Tree Ventures prefers to invest in startups as early as possible, exclusively invests in product companies, and prefers to invest in organizations with one or more U.S. military veteran founder(s), and/or women and minority-founded startups.

Mr. Carpenter is a globally respected cyber security expert with a broad range of successful early-stage investments, including Compass (04/01/2021 IPO NYSE:COMP @ $8.22B valuation), GroupSense, White Ops (acquired by Goldman Sachs Merchant Banking), Dark Cubed, uSTADIUM, PeerNova, MILLIE, Rumi Spice, Awake Security (acquired by Arista Networks), Privateer Holdings (acquired by TILRAY), ThreatGRID (acquired by Cisco Systems), RideScout (acquired by Daimler AG), InAuth (acquired by American Express) and Efflux Systems (acquired by NETSCOUT Systems). Mr. Carpenter is known for his acumen for advising early stage innovators. He has successfully helped raise capital, navigate rough waters, acquire key talent and customers, and help develop short and long-term strategies for portfolio companies and startups that he advises. He is currently an Advisor to CrossCut Ventures, Trinity Cyber, TruSTAR Technology (acquired by Splunk), GroupSense, uSTADIUM, MILLIE, Cannecht, and Netswitch Technology Management. He has also been a Limited Partner at CrossCut Ventures for 7+ years, and is also a CrossCut Scout.

He has held key positions at startups where he was an early employee — Principal Forensics Analyst at NetWitness Corporation (acquired by EMC/RSA), Chief Technical Analyst at iSIGHT Partners (acquired by FireEye), Chief Strategy Officer at Invotas (aquired by FireEye), and Senior Vice President of Cyber at Cybraics. One of his greatest passions is being the Technical Advisor for a non-profit 501(c)3 founded by his wife, Dr. Jennifer Jacobs, and a close friend, Jessica Stern — Connect Our Kids (https://www.connectourkids.org). The non-profit is applying modern technologies like artificial intelligence and data science to the foster care system in the United States to improve placement outcomes -- finding forever families for thousands of children in the system.

His experience and successful entrepreneurial background are coupled with deep technical skills honed while pioneering cyber security protocols for the federal government and working at NetWitness and iSIGHT Partners over the past two decades. Shawn is also a veteran of the U.S. Navy, and qualified as a nuclear operator and chemist during his six years of service in the U.S. Navy's Nuclear Propulsion Program (NNPS Class 9203). Shawn also worked as a senior cyber security analyst for almost six years as a Member of the Technical Staff (MTS) at Sandia National Laboratories. He discovered one of the first documented penetrations of U.S. Government networks. After joining NetWitness as one of the first employees, he helped architect, implement and stand up the Justice Security Operations Center (JSOC) — at the time the largest deployment of NetWitness gear for a federal client. Mr. Carpenter also worked as a Principal Senior Analyst at the U.S. Department of State's Cyber Threat Analysis Team (CTAD) from 2004-2007. He was a key member of the 2005 CTAD team that was awarded the prestigious Frank B. Rowlett Trophy For Organizational Achievement by the National Security Agency (https://apps.nsa.gov/iaarchive/programs/rowlett-awards/recipients.cfm).

Mr. Carpenter has been tinkering with computers since his mother bought him his first computer, a TRS-80 Model I, in late 1978 at the age of 10 . He has been curious about almost everything since he was born, and enjoys playing slide guitar, harmonica, banjo and trumpet, metal detecting with his kids, building forts high in tall trees, lucid dreaming, experimenting with brain/machine interfaces, building robotics projects with his kids, and hacking all of the things. Mr. Carpenter has a particular affection for blues and jazz, and is an investor and Minor Partner in a John Coltrane biography — "Chasing Trane" (https://www.coltranefilm.com). His investments span everything from being the first money in at Rumi Spice (https://www.rumispice.com), a sustainable saffron growing enterprise founded by three West Point graduates, to PeerNova, a blockchain startup founded by his CS251 instructor from University of Nebraska. Five years after investing in Rumi Spice, it is now the largest private employer of Afghan women in the world, with over 2000 women employees. In May 2017, Mark Cuban became an investor in the saffron startup. In September of 2018, Rumi Spice's saffron became available nationwide in all Whole Food Markets.

Shawn is a native of Sioux Falls, SD, and credits his Mother, Jan, high school marching band instructor, David Haugen, South Dakota roots, and industry mentors and friends like Aaron Walters, Jaci Tomek, Amit Yoran, Dug Song, Gary Golomb, Chris Lukas, Sean Catlett, Richard Stiennon, Paul Garrett, Fraser Verrusio, and many others for his scrappiness and successes.