Venture with Grace

Ganesh Bell joined Insight Partners as a Managing Director to invest in and help entrepreneurs build great software & data companies that will define modern enterprise and digital business. He is a profound student of the enterprise software market and industries reimagined by data. Ganesh has over 25+ years of rare experience as a builder and operating executive across startups, high-growth scaleups, global conglomerates, unicorns, successful exits, IPO, and M&A.Before joining Insight Partners, he ran Uptake, an AI/ML platform & applications company, was Corporate Officer at General Electric, and CEO of its largest IoT & Analytics software business. Previously he held senior leadership roles at market-defining enterprise software companies including SAP, PeopleSoft, and J.D.Edwards. He started as a developer and has led corporate strategy, engineering, product management, marketing, and sales teams over his career. He has keynoted large conferences, been featured in business books, leading media, and recognized for his work, including being named #11 in Fast Company’s list of 100 Most Creative People in Business World. Ganesh Bell holds a B.S in Mathematics from the University of Madras, India, and an M.S in Computer Science from North Dakota State University. Topics: Leveraging AI and data to transform traditional industriesIdentifying durable software and data companiesScaling enterprise software from startup to IPO

Sri Batchu, most recently Chief Marketing Officer at The RealReal, the leading luxury luxury resale platform in the U.S, is a seasoned leader in growth and operations, with a proven track record of scaling hyper-growth tech companies through pivotal roles at Ramp, Instacart, and Opendoor. In addition to his growth and marketing expertise, Sri is an active investor and advisor to over 50 startups. A graduate of Dartmouth College and Harvard Business School, Sri is known for leveraging data-driven marketing strategies and operational excellence to drive transformative growth in fast-paced industries.Topics:Scaling operations from $50M to $5B+ revenue Building cross-functional growth teams across marketing, product, and operationsInsights for founders on fundraising and overcoming early-stage growth challenges

Caroline Duffy is a Partner at Cowboy Ventures. She thrives partnering with ambitious builders reimagining existing categories or creating entirely new ones. She focuses on B2B software and AI, with a particular passion for teams modernizing overlooked, unglamorous industries burdened by outdated tech stacks. It’s never too early to reach out - she’s excited to collaborate with founders from idea inception onwards. Before Cowboy, Caroline was at Construct Capital, where she led investments in a range of technologies transforming real-world industries including supply chain and logistics, manufacturing, and critical infrastructure. Prior, she was building and investing in AI companies with AI pioneer Andrew Ng. Before becoming an investor, Caroline was a management consultant and started her career as an AI researcher at Harvard. Caroline holds an MBA from Stanford and a BA from Dartmouth. She works closely with organizations advancing education opportunities for women and girls in AI and serves on the Board of Access Institute, which increases access to mental health services for under-resourced communities in SF. Topics: Why target the most 'boring' companies everyone else ignoresMost common mistakes B2B AI startups making when targeting legacy industriesFintech, healthcare, logistics: Why these 3 verticals are ripe for AI disruption

Akankshu Dhawan, SVP of Product Management at Xero, shares his expertise in leveraging AI for small business transformation. He discusses his journey from software engineer to product leader, and the groundbreaking projects he spearheaded at Uber. Akankshu highlights the vital role of AI in modernizing accounting and finance, and he explains the creation of JAX, Xero's innovative financial agent. He also dives into team empowerment, the importance of user empathy, and the strategic decision-making behind building versus buying core features.

Alex Mashrabov is the Founder and CEO of Higgsfield AI, a leading generative video company whose personalized storytelling app quickly reached #1 in graphics on the App Store and debuted a state-of-the-art video world model in 2025. Previously, he served as Director of Generative AI at Snap Inc., leading MyAI chatbot development and GenAI AR effects for hundreds of millions of users, after Snap acquired his startup AI Factory for $166M. Alex holds master’s degrees from MIPT and Innopolis, is a Forbes 30 Under 30 honoree, and angel investor in AI startups like Scale AI, Anthropic, and Brex, with a reputation for building world-class teams and innovative consumer products at scale.Topics: Scaling generative video AI startups: challenges and strategiesAI-powered content creation for media and marketingLeadership lessons from building breakthrough AI products at Snap and beyond

Kate Berardo is the Vice President of Executive Development at Meta, where she leads the company’s most strategic coaching, team, and leadership initiatives. Trusted by senior leaders to navigate their most pressing challenges, she has designed and delivered some of Meta’s most impactful leadership programs and learning products. With a proven track record of building and scaling teams, practice areas, and centers of excellence, Kate is recognized for driving transformative leadership development that enables executives and organizations to perform at their highest level.Topics: Managing executive teams through major strategic shifts The biggest leadership gaps in fast-growing startupsHow to identify and develop high-potential leaders before they're ready#VCPodcast #LeadershipDevelopment #MetaLeadership #ExecutiveCoaching

Andrew Chau is the co-founder and CEO of Boba Guys Inc., the revolutionary bubble tea company that has fundamentally changed how people view boba and tea culture in America. Starting from a shared passion for quality milk tea and a mission to elevate the boba experience with fresh, premium ingredients, Andrew and co-founder Bin Chen launched Boba Guys in 2011. What began as a single San Francisco location has grown to 24+ locations, making Boba Guys one of the most recognizable premium bubble tea brands in the United States.Topics: How to build a premium brand in a commoditized marketMaintaining brand authenticity while scalingTechnology integration in traditional retail#AndrewChau #BobaGuys #ConsumerBrands #FoodTech

James Flynn, a Partner at Sequoia Capital, shares insights from his extensive experience in growth investing. He discusses how Sequoia identifies 'outliers' by spotting key signals that indicate a company's potential for legendary status. Flynn explains the evolving needs of founders from Series A to IPO and highlights the impact of AI on investment strategies across various sectors. He emphasizes the importance of founder resilience, market traction, and future revenue potential, showcasing how thorough support can drive long-term success.

Vikram Chatterji is the co-founder and CEO of Galileo. Galileo is the leading platform for enterprise GenAI evaluation and observability. Our comprehensive suite of products support builders across the new AI development workflow—from fine-tuning LLMs to developing, testing, monitoring, and securing their AI applications. Each product is powered by our research-backed evaluation metrics. Today, Galileo is used by 100s of AI teams from startups to Fortune 50 enterprises, including Twilio, Comcast, and HP. Topics: Making generative AI reliable for enterprise adoption and trustDiagnosing and reducing hallucination in large language modelsMeasuring and improving generative model performance at scale#AI #GenerativeAI #MachineLearning #EnterpriseAI #AIEthics

Shaun VanWeelden is the Managing Director at Mercor, where he leads efforts to reshape how talent connects with work, using AI-led approaches to deeply assess candidate expertise. Prior to Mercor, Shaun held a key role at OpenAI leading their human data operations team within research, supporting critical initiatives around human feedback for AI training. Before OpenAI, he spent time at Scale AI, where he served as Director of Computer Vision Engagements and Field Engineering, managing global teams delivering high-quality annotated data for the automotive, robotics, and technology sectors. Shaun is passionate about bridging the gap between technical and interpersonal skills and has a track record of building strong teams.Topics: The Future of AI-Powered RecruitingManaging Global Remote TeamsEnterprise AI Implementation Challenges#AIRecruiting #TalentTech #HumanData #AITraining #ComputerVision