Darren Bechtel is the founder and Managing Director of Brick & Mortar Ventures, the leading sector-specific venture capital fund focused on emerging technologies to improve the way we design, build, and maintain our built environment. Darren has been the single most active early stage investor in AEC and FM tech over the past five years, with his first four construction tech deals being Seed round investments into PlanGrid, BuildZoom, BuildingConnected, and Rhumbix. Since then, Darren and the Brick & Mortar team have invested in over 25 startups aiming to improve productivity, safety, and environmental impact of constructing and caring for the built environment. Darren Bechtel brings over 7 years of engineering, product and architectural design, and construction management professional experience to the Brick & Mortar team, as well as over 8 years of venture investing as the founder and managing director of South Park Ventures. Darren holds a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering with a Product Design focus from Stanford University and an M.B.A. from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.