Venture with Grace

Sydney Paige Thomas is the Founding General Partner of Symphonic Capital, a venture capital fund focused on empowering early-stage entrepreneurs. As the leader of Symphonic, Sydney embraces a unique philosophy of leadership, likening her role to that of an orchestra conductor whose power lies not in making sound, but in amplifying the talents of others. With nearly 15 years of diverse industry exp...

Vivin Hegde is the Founding Partner at Zacua Ventures, which invests in the next generation of entrepreneurs shaping the Built World. The firm focuses on core themes of productivity, sustainability, and urbanization within the Built Environment and maintains a global presence. As a construction technologist and innovator, Vivin previously led the Trimble-Hilti JV, where he researched and developed...

Ajay Prakash is the Co-Founder & CEO of Rinse, a company that is making trips to the dry cleaner and the washer / dryer obsolete while building the first national brand in dry cleaning and laundry. Prior to Rinse, Ajay was the COO and CFO of humble Brands, a consumer product startup in San Francisco. He also has experience at Bonobos, Berkshire Partners, the NBA, and Bain & Company. Ajay r...

As the founder of Eeagli, James combines his passion for data visualization and investment writing to create compelling and engaging content for the financial industry. With over 15 years of experience in investment management, equities, and fixed income, James's mission is to transform complex data and insights into memorable stories that connect companies with their audience and communicate...

James Joaquin is an early-stage investor in world positive startups building breakthrough technologies that move humanity forward. He is passionate about the responsible use of AI to solve the unsolvable across trillion-dollar industries. As a co-founder of Obvious, he has led investments for the firm that span advanced materials (Diamond Foundry), plant-based protein (Beyond Meat), and labor mark...

Entrepreneur and personal branding expert, Casey Adams, kicked off his career at 17 with his acclaimed podcast, "The Casey Adams Show," now among the top 100 business podcasts worldwide. His dialogues with prominent figures like Larry King, Rick Ross, and Maye Musk, have enriched his listeners' perspectives. As Co-Founder of MediaKits, a game-changing SaaS platform for creator analyt...

Zach DeWitt is a partner at Wing, bringing firsthand founder experience to the startups and founders he works with—most of which are product-led growth (PLG) SaaS, AI-powered applications, and Web3. Before joining the Wing team, he was the CEO and co-founder of Drop, Inc., where he and his team built two award-winning iPhone apps before selling the technology to Snapchat in 2016. He has worked in...

With over 18 years of experience in the cybersecurity field, Nir Polak is a venture partner at SignalFire, a data-driven venture capital firm that invests in early-stage technology companies. Nir is also an investor and board member at Dig Security, a cloud-based security platform that automates threat detection and response. Additionally, Nir is the co-founder and chairman of the board at Exabeam...

Chris Harper is a VC at Torch Capital. Before Torch, Chris was an early-stage investor at Red Sea Ventures, a New York-based fund focused on consumer and consumerized B2B businesses. While at Columbia Business School, Chris was president of the VC Fellows program. As a fellow, he spent a year with General Catalyst developing a thesis on consumer services for the new millennial family. Chris was al...

Han Shen is the Founding Partner of iFly. VC. Han’s career in venture capital started in 2009 and has spanned at VantagePoint and Formation 8, where he was the first hire on the investment team. He led and/or contributed to the investment in Motive Drilling (acquired by Helmerich & Payne), Lucid (acquired by Acuity), Comfy (acquired by Siemens), Oculus (acquired by Facebook), Taxon (acquired b...

Amy Nauiokas is a transformational CEO, founder, governor and advocate who has spent three decades running and building purpose-led organizations at the intersection of access, equity, and innovation. She has dedicated her career to seeing around corners and leading teams to uncover what could be rather than accepting the status quo. After a rapid rise to the top of the global financial services i...

When it comes to the business of women, Ali knows a golden opportunity when she sees it. As one of the very first employees at Refinery29 — a company that now has over 450 employees globally — Ali was tasked with building an ad and brand partnerships business from the ground up. She answered this challenge by assembling a world-class team that integrated custom collaboration with brands across eve...

Charlotte Ross is a Partner of Inspired Capital. Prior to Inspired Capital, Charlotte was an Associate at New Enterprise Associates (NEA). At NEA, she led investments in The Wing, Mejuri, CoEdition and Choosy. Charlotte served on the Boards of those companies in addition to the Boards of Duolingo, Framebridge and Landit. Charlotte also spent three months working at Tamara Mellon, an NEA portfolio...

Peter Walker runs the Insights team at Carta, focused on discovering key data and narratives across the private capital ecosystem. In a former life, he was a marketing executive for a media analytics startup and led the data visualization team at the Covid Tracking Project. Topics: - Data-Driven Insights in the Private Capital Ecosystem - Current Trends in Private Capital - Future of Data in Ventu...

Prasad Kawthekar is the CEO & Co-founder of Dashworks. Dashworks is the personalized, all-in-one, and secure AI solution for organizations. Dashworks learns from existing knowledge scattered across siloed cloud applications to help employees find instant answers to all their questions at work. The company has raised funds from investors including Y Combinator, Point72 Ventures, and OVO Fund. P...

Evan J. Zimmerman is an entrepreneur, investor, and writer. He is the co-founder and CEO of Edge, a patent assistant startup backed by Y Combinator, for which he was recognized in Forbes 30 Under 30 2023. He invests through Jovono, his personal venture capital firm, and was Chairman of the Clinton Health Access Initiative technology council, which advises the technology of global public health in...

Hyphen Capital was founded and led by Dave Lu. Dave is a Silicon Valley veteran and started his career in tech at Yahoo! in the late 90s. He sat around the corner from Jerry Yang, an entrepreneurial inspiration for many Asian Americans including himself. He went on to work at other iconic technology companies including Apple, eBay and Cisco before starting his first company Fanpop. After growing t...

Samit Kalra is a Partner at 1984 Ventures, a San Francisco-based seed fund that backs technical founders using software to solve pressing market needs. The fund is currently investing out of its $75M Fund II. Samit joined the team in 2021, following a two-and-a-half-year tenure at Bain Capital Ventures, a prominent multi-stage fund that has backed iconic companies such as Docusign and LinkedIn. Be...

Magnus Grimeland is the Chief Executive Officer and Founder of Antler, a global early-stage VC enabling and investing in the world's most exceptional people. He leads a global team across 6 continents, 30+ locations with the mission to fundamentally improve the world by supporting founders, who are building the defining companies of tomorrow. Antler has invested in, and helped build 1100+ port...

Alex Freberg is the Founder & CEO of Analyst Builder and Alex Analytics LLC. He is also the creator of a highly popular YouTube channel, "Alex The Analyst," which has amassed over 780,000 subscribers. Alex's channel provides comprehensive content on everything you need to know to become a data analyst, making him a prominent figure in the data analytics community. Through his edu...

Marshall Sandman is the Managing Partner of Animal Capital. Animal Capital is the first venture firm with access to 150M+ engaged consumers across the world. Animal Capital drives growth by leveraging proprietary marketing channels and increasing awareness around brands. Animal Capital provides all the services of a traditional venture fund combined with an unrivaled ability to influence a new gen...

Renee Shah is a Partner at Amplify Partners. Amplify Partners is an early-stage venture capital fund. She is focused on security, infrastructure and dev tools. Prior to Amplify Partners, Renee worked at BCG (The Boston Consulting Group) focused on strategy for healthcare and private equity clients; Clinton Health Access Initiative, Inc. where she invested in new technology to improve healthcare in...

Jesse Draper is a mother of 3 boys, founding partner of Halogen Ventures and focused on early stage investing in consumer technology companies led by female and co-ed teams. Draper is a Kauffman Fellow and 4th generation venture capitalist. She is a fierce advocate for investing in women and the opportunity for using technology and innovation to solve some of the biggest issues facing women and fa...

Stephanie Zufle Retcho has served as the Chief Marketing Officer for both KAYAK and Hungryroot. She has also held leadership positions at renowned agencies like McCann Erickson and TBWA\CHIAT\DAY, managing blue-chip accounts like Verizon Wireless and Sprint-Nextel. Throughout her career, Stephanie has driven growth through strategic marketing, resulting in increased revenue, profit, and market sha...

Vanessa Larco joined NEA as a Partner in 2016 and focuses on enterprise and consumer investing. She has led investments in Assembled, Kindred, Rewind AI, Cleo, Evernow, Rocket. Chat, and Mejuri, among others. She is also a board observer at Forethought, SafeBase, Orby AI, Granica, Modyfi, and HEAVY.AI. She was a board observer at Robinhood until its IPO in 2021. Prior to Venture, she led product t...