Michael Franklin, Angel Investor

Michael J. Franklin is the Morton D. Hull Distinguished Service Professor of Computer Science at the University of Chicago, where he also serves as Founding Faculty Co‑Director of the Data Science Institute. With more than 35 years of experience in databases, distributed computing, and data science, he is recognized as one of the original creators of Apache Spark and a long‑time advisor to Databricks. Michael has served as Sr. Advisor to the Provost for Computing and Data Science at the University of Chicago and is a member of the Midwest’s most active early‑stage investor group. He also advises startups, including Zengines and Invocate, reflecting his commitment to bridging research and entrepreneurship. As an angel investor, he has backed Tensormesh in its $4.5M seed round in 2025. His focus aligns with his expertise in data platforms and next‑generation computing infrastructure.