutions to fund emerging tech across 20 markets. He has a specialization in digital assets, and has raised >$350MM USD and nearly $100MM in other currencies, which have supported 7 successful exits.

Dominique was trained through the Ernst & Young executive sales methodology for CEOs, his pre-capital strategy has captured investors and influenced the capital funding for tech companies that include the Fortune 10. Backed by a strong network of industry advisors and investors, Dominique delivers much of his value by guiding companies through market-informed strategy and execution.

Dominique has been recognized by the United States Congress and various municipalities for his go-to-market contributions to science, technology, and entrepreneurship. He contributes locally and nationally to tech and entrepreneurship ecosystems, STEM education, and he has worked on a number of government projects for Department of Defense, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), Department of Energy, National Institute of Health and Human Services (NIH), and the National Science Foundation (NSF).

He’s been active in commercialization, patenting two of his own inventions and mentoring over 72 University of Arizona multidisciplinary engineering students, and he makes it a goal to advise at least five startups each year.