Westly Capital Management III

Steve Westly serves as the firm's managing partner and lead decision-maker. He is supported by a compact investment team in Menlo Park that evaluates opportunities across energy storage, mobility, and industrial decarbonization. Westly's operations background at eBay and his policy experience as California State Controller shape the final investment committee's judgment on regulatory-risk and procurement-cycle factors.

The firm sources through three primary channels. First, Westly's policy network — built during his statewide electoral tenure and subsequent clean-energy advisory roles — surfaces startups navigating regulatory frameworks. Second, the eBay/tech diaspora produces referrals from entrepreneurs and operators Westly has known for two decades. Third, limited partners including sovereign wealth funds and corporate strategics often share co-investment and introduction pipelines.

The firm has publicly concentrated on digitally enabled sustainability and infrastructure technologies. It generally avoids sectors outside that thesis: healthcare, enterprise SaaS without a sustainability angle, consumer internet, fintech, and traditional oil-and-gas extraction. The partnership has also steered clear of deep-science therapeutics and hardware without a software overlay.

The firm is a private-sector venture capital partnership, not a political organization. However, Steve Westly's tenure as California State Controller from 2003 to 2007 — and his role in shaping the state's early climate-disclosure and clean-energy policies — informs the firm's investment thesis and deal-sourcing network. The Westly Group does not lobby, but its portfolio companies often operate in regulated energy and transportation markets where policy literacy is an advantage.