Venture with Grace

Victor Yip is a global technology and interactive entertainment executive with over 20 years of business development and general management experience with Activision Blizzard, Disney, NBA, and 20th Century Fox in gaming, streaming video, and sports. Victor has been at the forefront of leveraging technology to enable new ways to consume entertainment and games, and has led large, global teams across diverse business models including free-to-play (F2P), licensing/co-development, ad-supported, and subscriptions. Victor is passionate about scaling interactive entertainment businesses, and is an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Mucker Capital's tech accelerator and a mentor at Techstars. For his contributions to the tech and entertainment industries, Victor was awarded The Wharton School's inaugural 40 Under 40 distinction. Topics: - Evolution of Interactive Entertainment - Scaling Interactive Entertainment Businesses - Investment Trends in Entertainment Tech #VCpodcast #InteractiveEntertainment #GamingIndustry #StreamingVideo #EntertainmentTech

Jesse's venture career has been marked by a series of notable successes, a number of misses, and a deep commitment to supporting early-stage companies. After his tenure as a founding team member at WeWork, where he played a crucial role in the company's expansion, Jesse made a transition to venture capital. As a General Partner at Flybridge, a seed-stage venture capital firm for ambitious founders leveraging the power of community, he has become a trusted investor and board member to numerous startups around the world. With a keen eye for innovative ideas and promising startups, Jesse has backed over fifty pre-seed and seed stage companies during his time as an angel investor and his tenure at Flybridge. His investment focus centers on the future of work, emphasizing areas such as creativity, culture, collaboration, and communication. By strategically investing in and supporting companies that align with these themes, Jesse aims to contribute to the evolution of how we work and interact over the next decade and beyond. Furthermore, Jesse's commitment to the startup ecosystem extends beyond his role at Flybridge. Jesse built and supported a community of thousands of founders in WeWork Labs across NYC, SF, LA, and beyond. During his time as an angel investor, he served as an advisor to several early-stage technology startups, providing them with valuable guidance and support. Notable ventures in which he played an advisory role include fitmob (acquired by ClassPass), inDinero, Jackpocket, Squire, and YourTrove (acquired by LiveNation). Topics: - Investing in AI-Native Startups - The Community Fund - Challenges and Opportunities in AI Investment #VentureCapital #FutureOfWork #CommunityBuilding #AIStartups #SeedStageInvesting

Travis Chen is a Gen Z change-maker dedicated to making an impact on this world. He was the co-founder of Sound Mind. SoundMind is a venture-backed music therapy platform designed for students and gen-z to support their mental health and well-being. Right now, there’s a lack of understanding of youth emotions in current products. SoundMind is here to change that. They recognize the unique challenges students face in today's school environment, and believe that music therapy can be a powerful tool for addressing those challenges and improving student retention. With over 100,000 users in 50+ schools/orgs, their comprehensive wellness program helps administrators keep a constant pulse on students' mental health, so that no one slips through the cracks of the system and every student feels supported. SoundMind assists students in developing the skills they need to manage their emotions and build resilience, two fundamental pieces when it comes to positive mental health outcomes. Born in Taipei, Taiwan, and raised in Arcadia, California, Travis is recognized across the world as a tech enthusiast and champion for mental health, and has been named to the LinkedIn Top Voice program and Forbes “30 Under 30” list. Topics: - Technology and Mental Health - Gen Z Entrepreneurship Trends - Social Impact Ventures #GenZEntrepreneurship #MentalHealthInnovation #MusicTherapy #StartupLife #TechForGood

Lior is an investor, entrepreneur, and the Founder and Managing Partner of Eclipse Ventures. He is passionate about building groundbreaking technology companies. He’s an unlikely venture capitalist. Lior grew up on a kibbutz (ask him about banana farming) and spent many years in the Special Forces of the Israeli military. After he’d completed his military service, he did what he so often does – set out to solve a big problem. In 2008, Lior joined his brother to help build Intucell, a pioneer in the software-defined networking space for global telecommunications networks. After four years, Cisco acquired the company. Following the acquisition, Lior joined Flex, a multinational manufacturing leader, where he led the hardware investment platform, Lab IX. During his time at Flex, Lior was immersed in many “old-line,” physical industries. He witnessed firsthand the headwinds these sectors were facing, in addition to inefficiencies and eroding of competitive advantage these negative forces were causing. Lior became convinced that digital transformation would strengthen physical industries and support both economic and national security. As a result, in late 2014, Lior began to build Eclipse – a venture capital firm dedicated to partnering with entrepreneurs rearchitecting the industries that are critical to people’s lives and national economies. He firmly believes that the distinction between technology and non-technology companies is over and seeks to partner with ambitious founders who are dedicated to vastly improving critical infrastructure in all forms. And – perhaps as a nod to his roots in the kibbutz – in addition to his desire to drive exemplary returns to Eclipse’s Limited Partners, Lior seeks to invest in solutions that deliver greater opportunities for people and far better prospects for our planet. Lior currently works with Bright Machines, Augury, Owlet, Forge, and other companies pursuing big ideas. As a board member, he has helped companies move from zero to one, and from pitch deck to public offering. A relentless optimist with a passion for company building, Lior believes that the world needs a new economy – and wants to help the best entrepreneurs build it. Topics: - Digital Transformation in Manufacturing - Entrepreneurship and Venture Capital in Emerging Technologies - Challenges and Opportunities in Hardware Investments #VentureCapital #DigitalTransformation #TechInnovation #StartupInvesting #Entrepreneurship

Longtime investor and entrepreneur Ronald Diamond is the Founder and Chairman of Diamond Wealth. He invests alongside 100 Family Offices ranging in size from $250 million to $30 billion. Diamond Wealth invests in private markets (private equity, venture capital, real estate). In addition, Diamond Wealth has divisions that focus on philanthropy, wealth transfer, investment banking, social impact, and governance. Ronald serves on the Advisory Board of 10 privately held companies and acts as Chairman for 4 of them. Ronald is also the Chair of two TIGER 21 chapters in Chicago and Chairs a newly created Family Office Group for TIGER 21. He is the past Chairman of the Advisory Board for the Disruptive Technology and Digital City’s Program at Stanford University, taught classes in the Entrepreneur Program at Stanford, and helped to create the Stanford Family Office Initiative. ​A frequent speaker at Family Office and Alternative Investment Conferences, Diamond has spoken at over 100 conferences around the globe. Mr. Diamond is also the Founder, Host, and CEO of Family Office World Media — (www.familyofficeworldpodcast.com) which curates a podcast and newsletter to educate the market about Family Offices. Earlier in his career, Mr. Diamond founded Pinnacle Capital — a $250 million hedge fund that outperformed the S & P index 10 out of 10 years — before ultimately selling his company to an international investment firm. Previously, Diamond served as a Senior Managing Director at Bear Stearns. He began his career as an analyst at Drexel Burnham Lambert. Deeply committed to giving back, Diamond is an active philanthropist and civic leader. He serves on the Leadership Circle of the Aspen Institute, a global nonprofit organization committed to realizing a free, just, and equitable society. He also sits on the Board of several other charities and nonprofit organizations in his community. Diamond studied at Northwestern University, graduating Magna Cum Laude and earning his degree in Economics. Topics: 1. Evolution of Family Offices 2. Philanthropy and Social Impact 3. Global Investment Outlook 4. Advice for Emerging Managers #FamilyOffice #PrivateEquity #VentureCapital #Philanthropy #SocialImpact

Collin Wallace has over 20 years of experience as an engineer, inventor, operator, and investor. Before joining Lobby Capital, he was the Managing Director for Techstars Silicon Valley, where he launched the first two Techstars accelerator programs in the Bay Area in partnership with JP Morgan and eBay. He started his career as the founder and CEO of FanGo Software Systems (TS S10), a leading company in restaurant mobile ordering. In 2011, FanGo was acquired by GrubHub, and Collin became the Head of Innovation, responsible for OrderHub, new technologies, and a significant portion of Grubhub’s pre-IPO patent portfolio. In 2019, he co-founded ZeroStorefront (YC W19), a data analytics platform for restaurants, which Thanx acquired in 2022. He is an alumnus of both Techstars and YCombinator, an advisor for the Roelof Botha and Huifen Chan Innovation Program, and a faculty member at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, where he co-teaches the Startup Garage class. Collin has run two YCombinator Demo Day Funds, investing primarily in marketplaces, developer tools, productivity, the future of work, sustainability and artificial intelligence. In total, he has invested in over 80 early-stage companies, including Payjoy, Landed, Mosaic Voice, Postscript, and Vellum. Topics: * Strategies for a Successful Exit * Lessons for Entrepreneurs Turned Investors * Expertise on Investing in Key Sectors (Future of Work, Sustainability, Productivity, Verticalized SaaS, and DevOps Tools) #VentureCapital #StartupJourney #TechInnovation #FutureOfWork #Sustainability

Jason Fiedler is a Managing Partner at Left Lane Capital, a Venture Capital and Growth Equity firm focused on investing high-growth, digital-first consumer and internet technology businesses that are fundamental to the human condition and spirit. Prior to Left Lane, Jason was a principal at Red Sea Ventures, an early stage venture firm based in New York City. In two years at the firm, he’s worked on fundraising and hiring for its second fund as well as with companies including Allbirds, Outdoor Voices and Universal Standard. Jason sourced FIGS, The Farmer’s Dog, Imperfect Produce and Candid. The former Insight Venture Partners analyst and early Uber employee also cofounded VC TableTalk, a monthly dinner series. Jason was on the Forbes 30 under 30 VC category in 2018. - Views on Consumer vs. B2B - Sourcing and Deal Evaluation - Building a Brand and Network #VentureCapital #ConsumerTech #StartupInvesting #VCInsights #TechInvestments

Karthik Krishnan is the Founder/CEO of Concentric AI. He is a veteran of the security industry, having held leadership position for over 20 years at diverse cybersecurity companies such as Symantec, Juniper Networks, HPE, and PGP Corporation. He holds a Bachelors in engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, India and an MBA with distinction from the Kellogg School of Management, where he was an F.C. Austin Scholar. He has been featured in articles from leading publications such as eWeek, Dark Reading, Security Today, is a featured speaker at industry leading conferences such as RSAC, and is a member of the Forbes Tech Council. - Challenges in Cybersecurity - AI and Machine Learning in Security - Global Data Security Trends #VentureCapital #Cybersecurity #DataSecurity #AI #DeepLearning

Jeetu Patel is Cisco’s Executive Vice President and General Manager of Security and Collaboration. He leverages a diverse set of capabilities to lead the strategy and development for these businesses and also owns P&L responsibility for this multibillion-dollar portfolio. Jeetu combines a bold vision, steeped in product design and development expertise, operational rigor and innate market understanding to create high growth Software as a Service (SaaS) businesses. A member of the Executive Leadership Team, Jeetu is helping to redefine Cisco's SaaS business and strategy to further accelerate the company's transformation and growth. His mission is to build world class, subscription-based products that solve Cisco customers’ biggest problems. His team is creating and designing meaningfully differentiated products that diverge in the way they’re conceived, built, priced, packaged and sold. Prior to joining Cisco, Jeetu was the Chief Product Officer (CPO) and Chief Strategy Officer (CSO) at Box, a role he pioneered. He led the company’s product and platform strategy, setting the company’s long-term vision and roadmap for cloud content management in the enterprise. He transformed Box from a single product application to a multi-product platform used by 100K customers representing 69% of the Fortune 500. The discipline, quality standards, performance metrics, and stability Jeetu instilled fueled the platform’s growth – nearly quadrupling revenues to $700M+. Box’s growth scaled to reach over 60M users with over 50% of customers using multiple products. He also created the Box Platform business unit where he led product strategy, marketing and developer relations – driving products from incubation stage to mature offerings. Topics: - Building World-Class Products - Leadership and Vision - Impact of AI #Security #Cisco #VCpodcast #SaaS #TechLeadership

Kevin Novak is the founder of Rackhouse VC. Before that, he served as Uber’s first Head of Data Science, its first Head of Data Science Platform, and was one of the early members of a Uber Freight (Uber’s innovative freight marketplace). Kevin was the inventor of Uber’s dynamic pricing product, and holds several patents around GPS points processing, marketplace optimization products, and using data science to improve the mobile experience. He has also served as Chief Data Officer for Tala Financial, an alternative underwriting lender, helping the world recognize the creditworthiness of those without traditional financial identities. Kevin has invested in firms like Standard Cognition, Volley Automation, and several dozen others. He was one of the founders of the Greylock Data Science Community and regularly advises universities around the US on data science curricula. - Data Science in Venture Capital - Building Data Science Teams - Trends in Data Science and AI #VentureCapital #DataScience #StartupInvesting #DynamicPricing #AI