Birkan Uzun passed away from a tragic skiing accident in Oregon on December 31, 2021. Read our blog post for more insight into Birkan’s life.

While at Madrona, Birkan focused on sourcing and evaluating new investment opportunities across Madrona’s investment themes, as well as worked with portfolio companies to develop strategies for growth and success. Birkan was particularly interested in software infrastructure, intelligent applications, and the intersection of machine learning and life sciences.

Prior to joining Madrona, Birkan was a Software Engineer at Amazon where he worked on a variety of domains such as devices, mobile applications, cloud services, and machine learning. Birkan had experience throughout the entire product cycle, from prototyping to development and into delivering for general availability, as he helped launch four products at Amazon: Amazon Go, Alexa for Business in AWS, Amazon Halo, and Amazon’s COVID-19 Response.

During his last year at Amazon, Birkan was also a Venture Fellow at Castor Ventures, part of the Alumni Ventures Group.

Outside of work, Birkan liked to travel and participate in endurance sports. He was on a quest to become the first Cypriot to climb the Seven Summits, and completed his fifth in December of 2021. In addition to the the mountaineering, Birkan enjoyed skiing and hiking and all the Pacific Northwest has to offer.

Birkan received his Bachelor of Science and Masters of Engineering degrees in Computer Science and Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, with a focus in Human-Computer Interaction.