About Lightspark
The Internet lacks a protocol for money. We’re building the tools and services to make it happen.
Lightspark builds enterprise-ready infrastructure for the Lightning Network delivering open payments for the Internet at scale. Lightspark services aim to be the fastest, lowest cost, easiest and most reliable way to send and receive payments globally with exceptionally low fees, using Lightning. We’re headquartered in Los Angeles but serving the world.
Leadership Team
We’re a mission-driven, high-intensity team, based in Los Angeles. We’re laser focused on solving real problems for our customers by building best-in-class software solutions to enable a better open payment network to exist and thrive.

David Marcus
David is the CEO and co-founder of Lightspark. Most recently he led all payments and crypto efforts at Meta/Facebook. In 2018, David started Diem (fka Libra). He joined Meta in 2014 to lead Messenger, which he took from under 200M monthly users to over 1.5B. Previously, he was PayPal’s President. A lifelong entrepreneur, Marcus launched two companies in Europe, then founded mobile payments company Zong in Silicon Valley, which was acquired by PayPal in 2011.

Christian Catalini
Christian is co-founder and Chief Strategy Officer. He previously co-created Diem (fka Libra). He is the founder of the MIT Crypto Economics Lab, and designed the MIT Bitcoin experiment in 2013. His research has been featured in top journals — including Science, Nature, Communications of the ACM — and presented to leading global academic institutions and government organizations. He holds a PhD from the University of Toronto.

James Everingham
James is co-founder and SVP of Engineering. He is a tech industry veteran and has held leadership roles at Meta/Facebook, Instagram, Yahoo, and Netscape, and throughout his four-decade career, he has guided world-class engineering teams in building transformative technologies.

Kevin Hurley
Kevin is co-founder and Chief Technology Officer. He has extensive experience in the payments ecosystem, including roles at Meta/Facebook and worked on Diem (fka Libra), Novi, Messenger, and WhatsApp payments. Kevin has designed and built numerous aspects of blockchain infrastructure.

Jai Massari
Jai is co-founder and Chief Legal Officer. Previously she was a partner at Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP and a leader of the firm’s fintech and cryptocurrency practice. She is a fellow of the Berkeley Center for Law and Business at Berkeley Law School.

Christina Smedley
Christina is co-founder and Chief Marketing & Communications Officer for Lightspark. In the past she has led the marketing, communications, content and brand teams at Amazon, Edelman, Facebook/Meta, PayPal and Robinhood.

Geoff Teehan
Geoff is Chief Design Officer with 30 years of experience as a designer, leader and entrepreneur. Previously he was the VP and Head of Design at Meta/Facebook, and also led design for Meta/Facebook's News Feed and Novi. He co-founded the trailblazing digital product design firm Teehan+Lax, which was acquired by Meta in 2015.

Nicolas Cabrera
Nicolas Cabrera is the VP of Product at Lightspark and a member of the leadership team. Most recently, Nicolas was the Chief Product Officer of Bakkt, the Digital Asset Payment and Crypto Exchange platform funded by ICE:NYSE. He led all product strategy & crypto payment platform development and took the company public in 2021. Before joining Bakkt, Nicolas co-founded Westfield Labs/OneMarket, the retail innovation business funded by Westfield that developed unique retail product solutions for mobile payments, eCommerce, and integrated digital wallets. In his role, he grew the business to a multi-million dollar platform with 250 plus large retail partners. Previously, he held leadership roles at eBay and PayPal Australia as Head of Product and Brand where he developed global product innovations such as the PayPal marketplace, checkout button, eBay merchants’ seamless integration, and merchant data tracking.

Tomer Barel
Tomer is co-founder and Operating Partner at Lightspark and President & COO at Melio. He has a diverse background in risk management, operations, data science, and executive leadership roles at Meta/Facebook(Novi) and PayPal - where he oversaw Fraud, Credit, Data Science, Data Platforms, Operations and Customer Service.