Kahini is a Partner at Obvious Ventures, where she focuses on enterprise and physical AI. Before joining Obvious, Kahini was an investor at Google’s early-stage AI fund, Gradient Ventures. She started her career as software developer writing embedded systems code for the Iridium NEXT Satellite Constellation. Kahini then managed product and business development for an AI group at Booz Allen Hamilton, focused on natural language processing.

Kahini holds a B.S. and M.S. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University. She also earned an MBA in Finance and Entrepreneurship from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.

As the founder of DBL Partners and a pioneer and leading player in impact investing, Nancy has demonstrated the potential of venture capital to drive social change and environmental improvement. She is an active voice in the field, frequently writing and speaking on impact and climate investing topics. Nancy serves on the boards of several companies, including Bellwether Coffee, Chestnut Carbon, Rain, Spatial, Zola Electric, and, prior to their public offerings, Tesla Motors (board observer), SolarCity, and Pandora. Prior to founding DBL, Nancy was a Managing Director in Venture Capital at JPMorgan, having started her investment career at Hambrecht & Quist in 1984.

Previously, Nancy worked at Intel Corporation, the State of California, Stanford University, and the Sierra Club.

In 2024, Nancy was awarded the distinguished Impact Leadership award from Impact Capital Managers, and Springboard Enterprise Investor of the Year. In 2023, she was recognized by the Forbes Women 50 Over 50: Investment list, and by the San Francisco Business Times as one of the Bay Areas 100 Most Influential Business Leaders. Among other awards, Nancy was previously named the 2022 Financial Woman of the Year by the Financial Women of San Francisco and to the Forbes 2020 Impact 50 List of the most notable impact investors. She was also a recipient of The Commonwealth Club 2018 Distinguished Citizen Award, the Earth Day Network 2018 Climate Visionary Award, and appeared on Fast Companys 2016 List of Most Creative People in Business.

Nancy serves as a member of the Board of Trustees of the National Geographic Society, where she sits on the Finance and Advancement Committees. She currently serves on the Finance, Philanthropy, and Executive Committees of the inaugural Board of Directors of the Foundation for Energy Security and Innovation (FESI). Nancy is a member and former Chapter Chair of the Silicon Valley Women Corporate Directors Foundation. She is a member and former chair of the Advisory Council of the Bill Lane Center for the American West at Stanford University; an advisor to the UC Davis Center for Energy Efficiency; and co-chairs the Yale School of Management Program on Entrepreneurship. She also serves on the Investment Advisory Committee of Prime Coalition, a nonprofit organization that steers and influences capital to support scalable solutions to climate change.

Nancy is a frequent lecturer on impact investing at Harvard Business School, Stanford Graduate School of Business, and the Yale School of Management. She is a past member of the C3E Ambassador to the U.S. Clean Energy Education and Empowerment Program, led by the U.S. Department of Energy. From 2001–2019, she was also a founding officer and director of ABC2, a foundation aimed at accelerating a cure for brain cancer. She was also a founding member of the California Clean Energy Fund from 2005 to 2012. She served as an Advisory Board member of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and Cyclotron Road, its Clean Energy Incubator from 2014 to 2019.

Nancy received her BA and MA in anthropology from Stanford University, and her MBA from the Yale School of Management.