ALPHA - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Partner at Golden Ventures
Ameet Shah is a Partner at Golden Ventures. He has 13 years of product development and sales experience, wearing many hats in both early-stage startups and large enterprise. As an investor, Ameet has worked with a number of successful startups including Brightwheel, ChefHero, Hush, Inkbox and Skywatch.
Prior to joining Golden, Ameet spent some years living in the Bay Area before returning to Toronto in 2005 to co-found Five Mobile, a premier product design and development firm. Zynga later acquired the company in 2008, where he became a GM, overseeing the operations in Toronto. Key responsibilities included managing the P&L of several live games, launching the mobile ad platform and kickstarting many of the machine learning initiatives for the company.
He also was one of the first employees at Tira Wireless and became the Director of Systems Engineering and Strategic Accounts after moving to San Francisco. He also worked as a software engineer at both IBM and Grey Interactive.
Ameet attended the University of Toronto and graduated with a B.Sc Hons in Computer Science and Economics. He has been an active mentor, advisor, and angel investor in the community.
Andre is the Founding GP at Maple VC, a seed fund that backs founders with Canadian roots. Prior to founding Maple, he was one of the first 25 employees at Uber and Hired (both have Canadian founders). He is also a Venture Partner at Inovia, Canada's top multi-stage fund and Co-Chair of the C100, an influential community of Canadians in tech. Prior to tech, Andre worked in investment banking in the US and UK. Andre was born and raised in Toronto and studied at UofT.
Aviel Ginzburg is a General Partner at Founders' Co-op and former Managing Director of the Alexa Accelerator, powered by Techstars, which was backed by Amazon's Alexa Fund. In 2010 Aviel co-founded Simply Measured, one of Founders' Co-op's first investments and was later backed by Bessemer Venture Partners, Trinity Ventures, and MHS capital. When Simply Measured sold to Sprout Social at the end of 2017, Aviel transitioned from his role as Venture Partner into a full time General Partner. Aviel got his start as one of the first software engineers at Appature (acquired by IMS Health), which was also backed by Founders' Co-op in 2009. Though a new addition to the partnership, Aviel knows the Founders' Co-op ecosystem well, and has played every role from portfolio founder, to company employee, to partner over a 10 year period. Aviel holds a BS from Vanderbilt University
Throughout my career-whether at Google, YouTube, Twitter or Lyft-I've been guided by two principles: solving complex business problems; and adding lasting value to the company. As Senior Director of Global Partnerships for Microsoft for Startups, I have a chance to do both. In addition to overseeing relationships within Microsoft's startup ecosystem, I'm also leading the organization's diversity and inclusion (D&I) efforts-a cause I believe is paramount for our industry. Prior to joining Microsoft, I served as VP of Strategic Partnerships for Guideline, a fintech company that provides 401K plans for small business, where I was involved in matters relating to revenue, strategy and go-to-market concepts. At Lyft (2014-2020), I brokered agreements between the company and numerous regional and international airports, creating templates that ushered in a new era of transparency within the industry. More broadly, I led efforts to support Lyft's public and private partnerships-a role that encompassed everything from data science to strategic operations. In addition to airports, I lead strategic efforts in a variety of sectors, from transit to higher education. It's not the first time I've helped take a Silicon Valley heavyweight to the next level. At Twitter, I had a hand in developing the company's Developer Terms of Service agreement (known as the Firehose). As Legal Director in charge of global revenue, I managed a team that supported Twitter's international growth efforts. From 2007 to 2009, I served as Corporate Counsel for one of Google's biggest subsidiaries: YouTube. While there, I supported content licensing and app syndication, including YouTube pre-installation on Nokia phones-bringing the platform to millions of new consumers.
Experienced Google product leader, who has overseen numerous large-scale consumer internet products, including GMail, Google Docs, Google Voice, GTalk / Hangouts, Google News, Blogger, Reader and Google Photos. Previously, VP of Advanced Development at Yahoo, leading media search (e.g. Flickr) and innovation (Brickhouse, Yahoo Pipes.) Previously co-founder and CTO of Virage, Inc., from beginnings through to IPO and acquisition.
Job Titles:
- Co - Founder and Managing Director at CrossCut Ventures
Brett Brewer is a Co-Founder and Managing Director at CrossCut Ventures. Prior to co-founding Crosscut Ventures, Brett was a serial entrepreneur who has built, operated, and sold a number of Internet media companies. In 1998, he co-founded Intermix Media, which launched several online businesses including Myspace.com. Brett sold Intermix to Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. in 2005 for $680M. After leaving News Corp, Brett became President and Vice Chairman of Adknowledge, and helped grow the business from $40M to $300M in revenue over the span of seven years. Brett is an active angel investor and a pillar in the SoCal tech community. He has been a featured speaker at numerous industry events including Bear Sterns Internet Roundtable, Goldman Sachs Internet Conference and the Montgomery Technology Conference. Brett received a B.A. in Business and Economics from the University of California Los Angeles.
Job Titles:
- Co - Founder and Co - CEO of Disco.Co
Candice is the Co-founder and Co-CEO of Disco.co. Disco is an all-in-one, revenue generating platform to build, operate and scale a learning community- from workshops to live courses to micro-schools. Candice also sits on the Board of one of Canada's largest enterprise AI companies, Coveo. Candice has played many roles in the tech ecosystem in her career including Global Head of Business and GM at Wattpad, Co-Founder of TorStar Digital (corporate venture and innovation arm), CEO and founder of Ourfaves.com and Strategy Consultant at DeloitteMonitor. Candice has a passion for helping founders scale global companies and advancing the Toronto tech ecosystem and is an Associate at CDL, a Board member at Alpha, a founding partner of #MovetheDialStories and of ElevateTech Festival.
Experienced Partner with a demonstrated history of working in the venture capital and private equity industry. Skilled in Due Diligence, Corporate Development, Licensing, Mergers & Acquisitions, and Entrepreneurship. Strong entrepreneurship professional with a JD from Santa Clara University, MBA focused in Finance from Brigham Young University, Economics from Brigham Young University.
Job Titles:
- Managing Partner and Founder of Precursor Ventures
Charles Hudson is the Managing Partner and Founder of Precursor Ventures, an early stage venture capital firm focused on investing in the first institutional round of investment for the most promising software and hardware companies.
Prior to founding Precursor Ventures, Charles was a Partner at Uncork Capital (formerly known as SoftTech VC). In this role, he focused on identifying investment opportunities in mobile infrastructure, mobile applications, and marketplaces. In addition to his investment activities, he supported SoftTech portfolio companies on business and corporate development matters. He was also the Co Founder and CEO of Bionic Panda Games, an Android -focused mobile games startup based in San Francisco, CA.
Prior to joining SoftTech VC and co founding Bionic Panda Games, Charles Hudson was the VP of Business Development for Serious Business until the company was acquired by Zynga in February 2010. Prior to Serious Business, he was the Sr. Director for Business Development at Gaia Interactive, an online hangout and virtual world for teens. Prior to Gaia, Charles worked in New Business Development at Google and focused on new partnership opportunities for early stage products in the advertising, mobile, and e- commerce markets. Prior to joining Google, he was a Product Manager for IronPort Systems, a leading provider of anti- spam hardware appliances that was acquired by Cisco Systems for $830 million in 2007. Before IronPort Systems, Charles worked at In-Q-Tel, the venture capital fund backed by the Central Intelligence Agency, where he invested in early-stage hardware and software companies.
Charles graduated from Stanford University with a BA in Economics and Spanish. Charles holds an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.
Chris Britt is the Founder & CEO of Chime, the leader in US challenger banking that helps Members avoid fees, save money automatically and achieve financial peace of mind. From 2007-2012, Chris was Chief Product Officer and SVP, Corporate Development at Green Dot. Chris was also a senior product leader at Visa and one of the first executives at ComScore. He's also a Board Member of coachart.org, a non-profit that connects chronically ill kids with free lessons in the arts and athletics.
Christy is an early-stage builder in the real asset and infrastructure space. She focuses her time on clean energy and logistics, in addition to AI and data platforms. Christy believes all investing is impact investing and invests her attention accordingly.
Christy is a CPA and has $12 billion in transaction experience. Prior to venture, in largescale private equity, she invested with First Reserve ($30B AUM, now BlackRock) and Arroyo Energy ($500M AUM, spun out of JP Morgan) in the ongoing clean energy revolution across energy and power infrastructure sectors. Focus spanned the value chain, including solar, wind, biomass, energy efficiency, hydrogen fuel cells, and transportation, among others. Christy started her career in energy investment banking at Citi in New York during the last credit crisis, working on a variety of M&A, IPO and debt issuances across the upstream, midstream, oilfield services and petrochemical sectors. Christy has also enjoyed roles at Mercury Fund and Ecliptic Capital and continues to serve in an Advisory role to both firms.
Christy is intimately familiar with both economic and technological transformations, investing throughout the ongoing energy revolution across the capital markets. She is investing in similar transformations across many sectors, all in support of a better future.
Over the past 26 years, David has been a director on more than twenty-five technology company boards, bringing expertise on product and competitive strategy, risk, ESG and human resources, among other issues. He has strong M&A and financing experience, comprising dozens of transactions with leading technology companies and top investment banking firms. And he has worked with companies across the United States as well as internationally in Canada, Germany, Czech Republic and Israel.
David enjoys working with groups of motivated executives and innovators, to help them bring their expertise and ideas together with a strategic plan - and to act on that plan. His sectors of experience and interest include SaaS, Cloud, Cybersecurity (Consumer, Enterprise and Infrastructure), Enterprise Software and more recently in Quantum Computing, Quantum Networking and Climate Technologies. David currently sits on the venture-backed company boards of Aliro, BetterCloud, BitSIght and NS1. He is an independent director on the boards of Draper Laboratories, iDirect Government and Minim (NASDAQ: MINM). David sits on the board of Combined Jewish Philanthropies and is a Trustee Emeritus of the University of Vermont.
In the past few years David has shifted his focus to help address climate change. In 2020 he joined MCJ as its Executive Chairman. MCJ is a combination of businesses including Community. Media and Capital to help accelerate innovation in climate solutions. MCJ has quickly established itself as one of the most active climate investors - emphasizing inclusivity and extensive collaboration with its community to help portfolio companies accelerate their missions to address the climate crisis.
Job Titles:
- Midwest Technology Team Leader at Silicon Valley Bank
Dennis Grunt is the Midwest Technology Team Leader at Silicon Valley Bank where he has worked since mid-2011. In his current role, Dennis oversees SVB's efforts in partnering with both early and growth stage technology companies. Prior to Silicon Valley Bank, he served as Vice President, Middle Market Commercial Banking at MB Financial Bank where he sourced and managed a portfolio of public and privately held middle-market companies. Additionally, Dennis spent his last six months at MB spearheading the formation of its Capital Markets Group.
Job Titles:
- Founder of Wonder Ventures
Dustin Rosen is founder of Wonder Ventures, a venture capital fund focused on funding LA-based startups at the earliest stages. Previously, Dustin founded a mobile startup, Pose, and as CEO, led the company through development, growth and three rounds of venture capital funding before an acquisition in 2013. He received a B.S. in Economics from The Wharton School at The University of Pennsylvania.
Job Titles:
- CEO & Co - Founder of LaunchDarkly
Edith is CEO & Co-Founder of LaunchDarkly, the leading feature management platform.
Edith has more than 20 years of experience in product, engineering and marketing with both consumer and enterprise startups. Most recently she was Product Director at TripIt and Concur. She holds two patents in deployment from her time in engineering at Vignette. She is a contributing writer to DZone, DevOps.com, and ReadWriteWeb; and cohosts the "To Be Continuous" Podcast with Paul Biggar, CircleCI founder. Edith earned a BS in Engineering from Harvey Mudd College.
Prior to forming Mucker Capital, Erik was most recently at Harrison Metal Capital, where he helped lead one of the original "micro-VC" firms in Silicon Valley. Before Harrison Metal, Erik was VP of product at TripAdvisor and GM of eBay's premium features business. He began his career as a software developer at Accenture and holds a BS from the University of Delaware and an MBA from Duke University.
Prior to co-founding Two Small Fish Ventures, Eva was the former Head of Community at Wattpad, who helped nurture and scale its storytelling community from its infancy to tens of millions of monthly users around the world. With a sharp focus on investing companies with strong network effect, Eva created the ASSET framework that many startups have adopted in their developing business strategies.
Job Titles:
- Chief Executive Officer of RENFROE
Austin received degrees in computer engineering and mathematics from the University of Texas at Austin, where he focused on artificial intelligence and cryptography, and a law degree from Emory Law School, where he helped found a biotech startup as part of the NSF-funded TI:Ger program. He also studied intellectual property and international law in Cork, Ireland and Tokyo, Japan.
When he's not working, you can find Austin cave diving, working on open source software projects, or advising entrepreneurs and inventors.
Gavon "Austin" Renfroe serves as Chief Executive Officer of RENFROE®, a workforce logistics company with tens of thousands of employees focused on providing turnkey staffing and technology solutions to the insurance industry. He is also an accomplished polymath: entrepreneur, computer engineer, IP attorney, and investor. He holds patents on AI-driven inventory management systems and is an advisor to or board member of multiple startup companies. Outside of the technology and insurance world, Austin has produced or helped produce several movies and is an avid real estate investor and developer.
Managing Partner at E14 Fund the early stage deep tech MIT Media Lab fund. E14 works closely with scientists helping them commercialize their science. Before that, he was the founding CEO Wamda, a platform and a fund to support and invest startups across the MENA region. Before Wamda, Habib founded Yamli a linguistic startup focused on right to left languages., Yahoo! bought the technology in 2009, the World Economic Forum recognized Habib as a Young Global Leader.
Job Titles:
- Founding General Partner of Eniac Ventures
Hadley is a Founding General Partner of Eniac Ventures, a SF & NYC based venture capital firm that leads seed rounds in bold founders who use code to create transformational companies. Before founding Eniac in 2019, Hadley was a two time venture backed entrepreneur, helping growth Vlingo and Thumb until both were acquired. Hadley lives in NYC but also spends quite a bit of time in the bay area.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Investment Team at the Amazon Alexa Fund
Hanns is a member of the investment team at the Amazon Alexa Fund, where he supports early-stage companies building new experiences at the intersection of ambient computing and the digital consumer. Prior to joining Amazon, he led iRobot Ventures, the corporate venture capital arm of the robotics company iRobot. Previously, he spent time at Claremont Creek Ventures, where he invested in areas such as sustainability, fintech, and mobility. Over the past fifteen years, Hanns has invested in software and hardware companies spanning consumer and enterprise applications in categories such as AI/ML, energy, healthcare, transportation, logistics, and the built environment. Hanns holds an MBA and MS in Natural Resources from the University of Michigan, and a BS from Wake Forest University.
Job Titles:
- Partner at First Round Capital
Hayley Barna is a Partner at First Round Capital based in New York. Prior to joining First Round she co-founded and scaled Birchbox, the leading beauty and grooming retailer seed funded by First Round in 2010. Since joining First Round in 2016, Hayley has led investments across many industries and business models including healthcare, consumer, tech-enabled hardware and marketplaces among others.
Job Titles:
- Co - Founder & Managing Partner at Flying Fish Partners
Heather is Co-Founder & Managing Partner at Flying Fish Partners, a venture firm investing in artificial intelligence, machine learning and robotics companies. She serves on the boards of Beneficial State Bank (Lead Independent Director and member Audit & Technology Committees), Yesler, Inc., Coldstream Holdings Inc., Greater Seattle Metropolitan Chamber (immediate past Chair), Washington Technology Industry Association (Chair), Technology Alliance, Forterra and as a Regent of the Washington State University. She serves on the executive committee of the Global EIR Coalition, the governing advisory board of the Hawthorn Club, the Connector Board of NCWIT, the advisory board of iInovate and as a mentor at Techstars. She was named a 2019 Director of the Year by the Puget Sound Business Journal. Heather is also very active in local and national policy. Prior to her current roles, Heather was Executive and Senior Vice President at each of Indix, Summit Power, Atom Entertainment, Getty Images and PhotoDisc and General Counsel of Getty Images, a publicly traded company. Heather's law degree is from Stanford and her BA is from Reed.
Hunter cofounded Homebrew, a seed stage venture fund, in 2013 with his friend and former colleague Satya Patel. Prior he led product management at YouTube after originally joining Google in 2003, managing product and sales efforts for AdSense, Google‘s contextual advertising business. Hunter's first job in Silicon Valley was as the founding product and marketing guy at Linden Lab, creators of the innovative virtual world Second Life. Earlier in his career he was a management consultant and also spent a year at Late Night with Conan O‘ Brien. His parents are proud of his BA in History from Vassar and MBA from Stanford University.
Founder of Uncork Capital (formerly SoftTech VC), one of the original micro-VC firms in the US. Invested in 200+ startups since 2004, including FIT, SEND, EB, Postmates, Front, Molekule.
Job Titles:
- Angel Investor / Startup Advisor / Carta
Jeff is an active angel investor and experienced entrepreneur. He currently serves on the advisory boards of several startup companies and is on the partnerships team at Carta, a leading software company serving startups and the venture capital community. Jeff is passionate about startups and enjoys working with founders and mentoring entrepreneurs.
Job Titles:
- Co - Founder and Managing Partner of Biospring Partners
Jennifer Lum is a Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Biospring Partners, a growth equity firm that invests in Life Sciences Technology. She is an accomplished investor and entrepreneur. She has co-founded several companies and has worked with many others from formation through to M&A. Jennifer serves on the Board of Directors of Labviva and she is a Board Observer at ixlayer.
Jennifer also serves on the Board of Directors of WTA Ventures. She is a Jennifer is a Venture Capital Advisor at Harvard Business School and an Advisor at MIT's Martin Trust Center for Entrepreneurship. She is also an Advisory Board member at The Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics at Harvard Law School.
Jennifer co-founded Forge.AI (acquired by FiscalNote) and Adelphic (acquired by Time). She was an early team member at Quattro Wireless (acquired by Apple), m-Qube (acquired by VeriSign), and WebHosting.com (acquired by AT&T).
She has also held various roles as a management consultant with financial services and technology companies.
I lead and advise marketing teams that create and grow brands that inspire fun, excitement, passion, and deep loyalty. My background includes all aspects of marketing, advertising, and public relations for clients ranging from early-stage venture capital and corporate-backed startups to top global brands such as Disney, Yahoo! and Pepsi. Leading e-commerce/retail employers have included Crate & Barrel (CMO), Stitch Fix (SFIX), and Gap subsidiaries, Piperlime (founding CMO) and Banana Republic. Prior to my marketing career, I was with two global public relations firms, Edelman and Fleishman-HIllard, and worked on both sides of the aisle on Capitol Hill.
Job Titles:
- Founder of Bravo Victor Venture Capital
Joe Musselman is the founder of Bravo Victor Venture Capital; his experience spans several years of building, advising, and coaching teams, leadership, and cultures across the technology sector. Joe is deeply focused on true dual-use technology that strengthens both commercial and the asymmetrical advantage of Special Operators downrange, providing cutting-edge technology solutions to the operator as quickly as possible. He is invested in early-stage technology companies ranging from inception to $55B market cap. (Anduril, Epirus, Epsilon3, XBow Systems, Firestorm Labs, Tive, and others).
Joe was the CEO and Founder of Honor.org, America's first career transition institute for Navy SEALs and the U.S. Special Operations community. He scaled a multi-million dollar business and a network of 7,000 + supporters and deep networks inside the Fortune 100, technology and venture capital communities. He served on the board of the NASDAQ Center for Entrepreneurship in San Francisco, supporting start-up entrepreneurs with partnership and talent strategies, leadership, and culture design.
Job Titles:
- Co - Founder
- Managing Partner
Kara Nortman is a co-founder of Angel City and a managing partner at Monarch Collective, an investment platform dedicated to accelerating equity in global sport. Prior to Monarch, Kara was a Managing Partner at Upfront Ventures, where she worked for eight years. Before joining Upfront, Kara spent close to seven years at IAC where she co-headed the M&A group and later served in operating capacities as the SVP and General Manager of Urbanspoon and Citysearch. She served on the board of IAC's mobile technology incubator (Hatch Labs), where she incubated Tinder in their seed round. Earlier in her career Kara worked at Battery Ventures, Microsoft and Morgan Stanley. Kara is also a founding member of All Raise, a VC-led Nonprofit dedicated to increased diversity in funders and founders, and she advised the Women's National Soccer Team Players Association during their pay equity fight. Kara earned an AB in Politics from Princeton University and an MBA from Stanford University. Kara resides in Los Angeles with her husband and three daughters.
Karl Jacob is a serial entrepreneur who has been building, advising and investing in companies for the last 20 years. During his career Karl has raised 23 rounds of financing from a wide range of investors, including True Ventures, Baseline Ventures, Richard Branson's Virgin Group, Microsoft, eBay, Integral Partners, Norwest Ventures, Greylock, Benchmark Capital, FT Ventures, Ignition Partners and Vulcan Ventures. Many of Karl's companies have been successfully acquired, including Dimension X, acquired by Microsoft; Keen/Ingenio, acquired by AT&T; Cloudmark, acquired by ProofPoint; and Coveroo, acquired by Zazzle. Across his various tenures as a start-up CEO, Karl has generated hundreds of millions of dollars in investor returns and up to $150 million in revenue per year. In 2005 he joined Facebook as one of its first advisors and has gone on to advise several other companies. Karl is also a prolific angel investor and mentor for start-up companies including Mayvenn, June, Healthtap, Everlane, Skillshare, Rescale, Memsql, Haven, Shippo and many others. He holds a B.S. in Computer Science from the University of Southern California's Engineering School, where he sits on its board of counselors.
Job Titles:
- Partner at First Ascent Ventures
Katharine is a Partner at First Ascent Ventures, a VC fund that invests in early stage, emerging and growth-oriented enterprise software companies in the information technology sector. Prior to joining First Ascent, Katharine worked in the area of privacy and data protection. Most notably, she was Head of Privacy Programs at Facebook where she oversaw major initiatives related to the company's privacy and data protection issues. Katharine was responsible for building and managing Facebook's privacy and security program, which included everything from application to infrastructure, policy and procedure, regulatory compliance, incident response, as well as "go-to market messaging". Katharine now leverages her experience in privacy and data protection to both examine target companies through a lens of privacy and security as well as help existing portfolio companies to think through their growth strategy as it relates to privacy and security.
Kathryn Cavanaugh is the Founder and Managing Partner at Capstar Ventures.
Kellan Carter is a founding partner of Fuse where he focuses on early-stage investments in intelligent software in both horizontal and vertical categories. Previously, Kellan spent seven years at Ignition Partners, a leading early-stage venture capital firm. He joined Ignition in 2013 and was made partner by 2018. At Ignition, Kellan led investments in Botkeeper, Symend, Icertis, KenSci, and Azuqua, and served on the boards of both Botkeeper and Symend.
Prior to Ignition, Kellan spent two years in investment banking at Mooreland Partners in San Francisco. There, he helped execute M&A transactions for technology companies in a variety of sectors, including mobile, enterprise software, systems, and infrastructure. Prior to Mooreland Partners, Kellan was an associate in KPMG's advisory practice in Orange County, CA, where he helped structure asset-backed securities collateralized by student loans, auto loans, and residential and commercial mortgages.
Kellan holds a BS degree in business administration from the University of Montana in Missoula, where he graduated summa cum laude. After college, Kellan founded an online, business-networking platform to connect current students and faculty to UM alumni.
Kirby Winfield is a seasoned startup operator and investor, and is currently the Founding General Partner at Ascend.vc, a pre-seed stage venture fund investing in marketplace, e-commerce/DTC, and B2B software startups in the Pacific Northwest. Early in his career, Kirby was a founding team member and operating executive at back-to-back tech IPOs, with Go2Net (GNET) and Marchex (MCHX). He is also a two-time venture capital-backed CEO, with AdXpose (DFJ, Ignition) acquired by comScore (SCOR), and Dwellable (Maveron, VersionOne) acquired by HomeAway (AWAY). Kirby has invested in dozens of technology startups, and served as a Board Director of the real estate CRM platform Sharper Agent (sold to LEDR/Z), and the in-store customer experience platform Spectrio (sold to Bertram Capital). He currently serves as a Board Director at Bean Box, the premier Direct to Consumer gourmet coffee gift and subscription brand; Keepe, the leading vetted, on-demand contractor network for property managers; and SyncFloor, the consumer-grade music licensing platform for independent labels and artists. Other notable investments include Attunely, Blume, Crowd Cow, Dolly, Stackery and Wrench. Kirby has served as Board Chair at Special Olympics of Washington, where he helped bring the 2018 Special Olympics USA Games to Seattle. He is a member of the Board of Trustees of Seattle Preparatory School, Board Member at the University of Washington's Haring Center Capital Campaign, and Board Advisor at the Friendship Circle of Washington. In his free time, Kirby coaches youth sports, and enjoys running, tennis, and traveling with his wife, son and daughter.
Larry Covert is an entrepreneur and investor with over two decades of successful venture capital experience. He began his career at MILCOM Tech which commercialized over 2 billion dollars of defense R&D from defense labs DARPA, INEEL, Los Alamos, and Oakridge. Larry was CEO of NYSE: MHR private equity subsidiary Energy Hunter, advisor to the Chertoff Group, advisor to Galaxy Interactive, Crosslink VC, and early investor in US Bitcoin Mining Co.
Job Titles:
- President and CEO of Blue Apron
Linda Findley is the President and CEO of Blue Apron. In her role, she is driving a strategy to return to growth through a sustainable business model. Prior to Blue Apron, Linda was COO of Etsy, running the revenue-generating parts of the business including product, marketing and international for the global marketplace for unique and creative goods. She has about 25 years of experience in operations, international marketing, business development, public relations, and customer service. She also currently serves on the Board of Ralph Lauren, Styleseat, Inc., and Dress for Success. Linda has deep expertise in the ecommerce industry through her earlier tenure at Alibaba.com, where she led global marketing, business development, and customer service. After her work at Alibaba, Linda was COO of Evernote, where she oversaw worldwide operations and led cross-functional teams in offices across seven countries. She has also held leadership positions in communications firms including Fleishman-Hillard, Text 100, and Schwartz Communications. Through her career, a distinct set of values have guided Linda's decisions: mission, creativity, globalism, and impact.
Job Titles:
- Founder of Growth Studios
Lindsey Lyman is the founder of Growth Studios, an innovation consultancy that helps companies transform how they build new businesses. She consults with leading design firms, consulting firms, large and small companies, and entrepreneurs to identify unique growth opportunities and to build commercially viable new products, services, and business models. Lindsey is an advisor to executives of established companies on the topics of innovation strategy and execution and works with organizations to build innovation capabilities.
Outside of her work in corporate innovation, Lindsey is an active angel investor, board member, and advisor to founders of entrepreneurial ventures. Lindsey leverages her advisory and consulting work to develop current business content and cases for use in the classroom, in particular challenges relating to innovation execution in large organizations and early-stage hurdles when building a new entrepreneurial venture. As an advisory board member of the Alpha Network in Chicago, Lindsey has a passion for connecting entrepreneurs and helping them build their businesses.
Prior to founding Growth Studios, Lindsey spent 10 years at McKinsey & Company, where she was a founder of McKinsey's global innovation practice and co-developed McKinsey's Innovation Executive Education program. At McKinsey, Lindsey served Global Fortune 100 clients on innovation topics ranging from large-scale innovation transformations, to embedding capabilities in user-centered design and product development. Lindsey currently serves as a Senior External Advisor to McKinsey, focused on Product Development and Innovation. Prior to that, she was a professional child actor and competitive dancer.
Lindsey holds an MBA from The University of Chicago Booth School of Business, where she graduated with highest distinction. Lindsey lives on the North Shore of Chicago with her husband and four young children. Lindsey looks forward to someday reviving her hobbies of biking, art making, and fabric crafting, however in the meantime center around drinking copious amounts of coffee and building Lego with her kids.
Lisa leads portfolio development activities for M12. Additionally, she also leads investment activities in the Pacific Northwest, VC engagement for Microsoft and marketing strategy and execution for the fund. Lisa's been with Microsoft for several years in a variety of roles across business development and finance. She most recently served as chief of staff for the EVP of Business Development where she helped identify, pursue and support new areas of growth for Microsoft through key strategic partnerships, investments, and M&A. Lisa is a Certified Public Accountant and has a Bachelor in Business Administration - Finance and Statistics from the University of Washington.
Job Titles:
- Co - Founder & CEO of WayUp
Liz is Co-Founder & CEO of WayUp, a platform that transforms how employers recruit students and recent grads. Liz has been featured in Forbes 30U30, the "18 Coolest Women in Silicon Valley" by Business Insider & NY Business Journal's "Most Influential Women." Liz has been a speaker at TedX, TechCrunch Disrupt, SXSW & more. Prior to WayUp, Liz worked in Marketing at Google in Mountain View & India.
Mike Jung, Co-Founder and Partner, has invested in leading companies such as Twilio (TWLO),
Natalie Fratto is a managing director on SVB's Emerging Manager Practice team. In this role, she provides general partners with tailored services and strategic guidance, including fundraising and fund operations strategies, portfolio company support and creative liquidity solutions. Prior to rejoining SVB, Natalie led strategic investments into emerging managers and growth-stage companies as part of the corporate development team at Goldman Sachs. Natalie started her financial services career at SVB in 2016 as a vice president of Early Stage Practice, providing banking and financing support for the most promising early-stage startups in New York City. She went on to direct SVB's international expansion into Canada as a senior manager of New Market Development. Natalie earned her B.A. in Political Science at the University of Michigan. She is an alum of First Round's Angel Track program and On Deck's Founder Fellowship, and previously led operations for a Y Combinator-backed startup. Passionate about new technologies and innovation, Natalie has been a contributing writer for some of the world's top finance and technology publications, including Fortune, Fast Company and VICE Motherboard. Her 2019 TED Talk on adaptability has been viewed almost four million times and was one of the top 10 most-watched talks of the year.
Job Titles:
- II Is the Founder & Managing Partner of Stellation Capital, an Early Stage Venture Capital Firm Headquartered in Brooklyn
Peter A. Boyce II is the Founder & Managing Partner of Stellation Capital, an early stage venture capital firm headquartered in Brooklyn.
Prior to this, Peter spent eight years as a Partner at General Catalyst, an $8B venture capital firm that invests in powerful, positive change that endures.
Job Titles:
- Co - Founder and CEO of LearnLux
Rebecca Liebman is the co-founder and CEO of LearnLux, a financial wellness company, helping employees navigate their biggest financial decisions. She is on the advisory board of HubSpot and was on the 2016 Forbes "30 Under 30" list. Before starting LearnLux, Liebman lived in Kenya and studied microfinance and worked at the MIT Center for Collective Intelligence.
Prior to joining Sozo in 2022, Rob was an executive at Silicon Valley Bank where he led both technology and healthcare teams. Most recently, Rob was Head of VC Relationship Management, serving as principal advisor to SVB Capital's Fund-of-Funds and primary relationship manager for many of the most active US Venture firms. Earlier in his SVB career he opened the Santa Monica office, was part of the Los Angeles region's exceptional growth (‘15-'20), helped reorganize the sales organization as SVB's first Chief of Staff, and contributed to record-setting expansion of the Healthcare/Life Sciences practice as Head of Business Development.
Rob has a B.A. in Psychology from Whitman College and has lectured at UCLA, USC, and Stanford University on venture capital and venture lending.
Despite having been born and raised on the Stanford University Campus, Rob and his wife moved to LA for SVB in 2015 and quickly fell in love with everything about their Santa Monica community, except the density of Dodger fans. On the weekends Rob can be found chasing his three daughters through the waves and trails of Southern California.
Holland brings a pioneering outlook and strong track record as an entrepreneur and C-level executive in high growth companies. He has an impressive history of driving growth at venture-backed startup companies and private equity-backed businesses ranging from $10 to $750 million in sales. Most recently, Holland was CEO of Feedback Loop, a unified market intelligence platform that was acquired by DISQO Inc. He has successfully built businesses and grown companies valued at over $1 billion, including Bluecore Inc. and Datalogix, which was acquired by Oracle. Holland has also held leadership positions in product management at The Nielsen Company.
Robyn Ward is a 20+ year veteran of the tech startup space. She is a former operator and VC who, in 2016, started FounderForward, a coaching, training and development company. Robyn also teaches Venture Capital at USC and is a champion of diversity and equality in the technology industry. She has been named a Top Woman in LA Tech by DigitalLA and a Top LA Tech Ambassador by TechWeek.
Russ is a technology founder, executive, and investor who has been working across the startup industry since 1996. Based in Silicon Valley, Russ currently serves as Vice Chairman of Carbon Health where he works with Eren and the leadership team to support Carbon Health's historic growth. Russ is also the Chairman of Dynamic Signal, a venture backed SaaS business he founded and ran as CEO for ten years. Prior to founding Dynamic Signal, he was the founder and CEO of Adify, which he sold to Cox Enterprises in 2008. Russ is also on the board of CoachArt, a non-profit in California.
Sam Yagan co-founded Corazon Capital in 2013 and is one of its Managing Directors. He recently served as the CEO of ShopRunner, Inc., which provides its millions of members free two-day shipping and seamless checkout at over 100 leading online retailers. In 2020, he led the sale of ShopRunner to FedEx Corp. (NYSE: FDX). Before ShopRunner, Sam served as Vice-Chairman of Match Group (Nasdaq: MTCH), a position he assumed after leading the company as CEO through a period of explosive growth that culminated in its IPO in 2015. Sam's prior entrepreneurial ventures in the consumer internet sector include SparkNotes, still the dominant brand of study guides, and MetaMachine, Inc., once the largest peer-to-peer file-sharing network in the world. Sam sold SparkNotes to iTurf, Inc. and then to Barnes & Noble, Inc. He served as Publisher and oversaw the expansion of the digitally-native brand into a multi-platform media business. Sam also co-founded OkCupid in 2003, which he led as its CEO through its sale to Match Group in 2011. In 2009, Sam co-founded Excelerate Labs (now Techstars Chicago), a leading start-up accelerator, and served as its first Managing Director. Sam sits on the board of several private companies, including The Duchossois Group, SpotHero, Brilliant Worldwide, and Grindr. He previously served on the Digital Advisory Council at Target Corp (NYSE: TGT), the Stanford Graduate School of Business Management Board, and as an advisor to Procter & Gamble (NYSE: PG). He also sits on the boards of three non-profits: Start Early, Illinois Mathematics & Science Academy Fund Board, and Rush University Medical Center. Sam has earned recognition on TIME Magazine's "100 Most Influential People in the World," Fortune Magazine's "40 Under 40," Crain's Chicago "Tech 50" and "40 Under 40," Billboard Magazine's "30 Under 30," and ranked #19 on Silicon Alley Insider's "Most Inspiring and Influential People." Sam holds a BA with honors in Applied Mathematics and Economics from Harvard College and an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business. He earned distinctions as a Siebel Scholar, an Arjay Miller Scholar, and the Henry Ford Scholar, the latter of which Stanford awards annually to each class's valedictorian.
Job Titles:
- Investor and Chief Revenue Officer for SafePaaS Software
Scott Elequin is an entrepreneur, investor and Chief Revenue Officer for SafePaaS Software - an industry-recognized Digital Risk Management platform. Prior to SafePaaS he was the CEO and President of SmartDog Services, a nationally known Oracle Consulting firm (acquired by Apps Associates in June of 2019). Scott has also has served as board member for several technology startups and is co-founder and board member of a faith-based 501(c)(3) which promotes commerce in impoverished regions of the world through technology innovation. Scott holds a BBA from the University of Texas at Austin and an MBA from Baylor University.
Shamin Walsh has over 10+ years as an active angel investor who gained experience in the consumer space through her early investments in companies such as Sweetgreen, Flexport, Outdoor Voices, and Sir Kensington's.
Job Titles:
- Founder and Managing Partner of Parade Ventures
Shawn Merani is the Founder and Managing Partner of Parade Ventures, a business-to-business themed pre-seed & seed stage venture capital firm.
Previously, Shawn was a co-founder and partner at Flight Ventures, investing in early stage software, internet and mobile companies across a variety of sectors. He has also made select later stage investments. Shawn's investments include Cruise Automation, Dollar Shave Club, HOOKED, Sapho, Plastiq, Madison Reed, Stance, Inkbox, Pillow, Managed by Q and more.
As an operator, Shawn was a founding partner of Liquidnet's Private Shares marketplace, which enabled over 750 of the world's leading asset managers to invest in high-growth, pre-IPO companies. Prior to Liquidnet, Shawn was Senior Director of Business Development at ReachLocal. Shawn has a BA in Economics and a BS in Business Administration from the University of California at Berkeley, as well as an MBA from UCLA Anderson School of Management. Shawn enjoys spending time with his family, riding his Peloton, fantasy sports and supporting the Cal Bears.
Shez oversees SVB's market-facing efforts and client acquisition strategy across Canada. As part of his role, Shez leverages SVB's global innovation platform by connecting companies, market influencers, and both Canadian and U.S. investors who are looking for growth or value-add opportunities. Shez also leads the origination of Canadian corporate and sponsor-backed financings for public and late-stage technology companies and assists with the structuring of complex senior and junior debt financings. With more than 10 years of direct private and public market investing experience, Shez's background includes originating, structuring and executing transactions across the capital structure and in a variety of industries and situations.
Prior to joining SVB, Shez was a Vice President at Third Eye Capital, Canada's largest private debt and special situations investor. He began his career at BMO Capital Partners, the Bank of Montreal's principal investing division.
Shez lives in Toronto with his wife and daughter. Outside the office, Shez serves on the Investment Committee for Community Development Venture Fund, a nonprofit microloan company founded to support entrepreneurship, particularly among immigrants to Canada.
Job Titles:
- Founder and Managing Partner of the Good Fund
Stacey is the founder and managing partner of The Good Fund - an impact fund that invests in early-stage startups solving some of the world's biggest challenges. She is also is the CEO of Otto Intelligence, a fintech working to enable the personalization of finance.
Prior to founding The Good Fund, Stacey was the Director of innovation projects at Goodmans LLP, driving strategic initiatives and projects aimed at addressing change in the legal market. Stacey also practiced corporate law at Goodmans. Stacey is the Co-Chair and Co-Founder of The Breakthrough Fund, a venture philanthropy initiative through SickKids Hospital. Stacey serves on the Board of Save a Child's Heart, an organization whose mission is to save children's lives, by improving the quality and accessibility of paediatric cardiac care. Stacey also serves on the board of OCAD U CO, an executive training studio with a mission to help industry leaders and their teams use creative problem solving to drive innovation and change.
Stacey holds a JD from Osgoode Hall Law School, a MSc from the London School of Economics and a BA (Hons) from the University of King's College.
Job Titles:
- Partner at NextView Ventures
Stephanie is a Partner at NextView Ventures, a NYC, SF, and Boston-based seed and pre-seed firm. She invests in the founders who share a North Star of building exceptional user-centric experiences for individuals, families, companies, and communities. She spent a decade as a partner at Uncork Capital, where she invested in dozens of seed-stage companies, including Poshmark ($POSH), Clever (aqu. by Kahoot!), Chariot (acq. by Ford), ClassDojo, Carrot Fertility, Hallow, Panorama Education, Phil, Wrapbook, and Wonderschool. Previously, Stephanie worked as a technology consultant and marketer at Accenture, Estee Lauder, and several startups. She is a founding member of All Raise and on the advisory board of Columbia Business School's Entrepreneurship Center.
Job Titles:
- Founder and Managing Partner of Ubiquity Ventures
Sunil Nagaraj is the Founder and Managing Partner of Ubiquity Ventures, a seed-stage institutional venture capital firm with $100 million under management and a focus on "software beyond the screen"® startups. This includes B2B technology companies that utilize smart hardware or machine learning to solve business problems outside the reach of computers and smartphones. By transforming real-world physical problems into the domain of software, Ubiquity-backed startups tap into large greenfield markets and offer more effective solutions.
Sunil currently serves on the boards of Esper, Halter, Kinetic, Koop, Loft Orbital, Parallel Domain, Resemble AI, ThruWave and other undisclosed investments.
Prior to founding Ubiquity Ventures, Sunil spent the better part of a decade with Bessemer Venture Partners where his work included leading the seed rounds of Auth0 (acquired by Okta for $6.5 billion) and Zapier as well as investments in Rocket Lab (NASDAQ: RKLB), Spire (NASDAQ: SPIR), Velo3D (NYSE: VLD), Tile (acquired by Life360), and Twitch (acquired by Amazon for $1 billion). Prior to being an investor, Sunil was founder/CEO of Triangulate, a VC-backed online dating startup using machine learning and behavioral data to improve matching accuracy. He has also worked at Bain & Company, Cisco, and Microsoft.
Sunil holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and a BS in Computer Science from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He serves as President of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific (the largest general astronomy education society in the world with past Presidents including Edwin Hubble and Frank Drake). He also serves on the Advisory Board of the Harvard Business School California Research Center and as an Alumni Advisor to the Harvard MS/MBA program. He spends his free time playing piano, sailing, and nerding out on new technologies.
Sunil Rajaraman is a tech entrepreneur, operator and investor. He is currently VP of Marketing at GoodRx, where he oversees offline marketing, marketing to healthcare providers, and B2B marketing. Prior to GoodRx, Sunil was CMO of Metromile, and also ran marketing at Replicon Software. Sunil co-founded Scripted.com, which was backed by Crosslink, Redpoint and Storm Ventures. He is a 2-time EIR at Foundation Capital. His investments include Turing (Founders Fund, Foundation Capital), Maven (First Round Capital, A16Z), Tonkean (Accel, Lightspeed), Iron Ox (Crosslink, Eniac) and Practice (A16Z) and several others. Sunil's podcast ‘This is Your Life in Silicon Valley' reached as high as top-200 in the US, and his writing has generated 10s of millions of pageviews.
I am a partner at Multitudes, where we believe that the next generation of innovation will be different than the last. We discover and invest in diverse, emerging managers and the high-growth companies they back. I also co-founded the Global Women in VC Community, the largest and most powerful network of female VCs in the world. We count almost 4,000 women from 200+ cities, 60+ countries, and 40+ US states as members who share deal flow, job opportunities, industry data, and more. Most recently, I was a partner at Female Founders Fund, investing in the exponential power of of exceptional female founders. We invested in companies like Billie (acq. Edgewell), Maven Clinic, Rent The Runway (NASDAQ:RENT), Zola, Tala, Thrive Global, and Co-Star Astrology. I started my investing career at FirstMark Capital, a leading early stage venture fund in New York City. While I was there, FirstMark invested in companies like Pinterest, Riot Games (acq. Tencent), Shopify (NYSE:SHOP), Postmates, InVision, Tapad (acq. Telenor), and more. I was previously the Director of Marketing at Norisol Ferrari, a womenswear couture line based in New York City, and held sales and marketing roles at MarketFactory (acq. ION), a fintech company building SaaS products for low-latency currency trading. I am a Houston native and studied finance and marketing at NYU.
We started Twelve Below to reshape the future of venture capital - partnering with founders and offering them the guidance they need to go-to-market. At Twelve Below, I seek breakthrough ideas from special founders early in their journey. I've spent the last 10 years as a partner at leading seed firms Lerer Hippeau and Collaborative investing at the seed stage. Prior board roles include: Allbirds (NASDAQ: BIRD), Step, Mirror (NASDAQ: LULU), Leaflink, Teamshares, Transfix, Monument, Guideline, Crexi, Parsec (NYSE: U), Hungryroot, OpenTrons, Loyal, Accrue Savings. Other brands that I've influenced include: Mighty, Outbrain, Gyft, TrueHold, Dutch, Accrue Savings, Sora Schools and Campus.
Thomas concentrates his practice on strategic and practical business counseling for technology and life sciences companies, as well as venture capital firms, in a wide variety of corporate transactions, including venture capital financings, debt financings, public offerings, mergers and acquisitions, and corporate reorganizations.
Thomas has been recognized as a "Rising Star" by the Super Lawyers magazine and honored in Lawyers of Color's inaugural Hot List Issue, recognizing early- to mid-career attorneys "excelling in the legal profession."
Tim Kendall is the CEO of Moment, an app that helps people use their phones in healthier ways. Tim is the former President of Pinterest - at various points, he led product, engineering, marketing and sales. Prior to Pinterest, Tim was Facebook's Director of Monetization. Tim serves on the board of UCSF Benioff Children's Hospital. He earned his engineering degree and MBA from Stanford University.
Job Titles:
- Founding General Partner at Eniac Ventures
Tim Young is a Founding General Partner at Eniac Ventures with two exits as an entrepreneur and over 20 years of experience advising and investing in 100+ early stage startups. Tim has been fascinated by technology since his mother taught him to code in Fortran at the age of 10. He went on to study engineering and become a patent attorney and tech entrepreneur.
Vic is the Cofounder and Managing General Partner of Energy Capital Ventures (ECV). ECV is the only early-stage venture capital fund dedicated the ESG imperatives and digital transformation of the natural gas industry. Vic has led and managed venture investments in numerous multi-billion-dollar companies and category defining leaders including Coinbase (NASDAQ:COIN), ID.me, MX, Extend, Personal Capital (acquired by Empower Retirement), TRUECar (NASDAQ: TRUE), Next Insurance, Care.com (NYSE: CRCM) and Clearcover. He has achieved a top-decile investment track record. Vic has over 20 years of experience in venture capital and financial services encompassing over $750 million in VC and M&A transactions. He currently serves on the board of Cemvita Factory and ID.me. Prior to Energy Capital Ventures, Vic was the Managing Partner of Chicago based early-stage venture capital firm, Lightbank. Before Lightbank, Vic built and led USAA's $330 million corporate venture capital program. At USAA, Vic directed investments and served on the boards of Narrative Science, TRUECar (NASDAQ: TRUE), Care.com (NYSE: CRCM), ID.me, Automatic Labs (acquired by Sirius XM), Prosper Marketplace, Personal Capital (acquired by Empower Retirement), Coinbase (NASDAQ:COIN), MX, Roost, Cartera Commerce (acquired by Ebates/ Rakuten), Roostify, RepairPal, Saffron Technologies (acquired by Intel Corp.), CafeX, MindMeld (acquired by Cisco) and VAST (acquired by Vroom). After USAA, he was an Investment Director/Partner with Munich Re Ventures in San Francisco where he was responsible for their insurtech investment activities in including Trov, Super, Slice Labs and Next Insurance. Vic's early career includes leadership positions in Chicago start-ups and law.
Job Titles:
- Co - Founder and General Partner at Riot Ventures
Will Coffield is co-founder and General Partner at Riot Ventures. Will is a career institutional venture investor with over a decade of experience working with companies from ideation to IPO. At Riot, Will focuses on the firm's investment practice in defense and aerospace as well as logistics and advanced manufacturing.
Will has led investments in True Anomaly (orbital defense prime), Parallel Systems (autonomy for rail freight), Oxide Computer Company (hyperscale datacenter infrastructure), Alloy Enterprises (Carnegie Steel 2.0), Elementary ML (artificially intelligent QA/QC for manufacturing), Rugged Robotics (construction robots), Open Envoy (freight AP automation), Azimuth (telemetry data infrastructure) and Route (ecommerce logistics and insurance). Will is an avid surfer, chef and dog trainer. He is proficient at two of those things…