Venture with Grace

Jett Fein is a General Partner at Headline, where he invests in technology businesses globally. Jett joined Headline in 2014 and has led or co-led the firm’s early investments in Gopuff, Fancy (acquired by Gopuff), Honeycomb.io, gettacar, Playbook, Sprout Therapy, Air, Swell, Avoma, Candid Co., NomNomNow (acquired by Mars), Rocket.Chat, Tonebase, Copa90, and is involved in several other investments in the US and Europe, including Shopmonkey and GRIN. Prior to joining Headline, Jett was at Fung Capital, where he invested in companies that enabled global omni-channel commerce. Before Fung Capital, Jett held various roles at Palantir Technologies and Cambridge Associates. Jett holds a B.A., with distinction, from Stanford University, where he received the J.E. Wallace Sterling Award. He also received a J.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law. Topics: - Trends in SaaS, media, e-commerce sectors - Passion economy, experiences, self-improvement, convenience, combating loneliness - Adapting investment strategies across different geographies #VentureCapital #TechInvesting #Startups #EarlyStageInvestments #GlobalInvesting

Ed Sim is the Founder of boldstart, partnering from Inception with developer first, infrastructure and SaaS founders. He loves working with engineering-driven founders with bold ideas and laser-sharp focus on product well before writing their first lines of code. Ed has been in the trenches with Snyk, Kustomer (sold to Meta), BigID, Blockdaemon, Superhuman, Security Scorecard, Front and so many more from inception. Ed also co-founded MState in 2017, an enterprise blockchain lab in partnership with IBM, where seed investments include Fireblocks and Amberdata. He is a true partner from day one—helping bold founders start, scale, exit and have fun along the way. Ed has been recognized as a top-10 investor on the Forbes Midas Seed List for the last two years, and as the No. 1 seed investor in the Business Insider Seed 100. Prior to boldstart, Ed was a Co-Founder of Dawntreader Ventures, where he inception investments in Greenplum (sold to EMC, Pivotal—IPO), GoToMeeting (sold to Citrix), and LivePerson (IPO). Previous to that, he worked at J.P. Morgan, where he learned how to code and build quantitative trading models. Ed graduated from Harvard College and was a four-year letterman on the men’s lacrosse team. Topics: - Key qualities boldstart looks for in technical founders aiming to reinvent the enterprise - Developer tools, cybersecurity, and infrastructure in modern enterprises - The long-term outlook for AI investments versus short-term market reactions #EnterpriseAI #AIinEnterprise #VCInsights #TechInvesting #AI

Deon Nicholas is the Co-Founder & CEO of Forethought, the first AI platform for customer support automation. Previously, Deon built products and infrastructure at Facebook, Palantir, Dropbox, and Pure Storage. Deon is a sought-after futurist and expert on generative AI, with appearances on CNBC, Bloomberg, and Yahoo Finance. He has authored several machine learning publications and holds numerous infrastructure patents. Deon was a World Finalist at the ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest and was named to Forbes 30 under 30. Topics: - The current state and future potential of AI in customer service - The challenges and opportunities in building an AI-focused startup - Generative AI and its impact across industries #AIInnovation #CustomerSupport #GenerativeAI #TechEntrepreneur #FutureOfWork

Tobi Coker is a Deal Partner on the Investment team at Felicis. He works with the investment team to source and evaluate investments, conduct diligence, and work with existing portfolio companies. Previously, Tobi was an investor at The Production Board (TPB), a Bay Area-based early-stage venture firm, where he helped found and seed six companies in life sciences and human health. Before TPB, Tobi started his career in the Investment Banking and Capital Markets division at Morgan Stanley, providing coverage to healthcare and biotechnology companies. Currently, he is a Kauffman Fellow, class of 28, and an active member of BLCK VC. Tobi received a B.S. degree in Biology, with a minor in Economics from Georgetown University. Topics: 1. Key trends shaping the future of enterprise software investments 2. Role of AI in enhancing developer tools 3. Impact of open source on developer productivity #DeveloperTools #OpenSource #AIPowered #SoftwareDevelopment #TechInnovation

Dr. Charles Roberts is the Chief Investment Strategist of ARK Investment Management LLC (ARK Invest). As Chief Investment Strategist, Charles is responsible for providing inputs into research and strategies on both public and private markets, with a particular focus on AI and multiomics. In addition, Charles plays a key role in the strategy and execution of ARK’s venture capital efforts. Charles joined ARK in 2023. Prior to ARK, Charles's background is as a deep tech entrepreneur and serial founder with a focus on AI for social benefit, primarily in healthcare. He has been a cofounding executive at a number of companies including Freenome, a Bay Area based company of ~500 people working on saving lives through earlier cancer detection. Freenome currently is completing one of the world's largest ever clinical registrational studies in ~42,000 subjects, having raised $1.35B from leading investors including Roche, Novartis, Fidelity, Janus Henderson, and VCs including a16z, GV and DCVC. Charles also cofounded other AI/tech-bio companies including (as Chairperson) Relation Therapeutics Inc., also backed by DCVC, co-led with NVIDIA, plus Deerfield and other leading investors, with whom Relation completed $60M Seed in 2024. He cofounded biotech companies Agalimmune (acquired by a Nasdaq-listed biotech) and Centauri Tx, backed by Novo and Boerhinger Ingelheim, cofounded with the Nobel Laureate inventor of PCR. Charles also cofounded a non-invasive prenatal testing company that brought the first CE-marked NIPT test using next-generation sequencing to market. He has served as advisor to OSE, Oxford University’s ~$1B spin-out fund, and run a venture studio family office. Topics: - Investment in Disruptive Technologies - Future of AI and Multiomics - Role of AI in Investment Decisions #ARKInvest #VentureCapital #DisruptiveInnovation #AI #Biotech

Ryan Floyd is a founding Managing Director of Storm Ventures. He focuses on early stage enterprise SaaS and has primarily invested in applications and cloud/infrastructure related companies. Ryan is active and works with Code2040, a nonprofit organization that creates pathways to educational, professional, and entrepreneurial success in technology for underrepresented minorities. Topics: - Key Metrics for Evaluating SaaS Startups - Cloud Infrastructure and SaaS Investment Trends - The Impact of AI on Application Development #VentureCapital #SaaS #CloudInfrastructure #TechInnovation #AI

Quaid Walker is the Co-Founder and CEO at Bezel, a 100% authenticated, tech-first marketplace for buying and selling luxury watches. Backed by BoxGroup, Courtside Ventures, Shrug Capital, Abstract Ventures, Operator Partners, Kevin Hart, John Legend, J Balvin, Michael Rubin, Kyle Kuzma, Michael Ovitz, Steve Aoki, and execs + investors from Google, Snapchat, Accel, A16Z, Index, Gradient, QED, and more. Previously, he was a design lead at Google and a founding member of the Google TV team. Topics: - The future of luxury e-commerce - Building a powerful investor network - Scaling a successful marketplace #StartupLife #TechInnovation #VentureCapital #Entrepreneurship

Ullas Naik is the Founder and General Partner at Streamlined Ventures. At Streamlined, Ullas has led seed investments in almost 20 companies valued at over $1Bn, including iconic companies such as Doordash (IPO), Applovin (IPO), Rappi, Forge (IPO), EasyPost, OpenGov (acquisition), FLYR Labs, Rescale, Flip, Speechify, Medable, Bolt, and TubiTV (acquisition). Over the last 25 years, Ullas has seed/angel invested in nearly 150 companies. He is also an investor in numerous venture capital funds. Additionally, Ullas helped co-found the full lifecycle investment firm, Cota Capital. Prior to his current role, Ullas was a senior member of the investment team and helped build venture capital firm Globespan Capital Partners. At Globespan, they invested in early stage rounds of numerous iconic companies including Palo Alto Networks (IPO), Roku (IPO), Redfin (IPO), UpWork (IPO), BladeLogic (IPO), Virident (acquisition), Q1 Labs (acquisition), and Virtusa (IPO). Topics: - Evolution of Seed Stage Investing - AI and Data Science Trends - Building a Successful VC Fund #VentureCapital #Investing #StartupFunding #FundManagement #Entrepreneurship

Adam Coccari is the Managing Director of Intuit Ventures, Intuit’s Venture Capital team responsible for overseeing Intuit’s investment in startups around the world. Prior to Intuit, Adam spent 8 years at Microsoft where he was most recently a Partner at M12 – Microsoft’s Venture Fund. Topics: - The future of AI in financial services - Trends in B2B SaaS and SMB-focused technologies - AI-driven innovation strategy #VentureCapital #FinTech #AI #IntuitAssist #StartupInvesting #Innovation #SaaS

Rob Schutz is the co-founder of Ro, the DTC health company that was last valued at $7B, and employee #7 + former VP of Growth at Bark (box), where he helped grow the company from $0 to $100M in run rate. Now he is the founder of Snagged, where he helps entrepreneurs, startups, and established businesses acquire premium domain names. Topics: - Building billion-dollar companies: Insights from Ro and Bark - The role of growth strategies in scaling startups rapidly - The evolution of the domain name market and its impact on startups #StartupSuccess #DomainStrategy #BillionDollarFounder #GrowthHacking #DTCRevolution