Kirk Washington

Co-Founder & General Partner, Yaletown Venture Group

Kirk Washington is a co-founder and General Partner of Yaletown Venture Partners, an early stage venture capital firm with offices in Vancouver, Calgary, and Seattle. He focuses on clean technology investments. Mr. Washington was responsible for Yaletown’s investments in 6N Silicon (acquired by Silicor) and Microstaq (acquired by Zhejiang DunAn), and manages Yaletown’s investments in Cooledge Lighting, Columbia Green, Endurance Wind Power and EnerG2.

Prior to founding Yaletown, Mr. Washington spent 13 years with Ballard Power Systems (NASDAQ:BLDP) where he directed numerous activities including development of natural gas fueled stationary powerplants for distributed power generation, advanced vehicle propulsion systems including hybrid-electric propulsion systems for manned military submarines, and various special projects, then went on to lead corporate development including mergers & acquisitions, post-merger integration, and negotiation of joint development, technology licensing, and strategic supply agreements. Prior to Ballard Power Systems, Mr. Washington managed engineering teams and major projects at MacDonald Dettwiler in Vancouver, several disk drive companies in the Silicon Valley, and began his career with IBM Corporation in San Jose CA. Kirk is a mechanical engineer, and holds 11 patents related to his work in clean energy technology.