Johanna Wolfson

Johanna Wolfson is co-founder and General Partner of Azolla Ventures. Johanna is trained as a physical chemist and has spent her career advancing entrepreneurs and ventures in energy and climate. Johanna previously co-founded Prime Impact Fund, Azolla Ventures’ predecessor and served on Prime Coalition’s board of directors from 2021-2022.

Prior to Prime Impact Fund and Azolla Ventures, Johanna served as the U.S. Department of Energy’s Technology-to-Market Director for the Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy portfolio. Her work at DOE involved launching entrepreneurs and new businesses out of universities and National Labs as well as supporting early-stage start-ups with funding, training, and technical resources through management of Small Business Innovation Research and other programs. Previously, Johanna led Fraunhofer’s TechBridge program, where she worked with early-stage companies to de-risk their new technologies via industry-focused validation and demonstration projects.

Johanna serves as a board member for Azolla Ventures portfolio company Calcarea and Prime Impact Fund portfolio companies C-Motive Technologies, Verdox, Zanskar, and Tynt, and as investment lead for Sublime Systems and Vesta. She serves on the investment committee for Evergreen Climate Innovations and the Leadership Councils for Activate and Innovation Crossroads. Johanna holds a B.A. from the University of Wisconsin and a Ph.D. in physical chemistry from MIT, where she conducted research on optics and solid-state physics.