About Us

At Velocity Ave, we have a proven track record. We've worked with a variety of companies and over 65 startups, both inside and outside of Google's incubator (Area 120), inspiring pivots, unlocking new opportunities, and achieving Product-Market Fit in 6-12 month time frames. In Area 120, our support increased the rate of acquisition by 2.4X (40%).

Our expertise spans B2B and B2C across a multitude of industries that includes but isn’t limited to: 

  • Advertising

  • AI/Smart Assistant technology

  • Healthcare

  • Legal industry

  • Enterprise collaboration

  • Privacy and trust

  • Augmented and financial data analytics

  • Commerce

  • Creators (content creation, editing and monetization)

  • Digital transformation

  • Maya Joseph-Goteiner

    MANAGING PARTNER
    LinkedIn

    Maya is the former Head of UX at Area 120, Google’s Start-up Incubator, where she scaled the research team from 1 to 10 and managed a Design budget of $6M that supported the development of 58 products. Prior to joining Area 120, Maya created the Future of Ads and Analytics programs at Google, led research at Docusign, Indiegogo, and Gannett. She has an MBA and was the founder of an e-commerce startup.

  • Katrina Egert-Pecot

    RESEARCH PARTNER
    LinkedIn

    Katrina has +10 years of research experience across a variety of industries, including Financial Data Analytics, Consumer Ads, and Digital Assistants/AI Agents. For 6+ years at Google, she led strategic research on Assistant, Consumer Ads, and 0->1 innovation with incubator teams in Area 120. Fascinated by how our brains learn and interact with their environments, she is a cognitive scientist by training with a grLinkedInad degree in Neuroscience and Cognitive Psychology.

  • Kelly Coney

    INSIGHTS PARTNER
    LinkedIn

    Kelly has 14 years of UX research experience and brings a social sciences perspective to human-centered design approaches. She specializes in strategic, foundational, and generative research with an emphasis on ethnographic methodologies. She has approached her work by blending qualitative and quantitative insights to provide strategic recommendations for business decisions, 0 to 1 product creation, and service implementation. Most recently Kelly has worked with AI-powered products, new product development, and healthcare intervention implementation. She currently teaches Design Thinking & Communication at Northwestern University.

  • Nisha Desai

    DESIGN PARTNER
    LinkedIn

    Nisha has over 15 years of experience designing and developing enterprise and consumer products from early-stage startups to major corporations like Google where she has spent the last 6 years designing and managing UX teams. Her experience ranges across defense, beauty, social and advertising. She has a passion for designing experiences people love and a knack for tackling complex problems. Nisha holds a BS in Information and Computer Science from UC Irvine and an MS in Human-Computer Interaction from Carnegie Mellon.