About Lightspark
Make Money Flow. Unlock Global Opportunity.
The internet lacks an open protocol for money. We're building what's needed. With enterprise-ready infrastructure for the Lightning Network, Lightspark services and tools are the easiest and most reliable way to send and receive payments globally.
We help our customers deliver payments for the Internet at scale and improve the financial system for everyone. We’re headquartered in Los Angeles but serve the world.
Leadership Team
We’re a mission-driven team based in Los Angeles. We build at the edge of new technologies, delivering best-in-class engineering, product, design, and client-orientated experiences. We thrive in entrepreneurial environments, enjoy writing and shipping superior code at pace, and are team players with a culture of engineering excellence.
David Marcus
David is the CEO and co-founder of Lightspark. Most recently, he led all payments and crypto efforts on 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, David launched two companies in Europe and then founded mobile payments company Zong in Silicon Valley, which was acquired by PayPal in 2011.
Nicolas Cabrera
Nicolas is the VP of Product at Lightspark. He was the Chief Product Officer at Bakkt, the Digital Asset Payment and Crypto Exchange platform funded by ICE: NYSE, where he led all product strategy and crypto payment platform development. Previously, he held leadership roles at eBay and PayPal Australia as Head of Product and Brand, where he developed global product innovations. Nicolas also co-founded Westfield Labs/OneMarket and developed unique retail product solutions for mobile payments, eCommerce, and integrated digital wallets.
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.
Vincent Durmont
Vincent is the Head of Engineering at Lightspark. Most recently, Vincent has held engineering and management positions at Meta/Facebook, where he worked on a wide range of projects, including Diem (fka Libra) and Novi. Throughout his career, he focused on distributed systems and developer experience.
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.
Jane Martin
Jane is the Chief People Officer at Lightspark. With over 20 years of experience in recruiting, she has scaled and diversified talent for high-growth and early-stage companies in various industries, such as technology, philanthropy, healthcare, education, and fintech.
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.
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.
Lizzy Eisenberg
Lizzy Eisenberg is the Vice President of Global Sales at Lightspark. Most recently, Lizzy spent the previous 5+ years building and scaling the Afterpay business in North America and in Europe. Throughout her tenure at Afterpay, now part of Block Inc., Lizzy held multiple leadership, revenue-generating, and market expansion roles, including Head of Sales for Cash App, Head of North America Enterprise Sales for Afterpay & Cash App, Head of Emerging Business for Afterpay & Cash App, and VP of International Expansion. Prior to Afterpay, Lizzy led business development at ShopStyle (acquired by Rakuten) and drove POPSUGAR’s e-commerce efforts. Eisenberg holds a B.A. from the University of California, Berkeley, where she was named Most Valuable Offensive Player for the Division 1 women’s soccer program.
Mary Kauffman
Mary Kauffman is the VP, Finance for Lightspark. Previously, Mary was the head of technical accounting and new product & initiatives at OpenSea, a leading NFT Marketplace and three years at Meta/Facebook as the head of technical accounting for its blockchain, digital asset, and traditional payments businesses. She was also deeply involved in the financial implications of the Diem Association,focussing on technical and operational accounting matters. Prior to this, Mary was in Deloitte & Touche LLP’s Global Capital Markets and Assurance groups for over ten years. Mary also serves on the AICPA’s Digital Asset Working Group’s Industry team.