Venture with Grace

Kirby Winfield is the founding GP of Ascend, a pre-seed VC fund focused on enterprise AI. The fund's flagship investment is Overland AI, which powers autonomous ground navigation for the US Defense ecosystem. Prior to Ascend, Kirby's career as a tech founder included two IPOs and two venture backed exits. Topics: Enterprise AI Investment Thesis: Defense Tech Innovation Building Defensible...

Arvind Ayyala is a Partner at Geodesic Capital, focused on investments across enterprise software, fintech, healthcare and sustainable technologies. He was previously co-leading North American growth investments in similar segments, for Singapore-based EDBI. Prior to EDBI, Arvind was with Singapore Economic Development Board (EDB), planning and executing the country’s economic development. He work...

Andrea Lo is the Managing Partner at Main Character Capital. She is a silicon Valley native investor with 15+ years experience as a founder, investor, and startup operator in the alternative investments space. Led $100mm+ of global VC investments from pre-seed to pre-IPO, helped launch & turnaround venture style funds, and created / innovated on new financial products later adopted by financia...

Emily Yu is a Deep Tech Investor at Boost VC. Boost VC invest in Pre-seed companies in the intersection of hardware + software, across robotics, aerospace, defense, climate, BCI/HCI, bio, physical infrastructure, etc. Topics: Deep tech investment thesis Emerging trends in deep tech AI robotics integration #DeepTechVC #HardwareSoftwareAI #AIAccelerators #EdgeComputing

Derek Xiao is an investor at Menlo Ventures. Derek concentrates on identifying investment opportunities across the firm’s thesis areas, covering AI, cloud infrastructure, digital health, and enterprise SaaS. Derek is especially focused on investing in soon-to-be breakout companies at the inflection stage. Derek joined Menlo from Bain & Company where he worked with leading San Francisco-based t...

Jordan Viniar is a Partner at Prudence. Prudence is an early-stage venture firm investing in technology companies leading the global transformation of the built world. The firm invests across multiple verticals, including real estate, construction, infrastructure and energy/climate adaptation. Prudence is headquartered in New York City. Topics: The evolution of built world technology Climate adapt...

Eylul Kayin is a Partner at Gradient. Prior to Gradient, Eylul was an investor with NEA and Softbank, where she backed a number of category-defining companies including Brex, Cato, Chime, Claroty, Digits, Eargo (NASDAQ: EAR), Ethos, Flexport, Material Bank, Neotract (acquired by Teleflex) and Revelle Aesthetics (incubation). Eylul started her career at Morgan Stanley and has a bachelor’s degree in...

Elizabeth Weil is the Founder & Managing Partner at Scribble Ventures. She believes that passion and pushing boundaries drive success, whether it is investing in founders building with world-changing ideas, transforming a startup into a Fortune 500 company, or running ultramarathons. She is a super-connector, and with her infectious enthusiasm she leaves everyone more energetic than she found...

Simon Tiu joined Vertex Ventures US in 2024, focusing on AI-native enterprise software and cybersecurity investments. Prior to joining Vertex Ventures, Simon worked at Qatalyst Partners, where he was a core member of the Enterprise Software team. During his tenure, he provided strategic and financial advice to senior management and boards of leading technology companies across ~$100B of announced...

Yash Patel joined Titanium Ventures in 2014 and leads TV’s consumer (esports/gaming, fintech, ecommerce) and vertical SaaS tech investing effort. Yash has sourced and led TV’s investments in BigCommerce (Nasdaq: BIGC), Snapchat (NYSE: SNAP), OpenGov (acquired by Cox Enterprises), Skillz (NYSE: SKLZ), Super.com, Swish Analytics, Document Crunch, Mobile Premier League, Omaze, Sleeper, Team SoloMid (...

Rob co-founded a new company in 2024 called Eternos.life, which launched the world's first AI legacy service enabling people to create a lifelike AI of themselves to pass their knowledge down to future generations. Previously, Rob was the Founder of LivePerson, Inc. (LPSN: NASDAQ ), and was its Chief Executive Officer from 1995 to 2023. He was the guiding force behind the company’s vision of c...

Miles Deamer is a VP at Crossover VC, where he allocates capital to both early-stage emerging managers as well as select direct investment opportunities. Miles has spent more than a decade in Silicon Valley designing and implementing business strategies in the fintech and proptech verticals. Prior to joining Crossover, Miles spent seven years as an early employee of multiple venture-backed startup...

Feyza Haskaraman is a principal at Menlo Ventures, Feyza focuses on soon-to-breakout consumer, fintech, and enterprise SaaS companies. Prior to Menlo, Feyza worked as an engineer at various companies in different growth stages, including Nucleus Scientific (now Indigotech), Fitbit, and Analog Devices. Her exposure to a wide range of tasks and opportunities led Feyza to grow curious about the way c...

Tatyana Mamut is the Founder and CEO of Wayfound.ai. Wayfound helps business coordinate, supervise, align, and improve their GenAI Agents in one place. Prior to that, she was the SVP of New Products at Pendo leading the creation of the Adopt family of products. Before that she she was CPO at Nextdoor, creating a product-led growth strategy which drove a 60% increase in engagement while driving dow...

Sabrina Farmer is the Chief Technology Officer at GitLab, where she leads software engineering, operations, and customer support teams to execute the company's technical vision and strategy and oversee the development and delivery of GitLab's products and services. Prior to GitLab, Sabrina spent nearly two decades at Google, where she most recently served as vice president of engineering,...

Andrew Blum is the Co-Founder and COO at HumanX, the preeminent event dedicated to accelerating enterprise AI adoption - backed by Primary, Foundation Capital, and FPV. Previously, he served as Researcher-in-Residence at Primary Venture Partners, where he built out the incubation program and helped launch venture-scale businesses. Topics: Community building as a catalyst for AI innovation Insights...

Casber Wang is a Partner at Sapphire Ventures where he is focused on security, enterprise infrastructure, and data and analytics. Born in China to parents who were both small-business entrepreneurs, Casber is familiar with and excited by the founder’s journey. Casber is on the boards of Cyera, Huntress, JumpCloud, Rewst, StarTree, and Zesty. Prior to Okta’s acquisition, he was also a board observe...

Joseph Floyd is a General Partner at Emergence and a Kauffman Fellow. Joe’s expertise in building cloud startups has evolved from over fifteen years of advising and investing in rocketship startups like SalesLoft, project44, Mya, Total Expert, LogDNA and more. Before joining Emergence, Joe was a Senior Associate in American Capital’s technology group where he focused on investing in fast-growing i...

Brian Peterson is the Chief Technology Officer and co-founder of Dialpad, a leader in AI-powered communication and collaboration. With a background as a Senior Software Engineer at Google, where he contributed to the development of Google Voice, Peterson has been instrumental in driving technological innovation at Dialpad. His leadership continues to shape the company's growth and product deve...

Iliana Oris Valiente is the Managing Director (Partner) of NA Innovation Hubs Lead at Accenture. She leads all NA innovation hubs at Accenture, working with senior exec clients and boards to support their transformation journeys. This includes a focus on our AI, metaverse/web3, and cross industry plays. In this role, she oversees teams that bring together specialists in design, data science, the v...

Anna Barber is a partner at M13, Anna was the managing director of Techstars LA and also a partner in The Fund LA. A certified executive coach, Anna has worked as a corporate lawyer, McKinsey consultant, product exec, and entrepreneur. She serves on the Advisory Board of PledgeLA and is a member of AllRaise. Topics: The rise of solopreneurship and its impact on the business landscape How AI is tra...

Stefan Weitz is the co founder and CEO of HumanX. He is a veteran of Microsoft with 18 years of experience, has led billion-user technologies, including Bing.com, while also pioneering strategic initiatives in online platforms and cybersecurity, showcasing a profound understanding of technology trends and a talent for transforming concepts into thriving ventures. Topics: The role of conferences in...

Yousuf Khan is a Partner at Ridge Ventures. Having held many operational roles in his previous positions, he’s uniquely qualified to not only grow Ridge’s portfolio, but more importantly to support founders through the vantage point of deep start-up experience. He currently serves as board director for Ridge-backed Archera, Cerby, Chisel Labs, Lightyear, Rafay, and Rewind. Prior to joining Ridge,...

Andrew Brown, founder and CEO of Check, has built a career transforming industries through technology. After co-founding Oyster, the "Netflix for books" acquired by Google, Andrew turned his focus to solving payroll complexities for businesses. With Check, he created a payroll-as-a-service API that enables software platforms to integrate payroll seamlessly. Backed by investors like Strip...

Jae Lee is the Co-Founder and CEO of Twelve Labs, a leading AI research and product company headquartered in the San Francisco Bay Area with a significant presence in APAC, based in Seoul, South Korea. Under Jae’s leadership, Twelve Labs has pioneered groundbreaking advancements in multimodal neural network architecture, establishing itself as the world’s leader in video understanding AI. The comp...