Events - Event View

He is currently Executive in Residence at Index Ventures, a leading investment firm focused on AI. Previously, he was Chief Operating Officer at Crescendo AI, Duo Security and Zendesk. 

He is a guest lecturer at University of Michigan Center for Entrepreneurship and an occasional investor, advisor and board member to software companies including DataStax, CockroachDB, Contentful, Gitlab, HackerOne, Hubspot, PagerDuty, Puppet Labs, Recharge, Sisense and others. He has written and lectured frequently on the subject of disruptive innovation. He is also an occasional marathon runner, cyclist and musician. He writes about how to scale software companies at https://buildtoscale.substack.com/

After 7 years running FirstIgnite out of Traverse City, raising $2M in venture capital, growing to hundreds of customers and 25 employees, he led FirstIgnite in January, 2026 to a successful exit.  Chase is the first entrepreneur in Traverse City to attend Y Combinator, the world's most prestigious startup accelerator, and the first to return significant financial returns to local investors. He continues to lead FirstIgnite as CEO and is raising his daughter alongside his wife Caitlin here in northern Michigan.

A former venture-backed founder and past leader at Michigan Founders Fund, he now focuses on connecting capital, talent, and customers to help startups thrive. Known as “Mr. Michigan,” he is a relentless advocate for the state’s founders and innovation economy.

He is a commercial insurance advisor with Ford Insurance Agency. Josh is an active angel investor and serves on advisory boards for several high-tech startups, supporting strategy, capital, and scale. He also sits on the advisory board for the University of Olivet’s Insurance and Risk Management program, helping develop the next generation of industry talent. As a board member of the Traverse City Economic Club, he helps convene conversations on innovation and economic development.