KAREN LEVERT

Co-Founder and Board Member

Karen LeVert is Managing Partner for LeVert Ventures. LeVert Ventures is an early-stage AgTech venture capital firm and a Specialized Fund of Pappas Capital. She has a proven track record of progressing early-stage technologies from university research labs to commercialization as co-founder and CEO of two innovation labs, Southeast TechInventures, Inc. (STI) and Ag TechInventures, LLC (AgTI). Karen’s business experience encompasses both corporate and entrepreneurial worlds with over thirty years of successful leadership experience in executive management, start-ups, and technology commercialization. Karen started her career at Nationwide Insurance in Columbus, OH, holding positions of increasing responsibility from programmer to controller, to general manager of a 500-person Property & Casualty service center in Raleigh, NC. Before founding the innovation labs, her first entrepreneurial venture was launching a franchise bioremediation company. Her next entrepreneurial venture was being part of the founding team of a Silicon Valley-based software company. Karen is the recipient of multiple awards including the Council for Entrepreneurial Development’s Outstanding Service Award, induction into the WRAL TechWire Hall of Fame, and the 2022 Women in Agribusiness (WIA) Demeter Award of Excellence. Along with her professional duties Karen serves as a board member for the North Carolina Biotechnology Center, the Economic Development Partnership of North Carolina, the North Carolina Arboretum, and LCBA Life Insurance Company. She has an MBA from the University of Dayton and a BBA in Information Technology from Eastern Michigan University.