Skip to content

Kelly Ford Buckley

General Partner

ABOUT KELLY

Kelly manages investments in fintech and enterprise solutions and serves on Edison’s investment committee. She is also the pioneer of our Edison Edge value creation platform. Over the last 12 years with the firm, Kelly has worked with more than 60 portfolio companies, been involved in two dozen financings and has served as director of 16 companies.
 
Prior to joining Edison, Kelly spent 20 years operating in high-growth emerging and established B2B and B2B2C companies. A technology optimist who has built her career on a passion for breaking new ground, Kelly has never held a role that someone held before her. She has a successful track record creating new categories and accelerating and scaling growth for disruptive SaaS companies such as Sundaysky, Operative (Edison company sold to SintecMedia), LivePerson (LPSN), and Groove Networks (acquired by Microsoft).
 
Active with her alma mater, Michigan State, she serves as an Entrepreneur in Residence and on the External Resource Council for Broad’s Burgess Institute. Kelly has been recognized by GrowthCap as a Top Women Leader in Growth Investing, is regularly featured in business, investor and technology media, and is an in-demand speaker at local and national events.
 
EDUCATION
 
BA, Michigan State University

Fun Fact

I have never held a job that someone held before me.

Early Career

My career journey was shaped by father's 34-year career at Polaroid ....our bread and butter, big-company stability. As such, my joining IBM shortly after college thrilled him. But, after five years, IBM started to feel familiar (flashback to Dad's dinner table stories of bureaucracy, monotony) and I had the itch to build things and move faster. In 2000, left Big Blue for my first startup (much to Dad's dismay) and never looked back.

Edison Origin Story

While an executive at Edison V portfolio company Operative (2010-2012), Chris Sugden and Ryan Ziegler were lead investors on the board. Being a transformational time (business model, product, M&A) for the business, I had a lot of board-level engagement. Fast-forward to 2014, we reconnected when I moved to the Princeton area. I was sold on the firm's evolution in leadership and strategy (from venture to growth equity) and the role I could play in it. The rest is history.