About our founder
Melissa Kempkes
Melissa Kempkes is the founder and principal of MK Growth Advisors, where she works alongside founders navigating high-stakes capital and growth decisions. She brings a rare perspective shaped by time spent on both sides of the table as an investor and a founder.
Over the course of her career, Melissa has worked across angel investing, venture capital, private equity, and public markets. She has managed venture portfolios, run an angel investment group, and made direct investments in early-stage companies. She has reviewed thousands of deals, participates in live investment decisions every month, and has served on more than two dozen startup boards. That exposure has given her a clear view into how capital decisions are actually made and how investor motivations shift as markets change.
In addition to her investor work, Melissa is also a founder herself and is currently in active discussions around an exit. That experience has deepened her appreciation for the practical and emotional weight of capital decisions, especially in early-stage organizations where tradeoffs are real and resources are constrained.
Today, her work focuses on supporting early-stage companies as they grow, advising founders on capital strategy, and investing in the entrepreneurial ecosystem. She is particularly interested in helping founders understand how investors think, how expectations are formed, and how to approach capital decisions with clarity, even while under pressure.
Melissa holds an undergraduate degree and an MBA in finance. She lives and works close to the startup community she supports and remains actively engaged as an investor, advisor, and board member.