Built by operatorsof capital.
Led by our co-founders, Alexandra Pohl and William Pohl III. We are building the rest of our team in stages as our funds grow.
I. Leadership
Led by two co-founders.
Dark Ice Ventures is led by its co-founders: Alexandra Pohl, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer, who chairs the firm’s investment committee, and William Pohl III, Co-Founder and Chief Operating Officer, its Co-Chair.
Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer
Alexandra Pohl
An operator who invests like an owner.
Alexandra Pohl co-founded Dark Ice Ventures and is its Chief Executive Officer. She chairs the firm’s investment committee, with William Pohl III as Co-Chair.
The foundation
A real estate family
Raised in a real estate family, Alexandra learned capital strategy and asset performance early. She earned dual degrees in Business Management and Exercise Science as a Hall of Fame dual-sport athlete, trained in martial arts and later earned an MBA in Global Business Management.
Operations
Toyota and Danfoss
For more than seven years she applied lean and Toyota Production System methods to complex multi-site operations: compressing project timelines and cutting waste at Toyota, and standardizing KPIs and tightening variance to budget across international programs at Danfoss.
Public service
Federal leadership
She spent more than eight years in senior U.S. federal leadership on regulatory and infrastructure matters, and has personally directed $300 million or more in development and capital programs.
Dark Ice
Operator-led venture
She focuses on the software, data and infrastructure of the physical economy, and will run the same monthly reporting across every portfolio company: net revenue retention, gross margin, sales efficiency and months of runway.
“I do not fund decks. I fund products an operator will pay for on the second invoice.”
Alexandra Pohl
Off the clock
Dogs, miles and her people
Away from the firm, Alexandra’s time goes to her six dogs, travel, a daily workout, and the family and friends she keeps close. Home includes Bentley, her Great Dane. She supports animal rescue.
Ash
Bentley
Remi
Ajax
Reign
Kane
Animal rescue
Travel
Workout
Family and friends
Co-Founder and Chief Operating Officer
William Pohl III
A builder who backs people before products.
William Pohl III co-founded Dark Ice Ventures and is its Chief Operating Officer. He is Co-Chair of the firm’s investment committee, with Alexandra Pohl as Chair.
The foundation
A builder’s son
Raised in Cincinnati by a serial entrepreneur, William grew up around a CPA firm, real estate companies, a roofing company and a collector car dealership, and learned one rule early: never quitting gives you an advantage over 99% of the people. He earned a bachelor’s degree in business administration from American Public University.
Real estate
Trustpoint, Tetra Homes and Majorwave
He started as a project manager on job sites across the eastern United States and became Managing Partner of Trustpoint Financial’s residential real estate funds by 2005. He went on to found Tetra Homes in single-family and Majorwave in multifamily, buying whole neighborhoods and apartment communities and repositioning them into places people wanted to live.
Two decades
Through the cycle
Over two decades, his 20 residential real estate funds and his companies delivered more than 10,000 homes and apartments across eight states and Washington, D.C., with teams of fewer than 25 people. Through the 2008 collapse, he kept building, bought while others sold, gave investors the hard truth early and kept his team together.
Dark Ice
People before product
William focuses on technology, real estate, air, water and energy, and runs the firm’s operations, from its offices to the Texas Proving Ground. He looks at founders first – their hustle, their grind and how they handle a setback – then asks the job-site questions: will a buyer pay for it, can it be built on budget, and what breaks first.
“We back people before products. The right founder finds a way.”
William Pohl III
Off the clock
Four rescue dogs and a few trees
Home is four rescue dogs, a few exotic fruit trees that have no business surviving an Ohio winter, and the AI systems and websites he builds late at night. He supports animal rescue.
Willow
Bleu
Cookie
Ghost
Animal rescue
Exotic fruit trees
AI systems
Websites
Chief of Staff
Suebina Wong
Acting well on incomplete information.
In venture capital, much of the job is acting well on incomplete information. Suebina Wong has spent her career doing exactly that. As Chief of Staff at Dark Ice Ventures, the venture capital firm organized around 44 investment verticals across six offices, she works directly with Alexandra Pohl, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer, on the firm’s priorities and on the cadence that keeps it moving: Investment Committee preparation, leadership meetings, internal communications, and follow-through on every decision.
The foundation
A dozen years in intelligence
Suebina’s first career was a dozen years in intelligence. Six of those years were spent in Army uniform, as a Senior SIGINT Geospatial Analyst and mission team lead whose work supported Operations Iraqi Freedom, New Dawn, and Enduring Freedom and, in Afghanistan, the Resolute Support Mission. The job was to find the signal in ambiguous, multi-source data and turn it into an actionable plan under pressure, and she later taught those disciplines to more than a thousand intelligence professionals across federal agencies.
Real estate
Among the highest-ranked agents
She then turned to real estate and, for five years in a row, placed among the highest-ranked agents in the United States, with a practice built on acquisitions, entering new markets, and repositioning properties in some of the nation’s toughest metropolitan areas.
Dark Ice
A firm that moves as one
At Dark Ice Ventures, she is the link between the Office of the CEO, the executive team, the firm’s six offices, and the work across its 44 verticals, making sure a firm built for breadth still moves as one.
Head of Investor Relations
McCory King
Clear, honest communication is part of the product.
Venture investors are asked to believe in companies before the results arrive, which makes clear, honest communication part of the product. McCory King is Head of Investor Relations at Dark Ice Ventures, the venture capital firm organized around 44 investment verticals across six offices. He is the firm’s senior representative to limited partners, prospective investors, family offices, and institutional allocators.
Dark Ice
Investor relations and capital formation
Reporting to William Pohl III, Co-Founder and Chief Operating Officer, and partnering with Alexandra Pohl, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer, on capital formation, McCory leads investor engagement, fundraising initiatives, due diligence, and portfolio communications. His particular strength is translation: taking a vertical thesis, a technical milestone, or a change in a portfolio company’s plan and turning it into a concise account of what happened, why it matters, and what comes next.
The foundation
Bank of America and the State Department
That skill was built over more than 20 years in financial services, technology, risk management, and strategic operations. He served Fortune 500 and state government clients as a treasury services advisor at Bank of America, then joined the U.S. Department of State as a Foreign Service Officer, leading technical, high-consequence work in which discretion and precise communication with senior stakeholders were essential.
Approach
Many funds, not one
Known for responsiveness and candor, he builds relationships meant to last across many funds, not one. He earned a Master of Science in Intelligence Management at the University of Maryland Global Campus and a Bachelor of Science in Communications at Old Dominion University.
Head of Research
Joe Tobin
Judge a technology before the market does.
Venture investing asks a firm to judge a technology before the market does. Joe Tobin, Head of Research at Dark Ice Ventures, brings a scientist’s training to that judgment. Dark Ice Ventures is organized around 44 investment verticals, each with two funds, and Joe builds the research case behind every one of them.
Dark Ice
Thesis packs and screening frameworks
Reporting to William Pohl III, Co-Founder and Chief Operating Officer, and working with Alexandra Pohl, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer, he assembles each vertical’s thesis pack: market size and growth, comparable companies, exits, and return distributions. He also designs the screening frameworks the deal team uses to rank opportunities. In technical fields, life sciences above all, he can test the science behind a founder’s claims as well as the market around it.
The foundation
Biotechnology and live events
Joe worked for ten years as a biotechnology subject matter expert specializing in gene and cell therapy protein purification. As a lead manufacturer and later department supervisor, his department oversaw more than 20 drug molecules through development and distribution to critically ill patients, and clients relied on him to turn specialized science into clear, actionable insight. Over 12 years on the national sports entertainment circuit he also produced live events, coached talent, and wrote marketing that lifted audience growth, click-through rates, and merchandise sales, giving him a practical sense of how consumer products win attention.
Education
Biochemistry, with honors
A 2015 honors graduate of Towson University, Joe studied biochemistry. He follows a disciplined bodybuilding and diet regimen and enjoys paddleboarding and epoxy resin art.
Office Manager
Julia Tripline
The first impression begins before the meeting.
Founders, co-investors, and limited partners form their first impression of a venture firm before the meeting begins. At Dark Ice Ventures, that first impression belongs to Julia Tripline, the firm’s Office Manager.
Dark Ice
The office and front desk
Julia greets every visitor, answers the main line, handles mail and deliveries, and keeps the office ready for the next meeting. She reports to William Pohl III, Co-Founder and Chief Operating Officer, and acts as assistant to both him and Alexandra Pohl, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer, handling the scheduling, travel, and expenses behind a calendar full of pitches, diligence sessions, and investment committee meetings. When a founder flies in, Julia makes sure the day runs as planned, and she works with the Chief of Staff to keep both leaders’ time focused on the decisions that matter most.
Experience
Air Force service
She is an Air Force veteran whose more than eight years of service spanned executive aviation, global operations, program management, and organizational leadership. Her diverse aviation and operational assignments placed her in sensitive environments where she supported senior national and military leadership during domestic and international operations. In that work she learned to anticipate changing needs, exercise discretion and sound judgment, and coordinate across organizations to keep missions on track under pressure.
Leadership
Training and organizational leadership
Julia also led training and qualification programs for hundreds of personnel and helped senior Air Force leaders establish a new aviation career field, turning complex requirements into practical solutions. At a venture firm, where priorities can shift between a morning pitch and an afternoon committee, she brings the same calm and organized approach. She also manages the office’s facilities, vendors, and equipment and leads onboarding as the team grows.
Education
Anthropology, space technology and intelligence
Julia’s education reflects a curiosity that suits a technology investor: an Associate of Science in Space Technology, a Bachelor of Science in Cultural Anthropology, and a Master of Science in Intelligence Management now in progress. She grew up in Oregon and likes to travel, run, bake, and get outside with her two dogs.
