JUNE 15th, 2022 (Virtual)
Spotlight on Startups
100 Pitches. 300 Founders. 200 VCs. 1000’s of Virtual Meetings.
One of the top networking events of the year for VCs and founders
- 100 seed and Series A founders pitch their company in front of hundreds of investors.
- 2020 largest gathering of VCs online
- 2019 largest gathering of VCs on the east coast
- Seamlessly schedule meetings and 1:1s
- Expert panels to help you scale your company
- Partnered with top accelerators and VCs in the country
Agenda
11am to 4pm ET pitches
4pm to 5:30pm ET expert panels
Networking & investor meetings all day!
3 virtual stages (split up depending on startup stage & industry)
Investors That Attend Our Events
- Oracle
- Foothill Ventures
- RBC Capital
- Venture Out
- Salesforce
- Flow Capital
- Alchemist Accelerator
- BetaWorks
- Bunker Labs
- Azure Capital
- Differential Ventures
- Boot up Ventures
- Starta Ventures
- Serial Marketer
- Halcyon House
- Acceleprise
- Launch Alaska’
- Star Strategy
- Valley Venture Mentors
- GreatTEK Inc.
- Paid Exposure
- SaveAway
- Scratchpad Accelerator
- HyperVentilate
- BootUp Ventures
- Veniam
- Bad Girl Ventures
- Powerling
- 1776
- Queen City Fintech
- Meetout
- TGI Group
- Newark Venture Partners
- FinLocker
- Canopy Accelerator
- SAP
- Early Growth
- Great Jones
- HappyNest
- Sequretek
- Type One Ventures
- Mobile Locker
- Adapt Ventures
- Pandemic Wellness
- 500 Startups
- Air & Earth LLC
- MarketMuse
- TechWaze XR
- Amplify LA Capital
- Xcellent Life
- Wizest
- Boomtown Accelerators
- Ideatravel
- Xleratehealth
- KLI Capital
- Softbank Ventures Asia
- Rockie Venutre
- HWD
- Spark Growth
- Raed Ventures
- Rainbow Secure
- TrustWrx
- Upsolver
- Southfield Capital
- Star Energy
- 4DX Ventures
- Veilour
- Sage
- Cavli Wireless Inc
- AF Ventures
- 3R Behavioral Solutions
- Somatix
- Savi
- Intellihealth Inc
- MicroEra Power
- D3UC LLC
- Opal
- Dyad Medical
- Alconex
- Powerhouse Ventures
- Insight Partners
- Dow Chemical
- Capital Innovators
- Powerhouse Ventures
- Insight Partners
- Capital Factory
- EMERG
- Entre
- Alpha Lab
- RootLo
- PIE
- OC4
- NextGen
- Third Prime
- Clean Energy Ventures
- Salesforce
- Flow Capital
- The Venture Center
- Charmides Capital
- Adapt Ventures
- Dow Chemical
- TGI
- Portland Seed Fund
- Blue Shield
- STEERus
- Lytical Ventures
- iPill Dispenser
- Capital Factory
- StartupBlink
- Conexo Ventures
- Brand Cloud Inc
- Vencapital
- Banyan Tree Capital
- NachoNacho
- Valet Fitness
- Ripple Ventures
- Powerling
- Seek XR
- Impact Ventures
- Grit Capital Partners
- Ground Up Ventures
- OmniRoads
- Talksie
- Start It Up NYC
- HHN Captial
- Veedback
- Cofounders Capital
- Megdap Innovation
- Underscore VC
- Lightgliders
- Venture Out NY
- 9Lenses
- and many more
Past Speakers
General Partner Race Capital
Managing Director OneValley
Partner Mighty Capital
Founder & Managing Partner Cross Culture Ventures
Founder & General Partner The Fund
Managing Partner NGP Capital
Managing Partner Urban Innovation Fund
Managing Partner Good Growth Capital
Co-Founder & Managing Partner Tribeca Venture Partners
Managing Partner Tusk Ventures
Global Head of SIM & Partner Simon Kucher & Partners
Managing Director Techstars
General Partner Canvas Ventures
General Partner White Star Capital
Founding Partner Affiniti Ventures
Partner OpenView Venture Partners
Partner & Head of Talent M13
Principal Scale Venture Partners
Partner Canaan Partners
Principal Newark Venture Partners
Principal NEA
CEO Indiegogo
CEO Crunchbase
CEO Meetup
CMO Optimizely
CMO ClassPass
Managing Director Techstars
Managing Partner SoGal Ventures
Managing Director Insight Venture Partners
Co-Founder & Partner Jane VC
Managing Director Eugene Lang Center for Entrepreneurship at Columbia Business School
Patent Attorney SotoIP
Managing Partner AVRA Talent
Managing Partner SeventySix Capital
Principal, Investment Lead Naspers Ventures
Principal Lerer Hippeau



Edith Yeung
General Partner Race Capital
Edith is General Partner at Race Capital (Solana, FTX, Databricks), a VC firm that invests in early stage enterprise tech companies.
In her previous role as a partner at 500 Startups and now as a general partner at Race Capital, she’s invested in some of the leading data and fintech infrastructure companies, including crypto exchange FTX. She also went in on the Seed Sale for Solana back in April 2018 and can talk to you about why they invested so early.


Juan Scarlett
Managing Director OneValley
Juan Scarlett is a Co-Founder and Managing Director of OneValley Ventures where he leads the investment strategy and execution for the OneValley Fund, a Pre-seed and Seed stage fund focused on supporting dynamic founders solving high value problems with next generation technologies. Juan also leads expansion and growth stage investment opportunities with OneValley’s key partners.
Before joining OneValley, Juan served as Managing Director of Nimble Ventures, where he led investment strategy, execution and portfolio management. Juan has been in the venture capital industry for the past 14+ years and has worked in technology investing and research for the 20+ years. He has served on the boards of half a dozen startups and has been an advisor to many more.
Juan has an MBA from the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley and a B.S. from Florida A&M University.


Renee Neimi
Partner Mighty Capital
Renee Niemi is a Venture Partner at Mighty Capital and the Chief Product Officer at Products That Count. Renee has spent most of her career creating high-impact products and businesses that make a difference in consumers’ lives. She has also held a number of product and executive leadership roles at Logitech, Google, and Plantronics. Renee is the Chairman of the Board for Scientific Adventure for Girls.


Marlon Nichols
Founder & Managing Partner Cross Culture Ventures
Marlon Nichols is a founding managing partner at MaC Venture Capital (formerly Cross Culture Ventures), which find the entrepreneurs who are building the future for the rest of America. He’s a former Kauffman Fellow and Investment Director at Intel Capital and a current adjunct in entrepreneurship and venture capital at the SC Johnson College of Business at Cornell University. Marlon’s unique eye for global trends and shifts in consumer behavior has helped him capture high-potential investments like Gimlet Media, MongoDB, Thrive Market, Fair, LISNR, Mayvenn, Blavity, Wonderschool, and others. He’s been featured on TechCrunch, Fortune, Blavity, and NBC, and was the recipient of SXSW 2018 Innovator of the Year award, Digital Diversity’s Innovation & Inclusion Change Agent award, and was named Pitchbook’s 25 Black Founders and VCs to Watch in 2018 and 2019.


Jenny Fielding
Founder & General Partner The Fund
Jenny Fielding is the Managing Director of Techstars New York where she leads the program. She is also the founder and General Partner at The Fund, a first check fund investing exclusively in New York based companies. Her portfolio includes more than 130+ tech enabled companies. Previously, Jenny headed up Corporate Venture and Digital Innovation at BBC Worldwide where she made strategic investments and led business development deals. She has started several tech companies, most notably Switch-Mobile, a mobile VoIP company that was acquired in 2009. Jenny began her career as a lawyer, spent time at JP Morgan and is a graduate of Columbia University where she is an Adjunct Professor. She is also a Kauffman Fellow.


Paul Asel
Managing Partner NGP Capital
Paul Asel is Managing Partner of NGP Capital and a global technology investor across the U.S., Europe and Asia for over 25 years. Paul has realized 20 successful investments, including 5 IPOs and four $1B+ exits of which UCWeb and Ganji were two of the largest technology acquisitions in China. Other successful exits include KongZhong (KZ: NASDAQ), DQ Entertainment (DQE.BO), Gridsum (GSUM: NASDAQ), Morpho (IPO Japan), Madhouse (Blue Focus), Whistle (Mars), CityMaps (TripAdvisor) and Intermedia. He has been engaged in acquisitions and IPOs valued cumulatively at over $25 billion. He is currently focused on NGP Capital’s investments in the US and Asia in the mobile, IOT, auto sectors. Paul is currently on the Boards of Gigwalk, Workfusion and Zubie. Prior to NGP Capital, Paul was responsible for technology investments in Asia at the International Finance Corporation. Previously, he oversaw M&A and corporate venture activity at Cadence Design Systems and worked at Merrill Lynch in investment banking. He received an MBA from Stanford and a BA from Dartmouth. Paul is co-author of Upward Bound: Lessons of How Nine Leaders Achieved their Summits. He has served as an Advisory Board member at the University of Baltimore and Adjunct Professor of International Entrepreneurship at the George Mason School of Public Policy.


Julie Lein
Managing Partner Urban Innovation Fund
Julie is a co-founder and Managing Partner of the Urban Innovation Fund, a venture capital firm that invests in the future of cities. The fund provides seed capital and regulatory support to entrepreneurs solving our toughest urban challenges – helping them grow into tomorrow’s most valued companies. Previously, she co-founded Tumml, a startup hub for urban tech. The organization has provided 38 startups with seed funding and mentorship, and hosts thought leadership events around urban innovation. In 2016, Living Cities named her as one of its “25 Disruptive Leaders.” Julie’s work energizing urban-focused entrepreneurship has been featured in numerous press outlets, including CNN and The San Francisco Chronicle, among others. She serves on the nonprofit Boards of Tumml and Empower Work. Julie earned her MBA from MIT Sloan and BA from Stanford.


Maureen Stanick Boyce
Managing Partner Good Growth Capital
Maureen Stancik Boyce, PhD. is a MANAGING PARTNER at Good Growth Capital, a VC firm focused on early stage tech and science-based startups. Maureen has 23+ years strategy and operations experience with tech startups and worldwide tech strategy practices. She was the co-founder & COO of Ignition Ventures, which co-founded and invested in multiple tech startups. She started her career in strategy consulting at Bain & Company and then became an Associate Partner at IBM Strategy. She has 7+ years international work experience in Asia. She taught numerous classes at MIT in Engineering and Management. She’s been a Mentor for MIT’s Sandbox Innovation Fund since its inception three years ago, and was a Consultant to the Sandbox Fund to help with its own growth strategy. Maureen holds a PhD & MS in Engineering from MIT as well as an MBA from MIT Sloan School; she earned her BS magna cum laude Civil Engineering from Carnegie Mellon.


Chip Meakem
Co-Founder & Managing Partner Tribeca Venture Partners
Chip is a co-founder and Managing Partner of Tribeca Venture Partners. Chip has been operating and investing in NYC companies since 1996 and has been a founder, operating executive or lead investor of several leading NYC companies including 24/7 Media, N2K, Massive Inc. and AppNexus. Prior to co-founding Tribeca Venture Partners, Chip was an active NYC VC at both Kodiak Venture Partners and DFJ Gotham. Chip serves on several Boards of Directors and manages investments including AppNexus, Backtrace, BetterCloud, Hive, Journaya, Loftsmart, Pebblepost, Spiffy and Tentrr. Chip’s previous investments include Ingenio (acquired by AT&T); Massive Inc. (acquired by Microsoft); Pantero (acquired by Progress Software) Q-Link Technologies (acquired by Adobe Systems); TRA Global (acquired by Tivo) and Where Inc. (acquired by eBay). Chip was also a seed investor in FreeMarkets Inc., which made its IPO in December 1999 and peaked at $12B market cap. Before moving to the venture side, Chip was a founding employee at Interactive Imaginations where he started the Commonwealth Network (launched in Q1, 1996), one of the Internet’s first advertising networks, building it from a concept to top 10 media property. Interactive Imaginations eventually became 24/7 Media and went public in 1998. Chip also worked at N2k and was responsible for strategic distribution partnerships for the leading music e-tailer. Chip holds a B.A. from Cornell University, where he was a member of the varsity basketball team, and an M.B.A. from Columbia Business School. This year he is guest lecturing at Columbia Business School and Cornell Tech (Cornell Tech is not announced as yet).


Jordan Nof
Managing Partner Tusk Ventures
Jordan Nof is a Managing Partner and the Head of Investments at Tusk Ventures, where he oversees all aspects of the firm’s venture capital investment practice, and is a member of the Investment Committee. Jordan manages Tusk Venture Partners LP, and has led many of the Fund’s capital investments including Lemonade, Bird, Coinbase and Care/of. Before joining Tusk Ventures, Jordan spent six years as a Director at Blackstone, one of the world’s leading investment firms, where he focused on the development of the firm’s corporate venture capital portfolio. During that time, Jordan focused on investing in early stage technology companies that could accelerate operations across Blackstone and the firm’s underlying portfolio companies. He led Blackstone’s first real estate technology investment, and worked within the Innovations team to execute investments in financial technology and cyber-security startups. Prior to Blackstone, Jordan spent four years in the institutional investment management division at AllianceBernstein. During that time, he worked with many of the firm’s largest global institutional sub-advisory relationships. Jordan actively serves as an advisor to MetaProp NYC, the first dedicated real estate technology accelerator. Jordan received an M.B.A. from Rollins Graduate School of Business and is a graduate of Florida State University, where he received a B.S. in Finance.


Joshua Bloom
Global Head of SIM & Partner Simon Kucher & Partners
Joshua Bloom is the Global Head of Simon-Kucher’s Software, Internet, and Media Practice. He specializes in helping technology companies of all sizes achieve Top Line growth through pricing, marketing, and sales improvements. He has spent 15 years at Simon-Kucher and has worked with over 100 companies to create >$1bn in enterprise value.


Barry Givens
Managing Director Techstars
Barry Givens is Managing Director for the Cox Social Impact Accelerator powered by Techstars in Atlanta where he focuses on companies making a positive impact on people, communities, and the environment. He is also Managing Partner of Collab Capital where he supports and funds promising startups with Black founders and any initiatives helping to add color to the tech industry.


Paul Hsiao
General Partner Canvas Ventures
Paul invests in marketplaces, vertical network companies, as well as those who build products and businesses enabled by machine learning, genome, and microbiome. Portfolio companies include Zola, KidBox, Roofstock, Thrive Global, Everwise, and Transfix. In the past 10 years, he had the privilege to work with 8 startups that became publicly listed on NYSE/NASDAQ and 17 investments that had a successful M&A exit. He’s passionate about venture and looking for different industries and markets to share his learnings with. Paul is a graduate of MIT and Harvard Business School, and he also did years of medical research at Harvard Medical School and was a Kauffman Fellow.


Lylan Masterman
General Partner White Star Capital
Lylan is a General Partner at White Star Capital, leading the US office. An experienced former Software Engineer and Product Manager, Lylan leverages his experience in leading technology teams as a General Partner at White Star Capital. In 2004 he joined the Atlas division of aQuantive to help lead the company’s rich media advertising platform, targeting product, user experience and internationalization; three years later the company was acquired by Microsoft for $6.2bn. Lylan has also led product organizations for four early-stage companies, worked as an engineer on WebTV at Microsoft and a technology evangelist at Microsoft Research, and was a member of the product team for the first version of VisualStudio .NET. Lylan has appeared on live TV on Cheddar and TDAmeritrade Network, his writing has been featured in Business Insider, VentureBeat and Entrepreneur, and he has been interviewed in the podcasts Something Ventured, Venture Studio and The Successful Pitch. Lylan is a Kauffman Fellow (class 19) and holds a degree in Computer Science from the University of Waterloo and an MBA from Kellogg School of Management. He has lived in Canada, both east and west coasts of the US, and has called New York his home since 2011.


Chinedu Enekwe
Founding Partner Affiniti Ventures
Chinedu Enekwe is the founding partner of AffinitiVC a venture capital platform investing in
a future of shared prosperity. He’s a Moonshot Fellow of the Kravis Lab for Social Impact
and a founding member of the Forbes Impact Community. He manages AffinitiVC fund of
funds investing in emerging and diverse venture capital fund managers, with a target size of
$100M and has currently partnered with 2 venture funds. This compliments the firm’s
corporate venture advisory practice that manages $25M in strategic funds for a healthcare
technology company. Before launching AffinitiVC, Chinedu co-founded tiphub and managed its pre-accelerator
program, Diaspora Demo, which supported over 35 early stage technology and social
enterprises raise over $7 Million in after program funding and achieve 3 exits since 2014.
Chinedu also led emerging market investment manager, Xcellon Capital, serving as
investment director, raising and managing $25 Million of assets from institutional and high
net worth investors, after holding positions in infrastructure advisory at the World Bank and
OPIC, investment banking at Merrill Lynch and fund formation and corporate securities law
at Weil Gotshal and Manges.


Elizabeth Cain
Partner OpenView Venture Partners
Liz Cain is a Partner at OpenView where she sits on the Investment Committee and leads the firm’s Expansion Platform. The Expansion Platform is designed to help portfolio companies acquire, retain and grow the right customers and talent. Prior to joining OpenView, Liz was the AVP of Worldwide Business Development at NetSuite, the leading provider of cloud-based financials / ERP. Liz’s experience spans technical support, sales operations, account management and marketing. Most recently she launched NetSuite’s Business Development Representative (BDR) and Solution Consulting Associate (SCA) teams, which she successfully scaled to a 170-person global organization. Liz was responsible for inbound lead qualification, outbound prospecting, the development and administration of product, sales, business and industry training, and campaign execution across these teams.


Peter Boyce



Matt Hoffman
Partner & Head of Talent M13
Matt is currently a Partner and Head of Talent at venture firm M13. In this role Matt leads all Talent engagement across M13’s portfolio, and sits on the board of several HRTech companies including Northstar and Interviewing.io. Matt was previously the Head of People at cloud infrastructure startup DigitalOcean, where he was responsible for leadership in the practice areas of people operations, talent acquisition, talent development, and employee experience. In 4 years Matt helped scale the company from under 100 employees to over 500. DigitalOcean has received a number of external recognitions for its innovative People practices, was recently profiled in Harvard Business Review for its agile approach to performance development, and during Matt’s tenure was named as one of the Best Places to Work in NYC by USA Today, and the #1 Best Mid-sized Company to Work for in New York by BuiltinNYC . Matt has held a number of HR and people leadership roles at Fortune 500 companies including JPMorgan Chase and Avon, serves on the advisory board of several early stage startups, and is a founding member and the NY lead of PeopleTech Partners. He received his undergraduate degree from Cornell University and his graduate degree in Organizational Psychology from NYU.


Susan Liu
Principal Scale Venture Partners
Susan focuses on investments across ScaleVP’s technology portfolio with a primary focus on business software. She is a board observer at WalkMe and ScoutRFP and her efforts have led to ScaleVP investments in WalkMe, Wrike, Unbabel, Lever, Namely, Textio and TalkIQ. Her work in the industry earned her a spot in the Forbes 30 Under 30 Venture Capital (2018) and Business Insider Rising Stars in Silicon Valley (2018) lists. Susan most recently worked in investment banking at Deutsche Bank, where she advised technology companies on capital raises and M&A strategy. Susan is also involved with All Raise, a nonprofit dedicated to diversity in funders & founders. Susan holds a B.A. in Economics from University of California, Berkeley.


Laura Chau
Partner Canaan Partners
Laura Chau joined Canaan in 2014 and is a Principal leading consumer technology investments. She is inspired by ambitious founders who are transforming what it means to work, live, and thrive in today’s age. She sits on the board of Coterie and is a board observer and advisor for numerous startups, including Cuyana and Kustomer. Before becoming a VC, Laura was a management consultant in Deloitte’s strategy and operations practice, where she advised tech, healthcare, financial services and energy clients on growth strategy and post-merger integrations. Laura was one of the first employees at Kabam, one of Canaan’s portfolio companies that was acquired by Netmarble in 2017 for $800M. She has also worked at Branch Metrics and Greenhouse in sales and marketing functions, in addition to working closely with Marie Kondo, the author of The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up, to help launch her venture-backed business. Laura holds a B.S. in Management Science and Engineering from Stanford University, an MBA from Stanford Graduate School of Business, and is a Forbes 30 under 30 alum.


Joanne Lin
Principal Newark Venture Partners
Joanne joins NVP with a unique blend of experience including investment banking, private equity/venture capital and entrepreneurship. In her most recent role as an education investor with University Ventures, Joanne sourced, vetted and supported seed and growth stage investments in companies transforming the higher education space. She is also co-founder of a Newark-based social enterprise, called Locus Labs, aimed at expanding community access to digital manufacturing technology. Joanne was previously an investment banking Associate at JPMorgan, and a TeachForAmerica corps member in NYC. Joanne has a M. Ed from Hunter College and a BA in Economics from Barnard.


Crystal Huang
Principal NEA
NEA, Crystal started her venture capital career at GGV Capital, where she focused on US and China-based investments in enterprise software and consumer internet. She was closely involved with the firm’s investments in Aptible, BigCommerce, Bitsight, BrightWheel, HashiCorp, Headspin, NS1, OpenDoor, Slack, Tile, Unravel Data, and Wish among others. Previously, Crystal was a member of the technology M&A team at Blackstone in Silicon Valley as well as a sales & trading intern at Goldman Sachs. Crystal has developed a unique global perspective and an interest in companies with the potential to scale internationally given her geographically diverse background, which includes having lived across the U.S. in Silicon Valley, New York, Washington DC, and Boston, and internationally in China, Canada, Hong Kong, and Singapore. In addition, she speaks Mandarin and studied French for many years. Crystal earned an A.B. in Government from Harvard University.


Andy Yang
CEO Indiegogo
Andy is the CEO of Indiegogo, a platform for empowering people to unite around the
innovative ideas that inspire them, and together make those ideas come to life. His
career has spanned two decades in a variety of roles in tech – operator, investor
(angel and VC), banker, consultant, and advisor. Prior to Indiegogo, Andy headed core product at Reddit where he stewarded
Community Experiences. Before that, Andy was CEO of 500px, where he
successfully led a turnaround of the startup until it was successfully acquired. Andy
has also spent time at leading companies such as Netflix, Chegg, Goldman Sachs,
and Accenture. Andy holds an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and a
BSc from the University of California at Berkeley. He is a native Californian and is
happily living the dream with his wife and two daughters.


Jager McConnell
CEO Crunchbase
Jager McConnell is the CEO of Crunchbase, the leading platform used by millions of entrepreneurs and investors looking to discover innovative companies and the people behind them. Jager joined Crunchbase as it became a venture-backed startup in enterprise data. Prior to joining Crunchbase, Jager spent 11 years at Salesforce in various roles across sales, marketing, and product development. In his last role at Salesforce, Jager was a VP of Product in the Sales Cloud where he oversaw the core sales force automation product line.


David Siegel
CEO Meetup
David Siegel is the CEO of Meetup, the platform for finding and building local communities, owned by the We Company. He has over 20 years of experience as a technology and digital media executive leading organizations through innovative product development, rapid revenue growth and traffic acceleration. Prior to joining Meetup, David was CEO of Investopedia, the largest finance and investing education site and before that President of Seeking Alpha, a crowdsourced investment research business. David holds a BA in Philosophy, Politics & Economics from the University of Pennsylvania and an MBA from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He is also an Adjunct Professor at Columbia University and Pace University where he teaches courses in Strategic Planning & Entrepreneurship.


Carl Tsukahara
CMO Optimizely
Carl Tsukahara is Chief Marketing Officer at Optimizely and is responsible for all global marketing strategy and execution. A 25+ year veteran of Silicon Valley, Carl Tsukahara was most recently Chief Marketing Officer for Birst, a category leader in delivering enterprise business analytics to major global corporations. Prior to Birst, Carl was Executive Vice President of Marketing and Products for Evolv (NASDAQ:CSOD), a provider of predictive analytics/machine learning solutions, where he managed marketing, engineering and product management. At Evolv, Carl drove explosive market awareness and product innovation, leading to an acquisition of Evolv by Cornerstone On Demand. Previously, Carl was Global CMO for Monitise PLC (MONI:LSE), a leader in mobile payments and mobile banking, headquartered in London. He also has held executive management roles at other high growth entities as head of marketing for Oracle’s database products and VP of marketing and products for Vitria Technology, which eventually led to a multi-billion dollar initial public offering. As a strategy and marketing consultant, Carl also worked with companies and product groups such as Workday, Microsoft, Riverbed Technology, Taleo, D&B, Hyperion, Symantec and VMware, working directly with the executive management of those organizations.


Joanna Lord
CMO ClassPass
14+ years of technology startups and marketing leadership where I have focused on revenue growth, marketing strategy and managed high performing teams. Tech mentor (Techstars, NEXT, UpGlobal, Startup Weekend) and educator (UW professor, Advanced Digital Marketing). Board advisor at Attendly & SparkTrend. Blogger at Entrepreneur.com, MarketingLand.com and JoannaLord.com. Winner of Seattle’s 40 Under 40. Digital evangelist and keynote. I’ve spoken around the globe at shows like: Web Summit Dublin, Traction Conference, SMX Advanced/East, Growth Marketing Conference East, SXSW 13/14/15, Naspers Growth Summit, Reforge Growth Forums, Rainmaker Conference, C3, The Conference Sweden, CTA Conference, SIC, SearchExchange, EdSocialMedia, Sydney eRetailer, Dreamforce, MozCon, DomainFest, PubCon Vegas/South, SEMpdx 11/12/13/14, Affiliate Summit, and many more. Dedicated to building brilliant brands that leave an impact, connect us in beautiful ways, and do great things.


Sunil Sharma
Managing Director Techstars
Sunil Sharma is Managing Director for Techstars Toronto. Techstars Toronto is a city program and Techstars first accelerator in Canada. Techstars Toronto is a joint venture between Techstars and Real Ventures (Canada’s most active venture capital fund). Prior to Techstars Sunil was a Managing Partner with Extreme Venture Partners (EVP) and co-founder and Managing Director of Extreme Startups. While at Extreme, Sunil sourced and lead more than 40 investments across two funds and two accelerator programs.
Sunil is the Chair of the Board of Canada’s Accelerator and Business Incubator Association (CABI) which has had responsibility for administering the Startup Visa immigration program to fast-track the immigration of founders to Canada. Sunil spends a lot of time in Waterloo where he has served as Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Communitech, one of Canada’s largest technology hubs. Sunil is passionate about helping entrepreneurs become great. He spends some of his free time running the Founder Institute pre-accelerator program in Toronto and Waterloo. Through Founder Institute Sunil has helped first-time founders create more than 100 brand new startups with the support of more than 80 mentors. Sunil has been very active in the startup community from his time co-launching Startup Weekend Toronto (now part of Techstars) as well as organizing many of Canada’s leading innovation and technology conferences and events. Prior to his career helping startups Sunil was a career diplomat in the Canadian Foreign Service. Sunil served as the Head of the Canadian Consulate in San Diego, California where he launched one of Canada’s newest diplomatic missions. Sunil has also worked at the Canadian Space Agency and represented Canada at the United Nations in Geneva. Sunil has an undergraduate degree from the University of Victoria and a graduate degree from the University of Toronto.


Elizabeth Galbut
Managing Partner SoGal Ventures
Elizabeth Galbut is a venture capitalist, designer, professor, and global speaker. She is Managing Partner of SoGal Ventures which invests in diverse founding teams in the US and Asia. With over 50 investments to date, she is actively seeking to back exceptional startups revolutionizing how the next generation lives, works, and stays healthy. She recently was honored as Forbes 30 Under 30 in Venture Capital, NYC’s 33 Under 33 top innovators, and TechWeek100 Innovative Investor. Elizabeth’s favorite investment area is the intersection of smart design and machine learning/AI fueling major health tech innovation. Her portfolio of digital health startups include lab platform Everlywell, sexual wellness brand Unbound, digital pathology analytics pioneer Proscia, medication adherence tech eMocha, smart water bottle Hidrate, AI-powered drug discovery Insilico Medicine, smart socks Siren Care, data-driven skincare technology HelloAva, asthma management tool Tueo Health, and physician authorization system Glidian.


Hilary Gosher
Managing Director Insight Venture Partners
Hilary Gosher is a Managing Director at Insight Venture Partners where she leads Insight Onsite, the firm’s team of growth experts who help scale Insight’s portfolio companies. Hilary founded this team and has worked with more than 100 software, Internet and mobile companies. The Onsite team has expertise across the talent, product and go-to-market functional areas of software businesses. Hilary currently serves on the Board of Directors, or is a Board Advisor to Datasift, Drillinginfo and Turnitin. Prior investments include Argus Software (acquired by Altus Group), Medidata Solutions (IPO), OverDrive (acquired by Rakuten), Planview (acquired by Thoma Bravo), Primavera (acquired by Oracle), Scriptlogic (acquired by Quest Software), Shunra (acquired by HP) and Vertafore (acquired by Hellman & Friedman). Hilary is an Adjunct Associate Professor at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA) where she teaches tech entrepreneurship. From 2001 – 2015 she served as Adjunct Professor of Entrepreneurship at NYU’s Stern School of Business. She is a co-founder and Board member of Parity Partners, an organization focused on driving gender diversity and inclusion in leadership and decision-making in the alternative asset industry.


Jennifer Keiser Neundorfer
Co-Founder & Partner Jane VC
Jennifer Neundorfer is an operator turned investor who has backed over 50 early stage startups. She is currently a Founding Managing Partner of Jane VC, where she invests in visionary female founders building the next great tech companies. Previously, as a Partner and Cofounder of Flashstarts, an early stage venture fund in the Midwest, she discovered her passion for investing in exceptional women at the earliest stage of their entrepreneurial journeys. As an operator, she launched and scaled media and advertising businesses at 21st Century Fox and YouTube. When she’s not searching for the best entrepreneurs, she’s juggling the demands of an engaged community member, wife, & mother to two young children. She earned an MBA from Stanford and a BA from Harvard. Visit www.janevc.com or follow @jkk on Twitter.


Jeremy Kagan
Managing Director Eugene Lang Center for Entrepreneurship at Columbia Business School
Jeremy is the Managing Director of the Eugene Lang Center for Entrepreneurship at Columbia Business School, where he oversees the entrepreneurial curriculum, student programs, the Lang venture capital fund, and the Columbia Startup Lab. He is also a Professor and Faculty Director of the Digital Marketing Strategy executive education program, and teaches graduate and executive education classes. His book “Digital Marketing: Strategy and Tactics”, the first textbook for digital marketing, was published in 2018 by the Wessex Press. Jeremy previously was the founder and CEO of Pricing Engine, a digital marketing platform that enabled small businesses to benchmark, optimize and expand their search and social advertising campaigns.
Jeremy has been a speaker and corporate trainer in the digital media industry. His clients include companies in content, services, and e-commerce, as well as traditional advertising agencies needing digital media expertise. Jeremy previously worked at Sony Music Entertainment in the Global Digital Business, where he was the Vice President of Global Account Management, working with large partners such as Nokia and Sony Ericsson. Before this, he was Vice President/Director of Strategy and Customer Insight for Publicis Modem, a leading digital advertising agency, where Jeremy headed research and innovation out of the New York office.


John L. Sotomayor
Patent Attorney SotoIP
SotoIP is a strategic intellectual property advisory and patent prosecution firm based in Research Triangle Park (RTP), NC, specializing in serving startup and emerging growth companies through developing their IP strategy, patent prosecution, and patent portfolio growth and management. In addition, we partner with VCs and M&A firms in support of their portfolio companies to provide valuable competitive IP portfolio analysis as a component of the pre-investment or merger due diligence process. Managing IP Attorney, John Sotomayor was formerly in-house patent counsel for high-tech startups in RTP, is a former Patent Examiner with the USPTO, and spent the first half of his career as an electrical engineer in the energy, telecommunications, software, and intelligence sectors.


Maren Kate
Managing Partner AVRA Talent
Maren Kate is an entrepreneur, writer, and pigeon fancier. She scaled her first venture-backed startup to over 400 people by leveraging a distributed workforce and cultivating a strong culture. Maren is now managing partner of AVRA Talent, a firm dedicated to connecting great companies and great people through meaningful work.


Wayne Kimmel
Managing Partner SeventySix Capital
Wayne Kimmel is a sports tech venture capitalist, entrepreneur, philanthropist, tireless networker, keynote speaker and the author of Six Degrees of Wayne Kimmel. Wayne has been named a Top Innovator by Philadelphia Magazine and is on the Philadelphia Business Journal’s Power 100 list. He is the Managing Partner of SeventySix Capital, the venture capital company he founded in 1999, and invests in startup consumer facing tech companies in the sports, health and retail industries. SeventySix Capital was nominated as an Outstanding Investor by SportTechie. Wayne has invested in over 50 startup technology and healthcare companies, including SeamlessWeb (now public as GrubHub), Take Care Health Systems and Nutrisystem. Among the Fortune 500 companies that have acquired his portfolio companies are Aramark, Intel, IBM, Walgreens and Yahoo! His partners at SeventySix Capital are Jon Powell, CEO of Kravco Company LLC, a leading real estate company that developed the King of Prussia Mall, and Ryan Howard, Major League Baseball National League MVP and 2008 World Series Champion with the Philadelphia Phillies. With a rise in global entrepreneurship and the inclusion of technology in sports, Wayne focuses part of his investment strategy on sports, sports betting and esports. At SeventySix Capital, Wayne was an early investor in Whistle Sports, a global sports media company, Philadelphia-based N3rd Street Gamers, a community of competitive and recreational video gamers that produces a series of esports tournaments, leagues, and casual gaming events, and Vegas Stats & Information Network (VSiN), the first media network dedicated to delivering the news, data and expert analysis of the rapidly growing sports betting industry, co-founded by acclaimed sportscaster Brent Musburger. Wayne, Jon and Ryan are also a partners in Rubicon Talent, a sports marketing and talent agency with clients including NFL stars Emmanuel Sanders, Greg Olsen, and Mark Ingram, Olympians Kerri Walsh Jennings and Lolo Jones, NFL All Pro DeMarco Murray and MLB legend Cal Ripken, Jr. He is on the Board of Einstein Healthcare Network and was on the Board of Jewish Federations of North America, Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia, and the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts.
Wayne is a graduate of the University of Maryland at College Park and the Delaware Law School. He is passionate about Philly’s pro sports teams and about working to make the world a better place. Website: waynekimmel.com
Twitter: @waynekimmel
Instagram: @waynekimmel
LinkedIn: /in/waynekimmel
Facebook: /waynekimmel
Amazon: Six Degrees of Wayne Kimmel
Audible: Six Degrees of Wayne Kimmel


Banafsheh Fathieh
Principal, Investment Lead Naspers Ventures
Banafsheh “B” Fathieh is a Principal at Naspers Ventures focused on early stage consumer technology investments. Prior to Naspers, B was part of the founding team and a Vice President of OCV Partners, a Los Angeles-based venture growth fund. Prior to joining OCV, B served as head of Business Development and Finance at OTOY Inc., a cloud graphics technology startup backed by Yuri Milner’s DST Global and Autodesk, where she was responsible for strategy, financings and corporate development. B has served in various operating, investment management, investment banking and advisory roles in her career and brings a decade of experience around startups and venture capital. She graduated from Georgetown’s School of Foreign Service with a degree in International Economics.


Caitlin Strandberg
Principal Lerer Hippeau
Caitlin Strandberg is a Principal on Lerer Hippeau’s investment team. She joined from FirstMark, an early-stage venture firm based in New York, where she was a Vice President. She previously worked on the investment team at Flybridge Capital Partners and at two startups, LearnVest (acquired by Northwestern Mutual) and Behance (acquired by Adobe). Caitlin is a graduate of Cornell University, where she majored in History. She holds an MBA from Harvard Business School.