Dan Chen

Managing Director, CEC Capital

Dan Chen is currently a Managing Director at CEC Capital. He was previously a Managing Director at Siemer & Associates with 15 years of investment banking, private equity and corporate development experience and completed transactions totaling over $5 billion in value. Before Siemer & Associates, Mr. Chen was Managing Director of Corporate Development at a Los Angeles-based holding company where he evaluated and executed on a wide variety of new investment and partnership opportunities in multiple industries, including healthcare IT, software & services and the energy sector. Prior to that, Mr. Chen was Vice President in the media practice at Montgomery & Co., where he provided M&A and capital raising advisory services to companies in the software, digital media and Internet services space. Key transactions completed include Disney’s $700 million acquisition of Club Penguin, HBK Investments’ $165 million LBO of CoCreate Holding GmbH (now part of Parametric Technology Corp.), and late stage financings for companies such as Vantage Media and WildTangent. Before joining Montgomery & Co., Mr. Chen was an Investment Associate at TPG Capital. At TPG, he handled all aspects of deal sourcing and transaction execution for TPG’s cross-border private equity and venture investments in the U.S. and Asia. He participated in the investment activities of Newbridge Asia III, LP ($724 million) and Newbridge Asia II, LP ($392 million), and he monitored several portfolio companies in the Internet services space within those funds. Dan graduated from Yale University with a B.A in Economics.

Articles by Dan Chen

Austin Tech Week 2025 Recap

Mucker Capital hosted two powerful days of programming during Austin Tech Week, bringing together founders, operators, and growth leaders to share real-world insights from the startup trenches. Across four sessions,...

LA Tech Week 2025 Day 3 Recap: AI Search – Wednesday Oct 15

After two packed days exploring AI startup building and go-to-market growth, Day 3 of LA Tech Week shifted focus to the evolving world of AI Search, how new AI technologies...

LA Tech Week 2025 Day 2 Recap: Startup Growth – Tuesday Oct 14

After a packed AI Building Day, we continued LA Tech Week with Startup Growth Day, a full schedule of sessions focused on go-to-market strategy, founder journeys, and scaling startups in...

LA Tech Week 2025 Day 1 Recap: AI Building – Monday Oct 13

We hosted three full days of events during LA Tech Week, each one focused on helping founders learn, connect, and build with the latest in AI and startup growth. Day...

Using Customer Feedback to Build a Product that Customers Will Love

Customer feedback is the lifeblood of successful product development, but many startups struggle with collecting, validating, and prioritizing the constant stream of input from users, advisors, and internal teams. In...

Shaun Merritt Vibe-Coded Karrot.ai

How Shaun Merritt Vibe-Coded Karrot.ai As A Solo Builder

I recently had the opportunity to chat with Shaun Merritt, cofounder and CTO of Karrot.ai, a LinkedIn ABM tool. Shaun was kind enough to share a comprehensive breakdown of how...

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