# Kelly Gillease

> Kelly Gillease is a startup investor at Animal Ventures. See 0 investments, check sizes, portfolio. Updated Aug 2026.

- Type: Angel Investor
- Fund: [Animal Ventures](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/animal-ventures)
- Last updated: Aug 2026
- LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/pub/kelly-gillease/35/a11/7a
- X (Twitter): http://twitter.com/kellpickles
- Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/kellygillease

Kelly Gillease is a startup investor at Animal Ventures. Kelly Gillease joined Viator in November 2005. In addition to actively managing Viator's in-house search engine marketing efforts, she also oversees Viator's marketing in print, television and email, as well as affiliate marketing and other online channels.Prior to joining Viator, Kelly was a senior marketing manager with the mediagroup at Yahoo! where she led the in-house search engine marketing efforts for games, fantasy sports and finance and contributed to other online marketing and search projects. Kelly was previously with Hotwire in charge of the company's search engine marketing initiatives. After the company's acquisition by IAC -InterActive Corp, she worked on marketing projects for Hotels.com, Expedia and other IAC companies. Her first foray into the internet was working at Ask.com, first on the editorial team, subsequently shifting gears to engineering.Kelly is an active volunteer working with various non-profits on Google Grants applications as well as the implementation and monitoring of their AdWords efforts. She has recently worked on projects with Big Brothers Big Sisters, Shanti.org and the Community Technology Network in San Francisco. A frequent speaker at the Search Marketing Expo (SMX) conferences, Kelly is also a regular editorial contributor for Search Engine Land's 'In House' column. She is also the host of SEMcast, a search engine marketing podcast on geekcast.fm. Kelly is a graduate of UC Berkeley, with degrees in English and Economics and a minor in Russian Literature.During a recent two month sabbatical to Asia, Kelly hiked in the Himalayas of Bhutan, watched the sunrise over Angkor Wat in Cambodia, went scuba diving in Indonesia and saw thousand-year-old cedar trees on Yakushima Island in Japan. She's currently trying to convince her husband that visiting Antarctica is a good idea.

## About Animal Ventures

VC Fund

“By nature, man is a political animal.” In Aristotle’s most well-known observation, “political” means the capacity for speech and reason. This has led to humans becoming social and technological animals, inventing and disseminating new kinds of tools that fundamentally alter our world and our engagement with it. It is what has moved the speciesalong. From fire to Facebook. Today, as in the past, technological inventions are reshaping human life. Many of our conceptions of what work looks like, how we communicate and trade, and even what constitutes a human being are unravelling before our eyes due to advances in technology. And now, more than ever, we need to leverage the Aristotelian part of our animal nature to build forward with purpose.Animal Ventures is a venture studio and consultancy focused on helping clients best adapt to the changing technological landscape. We help build startups, educate executives, and design comprehensive strategies to help corporate, government, and nonprofit clients take advantage some of the most advanced technologies coming to market, among them blockchain, artificial intelligence, digital platforms, and the Internet of Things. Animal Ventures is the umbrella entity that co-founders Tom Serres and Bettina Warburg created for the projects they are working on at the intersection of technology, politics, and broader societal change. Its teams are formed from an extensive network of professional peers, who take on projects germane to their areas of expertise and that require new thinking. Animal Ventures innovates with client companies and governments to develop minimum viable products and comprehensive strategies for innovation across technologies

3 contacts available at Animal Ventures.

| Name | Title | Profile |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Bettina Warburg | Co-Founder and Managing Partner | https://shizune.co/investors/profile/bettina-warburg-2 |
| Tom Serres | Co-Founder and Managing Partner | https://shizune.co/investors/profile/tom-serres |
| Kelly Gillease | Investor | https://shizune.co/investors/profile/kelly-gillease |

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