Promoting Our Values

At Emergence, our values are not abstract principles. They are behaviors we practice every day, shaping how we invest, how we partner with founders, and how we build the firm for the long run.

Those values are simple and demanding:

• We all focus to drive conviction
• We all strive to be your most important partner
• We all win big in the long run

Today, we’re proud to recognize three leaders whose promotions reflect those values in action: Lotti Siniscalco, promoted to General Partner; Kyle Murphy, promoted to Principal; and Thomas Kim, promoted to Head of Investment Operations.

Lotti Siniscalco: Winning Big in the Long Run

Lotti’s promotion to General Partner reflects the way she has always approached investing with conviction, rigor, and deep loyalty to her founders.

Lotti brings together qualities often treated as opposites in venture capital. She pairs intellectual rigor and a profound competitive drive to win with a fundamentally people-first mindset. She is unapologetic about caring and deeply invested in who they are becoming, not just what they are building.

Lotti looks for intensity and resilience in teams. She gravitates toward founders who may not fit a single mold, but who show a clear slope. She recognizes their ability to learn quickly, adapt under pressure, and compound over time. 

That instinct is shaped by her own journey. As a first-generation immigrant, Lotti learned early how much progress depends on resilience and the willingness to think beyond established paths. That perspective sharpened her appreciation for founders operating under different constraints and reinforced her focus on how people grow, not where they start.

Known internally for doing deep work behind every investment, Lotti develops a strong point of view on each market she enters, pressure-tests assumptions, and stays closely involved as companies evolve. Her finance training informs her rigor and preparation. She has led several investments at Emergence, particularly in the fintech and insurtech space, including Federato (which recently raised a $100M Series D led by Goldman Sachs), Casap, Method, and several other unannounced companies.

Over time, Lotti’s life outside of work, particularly as a parent of three young children, has deepened how she leads. Parenting reinforced the importance of listening, empathy, self-awareness, and influence without force, lessons that translate directly into how she partners with founders. She knows when to push, when to step back, and how to build trust that compounds over time.

Above all, Lotti is fiercely loyal to her founders. She shows up through uncertainty and setbacks with consistency and care. Her promotion reflects years of earned trust, long-term conviction, and the journey she has taken alongside founders and the firm. 

“Lotti is one of those rare investors whose perspective you want alongside you no matter the weather of the day. When the future is uncertain, Lotti knows how to interrogate real issues until we discover the right path forward together. When things are going well, she’ll cheer the team on without allowing the hype to blind any of us from the next great challenge. Our trust in Lotti continues to compound and she has already left an indelible mark on Federato.”

‍— Will Ross, CEO & Co-Founder, Federato 

Kyle Murphy: Striving to be the Most Important Partner

Kyle’s promotion to Principal recognizes the role he plays as a true partner to founders, especially in moments when judgment, speed, and follow-through matter most.

Since joining Emergence, Kyle has grown with the firm, expanding his scope while staying relentlessly founder-focused. His background at Plaid and deep experience in fintech and data infrastructure give him practical insight into what it actually takes to build in complex, regulated environments.

Founders turn to Kyle for help navigating critical decisions: evaluating payments stacks, structuring data partnerships, recruiting key talent, and making high-leverage customer introductions. When a question comes up, he goes deep quickly, brings relevant context, and follows through.

What sets Kyle apart is not just competence, but also reliability. He shows up consistently and takes personal ownership of outcomes. That is what it means to strive to be a founder’s most important partner.

“Kyle is a beast and clearly represents what I love most about Emergence: always willing to go above and beyond to help. He has been a true partner, operating as an extension of our team. And on top of all of this, he’s just a genuinely nice person who brings great energy to every room.”‍

— Matt, Founder & CEO, Adaptive

Underpinning Kyle’s impact is a deeply team-first mindset. A lifelong Duke fan and alum, he brings the kind of glue-guy energy great teams rely on. He is the teammate who does the invisible work and lifts everyone around him.

Thomas Kim: Focusing to Drive Conviction

Thomas’ promotion to Head of Investment Operations formalizes a role that has become essential to how Emergence builds conviction.

Conviction does not come from instinct alone. A focused investment approach allows for strong pattern recognition and taste development. But pairing this strategy with strong systems to ensure tight learning loops helps to institutionalize conviction. Over the past several years, Thomas has helped bring that discipline to Emergence’s investment process.

Drawing on GTM and RevOps principles (and shaped by his experience as a military veteran) Thomas has strengthened how we track opportunities, surface insights, and make decisions as a team. His work has improved clarity across the investment funnel and helped the firm focus on what truly matters.

The title Head of Investment Operations is uncommon in venture by design. We created it to ensure we bring the rigor to our internal processes that we work with our companies to build in theirs.

Thomas’ promotion reflects the importance of building systems that scale judgment and the role that focus plays in long-term success.

Congratulations to Lotti, Kyle, and Thomas on these well-earned promotions. Each reflects a different expression of our values. Together, they show how Emergence continues to build conviction, partnership, and enduring outcomes, one decision at a time.