Crystal Sacca is a co-founder and partner of Lowercarbon Capital as well as a partner at Lowercase Capital, where she co-led early investments in companies including Uber and Blue Bottle Coffee and advises countless technology and consumer product companies within the portfolio. The Lowercase and Lowercarbon startups Crystal backs lean on her experience as a globally-renowned advertising creative helping companies like Audi, Intel, Barclays, HBO, Sprint, HP, E*TRADE, and even Napster speak to a worldwide audience with thought-provoking wit and insight.
Today, her focus extends into bolstering our democracy, promoting diversity in the venture capital community, championing the plight of women and girls around the world, providing access to clean water to the developing world, protecting and advocating for refugees, reforming our criminal justice system, and healing the planet.
Prior to Lowercase, Crystal’s advertising creative career was marked by a little bit of good luck and a lot of formal recognition among the industry’s most distinguished juries. She won a Cannes Lion, Two Gold Cannes Cyberlions, a few One Show Pencils, and a pile of ADCs, D&DADs, Kellys, Andys, Effies, Webbys, and ADDYs. She was named an ADC Young Gun, one of AdWeek’s “Best Creatives You Don’t Know,” and served as a judge for the One Show and the Webbys. You’ll likely recognize her “Rockstar” spot for Intel which was regarded as one of the funniest ads of the year and was eventually translated into dozens of languages.
Crystal serves on the Board of Trustees of the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum. She believes in the power of design to change the world—from climate solutions and justice, to diversity and inclusion. Serving as the Co-Chair of the museum’s Engagement and Experience Committee, Crystal harnesses the Smithsonian’s platform to celebrate that power across our nation and beyond.
Crystal is a founding member of The Design Vanguard, a community of the foremost creative leaders from the business, tech, and social sectors seeking to leverage their resources and influence to catapult design forward in service of creating a more just and beautiful world.
Known as an accomplished author and designer, Crystal’s first book, The Essential Scratch & Sniff Guide to Becoming a Wine Expert, was a New York Times Bestseller and Amazon #1. Her follow-up book, The Essential Scratch & Sniff Guide to Becoming a Whiskey Know-It-All, was also a bestseller and achieved resounding critical acclaim. Crystal regularly lends her talents as a designer and artist to local, national, and global issues including her well-known Everyone Welcome artwork created in the wake of the Muslim ban for the Creative Action Network.
Crystal is an all-American Foreign Service brat raised by parents who spent their careers working for the U.S. Department of State. She spent her childhood posted in Vietnam, Mauritania, The Gambia, Swaziland, Japan, and India.
Crystal graduated cum laude from the Georgetown University Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service with a Bachelor of Science in Foreign Service with a major in Humanities in International Affairs and attended thanks in part to winning an American Foreign Service Association merit scholarship.
Outside of her venture capital work for Lowercase and Lowercarbon, and her service, activism, and philanthropy initiatives, Crystal can be found designing, traveling the world, hiking, teaching yoga, skiing, surfing, brushing up her Muay Thai skills, fly fishing, watercolor painting, and raising three gutsy girls under ten in the mountains of Wyoming. Read more about Crystal and see some of her work at crystalenglishsacca.com.
