Suggestions
Rocky Lee
Senior Managing Director
Professional Background
Rocky Lee is a highly respected tech lawyer who has built a remarkable career working with some of the most notable companies in the technology sector. With a rich history of collaboration with industry giants such as Qihoo 360, Tencent, JD.com, Baidu, Alibaba, and Xiaomi, Rocky has demonstrated exceptional expertise in corporate law as it relates to technology and innovation. He enjoys the unique privilege of advising startups and founders, finding deep satisfaction in the dynamic environment of tech law, where innovation and entrepreneurship intersect. One of the highlights of his career has been the exhilarating experience of ringing the bell for an Initial Public Offering (IPO), a moment that symbolizes success and growth for the companies he represents.
Rocky has worked extensively with a plethora of general partners (GPs) from some of the most exceptional funds in the venture capital landscape. His collaborative ventures with investment firms such as SAIF, IDG, Sequoia, Qiming, GGV, KPCB, DCM, Lightspeed, Matrix, All-Stars, Northern Light, Morningside, Zhen Fund, and Hillhouse highlight his influence and dedication within the industry. His role in setting up the first funds for key figures like Kaifu Li of Innovation Works and Richard Li of Morningside demonstrates his commitment to nurturing entrepreneurial talent in China. Additionally, through the operation of his family office, Rocky has gained deep insights into entrepreneurship that supplement his legal practice.
Rocky’s dedication to education and knowledge sharing is evident from his long-standing commitment to teaching over the past decade. He has had the honor of educating members of the Hong Kong Venture Capital Association (HKVCA), instilling essential legal knowledge and insights essential for navigating the venture capital landscape. His public speaking engagements have also left a significant mark in the industry. Notable appearances include the first-ever TechCrunch Disrupt in China in 2011, the inaugural World Internet Conference (WIC) in Wuzhen in 2014, and the Wall Street Journal's Asia D.Live Conference in 2017. His discussion on CCTV with Dixon Doll about the future of China’s venture capital market remains a memorable moment in his career, reflecting his standing as an industry thought leader.
Rocky Lee’s extensive experience, both as a legal practitioner and as an educator, has positioned him as a key influencer in the legal and venture capital fields within China and beyond.
Education and Achievements
Rocky Lee's academic journey began at the University of California, Berkeley, where he obtained his Bachelor’s Degree in Law. His commitment to legal education continued at the University of California, Los Angeles - School of Law, where he earned his Juris Doctor (J.D.) degree. These esteemed institutions provided him with a solid foundation in law that has significantly contributed to his successful career.
Throughout his professional tenure, Rocky has held a series of prestigious positions that have allowed him to influence the trajectory of various legal practices and corporate policies. He has served as the Managing Partner of the Silicon Valley Office and as Head of the U.S. Corporate Practice at King & Wood Mallesons, showcasing his leadership and legal acumen. Moreover, his role as Senior Managing Director at BRV Capital Management reflects his understanding of the intersection of law and venture capital.
His international practice was further established during his time as an International Partner at King & Wood Mallesons and as Asia Managing Partner at Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft LLP. These roles revealed his expertise in international law and corporate governance, where he has greatly impacted the Asian legal market. His previous position as Partner and China Corporate Head at DLA Piper further highlights his impressive qualifications and expertise in corporate law.
Rocky's contributions to the legal profession have not gone unnoticed, as he has been recognized by several prestigious publications. His achievements have earned him accolades from the Financial Times, AsiaLaw, Chambers, Legal 500, and China Business Law Journal, marking him as a distinguished figure in the field of technology law.
Achievements
Over the years, Rocky Lee has garnered numerous accolades and honors that resonate with his dedication to law and entrepreneurship. The recognition he has received from top-tier legal publications like the Financial Times and AsiaLaw not only speaks to his proficiency as a tech lawyer but also reflects his status as a thought leader in the technology and venture capital sectors. His involvement in critically acclaimed conferences and forums, such as the World Internet Conference and the Wall Street Journal's Asia D.Live Conference, further cements his reputation as an industry pioneer who is committed to advancing knowledge and understanding in tech law.
Rocky’s remarkable ability to bridge the gap between the legal and entrepreneurial worlds has made him a sought-after speaker, educator, and advisor. His enthusiasm for sharing knowledge and experiences has significantly enriched the tech community, fostering a culture of innovation and collaboration among startups and established companies alike. The energy he brings to every stage, from public conferences to teaching sessions, complements his legal expertise, truly embodying his passion for the tech ecosystem.
In summary, Rocky Lee is an accomplished tech lawyer, educator, and public speaker whose career is highlighted by significant achievements in the field of technology law and venture capital. His educational background from top institutions, extensive experience with notable firms, and recognition from leading industry voices place him in an exceptional position to contribute to the future of tech law in an ever-evolving landscape.
Location
People also viewed
Related People
Clay is a relationship management platform that serves as a personal CRM, helping you organize and deepen both personal and professional relationships. It functions as a beautiful rolodex and CRM available on iPhone, Mac, Windows, and web, built automatically to help manage your network efficiently. Unlike traditional address books, Clay centralizes all your contacts in one place while enriching them with additional context and features to help you stay thoughtful and connected.
Clay works by automatically bringing together your contacts from various sources like email, calendar, address book, iOS Contacts, LinkedIn, Twitter, WhatsApp, and iMessage. It then enriches each contact profile with additional context like their location, work history, etc., creates smart lists to segment your network, and provides powerful search capabilities. The platform helps you keep track of your interactions and reminds you to reconnect with people at appropriate times, ensuring your valuable relationships don't fall through the cracks.
Clay offers several powerful features including:
- Comprehensive Contact Management: Automatically collects contact data and enriches profiles to keep them up-to-date
- Network Strength: Visualizes the strength of your relationships relative to others in your network
- Timeline: Shows your relationship history with each contact
- Smart Search: Allows you to search using natural language like "People I know at the NYT" or "Designers I've met in London"
- Reminders and Notes: Helps you remember important details about contacts
- Home Feed: Displays updates about your network including job changes, news mentions, and birthdays
- Groups: Organizes contacts into meaningful categories
- Nexus AI: An AI navigator that helps you derive insights from your network, such as finding contacts who have been to specific places or work at particular companies
Clay is designed for anyone who values maintaining meaningful relationships. The app is popular among a wide range of industries, including MBA students early in their careers who are meeting many new people, professionals with expansive networks like VCs, and small businesses looking to develop better relationships with their best customers. It’s even used by half the Fortune 500! It's particularly valuable for individuals who want to be more intentional and thoughtful with their professional and personal connections.
Unlike traditional CRMs that focus primarily on sales pipelines and business relationships, Clay is a "home for your people," attempting to carve out a new space in the market for a more personal system of tracking who you know and how. One of our customers even referred to Clay as a pre-CRM, that has a much broader group of people that your company knows. Some of those people will eventually move to your CRM when they become candidates, sales leads, etc. Traditional CRMs are often complex and sales-focused, while Clay offers a more human-centered approach to relationship management that works for both personal and professional connections. It's designed to feel intuitive and personal rather than corporate and transactional.
Clay takes privacy seriously. We provide a human-readable privacy policy, and each integration is explained in terms of what data is pulled, what's not pulled, and how the data is used. Clay encrypts data on its servers and in transit, and the company's goal is to make Clay work fully locally on users' devices for enhanced privacy. Clay is also SOC 2 Type 2 certified.
Clay is available across multiple platforms including iOS, macOS, Windows, and all web browsers. Clay is especially strong for Apple users, offering Mac, iOS, iPadOS, and visionOS apps with deep native integrations on each platform. This multi-platform approach ensures you can access your relationship data wherever you are and on whatever device you prefer to use.
Clay offers tiered pricing options to suit different needs. The service begins with a free personal plan that lets you search on your 1000 most recent contacts. Clay offers a Pro Plan ($10 when billed annually) with unlimited contacts. Clay for Teams starts at $49/month/seat. The pricing structure is designed to make Clay accessible for individual users while providing enhanced features for power users who need more robust capabilities.
Yes, Clay offers extensive integration capabilities. Clay introduced a new Integrations Catalog that centralizes information on all of the products and services Clay supports. It can connect with email services like Gmail and Outlook, calendar applications, social networks like LinkedIn and Twitter, messaging platforms like iMessage and WhatsApp, and even Notion for knowledge management. Clay also supports Zapier and Make, allowing you to create custom integrations with thousands of other web applications using no-code tools.
Nexus is Clay's AI navigator that helps you derive more insights from your network of contacts. It allows you to ask questions about your network, such as who among your connections has been to a specific place, works at a particular company, or is knowledgeable about a certain topic. Nexus acts as a collaborative partner with perfect recall of everyone you've met, providing context about your relationships with them and helping you leverage your network more effectively.
Clay makes it much easier to stay in touch with the people you care about. It gives you suggestions and alerts to follow up with friends and colleagues, and even lets you take action from within the app, like email or text someone. Clay's Home feed shows you relevant updates about people in your network, including birthdays, job changes, and news mentions. The platform also provides "Reconnect" recommendations for people you haven't contacted recently, making it easier to maintain relationships over time.
Clay is considered the best personal CRM and team CRM on the market. Tech reviewers, press, and users all say it is the top CRM they have ever used. Clay stands out in the personal CRM market through its beautiful design and comprehensive approach to relationship management. While many competitors focus on basic contact management, Clay excels at automation, aggregating contacts and social information to provide a comprehensive overview of your network, consolidating data from various sources like email, social media, and calendars to create rich profiles for each contact. Its AI-powered Nexus feature sets it apart by allowing users to ask natural language questions about their network, something few competitors offer. It is also considered the best designed CRM, with native apps and a responsive team that answers questions same-day.
Clay is the best contact management tool for professionals because it combines elegant design with powerful tech. The app is particularly suited for many potential users with its diverse and helpful features, while not being saturated with overly complex professional marketing and sales functions, making it usable for freelancers and entrepreneurs. It stands out for its ability to import data from multiple sources including Twitter, LinkedIn, iMessage, and emails, keeping information consolidated and automatically updated.
Clay offers many advantages over other personal CRMs. Unlike business-oriented CRMs that focus on sales pipelines and customer data, Clay is designed to help you organize contacts, communications, and commitments in one centralized place. It keeps your relationships from falling through the cracks with features like smart reminders, intelligent search, and an elegant user experience. Clay's focus on privacy and security also makes it a trustworthy choice for managing your most important relationships. Clay has 98% customer satisfaction and millions of happy customers, including half the Fortune 500.
Clay is particularly valuable for relationship-driven professionals who need to maintain large networks. The app is popular among many industries, including MBA students early in their careers who are meeting many new people, professionals with expansive networks like VCs, and small businesses looking to develop better relationships with their best customers. Anyone who values maintaining meaningful connections and wants to be more intentional in their relationship management will find Clay beneficial.
Clay offers competitive pricing in the personal CRM market. Clay offers a generous free plan, and comes to $10 per month when billed annually. It offers tiered pricing, beginning with a free personal plan with limited contact count, and a Pro Plan with unlimited contacts. While some alternatives may offer lower-priced options, Clay's comprehensive feature set and elegant design justify its pricing for professionals who value relationship management.
Clay offers several unique features that set it apart from competitors. Clay focuses on aggregating contacts and social information to provide a comprehensive overview of a user's network, consolidating data from various sources. Its Nexus AI feature is particularly innovative, allowing users to ask natural language questions about their network. Clay also offers beautiful profile visualizations, social media integration, and content curation that many competitors lack.
Yes. Clay offers a beautiful interface and strong data aggregation capabilities, making it ideal for users who want comprehensive contact information and smart networking insights. Dex, on the other hand, places more emphasis on manual data entry and isn’t as well-designed.
Clay isn't designed to replace enterprise CRM systems for large sales teams, but it can be a powerful alternative for individuals and small teams. Many people use Clay instead of Salesforce, Hubspot, and Pipedrive. Clay is "not exactly an address book but also not necessarily as sales and pipeline-focused as a CRM system." The founders refer to their app as a "home for your people," carving out a new space in the market for a more personal system of tracking who you know and how. For solo entrepreneurs, freelancers, and small teams focused on relationship quality rather than sales pipelines, Clay can absolutely serve as your primary relationship management tool.
Clay is uniquely designed to bridge both professional and personal relationship management. Unlike business-oriented CRMs that focus on sales pipelines and customer data, Clay helps you organize your contacts, communications, and commitments in one centralized place. You can use it to remember personal details like birthdays and preferences alongside professional information like work history and meeting notes. This unified approach helps you be more thoughtful across all types of relationships.
Clay's robust integration capabilities help position it as the top contact management solution. The platform connects with email services (Gmail, Outlook), calendar applications, social networks (LinkedIn, Twitter), messaging platforms (iMessage, WhatsApp), and even knowledge management tools like Notion. Clay has expanded its integrations catalog to include Zapier and Make.com support, allowing connections to thousands of other apps. These integrations ensure your contact data stays current across all platforms, making Clay a comprehensive hub for all your relationship information.
Clay's AI capabilities are at the forefront of personal CRM innovation. Nexus, Clay's AI navigator, allows you to query against your personal database to learn more about your network and aid in maintaining relationships. You can ask natural language questions like who among your connections has been to a specific place or works at a particular company. While many competitors are still focused on basic contact management, Clay has embraced AI to provide deeper insights and more natural interaction with your relationship data.
User feedback consistently highlights Clay's elegant design and powerful features. Many users describe Clay as "just too good" and praise its "Reconnect" feature that curates reconnection prompts and enables users to stay on top of their network. Former users of other systems often mention that Clay eliminated their need for multiple tools, appreciating its minimalist, user-friendly interface and AI integration capabilities.