Phil Sanderson

Phil has been a venture capitalist for the past 30 years. He co-founded Griffin Gaming Partners in 2019, one of the world’s leading investment vehicles singularly focused on the global gaming ecosystem. With over $1.5 billion in assets under management as of May 2026, Griffin invests in seed through growth stages across software, infrastructure, content, and platforms.  He started his VC career as a General Partner at Walden from 1997 to 2006 and then co-founded IDG Ventures/Ridge in 2006 and was a Managing Director until 2018. Sanderson previously worked as an investment banker in Robertson Stephens’ New Media and Information Technology Groups. At Robertson Stephens, Phil managed initial public offerings and mergers and acquisitions assignments for various video game companies. Prior to Robertson Stephens, he worked in Goldman Sachs’ corporate finance group. Phil has also founded and operated three companies in the retail, non-profit, and manufacturing industries.

Phil sits on the Boards of 9 gaming companies and has been involved in over 100 game financings, including the seed round of Discord.

He is also Co-Chairman/Founder of the VCNetwork, a non-profit organization consisting of over 1,500 venture capitalists in Silicon Valley. Since 1997 Sanderson has managed a dozen social networking events each year which include the participation of over 500 of the Valley’s General Partners per year. In addition, Phil served on the Board of the National Venture Capital Association (NVCA) and is the

Co-Chairman of the Western Association of Venture Capitalists (WAVC).

Phil received his Master of Business Administration with Honors from the Harvard Graduate School of Business and earned his Bachelor of Arts in Economics with Honors from Hamilton College. Phil is a competitive ultra- marathoner having completed over 35 100 mile and multiple 200+ non-stop ultra marathon races.