Team

Ian has deep fintech experience in the U.S. and Latin America and has been pivotal in shaping PayPal Ventures’ investment strategy. Ian returned to PayPal in 2022 after leading the corporate venture arms of Synchrony Financial and BBVA. In Ian’s prior role at PayPal, he led strategic planning for PayPal’s Latin America team. Originally from Santiago, Chile, Ian is active in supporting the growth of the LATAM fintech ecosystem and is passionate about all things consumer finance, banking-as-a-service, embedded payments and commerce.

Why PayPal? Through his investing career, Ian has seen first-hand how finance can and should be a force for good in people’s lives. PayPal’s commitment to financial access and inclusion provides Ian with a unique vantage point for investing in next generation of companies that will have a major impact on financial wellness and upward mobility.

When he’s not speaking to founders, you can find Ian on the sidelines either cheering or coaching his two sons in the multiple sports endeavors.

PayPal Ventures Companies:

Forage, Neon, NocNoc, Prometeo, Xepelin

• Open LinkedIn Page of Ian Cox

Ashish is a partner focused on fintech investments, across EMEA, India and South East Asia. At PayPal Ventures, he focuses on B2B fintech and software, including payments, financial infrastructure, regtech and SMB tools. 

He joined PayPal Ventures in early 2017, after five years at Deutsche Bank advising payments companies on inorganic growth opportunities to launch new products and/or open new markets.

Ashish has completed all three levels of the CFA Program, has a BS in Electronics from IIT Roorkee, and a MBA from IIM Lucknow.

Why PayPal?

• People: get to work with the best investors and people in the profession, who make working at PPV fun and inspiring!

• Global mandate: opportunity to back founders irrespective of where they might be. All investment decisions are made by the same IC

• Global strategic relationships: founders get to tap into our locally relevant network of partners to unlock product and commercial partnerships

• Collaboration with PayPal Inc: the PPV team, as well as PPV founders get to benefit from practical/daily life insights and challenges of running a global fintech and payments company at scale

Ashish is excited by founders that are working to build products to replace the legacy guts of the financial services and payments value chain globally. In his free time, you can find Ashish in London parks, spending time with his toddler daughter.

Ashish believes that innovation in payments/fintech can lower the barriers to participate in global economy (e.g., real-time digital remittances) as well as spring up positive second order benefits to the original innovation (e.g., ability to underwrite for personal loans based on history of UPI payments data in India).

PayPal Ventures Companies:

Aspire, Codat, Cymbio, Mintoak, Modulr, Monese, OysterHR, Paymob, Stitch, StreamElements, Tabby, Tink

• Open LinkedIn Page of Ashish Aggarwal

Amman is a partner at PayPal Ventures, where he focuses on fintech, crypto, commerce enablement, and enterprise SaaS.

Prior to PayPal, Amman co-founded a lending company & originated $10M+ of loans across small businesses. Before that, he was an associate at Propel Venture Partners, where he invested in and worked with companies including TravelBank, Personal Capital, Taulia, Earnest, Neon, and more. Prior to Propel, Amman started his career in investment banking at Keefe Bruyette & Woods (KBW), where he worked with fintech & financial services clients on M&A and capital raising engagements. Amman holds a B.S. in Finance from NYU.

Growing up in an entrepreneurial & global family, Amman has always had a passion for business & disruptive tech since a very young age. At 14 he made his first dollars on the internet via Google Adsense – and he was hooked. He opened his PayPal/eBay account in 2005 (using his mom's name because he was too young) and sold all sorts of gaming related items. Since then he's experimented with launching businesses across retail, ecommerce, lending and more.

Why PayPal? Amman is excited by PayPal Ventures because its an investing platform that has unique global perspective across the intersection of fintech, commerce, and crypto that also has the strategic muscle to aid founders on their entrepreneurial journey.

PayPal Ventures Companies:

Anchorage Digital, Anzu, Aptos, Chaos Labs, FORDEFI, Layer Zero, Mesh, Paxos, Talos, Taxbit, TRM 

• Open LinkedIn Page of Amman Bhasin

Lisha is at PayPal Ventures, where she leads the Economic Opportunity Fund, the $100M investment into diverse emerging fund managers.  She leads to identify and assess investment opportunities, manage risk, and drive returns with an ESG  perspective.   She has built and invested in fintech products that changed consumer transaction behavior from point of sale, e-commerce, or peer-to-peer payments.  Prior roles with PayPal, she  led Product  for the Financially Underserved Segment and  Pay with Venmo product. Prior to Paypal, she worked at Wells Fargo, Kohl’s, Feedzai  in various payments related roles, where she built the earliest digital financial products like online banking, bill pay,  and digital wallets. 


Why PayPal? With Lisha’s fintech background, PayPal was a natural choice for a corporate home. She came to PayPal to launch the Venmo commercial product for leading mobile merchants like Uber and Hulu. In 2020, Lisha was a lead for the Black ERG at PayPal and led the response for racial equity $535M commitment. Through that effort, Lisha was able to transition from product to venture capital. PayPal provides wonderful opportunities within its strong network for employees and firms alike. In related fashion, Lisha also leads the PayPal Ventures Advisor network, a group of internal SMEs dedicated to leveraging their expertise to support the PayPal ventures portfolio.

Lisha is excited about  building  and investing in products that serve community needs  to bridge the capital divide.

In her spare time she enjoys traveling, cooking, and dancing, all while balancing motherhood duties with her  daughter.

Find Lisha in the studio as the host of the Sisters with Ventures Podcast that aims to tell the stories of women of color in VC.

• Open LinkedIn Page of Lisha Bell

Why PayPal? One of the world’s only “true” global venture investors (single IC; one-team approach) provides the investment team with a very unique lens on emerging trends across markets. A financial-returns driven mandate differentiates PayPal Ventures from other CVCs given its ability, flexibility and mandate to back the world’s most ambitious founders and companies, and the investment team's unique ability to leverage the broader institutional knowledge on all things fintech, commerce, cyber-security and beyond.

PayPal Ventures Companies: 

Finanzguru, Qoala, Aufinity, Finary, Ole Life 

• Open LinkedIn Page of Alexandros Bottenbruch

Parisa is an Operations Manager at PayPal Ventures, with a focus on connectivity between our investment portfolio and PayPal business units. Coming from PayPal's Developer Experiences Product team, Parisa brings with her a wealth of experience overseeing API experiences and nurturing the developer community. Her passion for driving impact through the exchange of ideas and cultivating strategic connections between groups made her transition to Ventures a natural next step in her PayPal career.

Why PayPal? PayPal is uniquely positioned to improve access to financial services across an immense geography of both consumers and merchants. Parisa is excited to leverage this strong network to add even more value to the PayPal Ventures portfolio.Outside of work, she enjoys trying new East Bay and San Francisco restaurants, reading paperbacks, and traveling with friends.

• Open LinkedIn Page of Parisa Mirzadegan

Rachel is an Operations Manager at PayPal Ventures where she focuses on platform development and value creation across the portfolio. Her passion for championing founders began in her hometown of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where Rachel scaled startup projects across media, healthcare, and retail. Her mission to "demystify Silicon Valley" led her to Plug and Play Tech Center where she redesigned and led the largest global insurtech accelerator program and managed a startup ecosystem of nearly 300 companies—supporting her entrepreneurs in efforts across fundraising strategy, commercial contracts, regulatory compliance, and market expansion.

Why PayPal? The PayPal community is like no other. With its massive global reach, network of best in class SMEs, and commitment to democratizing financial services, PayPal and PayPal Ventures are primed for redefining corporate venture. Rachel is excited to elevate innovative products and teams through the PayPal ecosystem.

In her spare time, Rachel enjoys traveling, reading, and supporting performing arts across New York City. On any given Saturday, you can probably find her lost in a museum or downtown catching a live band or two.

• Open LinkedIn Page of Rachel Sapienza

Rachel brings a unique perspective to investing, drawing on over a decade of experience as an operator. Her background spans a multitude of functions including marketing & communications, M&A, and product strategy. As an operator, Rachel honed her ability to move quickly and adopt a scrappy approach. These experiences now shape her interactions with founders. She thoroughly enjoys rolling up her sleeves and getting in the weeds, especially when it comes to GTM, Marketing, Sales, and fundraising strategies. Rachel is excited about investing in companies who are innovating in fintech, commerce enablement, and consumer ecosystems.

Why PayPal? Beyond her investment pursuits, Rachel is deeply committed to amplifying underrepresented voices. She was part of the team that helped PayPal deploy $100 million to 19 minority-led venture capital funds. She continues to work on improving, elevating, and championing diversity in the VC ecosystem.

Outside of work, Rachel's insatiable curiosity keeps her constantly learning. In fact, she never isn't consuming media: podcasts, newsletters, garbage television, even actual books. Rachel can be found playing tennis in Prospect Park, making not-very-good-but-somewhat-functional pottery, and jogging alongside her adorable but naughty dog.

PayPal Ventures Companies:

Extend, Forage, Jetty, Northstar, Tabby

• Open LinkedIn Page of Rachel Zabronsky

Rachel’s passion in helping tech companies and founder led her career to Ventures team at PayPal. Previously Rachel has been focusing on growth-stage Enterprise and Fintech investment. She is interested in infrastructure, cyber, privacy, SMB & Vertical SaaS, and ecommerce enablement. As cyber attack events are emerging, every company needs to be well-protected, especially financial services and FinTech companies. She believes strongly in the importance of privacy— the dilemma between owning your personal data and e-commerce companies using your personal data to train a more accurate model.

Why PayPal? PayPal offers a great platform for Rachel to connect the ventures community with PayPal’s ecosystem. As an investor, she is proud to tell the founders how supportive the PayPal ecosystem is, especially the Venture Advisor Network. Besides capital, startup operators are looking for design partnership opportunities, operation advice, and product feedback, all of which can be delivered at PayPal.

Rachel is excited by founders who care about their customers and employees, team members who have worked together for a long time, and products that solve real problems and provide high ROIs to customers. She looks for founders that can earn customers’ trust.

In her free time, you can find Rachel reading, cooking, painting, and traveling.

PayPal Ventures Companies:

DeepInstinct, Rasa, Mine, NocNoc

• Open LinkedIn Page of Rachel Zhao

Sarell supports investment activities and operational strategy at PayPal Ventures. She plays a key role in the end-to-end investing process—from sourcing to deal execution—and leads cross-functional initiatives with PayPal to deepen strategic alignment and unlock portfolio synergies. With a unique blend of investing acumen and operational insight, Sarell helps drive new investments, portfolio value creation, and internal strategy. She’s passionate about partnering with founders reimagining fintech, commerce, and the technology that powers them. She brings institutional expertise from Wall Street, having worked in institutional sales and fundraising before serving on the Chief of Staff team to the CEO of the world’s largest asset manager, BlackRock. Sarell holds an MBA from the Wharton School and a BS from the University of Southern California. 

Why PayPal? 

Sarell is excited that PayPal sits at a powerful inflection point—driven by product innovation across digital assets and new commerce experiences for both merchants and consumers. She’s drawn to PayPal’s mission to revolutionize commerce on a global scale. From an investing perspective, Sarell believes PayPal Ventures offers a unique edge. With a geographically agnostic approach and a financial-returns-driven mandate, the team has the freedom to back the most ambitious founders and identify transformative trends across global markets. She’s energized by the opportunity to be part of a small, high-impact team embedded within one of the world’s most trusted commerce platforms. 

When she’s not working, you’ll find her organizing West Side Highway group walks in Manhattan.

Manvir is an Operations Manager at PayPal Ventures where she focuses on fund operations, internal reporting, and supporting the firm’s venture platforms and systems. Her career spans Finance, Operations, and Procurement roles at Apple, Netflix, and Airbnb.  At Netflix, she built a P-card program from the ground up, and at Airbnb, she spearheaded the transition to modern travel and expense tools, projects that touched thousands of employees worldwide and reinforced her passion for building scalable, user-friendly programs & new processes.

Why PayPal? Manvir is deeply interested in the Venture Capital space and drawn to the operational side of VC. She believes the right systems, processes, and data insights not only strengthen fund operations but also enable portfolio companies to scale more efficiently. At PayPal Ventures, she is excited to help create the infrastructure that supports founders and drives long-term value.

In her spare time, Manvir is a certified yoga and pilates instructor and also co-runs a luxury event planning business on weekends. When she’s not teaching or planning, she enjoys traveling, baking, exploring new coffee shops and spending quality time with her loved ones. 

Leila Williams is a Senior Executive Assistant at PayPal Ventures, where she supports Ian Cox Moya and the broader ventures leadership team. A PayPal boomerang, Leila returned after a decade away, drawn back by the people, the mission, and PayPal's trajectory in transforming financial services. With over 20 years of experience supporting executive leaders in Tech and FinTech, she brings operational precision to complex cross-functional operations and executive support. Throughout her career, Leila has been committed to DEI initiatives, believing that diverse perspectives strengthen teams and drive better outcomes.

Outside of work, Leila enjoys pilates, cheering her sons on at soccer, and planning the next trip to Disneyland.

Josh is a Bay Area–based Partner focused on investments in U.S. companies. He brings over a decade of venture experience, having led investments at Synchrony Ventures and American Family Ventures spanning the seed through growth continuum, partnering with teams at Cozy, Hover, One Inc., Socure, Coast, and others. His operational experience co-founding an insurtech, deploying critical hospital software, and leading disaster response teams informs his approach to investing.

He holds an MBA and an MS in Human–Computer Interaction from the University of Michigan, a background that drives him to seek product-led teams that demonstrate a deep understanding of their customers.

Outside of work, Josh cherishes time with his two young daughters and serves as Treasurer and Finance Committee Chair at the school they attend.