Our Team
Investors, operators and advisors working together.
Meet the Team
Samuel Zelnick
Managing Partner
Samuel Zelnick founded Sora Capital in 2011 as the investment vehicle for the Zelnick family and partner investors to make long term investments in growth oriented companies.
Prior to founding Sora Capital, Sam spent over 10 years as an investment banker at Bank of America Merrill Lynch and Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein. At Bank of America Merrill Lynch, he spent over five years in Mergers & Acquisitions covering retail and consumer companies before becoming a client coverage officer in the Consumer & Retail group.
Throughout his career, Sam has advised on over $10 billion in completed Merger & Acquisition activity and over $20 billion of capital raising through a variety of financial instruments, including high yield and high grade bonds, convertible bonds, bank loans, asset based securities and equity for companies including Limited Brands, NBTY, Phillips-Van Heusen, RadioShack, Denny’s, Ruby Tuesday, Sonic Automotive and Carter’s, among others.
In addition to working with his portfolio companies and advisory clients, Sam has served on the Board of Directors of Front Street Marketing, Inc., Silverback Network, Inc., and National Cellular, Inc.
Sam has an M.B.A. from Columbia Business School and a B.S. from Cornell University in Computer Science.
Advisory Board
Eric B. Zelnick, M.D., FACG leads the advisory board of Sora Capital where he plays a key role in identifying and reviewing the investment opportunities. Eric also serves on the Board of Directors of RS Water Holdings.
In addition to his advisory role with Sora Capital, Eric enjoys golf and spending time with his wife, children and grandchildren.
Prior to his involvement with Sora Capital Eric spent 32 years as a practicing physician.
Eric received his medical degree from Temple University.
Jake Zelnick brings significant financial and real-world banking experience to the advisory board of Sora Capital.
Jake spent 20 years at Wells Fargo, including eight years leading the Asset/Liability Management (ALM) group in Corporate Treasury. In that role, he and his team were responsible for balance sheet forecasting and stress testing and for managing the company’s consolidated interest-rate risk. His broader experience includes balance sheet strategy, funding, liquidity, capital management, investing and hedging.
Jake received his B.A. in Economics from Bucknell University and holds the Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) designation. He lives in Charlotte, North Carolina, with his wife and daughter.
Daniel Hemmerich brings more than 20 years of software engineering and digital marketing leadership to Sora’s Advisory Board.
Daniel spent nearly a decade as Chief Information Officer of WebFX, where he helped grow the agency from $7 million in revenue and 35 people to more than $100 million in annually recurring revenue and 550 employees. He was the sole original engineer of the company’s SaaS marketing platform and served as de facto CTO, CFO, and Chief Legal Officer — one of four executives who led the firm’s 2021 private equity acquisition. He continued as an Executive Advisor to WebFX through 2025.
Earlier in his career Daniel held an executive leadership role in software engineering at WebClients prior to its sale to ValueClick in a $141 million transaction, served as Chief Technology Officer for a full service customer management provider handling over 300,000 customers annually, and founded and led Silverback, Inc., a lead generation agency he grew to more than $15 million in revenue and 400 call center agents before a successful sale.
Today Daniel is the founder and Chief Executive Officer of Silver Leaf Agency, a digital marketing firm built around software he designs and writes himself, and an investor in RS Water Holdings. He was among the first ten practitioners invited to work with Google on its AI products while they were still pre-beta, and he teaches computer science as adjunct faculty at Messiah University.
That combination — building the platforms and running the campaigns on them — is what Daniel brings to Sora Capital and its portfolio companies: software architecture and automation, artificial intelligence, SEO, paid media, lead generation, e-commerce, big data and algorithm development, financial and legal operations, M&A execution and integration, team development and recruiting, and growth strategy. Beyond two successful exits as a key executive, he has played a central role in several buy side engagements and has completed and integrated two acquisitions.
Chris Ho brings over 20 years of technology experience to Sora Capital. Over his career, Chris has contributed to dozens of different organizations both large and small in a diverse set of fields such as network infrastructure, medical data, semiconductor test, cyber defense, and software entertainment. His work history exposed him to numerous roles and a broad spectrum of technologies.
Chris and Sam have a long history collaborating on numerous projects and are co-owners in Authenticade LLC, a company offering a patent protected method of online identification.
When he’s not developing solutions to technical challenges or working with Sora Capital, Chris enjoys aviation, where he has earned his private pilot license, and Aikido, where he presently holds the rank of 2-Dan.
Chris holds a B.S. in Computer Science from Cornell University.