David Williams Bio

David Williams, an investment banker and venture capitalist since 1990, founded Williams Capital Advisors in 2002. Pre-WCA, David was Director, Global Venture Banking & Head of Asia Venture Banking for Merrill Lynch, where he built the firm’s investment banking relationships with top-tier Venture Capital firms & portfolio companies in Silicon Valley and Asia. Prior to returning to Merrill, David was Partner, Asia-Pacific with Draper Fisher Jurvetson’s ePlanet Ventures fund (2000), where he helped raise the $650 million fund & founded the firm’s Asia presence. He sponsored two investments and co-sponsored another — all of which secured subsequent private or public funding at step-ups in valuation (including two IPOs), contributing, in part, to the fund’s overall strong returns. Before DFJ, David was Vice President, Head of Asia-Pacific Internet Investment Banking with Merrill Lynch, where he founded Asia’s first dedicated Internet/ Technology Investment Banking group in 1999. The group ranked 1st in bringing the leading tech firms in Greater China, India and Korea to their NASDAQ IPOs & subsequent Follow-on and M&A transactions. David spent the period from 1992 to 1999 with Salomon Brothers as an investment banker in New York and California before co-founding the firm’s Hong Kong-based Asia-Pacific Telecom & Media Group in 1997. He began at Salomon Brothers in 1991 as part of a two-person #1 ranked Institutional Investor Equity Research team covering Steel & Aluminum. He started out as an investment banker with Dean Witter Reynolds’ Asset Backed Securities Group in 1990. Sci 52, Artificial Intelligence, Stanford University (Fall, 2019); MBA, Stanford Graduate School of Business (1996); BS in Finance, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (1990);