Partners

Steven Rosenblatt

Steven Rosenblatt

Co-Founder, General Partner

Steven Rosenblatt

With more than 20 years of experience scaling startups and building technology companies in the digital and mobile ecosystem, Steven Rosenblatt co-founded Oceans, a new kind of venture capital firm, in 2018 where he currently serves as General Partner.

Steven has been passionate about building early stage companies and has finally fulfilled his life long goal of starting his own company.  Prior to Oceans, Steven was President of Foursquare. During his six-year tenure at the location intelligence company, he was responsible for transitioning the company from a purely consumer-facing location platform into an enterprise business, building a multi-product strategy and growing revenue by more than 70x. This entailed overseeing all aspects of strategy and implementation of the company’s revenue streams along with overseeing its biggest customers. During his time, Foursquare won numerous awards, including being named in CNBC’s Disruptor 50 list as one of the most disruptive tech companies in the world, Deloitte’s Technology Fast 500 as one of the fastest growing technology companies in North America, and won Ad Age’s Best Places to work. Steven worked closely with his investors, including Andreessen Horowitz, Union Square Ventures, DFJ, and Spark Capital, and has spoken at nearly 100 events.

Before joining Foursquare, Steven launched iAd, Apple’s advertising platform for brands and developers, where he managed sales, agency relations, and the creative and strategy team. Steven led the opening of Apple’s New York office and worked closely with leadership teams to build a presence in New York. Prior to this, Steven served as Senior Vice President of Advertising Sales at Quattro Wireless until it was acquired by Apple in January 2010.  He is a proud graduate of the University of Michigan. You can also find Steven playing sports with his two sons Aidan and Nate, listening to U2 and Pearl Jam, or on the beach with his wife Loren.

Joshua Rahn

Joshua Rahn

Co-Founder, General Partner

Joshua Rahn

Joshua Rahn was hired in 2007 as the seventh person in Facebook’s New York office to inspire, evangelize and empower partners to maximize Facebook’s evolving platform and audience base.

Joshua used a unique blend of marketing acumen, performance optimization and relentless passion to help grow the Facebook monetization efforts. He led his team and the New York office during key transformational times such as the launch of newsfeed, the pivot to mobile and cross device measurement and early stages of Machine Learning optimization.

By understanding the nuances of working with people from different backgrounds and the value a diverse and offbeat team holds, Joshua built, managed, and mentored Facebook’s first $100M office, surpassing year-over-year growth 100% for five consecutive years.  During his 9 yr tenure he managed the development and implementation of integrated Facebook marketing partnerships as the company scaled from 20 million to 1.5 billion monthly active users.

Joshua is a serial start up entrepreneur with 2 successful exits prior to his time at Facebook including the sale of his first tech startup to Sony 550 Ventures.

Joshua supports a number of nonprofits including Hudson River Park Friends, The Gun Safety Alliance, and the March for Our Lives team.  Most weekends Joshua can be found on the sidelines of his three highly over scheduled kids’ countless soccer, dance and table tennis matches.  His love of his family and kids directly impact his golf swing which he is looking forward to eventually working on when they graduate from high school.

Glenn Handler

Glenn Handler

Co-Founder, General Partner

Glenn Handler

As a co-founder and General Partner at Oceans, Glenn Handler brings over 20 years of experience in recruiting and HR—helping to build and retain high-performing teams around the world. A recruiting veteran of Morgan Stanley, Google, and most recently Facebook (where he was hired in 2008 as the first monetization recruiter), Glenn believes that people are the reason a company succeeds or fails. To quote Steve Jobs, “Great things in business are never done by one person. They’re done by a team of people.” Hiring and building great teams is what Glenn has been focused on for the totality of his career.

For nearly nine years, Glenn led global staffing efforts at Facebook, where he was the primary partner for every VP and Director in the Global Marketing Solutions team and was accountable for driving headcount growth from around 30 to over 4,000. He and his teams over the years have partnered with and hired thousands of the world’s most influential sales leaders, marketers, and engineers. During Glenn’s tenure, Glassdoor’s Employee Choice Awards named Facebook the No.1 Best Place to Work three times and listed them in the Top 10 in eight out of the last ten years. Prior to Facebook, Glenn was a member of the HR Recruiting and Programs team at Google where he led recruiting for APAC and LATAM—and implemented global projects and processes to create more effective teams across the Engineering discipline globally.

Glenn lives in New Jersey with his wife, two kids, and his massive pony of a dog Bunker. He is a diehard Mets fan—and unfortunately his kids are as well.

Sara Barek

Sara Barek

Managing Partner, Founding Team Member

Sara Barek

Sara Barek, a Founding Team member of Oceans and Managing Partner responsible for Operations, spent 17 years at tech startups in client-facing and operational roles. Sara is a master at getting things done behind the scenes by designing and building up just enough process to help cross-functional teams work together efficiently, even across continents.

Sara spent nine years at ClearForest, a natural language software company acquired by Thomson Reuters, running engagements with Fortune 500 companies including deciphering customers’ business requirements, designing solutions to meet business drivers, managing engineering teams to deliver on those commitments, and measuring value derived from the solutions. At Thomson Reuters, she held roles as the Global Head Deployed Solutions as well as Director of Business Value Delivery where she ensured engineering team’s efforts were focused on key strategic initiatives. Most recently, she ran strategic partnerships and product development for Harmony Labs, an incubator and research lab that studies the interaction of media, society, and the emergence of culture.

A New York City native, Sara loves escaping the city to hike, cook, garden, and be outside in the Hudson Valley, as well as traveling to new places and anything related to her two boys and husband.

Brian Lew

Brian Lew

Managing Partner, Founding Team Member

Brian Lew

As a founding team member and Managing Partner of Oceans, Brian Lew brings 17 years of experience driving enterprise-level acquisition and investment strategies in the media and technology space, as well as 10 years in engineering, sales, and marketing. Brian has a keen knowledge of corporate development and finance, as well as on-the-ground expertise operating within companies at different stages of their life cycles.

Prior to Oceans, Brian was SVP of Strategic Planning and Mergers & Acquisitions for Time Inc., where his team facilitated the company’s transition to a multimedia and multiplatform business through key transactions that expanded digital capabilities.

Before joining Time Inc., Brian was VP of Mergers & Acquisitions for Time Warner, where he led the spin-off of Time Inc. to Time Warner shareholders. Further, Brian executed strategic transactions across all of Time Warner’s divisions, including the acquisitions of Bleacher Report, the 14-year $11B multimedia rights to the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament, and the spin-off of Time Warner Cable.

Brian is an avid cyclist and actively enjoys experiencing New York with his wife and two children.

Sasha Levyn

Associate

Sasha Levyn

Sasha Levyn joined Oceans as an Associate after completing her MBA at NYU Leonard Stern School of Business. As a full-merit scholar at NYU, she specialized in Finance and Innovation & Entrepreneurship, served as VP Programming in the VC/PE Club, and worked part-time at Oceans. After a year of working with Oceans, she graduated in May 2022 and was excited to officially join the team full-time.

Prior to business school, Sasha worked in the luxury fashion industry, where she gained experience helping brands go-to-market and scale from concept to millions in revenue. Her experience gave her a passion for building companies and a keen understanding of how to recognize and optimize scaleable concepts. 

Sasha went to NYU undergrad, and although she is a Philadelphia native, she also considers herself a true New Yorker. She lives in Nolita with her dog Oscar and loves to travel, read, and spend time with family and friends.

Steven Rosenblatt

Steven Rosenblatt

Co-Founder, General Partner
Joshua Rahn

Joshua Rahn

Co-Founder, General Partner

Steven Rosenblatt

With more than 20 years of experience scaling startups and building technology companies in the digital and mobile ecosystem, Steven Rosenblatt co-founded Oceans, a new kind of venture capital firm, in 2018 where he currently serves as General Partner.

Steven has been passionate about building early stage companies and has finally fulfilled his life long goal of starting his own company.  Prior to Oceans, Steven was President of Foursquare. During his six-year tenure at the location intelligence company, he was responsible for transitioning the company from a purely consumer-facing location platform into an enterprise business, building a multi-product strategy and growing revenue by more than 70x. This entailed overseeing all aspects of strategy and implementation of the company’s revenue streams along with overseeing its biggest customers. During his time, Foursquare won numerous awards, including being named in CNBC’s Disruptor 50 list as one of the most disruptive tech companies in the world, Deloitte’s Technology Fast 500 as one of the fastest growing technology companies in North America, and won Ad Age’s Best Places to work. Steven worked closely with his investors, including Andreessen Horowitz, Union Square Ventures, DFJ, and Spark Capital, and has spoken at nearly 100 events.

Before joining Foursquare, Steven launched iAd, Apple’s advertising platform for brands and developers, where he managed sales, agency relations, and the creative and strategy team. Steven led the opening of Apple’s New York office and worked closely with leadership teams to build a presence in New York. Prior to this, Steven served as Senior Vice President of Advertising Sales at Quattro Wireless until it was acquired by Apple in January 2010.  He is a proud graduate of the University of Michigan. You can also find Steven playing sports with his two sons Aidan and Nate, listening to U2 and Pearl Jam, or on the beach with his wife Loren.

Joshua Rahn

Joshua Rahn was hired in 2007 as the seventh person in Facebook’s New York office to inspire, evangelize and empower partners to maximize Facebook’s evolving platform and audience base.

Joshua used a unique blend of marketing acumen, performance optimization and relentless passion to help grow the Facebook monetization efforts. He led his team and the New York office during key transformational times such as the launch of newsfeed, the pivot to mobile and cross device measurement and early stages of Machine Learning optimization.

By understanding the nuances of working with people from different backgrounds and the value a diverse and offbeat team holds, Joshua built, managed, and mentored Facebook’s first $100M office, surpassing year-over-year growth 100% for five consecutive years.  During his 9 yr tenure he managed the development and implementation of integrated Facebook marketing partnerships as the company scaled from 20 million to 1.5 billion monthly active users.

Joshua is a serial start up entrepreneur with 2 successful exits prior to his time at Facebook including the sale of his first tech startup to Sony 550 Ventures.

Joshua supports a number of nonprofits including Hudson River Park Friends, The Gun Safety Alliance, and the March for Our Lives team.  Most weekends Joshua can be found on the sidelines of his three highly over scheduled kids’ countless soccer, dance and table tennis matches.  His love of his family and kids directly impact his golf swing which he is looking forward to eventually working on when they graduate from high school.

Glenn Handler

Glenn Handler

Co-Founder, General Partner
Sara Barek

Sara Barek

Managing Partner, Founding Team Member

Glenn Handler

As a co-founder and General Partner at Oceans, Glenn Handler brings over 20 years of experience in recruiting and HR—helping to build and retain high-performing teams around the world. A recruiting veteran of Morgan Stanley, Google, and most recently Facebook (where he was hired in 2008 as the first monetization recruiter), Glenn believes that people are the reason a company succeeds or fails. To quote Steve Jobs, “Great things in business are never done by one person. They’re done by a team of people.” Hiring and building great teams is what Glenn has been focused on for the totality of his career.

For nearly nine years, Glenn led global staffing efforts at Facebook, where he was the primary partner for every VP and Director in the Global Marketing Solutions team and was accountable for driving headcount growth from around 30 to over 4,000. He and his teams over the years have partnered with and hired thousands of the world’s most influential sales leaders, marketers, and engineers. During Glenn’s tenure, Glassdoor’s Employee Choice Awards named Facebook the No.1 Best Place to Work three times and listed them in the Top 10 in eight out of the last ten years. Prior to Facebook, Glenn was a member of the HR Recruiting and Programs team at Google where he led recruiting for APAC and LATAM—and implemented global projects and processes to create more effective teams across the Engineering discipline globally.

Glenn lives in New Jersey with his wife, two kids, and his massive pony of a dog Bunker. He is a diehard Mets fan—and unfortunately his kids are as well.

Sara Barek

Sara Barek, a Founding Team member of Oceans and Managing Partner responsible for Operations, spent 17 years at tech startups in client-facing and operational roles. Sara is a master at getting things done behind the scenes by designing and building up just enough process to help cross-functional teams work together efficiently, even across continents.

Sara spent nine years at ClearForest, a natural language software company acquired by Thomson Reuters, running engagements with Fortune 500 companies including deciphering customers’ business requirements, designing solutions to meet business drivers, managing engineering teams to deliver on those commitments, and measuring value derived from the solutions. At Thomson Reuters, she held roles as the Global Head Deployed Solutions as well as Director of Business Value Delivery where she ensured engineering team’s efforts were focused on key strategic initiatives. Most recently, she ran strategic partnerships and product development for Harmony Labs, an incubator and research lab that studies the interaction of media, society, and the emergence of culture.

A New York City native, Sara loves escaping the city to hike, cook, garden, and be outside in the Hudson Valley, as well as traveling to new places and anything related to her two boys and husband.

Brian Lew

Brian Lew

Managing Partner, Founding Team Member

Sasha Levyn

Associate

Brian Lew

As a founding team member and Managing Partner of Oceans, Brian Lew brings 17 years of experience driving enterprise-level acquisition and investment strategies in the media and technology space, as well as 10 years in engineering, sales, and marketing. Brian has a keen knowledge of corporate development and finance, as well as on-the-ground expertise operating within companies at different stages of their life cycles.

Prior to Oceans, Brian was SVP of Strategic Planning and Mergers & Acquisitions for Time Inc., where his team facilitated the company’s transition to a multimedia and multiplatform business through key transactions that expanded digital capabilities.

Before joining Time Inc., Brian was VP of Mergers & Acquisitions for Time Warner, where he led the spin-off of Time Inc. to Time Warner shareholders. Further, Brian executed strategic transactions across all of Time Warner’s divisions, including the acquisitions of Bleacher Report, the 14-year $11B multimedia rights to the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament, and the spin-off of Time Warner Cable.

Brian is an avid cyclist and actively enjoys experiencing New York with his wife and two children.

Sasha Levyn

Sasha Levyn joined Oceans as an Associate after completing her MBA at NYU Leonard Stern School of Business. As a full-merit scholar at NYU, she specialized in Finance and Innovation & Entrepreneurship, served as VP Programming in the VC/PE Club, and worked part-time at Oceans. After a year of working with Oceans, she graduated in May 2022 and was excited to officially join the team full-time.

Prior to business school, Sasha worked in the luxury fashion industry, where she gained experience helping brands go-to-market and scale from concept to millions in revenue. Her experience gave her a passion for building companies and a keen understanding of how to recognize and optimize scaleable concepts. 

Sasha went to NYU undergrad, and although she is a Philadelphia native, she also considers herself a true New Yorker. She lives in Nolita with her dog Oscar and loves to travel, read, and spend time with family and friends.

Steven Rosenblatt

Steven Rosenblatt

Co-Founder, General Partner
Joshua Rahn

Joshua Rahn

Co-Founder, General Partner
Glenn Handler

Glenn Handler

Co-Founder, General Partner

Steven Rosenblatt

With more than 20 years of experience scaling startups and building technology companies in the digital and mobile ecosystem, Steven Rosenblatt co-founded Oceans, a new kind of venture capital firm, in 2018 where he currently serves as General Partner.

Steven has been passionate about building early stage companies and has finally fulfilled his life long goal of starting his own company.  Prior to Oceans, Steven was President of Foursquare. During his six-year tenure at the location intelligence company, he was responsible for transitioning the company from a purely consumer-facing location platform into an enterprise business, building a multi-product strategy and growing revenue by more than 70x. This entailed overseeing all aspects of strategy and implementation of the company’s revenue streams along with overseeing its biggest customers. During his time, Foursquare won numerous awards, including being named in CNBC’s Disruptor 50 list as one of the most disruptive tech companies in the world, Deloitte’s Technology Fast 500 as one of the fastest growing technology companies in North America, and won Ad Age’s Best Places to work. Steven worked closely with his investors, including Andreessen Horowitz, Union Square Ventures, DFJ, and Spark Capital, and has spoken at nearly 100 events.

Before joining Foursquare, Steven launched iAd, Apple’s advertising platform for brands and developers, where he managed sales, agency relations, and the creative and strategy team. Steven led the opening of Apple’s New York office and worked closely with leadership teams to build a presence in New York. Prior to this, Steven served as Senior Vice President of Advertising Sales at Quattro Wireless until it was acquired by Apple in January 2010.  He is a proud graduate of the University of Michigan. You can also find Steven playing sports with his two sons Aidan and Nate, listening to U2 and Pearl Jam, or on the beach with his wife Loren.

Joshua Rahn

Joshua Rahn was hired in 2007 as the seventh person in Facebook’s New York office to inspire, evangelize and empower partners to maximize Facebook’s evolving platform and audience base.

Joshua used a unique blend of marketing acumen, performance optimization and relentless passion to help grow the Facebook monetization efforts. He led his team and the New York office during key transformational times such as the launch of newsfeed, the pivot to mobile and cross device measurement and early stages of Machine Learning optimization.

By understanding the nuances of working with people from different backgrounds and the value a diverse and offbeat team holds, Joshua built, managed, and mentored Facebook’s first $100M office, surpassing year-over-year growth 100% for five consecutive years.  During his 9 yr tenure he managed the development and implementation of integrated Facebook marketing partnerships as the company scaled from 20 million to 1.5 billion monthly active users.

Joshua is a serial start up entrepreneur with 2 successful exits prior to his time at Facebook including the sale of his first tech startup to Sony 550 Ventures.

Joshua supports a number of nonprofits including Hudson River Park Friends, The Gun Safety Alliance, and the March for Our Lives team.  Most weekends Joshua can be found on the sidelines of his three highly over scheduled kids’ countless soccer, dance and table tennis matches.  His love of his family and kids directly impact his golf swing which he is looking forward to eventually working on when they graduate from high school.

Glenn Handler

As a co-founder and General Partner at Oceans, Glenn Handler brings over 20 years of experience in recruiting and HR—helping to build and retain high-performing teams around the world. A recruiting veteran of Morgan Stanley, Google, and most recently Facebook (where he was hired in 2008 as the first monetization recruiter), Glenn believes that people are the reason a company succeeds or fails. To quote Steve Jobs, “Great things in business are never done by one person. They’re done by a team of people.” Hiring and building great teams is what Glenn has been focused on for the totality of his career.

For nearly nine years, Glenn led global staffing efforts at Facebook, where he was the primary partner for every VP and Director in the Global Marketing Solutions team and was accountable for driving headcount growth from around 30 to over 4,000. He and his teams over the years have partnered with and hired thousands of the world’s most influential sales leaders, marketers, and engineers. During Glenn’s tenure, Glassdoor’s Employee Choice Awards named Facebook the No.1 Best Place to Work three times and listed them in the Top 10 in eight out of the last ten years. Prior to Facebook, Glenn was a member of the HR Recruiting and Programs team at Google where he led recruiting for APAC and LATAM—and implemented global projects and processes to create more effective teams across the Engineering discipline globally.

Glenn lives in New Jersey with his wife, two kids, and his massive pony of a dog Bunker. He is a diehard Mets fan—and unfortunately his kids are as well.

Sara Barek

Sara Barek

Managing Partner, Founding Team Member
Brian Lew

Brian Lew

Managing Partner, Founding Team Member

Sasha Levyn

Associate

Sara Barek

Sara Barek, a Founding Team member of Oceans and Managing Partner responsible for Operations, spent 17 years at tech startups in client-facing and operational roles. Sara is a master at getting things done behind the scenes by designing and building up just enough process to help cross-functional teams work together efficiently, even across continents.

Sara spent nine years at ClearForest, a natural language software company acquired by Thomson Reuters, running engagements with Fortune 500 companies including deciphering customers’ business requirements, designing solutions to meet business drivers, managing engineering teams to deliver on those commitments, and measuring value derived from the solutions. At Thomson Reuters, she held roles as the Global Head Deployed Solutions as well as Director of Business Value Delivery where she ensured engineering team’s efforts were focused on key strategic initiatives. Most recently, she ran strategic partnerships and product development for Harmony Labs, an incubator and research lab that studies the interaction of media, society, and the emergence of culture.

A New York City native, Sara loves escaping the city to hike, cook, garden, and be outside in the Hudson Valley, as well as traveling to new places and anything related to her two boys and husband.

Brian Lew

As a founding team member and Managing Partner of Oceans, Brian Lew brings 17 years of experience driving enterprise-level acquisition and investment strategies in the media and technology space, as well as 10 years in engineering, sales, and marketing. Brian has a keen knowledge of corporate development and finance, as well as on-the-ground expertise operating within companies at different stages of their life cycles.

Prior to Oceans, Brian was SVP of Strategic Planning and Mergers & Acquisitions for Time Inc., where his team facilitated the company’s transition to a multimedia and multiplatform business through key transactions that expanded digital capabilities.

Before joining Time Inc., Brian was VP of Mergers & Acquisitions for Time Warner, where he led the spin-off of Time Inc. to Time Warner shareholders. Further, Brian executed strategic transactions across all of Time Warner’s divisions, including the acquisitions of Bleacher Report, the 14-year $11B multimedia rights to the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament, and the spin-off of Time Warner Cable.

Brian is an avid cyclist and actively enjoys experiencing New York with his wife and two children.

Sasha Levyn

Sasha Levyn joined Oceans as an Associate after completing her MBA at NYU Leonard Stern School of Business. As a full-merit scholar at NYU, she specialized in Finance and Innovation & Entrepreneurship, served as VP Programming in the VC/PE Club, and worked part-time at Oceans. After a year of working with Oceans, she graduated in May 2022 and was excited to officially join the team full-time.

Prior to business school, Sasha worked in the luxury fashion industry, where she gained experience helping brands go-to-market and scale from concept to millions in revenue. Her experience gave her a passion for building companies and a keen understanding of how to recognize and optimize scaleable concepts. 

Sasha went to NYU undergrad, and although she is a Philadelphia native, she also considers herself a true New Yorker. She lives in Nolita with her dog Oscar and loves to travel, read, and spend time with family and friends.

Network Partners