Ignite: Conversations on Startups, Venture Capital, Tech, Future, and Society

Gabriel Jarrosson is a seven-time founder with three exits and the General Partner of Lobster Capital, a fund specializing in top-performing YC startups. With over $25 million invested in early-stage companies, Gabriel brings a rare blend of founder grit and investor insight—shaped by years of building, failing, and ultimately scaling ventures from scratch. With his experience as both an entrepren...

Jim Ferry is a Partner at Volition Capital, a Boston-based growth equity firm backing founder-owned, capital-efficient companies across software, internet, and consumer. With over a decade at Volition and lead roles in investments like Attitude, Doing Things, Kinetics, and ButterflyMX, he’s helped scale businesses from product–market fit through exit. With hard-won lessons from wins and misses, he...

Marc Seitz is the founder of Papermark, an open-source alternative to DocSend that helps startups share documents more securely and affordably. With a background spanning physics, hackathons, and startup building—from co-founding HackerBay to launching Intel Ignite Europe—Marc brings deep insights into open source innovation, founder culture, and the evolving intersection of AI and software develo...

Justinas Milašauskas is an Investment Manager at Willgrow, a Lithuania-based family office and diversified investment platform. With over 15 years of experience across trading, institutional sales, and portfolio management, Justinas brings deep insight into public and private markets — from credit and derivatives to venture and private equity. He’s also an active angel investor and a member of the...

Jack Stockert, MD is the Managing Director at Health2047, the venture studio founded by the American Medical Association (AMA) to build, fund, and scale startups transforming healthcare from within. With a background that bridges medicine, consulting at McKinsey, and entrepreneurship, Jack brings a rare perspective on how to align medical insight with innovation and investment. With years of exper...

Joe Zanca is the Managing Partner of Deal Gen Partners, where he helps private equity funds, independent sponsors, and PE-backed operators source proprietary deals. Previously, he built and exited On Demand Storage, launched a top-rated business podcast, and most recently joined Bullpen Technology Partners. With founder-operator chops, a banker’s Rolodex, and a nose for off-market opportunities, h...

Anthony Jules is the co-founder and CEO of Robust AI, a robotics company pioneering collaborative systems that blend human and machine intelligence. A 30-year tech veteran and MIT alum, Anthony previously co-founded Sapient Corporation, helped scale it from three to 4,000 employees, and later worked at Google advancing robotics and AI research. With deep expertise spanning software, AI, and organi...

Eric Ries is the author of The Lean Startup, founder of the Long-Term Stock Exchange (LTSE), and host of The Eric Ries Show. With decades of experience shaping how founders build, scale, and sustain companies, Eric has influenced a generation of entrepreneurs to move faster, reduce waste, and think long-term. In this episode, he shares his journey from early startup failures to pioneering the Lean...

Elizabeth Yin is the Co-Founder and General Partner at Hustle Fund, a pre-seed venture capital firm that writes “hilariously early” checks and equips founders with tactical, no-BS startup advice. A former founder who built and sold LaunchBit, and the former accelerator manager at 500 Global where she wrote 200+ investment checks, Elizabeth brings hard-won lessons from both sides of the table. With...

Collin Groves is a venture capitalist and Managing Partner at BDev Ventures, a fund backed by software powerhouse BairesDev. With experience launching five corporate venture capital arms during his time at Ernst & Young Parthenon and leading 50+ B2B SaaS investments across the Americas, he blends data-driven rigor with hands-on customer acquisition strategies. In this episode, Collin shares ho...

Hugh Massie is the Executive Chairman and Founder of DNA Behavior, a pioneer in behavioral AI that blends finance, identity, and decision-making. As a Titan 100 CEO, published author, and global advisor, he brings decades of expertise in behavioral science, wealth management, and technology. With his mission to impact over a billion people annually by 2030, Hugh offers groundbreaking insights into...

Ari Newman is the co-founder and managing director of Massive VC, an inflection point venture capital platform backing high-growth technology companies across AI, data, energy, cybersecurity, energy transformation, and the new space economy. A repeat founder who built and sold FilterBox and Juston, Ari also helped scale Techstars and now advises multiple growth-stage boards. With decades of experi...

Anthony Rose is a serial entrepreneur best known for taking BBC iPlayer from skunkworks to a national success and now transforming startup fundraising as co-founder and CEO of SeedLegals. With decades of experience building and selling companies, as well as pioneering digital products used by millions, he brings a unique outsider’s perspective to legal tech and venture funding. In this episode, An...

Renan Devillieres is the founder and CEO of OSS Ventures, a venture studio dedicated to building startups that transform the manufacturing industry. With a background in economics, consulting, and factory leadership—and later scaling his first AI startup through Series B—Renan brings unique insights into the intersection of technology, operations, and entrepreneurship. In this episode, he shares h...

Rupak Doshi is a scientist-turned-entrepreneur and the co-founder & CEO of OmniSync, creators of the flagship platform TurboInnovate. With a background spanning research at Cambridge, Scripps Research, and UCSD, as well as industry experience in biotech drug development, Rupak has spent the last decade helping deep tech ideas move from lab benches to global markets. Through OmniSync, he has he...

Anthony Chiaravallo is the Founder and CEO of Vallo Media, a performance marketing agency that’s helped brands from startups to Fortune 500s—including Nike, Amazon, and FedEx—turn ad spend into measurable growth. With 16+ years of experience and more than $100M in media spend managed, Anthony is a recognized thought leader and PR Week 40 Under 40 honoree, known for cutting through vanity metrics t...

Dr. Matthew Jones is a licensed psychologist turned startup co-founder coach and cofounder of Co-Founder Clarity. With six years of experience working with hundreds of entrepreneurs—from YC to Sequoia-backed teams—he specializes in helping founders prevent burnout, resolve conflict, and build stronger, more resilient partnerships. His work has been featured in TIME, Business Insider, and Inc., and...

Damir Ibrahimagić Kopinić is a seasoned early-stage investor, advisor, and private asset manager who has spent decades at the intersection of high finance and early-stage tech. As co-founder and CEO of G Plus Quant, he helps bridge top startups with global venture capital, LPs, and family offices. With experience spanning asset management, trading, blockchain, and beyond, Damir offers a unique per...

Arian Ghashghai is the Founder and Managing Partner of Earthling VC, a pre-seed venture fund focused on frontier technologies like VR, robotics, and applied AI. Previously, he was a senior ML engineer at Meta’s Reality Labs and an active angel investor, building a reputation as a thoughtful advocate for probabilistically diversified pre-seed investing. With his blend of technical expertise, founde...

Dmitry Karpov is the CEO and co-founder of WorkDone, a real-time AI compliance co-pilot for hospitals tackling costly and often hidden documentation errors that lead to denied insurance claims. A two-time YC founder, ex-EY innovation leader, and Forbes Cloud 100 rising star, Dmitry brings deep experience in workflow automation and enterprise AI. With a track record of scaling companies globally an...

Jay Levy is the co-founder and partner at Zelkova Ventures, an early-stage venture capital firm with over 17 years of experience backing transformative SaaS companies like Help Scout, Klout, and Crimson Hexagon. From designing websites in high school to scaling startups during the dot-com boom, Jay has lived the full founder-to-investor journey. With a disciplined, people-first approach to investi...

Greg Weinger is the Senior Vice President of Product Management at SheerID and the creator of The Powerful Introvert podcast. With over 15 years of experience scaling B2B SaaS product teams at companies like Urban Airship, YesMail, and Jive Software, Greg brings a unique blend of technical depth, leadership insight, and introverted clarity to every role he takes on. In this episode, he shares less...

Chris Anzalone is the founder and CEO of Knowledge, an AI-driven sales intelligence startup reshaping the way businesses identify in-market buyers. With a unique background in high-ticket finance and agency sales, Chris bootstrapped Knowledge from a services-based business into a fast-scaling SaaS company, reaching thousands of users and notable ARR growth. In this episode, he shares how data, psy...

Chuck Stormon is a serial entrepreneur, AI pioneer, and managing partner at StartFast Ventures. With a career that includes founding multiple startups, commercializing early AI accelerators, and building foundational internet infrastructure, he offers deep insights into AI, entrepreneurship, and the future of intelligence. In this episode, Chuck shares his journey from developing neural chips for...

Ravi de Silva is the founder of DeRisk Partners and a seasoned compliance expert with a global track record, having led financial crimes compliance at Citi and held senior roles at JPMorgan and American Express. With deep experience navigating regulatory environments across the U.S., Europe, and Asia, he now helps banks, credit unions, and fintechs build scalable, strategic compliance infrastructu...