TC Early Stage 2021 – Operations & Fundraising
April 1 – 2, 2021
Speakers
Rahul Agarwal
Product Manager Boomi (Dell Technologies)
Baris Aksoy
General Partner AV8 Ventures
Tope Awotona
Founder & CEO Calendly
Ryan Azus
Chief Revenue Officer Zoom Video Communications Inc.
Blake Bartlett
Partner OpenView
Dawn Belt
Partner Fenwick
Melissa Bradley
Co-founder Ureeka
Po Bronson
General Partner, SOSV & Managing Director, IndieBio SF SOSV
Nate Cavanaugh
Co-founder and CEO Brainbase
Lucy Deland
Partner Inspired Capital Partners
Sean Dempsey
Founding Partner Merus Capital
David Easton
Partner Generation Investment Management
Michael Glenn
Partner, Patent Prosecution Perkins Coie
Arvind Gupta
Partner Mayfield Fund
Gabe Greenbaum
General Partner B Capital Group
Wen Hsieh
Partner Kleiner Perkins
Sean Lane
Founder & CEO Olive
Erin Lockhart
Partner, Marketing & IR Merus Capital
Michael Mace
VP Market Strategy UserTesting
Bucky Moore
Partner Kleiner Perkins
Howard Morgan
Chairman and co-Founder B Capital Group
Katie Moussouris
CEO Luta Security
Marlon Nichols
Co-Founder & Managing General Partner MaC Venture Capital
Eghosa Omoigui
Founder & Managing General Partner EchoVC Partners
Matt Oshinsky
Partner Perkins Coie
Karen Page
General Partner B Capital Group
Ursheet Parikh
Partner Mayfield Fund
Neal Sáles-Griffin
Managing Director Techstars
Natalie Sandman
Partner Spark Capital
Sarah Smith
Partner Bain Capital Ventures
Dave Sobota
VP of Corporate Development Instacart
Leah Solivan
Founder and General Partner Precedent.vc
Alexa von Tobel
Founder and Managing Partner Inspired Capital
Job van der Voort
CEO and Co-Founder Remote
Stephanie Zhan
Partner Sequoia Capital
Stephanie Zahn
Partner Sequoia Capital
Rahul is a lead technical product manager at Boomi, a cloud-based data platform company and the latest addition to the Dell Technologies portfolio. At Boomi, Rahul led the launch of a new product line geared at the enterprise global software market. He is now responsible for defining the product vision, delivering the product roadmap, and executing the global go-to-market for one of the product services of the platform. Before Boomi, Rahul worked at Sequoia Capital-backed companies in India and SE Asia, where he worked on building and launching new software and physical products
Rahul's Sessions
Why Founders should adopt OKRs now?
Execution is key to a start-up’s survival and growth especially when it comes to fast-moving software and technology products. Being in the tricky intersection of investors, customers and employees, a founder needs to balance priorities, align teams and create a visionary product that works. Moreover, in this age of hyper feedback loops and changing business models, the founder has to be agile enough to absorb and quickly react to changes in the product roadmap and consumer needs. OKRs – a toolkit used majorly by engineering and product teams is more than relevant now for founders of all kinds to embrace. Join the session to learn the history of OKRs, what they are about, and witness case studies of successful real-life adoption.
Baris is a General Partner at AV8 Ventures. He joined AV8 from Google, where he served as the Head of Global Strategic Business Development in Media & Entertainment industry vertical, covering AI and infrastructure technologies. Prior to Google, Baris was the CFO at Anvato and led the acquisition by Google. Earlier, Baris was an investor at Intel Capital, covering global consumer and enterprise investments. While there, he invested in companies like Yume (IPO), OpenFeint (acq by Gree), Crowdstar (acq by Glu), Sense Networks (acq by YellowPages), and Caring.com (acq by Bankrate), many of which were acquired or went public during his time there. As a product manager and engineer, he held leadership positions at Calix and Alcatel. He received his MBA from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and his B.S. in electrical engineering from Istanbul Technical University.
Baris's Sessions
Creating and Protecting IP Value in Connection with VC Financings
How do venture capital investors value formal Intellectual Property (IP) rights in connection with a decision to fund a technology or life sciences start-up? How do they conduct IP due diligence? How do investors and founders, post-funding, ensure their start-ups are pursuing an IP strategy that optimizes exit valuation for all? Perkins Coie partners Michael Glenn (Patent Prosecution) and Matt Oshinsky (Emerging Companies Venture Capital) will be joined alongside a seasoned venture capitalist to discuss these and other questions regarding safeguarding IP rights and maximizing the value of all technology development activities.
Tope Awotona is the founder and CEO of Calendly, the modern scheduling platform for high-performing teams and individuals accelerating business forward. Tope founded Calendly in 2013 with the vision of simplifying scheduling for everyone without the back-and-forth emails. With Tope’s strategic direction, the platform has grown and evolved to over 10 million monthly users. Prior to Calendly, Tope spent the majority of his career in enterprise software sales, working for companies such as IBM, Perceptive Software, and Dell Technologies, in addition to launching a series of startups. He grew up in Lagos, Nigeria and came to the United States in 1996. Tope is on the Board of Directors at SalesLoft. He holds a degree in Management Information Systems from the University of Georgia. He is the recipient of the 2021 Atlanta Business Chronicle Most Admired CEO Award and 2019 Comparably Best CEOs award.
Tope's Sessions
Bootstrapping and the Power of Product-Led Growth
Building a bootstrapped company forces you to be creative. For Calendly, it pointed the company toward a product-led growth model built on virality. Hear from Calendly’s Tope Awotona, and OpenView’s Blake Bartlett, as they cover pro tips on bootstrapping, PLG, and when a profitable company should consider raising capital.
Ryan Azus is 45, he's been the Chief Revenue Officer of Zoom Video Communications Inc since 2019.
Ryan's Sessions
Building and Leading a Sales Team
Contrary to popular opinion, even the very best products don’t sell themselves. Salespeople do. Hear from Zoom’s Chief Revenue Officer, at the helm of the company’s sales team during the biggest period of growth of any software company ever, lay out how to build a stellar sales team.
Blake Bartlett joined OpenView in 2013 and has led investments in companies including Highspot, Calendly, Expensify, Postscript and Cypress.io. In 2016, Blake personally coined the term “product led growth.” You can follow him on LinkedIn to watch his daily PLG news show called the #PLG123. He is also a primary host of OpenView’s podcast “BUILD”. Prior to OpenView, Blake was an investor at Battery Ventures, where he helped lead investments in companies like Glassdoor (acq. by Recruit Holdings), Wayfair (NYSE:W), and Q2 Holdings (NYSE:QTWO). Blake is originally from San Diego, and enjoys spending time in sunny Southern California whenever he can.
Blake's Sessions
Bootstrapping and the Power of Product-Led Growth
Building a bootstrapped company forces you to be creative. For Calendly, it pointed the company toward a product-led growth model built on virality. Hear from Calendly’s Tope Awotona, and OpenView’s Blake Bartlett, as they cover pro tips on bootstrapping, PLG, and when a profitable company should consider raising capital.
Recognized among the top women leaders in technology law, Dawn shepherds emerging and high-growth companies through key moments in their lifecycle. She assists clients with startup formation, venture financings and evaluating exit opportunities and provides guidance on mergers and acquisitions, public offerings, SEC compliance and corporate governance. Dawn advises company executives and boards of directors on financial reporting and disclosure issues, securities offerings and corporate governance matters. She co-chairs Fenwick’s hiring committee and is co-author of the firm’s Gender Diversity Survey, a benchmark report on women’s participation at the most senior levels of public technology and life sciences companies in the Silicon Valley 150 Index and the Standard & Poor’s 100 Index.
Dawn's Sessions
Fundraising Terms that Affect Your Business
With each funding round, there is an exciting opportunity for growth, but it’s important to fully understand the implications of those terms. Fenwick partner, Dawn Belt, will discuss the key legal terms to focus on in your Seed and Series A rounds and how they affect the control and operational freedom of your company.
Melissa L. Bradley is a co-founder of venture backed Ureeka, a community where small businesses gain unprecedented access to the expertise needed to grow their business. The Ureeka mission is to democratize economic opportunity by enabling community and by reducing the cost and risk associated with growing a small to medium business (SMB). She is also founder and Managing Partner of 1863 Ventures, a business development program that accelerates New Majority entrepreneurs from high potential to high growth. In this role she created a community of over 10,000 New Majority entrepreneurs in three years. Melissa also serves as advisor to the New Voices Foundation and New Voices Fund, as well as the Halcyon Fund. Melissa is the former Co-Chair, National Advisory Council for Innovation and Entrepreneurship and was recently named one of The Most Entrepreneurial Women Investors in 2018. Melissa is a professor at the McDonough School of Business at Georgetown University where she teaches impact investing, social entrepreneurship, P2P economies and innovation.
Melissa's Sessions
How to Nail Your Virtual Pitch Meeting
The rules of the pitch meeting have changed. Instead of traveling across the country, wasting time in planes, trains and automobiles, founders can take upwards of 30 meetings in a day from the comfort of their home. Entrepreneur and VC Melissa Bradley will outline how to make the most of that half hour on Zoom and lock in the next one.
Since 2018, Po has been Managing Director of IndieBio. He is passionate about reconceptualizing complex challenges into more elegant forms in order to broaden understanding and highlight priorities. Po is a longtime science journalist honored with nine national awards, and author of seven bestselling books that are available in 28 languages worldwide. His work has been cited in 185 academic journals and 503 books. His background is in Economics. He learned finance at Credit Suisse and consulting at a division of Arthur Andersen. Prior to IndieBio he spent four years as a Futurist with Attention Span Media, consulting corporate innovation efforts for globally recognized brands. Most recently, Po is the author of Decoding the World: A Roadmap for the Questioner, published by Twelve Books, a division of the Hachette Publishing Group.
Po's Sessions
Scientist Entrepreneurs – Scaling Breakout Engineering Biology Companies
Biology as technology will re-invent trillion dollar industries and enhance human and planetary evolution. In this session, two early-stage investors and company builders, Arvind Gupta and Ursheet Parikh, will be in conversation with a leading author and seed investor Po Bronson, Managing Director of IndieBio. They will share their playbook on scaling start-ups touching upon three seminal areas which influence trajectory – fundraising, hiring, and product design. Their insights will draw on their experience with companies including ingredients-as-service leader Geltor which raised a $91 million Series B in 2020, CRISPR platform Mammoth Biosciences whose dream team includes co-founder Nobel Laureate Jennifer Doudna, and Endpoint Health, started by the founding team of GeneWEAVE (acquired by Roche) and former YC Bio Partner Diego Rey, which is designing a new class of therapeutic products that focus on hospital conditions that kill as many people as cancer.
Nate Cavanaugh is the CEO of Brainbase, a platform that helps brands like BBC Studios, BuzzFeed and Sanrio protect and monetize their intellectual property. Brainbase has raised $15M from top VC funds including Bessemer Venture Partners. Nate was also recently named to the 2021 Forbes 30 Under 30 for Enterprise Technology.
Nate's Sessions
Naming & Protecting Your Company’s Intellectual Property with Brainbase
You have an idea for a game-changing product or service – what do you call it? Once you’ve picked a name, how do you make sure nobody else is using it? Is the domain and Twitter handle available? Brainbase makes it easy for anyone to file a trademark without a lawyer, and instantly own your brand across all channels. In this session, Brainbase co-founder and CEO Nate Cavanaugh will explain the importance of owning your company’s trademark, both for brand protection and for fundraising due diligence.
Lucy Deland is a Partner at Inspired Capital Partners.
Lucy's Sessions
TC Early Stage Pitch-Off – Session 2
Sean is the co-founder and managing director of Merus Capital, a Palo-Alto based venture capital firm focused on early-stage investments. Before co-founding Merus, he was a principal of corporate development at Google. Before Google, Sean spent more than six years at Microsoft.
Sean's Sessions
An M&A Playbook for Startup Founders: Lessons from Google and Microsoft
One of the most important decisions a founding team can make is when to consider selling the company to a strategic buyer. In this session, learn the tactics for approaching acquirors, avoiding common pitfalls and maximizing the likelihood of achieving an eye-popping valuation. Hear from Sean Dempsey, founding partner of Merus Capital who spent 10 years leading acquisitions for Google and Microsoft, and Dave Sobota, VP of Corporate Development at Instacart and former M&A leader at Google.
Dave is a Partner at Generation Investment Management, the sustainability focused investment firm where he invests out of their $1b, Sustainable Solutions Fund. The Sustainable Solutions Fund focuses on $40-100m growth stages investments in leading tech and tech-enabled businesses addressing real problems impacting Planetary Health, People Health and Financial Inclusion – the team’s investments have included Docusign, Asana, Toast, Convoy, Gusto and Nest. Prior to Generation, Dave spent a decade investing in mission-driven, for-profit businesses globally at Bridges Ventures and CDC Group where he was on the board of Jumia Group and Narayana Health until their respective IPOs.
David's Sessions
Leadership Culture and Good Governance
David Easton is a growth-stage partner at Generation Investment Management with portfolio companies that include Asana, Andela, Gusto, and Docusign, among others. Easton will talk through how to choose your board and foster a leadership culture that keeps sustainable, good governance top of mind.
Michael Glenn is a partner with the firm’s Intellectual Property practice with a focus on patent prosecution. He represents clients in all aspects of intellectual property law and at all phases of patent prosecution, including handling IP audits and strategy, opinions of counsel, pre-litigation patent defense and assertion, appeals, reissues and reexaminations. Michael has experience with the following representative technologies: telecommunications, information technology, business methods, medical devices and mechanical inventions. Called a “standout performer for prosecution in the high-tech space” and “highly experienced,” Michael Glenn is ranked in the IAM Patent 1000. Crediting his ability to develop “robust but elegantly structured portfolios,” the 2020 guide recognizes Michael for providing “solid, no-nonsense advice.”
Michael's Sessions
Creating and Protecting IP Value in Connection with VC Financings
How do venture capital investors value formal Intellectual Property (IP) rights in connection with a decision to fund a technology or life sciences start-up? How do they conduct IP due diligence? How do investors and founders, post-funding, ensure their start-ups are pursuing an IP strategy that optimizes exit valuation for all? Perkins Coie partners Michael Glenn (Patent Prosecution) and Matt Oshinsky (Emerging Companies Venture Capital) will be joined alongside a seasoned venture capitalist to discuss these and other questions regarding safeguarding IP rights and maximizing the value of all technology development activities.
Arvind Gupta co-leads Mayfield’s engineering biology practice and is founder and venture adviser at IndieBio. He is the co-author of “Decoding the World,” published by Hachette.
Arvind's Sessions
Scientist Entrepreneurs – Scaling Breakout Engineering Biology Companies
Biology as technology will re-invent trillion dollar industries and enhance human and planetary evolution. In this session, two early-stage investors and company builders, Arvind Gupta and Ursheet Parikh, will be in conversation with a leading author and seed investor Po Bronson, Managing Director of IndieBio. They will share their playbook on scaling start-ups touching upon three seminal areas which influence trajectory – fundraising, hiring, and product design. Their insights will draw on their experience with companies including ingredients-as-service leader Geltor which raised a $91 million Series B in 2020, CRISPR platform Mammoth Biosciences whose dream team includes co-founder Nobel Laureate Jennifer Doudna, and Endpoint Health, started by the founding team of GeneWEAVE (acquired by Roche) and former YC Bio Partner Diego Rey, which is designing a new class of therapeutic products that focus on hospital conditions that kill as many people as cancer.
Gabe focuses on B2B software and brings over a decade of investment experience across enterprise and other software technologies. He was previously a Partner with Pritzker Group Venture Capital, where he ran the west coast office for the firm and led a number of the firm’s investments across enterprise software, marketplaces, proptech, logistics/supply chain, machine learning and other emerging technologies. He previously led investments in companies such as: Openpath, Cue Health, Scopely, Augury, Pype (Acq: Autodesk), Project 44, Catalytic, Specright, HQO, Livly, VTS, and Catalytic, and sat on many of the company boards.
Gabe's Sessions
Nailing the little things: How startups can achieve operational excellence from "Day one"
The early days of launching a company can be a whirlwind for founding teams as unexpected challenges and opportunities require flexibility, agility and speed. But implementing a few key operating best practices and processes early can be a crucial part of a startup’s success or failure when it prepares for rapid growth. Join partners from B Capital Group, a multi-stage global investor, to learn about the most important things you can do to set your startup up for success early in your journey, and what will be most important to investors as you raise your Seed, A and B funding rounds. Speakers include Howard Morgan, Chairman of B Capital Group and co-founder of First Round Capital, and Partners Karen Page (formerly of Box) and Gabe Greenbaum (formerly of Pritzker Group).
Wen Hsieh is a general partner at venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers where he focuses on hardware-related investments in both North America and Greater China.
Wen's Sessions
TC Early Stage Pitch-Off – Final Round
Sean is a lifelong technologist who grew up in Ohio and started his career in the U.S. intelligence community, holding leadership positions in the Department of Defense and the National Security Agency. Sean served five combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, and was awarded the Defense Meritorious Service Medal and Bronze Star Medal for his service. After government service, Sean started his life as an entrepreneur, and has founded several technology companies dealing with big data, advanced analytics, entity resolution, and most recently, artificial intelligence. Sean has raised $448M in venture capital, and is now a leading expert in applying Al to healthcare. Sean holds a bachelor’s degree from Miami University, an honorary doctorate of Public Service from the University of Rio Grande, and has received the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award.
Sean's Sessions
Finding Your Product Market Fit
Olive founder and CEO Sean Lane is no stranger to the pivot. Hear how he practiced patience in the search for product market fit, how he knew it when he finally found it, and tactics he used to build on it.
Prior to joining Merus, Erin led public relations for Cisco’s Web team, where she was responsible for strategic partnerships with companies like Facebook and Google. She was responsible for the public launch of Cisco + Google Station, a global partnership to connect the next billion internet users. For the past 15 years, Erin has worked with high-growth startups, including Merus portfolio company NextRoll, on marketing and PR strategy. She was also a member of the Corporate team at Ketchum, where she was a communications advisor to clients like JPMorgan.
Erin's Sessions
An M&A Playbook for Startup Founders: Lessons from Google and Microsoft
One of the most important decisions a founding team can make is when to consider selling the company to a strategic buyer. In this session, learn the tactics for approaching acquirors, avoiding common pitfalls and maximizing the likelihood of achieving an eye-popping valuation. Hear from Sean Dempsey, founding partner of Merus Capital who spent 10 years leading acquisitions for Google and Microsoft, and Dave Sobota, VP of Corporate Development at Instacart and former M&A leader at Google.
Mike is a longtime veteran of the tech industry. He has founded two software startups, spent a decade at Apple in a variety of product and research roles, worked heavily with mobile app developers at Palm, and consulted for many large and small tech companies.
Michael's Sessions
Using Fast Feedback to Make Higher-Confidence Decisions and Accelerate the Dev Process
We’ll discuss how to use fast feedback methodologies to make high-confidence product decisions based on objective customer data in real time, without slowing the dev process. Quickly diagnose problems, settle disputes, reduce the risk of rework, and iterate faster. This session will include real-world case studies.
Bucky Moore is a partner at Kleiner Perkins focusing on developer facing software and infrastructure investments. As an early investor, Bucky serves on the boards of some of the most innovative software companies including Netlify, Materialize, CodeSandbox, Opstrace and Stackbit.
Prior to joining Kleiner Perkins, he was an investor at Costanoa Ventures, and prior to that an investor at Battery Ventures. He started his career in corporate development at Cisco.
Bucky holds a BS from the University of Southern California.
Bucky's Sessions
4 Things to Think About Before Raising a Series A
Founders looking to raise Series A capital know that it’s an entirely different ball game than seed stage funding. Hear Kleiner Perkins partner Bucky Moore outline the most important ways to mentally prepare for heading into Series A fundraising.
Howard Morgan is a well-respected investor and entrepreneur, having co-founded B Capital Group, First Round Capital, Idealab (with Bill Gross) and Renaissance Technologies (with Jim Simons). Throughout his career, Howard has sought out great people and nurtured them so that they could realize their dreams. His mentees range from PhD students researching a global challenge to founders building companies and taking them from seed stage through initial public offerings.
Howard's Sessions
Nailing the little things: How startups can achieve operational excellence from "Day one"
The early days of launching a company can be a whirlwind for founding teams as unexpected challenges and opportunities require flexibility, agility and speed. But implementing a few key operating best practices and processes early can be a crucial part of a startup’s success or failure when it prepares for rapid growth. Join partners from B Capital Group, a multi-stage global investor, to learn about the most important things you can do to set your startup up for success early in your journey, and what will be most important to investors as you raise your Seed, A and B funding rounds. Speakers include Howard Morgan, Chairman of B Capital Group and co-founder of First Round Capital, and Partners Karen Page (formerly of Box) and Gabe Greenbaum (formerly of Pritzker Group).
Katie Moussouris is the founder and CEO of Luta Security, a company that creates and manages sustainable bug bounty and vulnerability disclosure programs. She advises companies and governments on emerging trends in AI and cybersecurity and how the dynamics are shifting between attack, defense, national security, and human expertise adaptation and co-evolution. Ms. Moussouris is the co-author and co-editor of ISO standards 29147 vulnerability disclosure and ISO 30111 vulnerability handling processes. During her tenure with Microsoft, Ms. Moussouris started Microsoft Vulnerability Research as well as Microsoft’s first bug bounty program. She served as a technical advisor to the US Wassenaar delegation to help renegotiate clarifications to export control of intrusion software and technology. Ms. Moussouris led the launch of the U.S. government’s first bug bounty program, “Hack the Pentagon.” She also served as a member of DHS’s Cyber Safety Review Board and NIST’s Information Security and Privacy Advisory Board. Ms. Moussouris currently serves as a member of the U.S. Commerce Department’s Information Systems Technical Advisory Committee.
Katie's Sessions
What Startups Need to Know About Bug Bounties
Should all startups launch a bug bounty program to improve their security? Learn about the good, the bad, and the ugly that startups will encounter when managing vulnerability disclosures and considering bug bounty programs.
Marlon Nichols is the co-founder and managing general partner of MaC Venture Capital, a leading seed-stage firm renowned for backing visionary founders who redefine industries. Under his leadership, MaC has grown into one of North America’s largest seed-stage venture firms, surpassing $600 million in assets under management (AUM). In October 2024, the firm announced the closing of its third fund ($150 million), further solidifying its influence in the early-stage investment landscape. Marlon’s portfolio includes industry-defining companies such as Airspace, Blavity, FINESSE, Gimlet Media, MongoDB, Pipe, Purestream, Thrive Market, and Shekel Mobility, among others. His keen eye for transformative opportunities has earned him widespread recognition, including consecutive placements on Los Angeles Business Journal’s LA500 (2022–2024) and Business Insider’s Seed 100 (Top Early-Stage Investors) for three years. Additionally, he ranks 25th on the Kauffman Fellows Fund Returners Index and has been featured in PitchBook’s 25 Black Founders and VCs to Watch for six years. His expertise is frequently sought by top media outlets such as Axios, CNBC, Fortune, and more. A passionate advocate for diversity and inclusion, Marlon serves on the board of Kauffman Fellows, working to expand representation for underrepresented minorities in venture capital. With a unique blend of technology acumen and leadership principles shaped by his athletic background, he actively mentors CEOs, fosters strategic partnerships, and helps founders scale their businesses into market leaders.
Marlon's Sessions
How to Get an Investor's Attention
Marlon Nichols is an expert in early-stage investments, having invested in countless successful ventures such as Gimlet Media, MongoDB, Thrive Market, PlayVS, Fair, Wonderschool and Finesse. Right now, there is more seed stage fundraising than ever before, and Marlon will speak on how to get noticed by investors, how to grow your business and how to survive in the crowded, competitive space of tech startups. He will provide insights on how to network, craft a great pitch and target the best investors for your success.
TC Early Stage Pitch-Off – Session 1
Watch 10 global early-stage companies pitch to our panel of top VCs for a chance to get featured on TechCrunch.com, an annual Extra Crunch subscription and admission to TC Disrupt this September.
Eghosa Omoigui is the founder and Managing General Partner of EchoVC Partners (a seed & early-stage technology venture capital firm bridging Silicon Valley & underserved emerging markets), EchoVC Pan-Africa Fund, a seed-stage tech VC fund focused on sub-Saharan Africa & EchoVC+, an early-growth-stage VC vehicle focused on emerging markets including Africa. Before this, Eghosa was with Intel for nearly 10 years and his last role was as Intel Capital Director, Consumer Internet & Semantic Technologies, where he acted as a senior investment professional focused on platform-agnostic consumer, web services and digital media-based investment opportunities in the US, EU & Asia. Omoigui also drove ICap’s stage-agnostic investment focus on next generation semantic technologies, smart data and the realtime web. Eghosa was personally responsible for (developing supporting theses for and) sourcing investment opportunities in various companies including AdMob, Jaiku, Powerset, Facebook, LinkedIn, Teracent, Qik and Pandora. Eghosa has advised SWIFT (the inter-bank consortium) on technology innovation for financial services (InnoTribe), is a member of the ASTIA Venture Advisory Board (an organization focused on mentoring and supporting women entrepreneurs), was a winner of the Moss-Adams/ASTIA Women Entrepreneur Mentor of the Year award, and is a Kauffman Fellowship and Pipeline Angel Fellowship Mentor. Representative investments include Lifebank, Migo, Frontier Car Group, SystemOne, Gro Intelligence and KBox.
Eghosa's Sessions
The All-22 View
Improving line of sight and dynamic field of play aperture is rarely discussed but hugely important. Great founders, operators and investors have an understanding of playbooks on both sides of the ball. We’ll talk through learnings and some ideas on how to build muscle memory and skillsets so that founders never lose perspective when it’s time to make a big decision.
TC Early Stage Pitch-Off – Session 2
As a legal counselor to startups, Matt Oshinsky advises and guides emerging growth companies throughout their corporate life cycles. Matt also represents a range of private equity and venture capital investors. His business depth of counsel includes extensive experience representing well-established and market-leading technology and medical device companies in mergers, acquisitions and strategic investments. Matt has been working in Silicon Valley’s startup ecosystem for nearly two decades and has guided a range of companies from formation to IPO and beyond. Prior to commencing his private practice, Matt worked briefly in the White House in the Presidential Personnel Office and at the U.S. Agency for International development. Matt has received recognition from The Legal 500 United States for his counsel to emerging companies and venture capital firms.
Matt's Sessions
Creating and Protecting IP Value in Connection with VC Financings
How do venture capital investors value formal Intellectual Property (IP) rights in connection with a decision to fund a technology or life sciences start-up? How do they conduct IP due diligence? How do investors and founders, post-funding, ensure their start-ups are pursuing an IP strategy that optimizes exit valuation for all? Perkins Coie partners Michael Glenn (Patent Prosecution) and Matt Oshinsky (Emerging Companies Venture Capital) will be joined alongside a seasoned venture capitalist to discuss these and other questions regarding safeguarding IP rights and maximizing the value of all technology development activities.
Karen Appleton Page is an entrepreneur, advisor, investor and board member. A respected business leader, Karen was a founding executive at Box, leading GTM activities, defining Box’s approach to partnerships and business development, cultivating C-level relationships, strategic initiatives, and founding Box.org. She is experienced in building businesses from zero to high growth, evaluating and deploying double-digit expansion efforts, defining and implementing net-new initiatives, passionate about executing strategic partnerships and business development plans through data driven analysis, strategic prioritization, and relentless execution.
Karen's Sessions
Nailing the little things: How startups can achieve operational excellence from "Day one"
The early days of launching a company can be a whirlwind for founding teams as unexpected challenges and opportunities require flexibility, agility and speed. But implementing a few key operating best practices and processes early can be a crucial part of a startup’s success or failure when it prepares for rapid growth. Join partners from B Capital Group, a multi-stage global investor, to learn about the most important things you can do to set your startup up for success early in your journey, and what will be most important to investors as you raise your Seed, A and B funding rounds. Speakers include Howard Morgan, Chairman of B Capital Group and co-founder of First Round Capital, and Partners Karen Page (formerly of Box) and Gabe Greenbaum (formerly of Pritzker Group).
Ursheet is a Partner at Mayfield and invests in Human & Planetary Health and Infrastructure Software. His investments in human & planetary health include Mammoth Biosciences (CRISPR), Mission Bio (Single Cell Sequencing, Oncology), Qventus (Healthcare AI), Endpoint Health (Precision Immunology), Mirvie (predict and prevent pregnancy complications for moms and babies), GraphWear (Continuous Non-invasive Glucose Monitoring), Chemix (AI-powered next gen EV battery technologies) and Foodsmart (reverse metabolic disease). His investments in the enterprise sector include Versa Networks (Security and SD-WAN), Qwiet (Application Security), Rancher Labs (Cloud Computing platform acquired by SUSE), CloudGenix (SD-WAN platform acquired by Palo Alto Networks) and Netsil (Application Observability platform acquired by Nutanix). Prior to Mayfield, Ursheet had an operating career as a repeat entrepreneur and executive at Cisco and Microsoft. Ursheet was co-founder & CEO of StorSimple – the leading cloud-integrated storage company that was acquired by Microsoft in 2012. Ursheet holds an MBA from the Wharton School and a Bachelors in Computer Science from the Indian Institute of Technology in Mumbai, from which he received the Young Alumni Achiever award in 2015.
Ursheet's Sessions
Scientist Entrepreneurs – Scaling Breakout Engineering Biology Companies
Biology as technology will re-invent trillion dollar industries and enhance human and planetary evolution. In this session, two early-stage investors and company builders, Arvind Gupta and Ursheet Parikh, will be in conversation with a leading author and seed investor Po Bronson, Managing Director of IndieBio. They will share their playbook on scaling start-ups touching upon three seminal areas which influence trajectory – fundraising, hiring, and product design. Their insights will draw on their experience with companies including ingredients-as-service leader Geltor which raised a $91 million Series B in 2020, CRISPR platform Mammoth Biosciences whose dream team includes co-founder Nobel Laureate Jennifer Doudna, and Endpoint Health, started by the founding team of GeneWEAVE (acquired by Roche) and former YC Bio Partner Diego Rey, which is designing a new class of therapeutic products that focus on hospital conditions that kill as many people as cancer.
Neal Sáles-Griffin is the Managing Director of Techstars Chicago and a Venture Partner for MATH. Neal is an entrepreneur, investor, and teacher. In 2011, he co-founded the first beginner-focused, in person coding bootcamp. He is active in non-profit and civic engagement across Chicago and in 2018 he ran for mayor. Neal has an undergraduate degree from Northwestern University, where he is an Adjunct Professor teaching entrepreneurship.
Neal's Sessions
How To Get Into An Accelerator
Accelerators provide an incredible launch pad for early stage startups, offering a built-in network, accessible advisors, and of course, capital. But first, you’ve got to be accepted. Hear Techstars Neal Sales-Griffin outline how to get into an accelerator and make the most of the experience.
TC Early Stage Pitch-Off – Session 2
Natalie Sandman is a partner at Spark Capital where she invests in early-stage, enterprise software companies reinventing the way people work. Natalie has led investments in Noyo and several unannounced investments. After studying applied mathematics and economics at Harvard, Natalie joined Zenefits as one of the first product managers, where she built insurance, payroll, and HR products during the company’s hyper-growth from tens to more than 1,000 employees. From there, she led the product team at Ravelin, a London-based machine learning fraud detection startup, and founded Dabble, a mobile shopping app. Her venture career began at Shasta Ventures, where she developed an appreciation for supporting founders at the earliest stages of their journey, investing in companies like AppSheet, Lattice, and Tandem.
Natalie's Sessions
TC Early Stage Pitch-Off – Final Round
Sarah Smith is a partner at Bain Capital Ventures where she primarily invests in early- to mid-stage companies across a range of sectors including consumer, SaaS, and marketplaces. Sarah has been deeply involved in high-growth startups as an executive, investor, and student at institutions including Quora, Facebook, Graph Ventures, and Stanford. Before joining BCV in 2018, Sarah was vice president of advertising sales and operations at Quora. She led the launch of monetization, onboarding more than 500 advertisers to the self-service ads platform. From 2012 to 2016, Sarah was vice president of human resources, scaling the company from 40 to 200 employees across all hiring from university to executive search. She built the HR and operations teams responsible for company culture, compensation, benefits, equity refreshers, performance reviews, HRIS/ATS implementation, people development, policy enforcement, and content moderation. From 2008 to 2012, Sarah held various leadership roles at Facebook. As director of online operations, she launched teams including the Austin office, mid-market account management, and the SMB growth team. Her team grew revenue to $1 billion ARR while reducing churn and increasing customer satisfaction. Sarah holds an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business and lives in Palo Alto with her family.
Sarah's Sessions
How To Build Your Early Team for Future Growth
More than your investors, or even you as a founder, your early employees will have a tremendous influence on the trajectory of your company. You hire them, and often times, they hire everyone else. Hear Bain Capital Ventures partner Sarah Smith talk through how to recruit a top-notch early team that sets up your startup for future growth.
TC Early Stage Pitch-Off – Session 1
Watch 10 global early-stage companies pitch to our panel of top VCs for a chance to get featured on TechCrunch.com, an annual Extra Crunch subscription and admission to TC Disrupt this September.
As Vice President, Corporate Development at Instacart, Dave leads Instacart’s worldwide acquisition and strategic-investment efforts. Prior to joining Instacart, Dave was Director, Corporate Development at Google where he was involved in dozens of Google’s M&A deals, including the acquisitions of Skybox, Waze, AdMeld, Motorola Mobility, YouTube, and Android. Before Google, Dave was an M&A and corporate & securities lawyer at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati and Venture Law Group. Before law school, Dave was a CPA at KMPG in Washington, DC. Dave is a graduate of the Georgetown University McDonough School of Business, and also received a JD from the University of Chicago.
Dave's Sessions
An M&A Playbook for Startup Founders: Lessons from Google and Microsoft
One of the most important decisions a founding team can make is when to consider selling the company to a strategic buyer. In this session, learn the tactics for approaching acquirors, avoiding common pitfalls and maximizing the likelihood of achieving an eye-popping valuation. Hear from Sean Dempsey, founding partner of Merus Capital who spent 10 years leading acquisitions for Google and Microsoft, and Dave Sobota, VP of Corporate Development at Instacart and former M&A leader at Google.
TaskRabbit founder Leah Solivan is a technology entrepreneur, investor, and board leader who has spent more than two decades building and scaling products that improve how people live and work. She is the founder and managing director of Precedent.vc, an early-stage venture capital fund backing category-defining technology companies, and continues to serve as a general partner at Fuel Capital, where she has invested across consumer technology, marketplaces, retail, education, and hardware. Leah founded TaskRabbit in 2008, pioneering one of the first large-scale on-demand marketplaces and helping shape the modern gig economy. As CEO for eight years, she scaled the company internationally across 44 cities, raised more than $50 million in venture capital, and ultimately led the company through its successful acquisition by IKEA in 2017. Before founding TaskRabbit, Leah spent seven years as a software engineer at IBM working on products, including Lotus Notes and Domino. She currently serves on the boards of PetMeds and the San Francisco Ballet, and previously served as chair of the YPO Pacific US Region. A proud Latina leader, Leah is a passionate advocate for diversity, entrepreneurship, and the future of work.
Leah's Sessions
How to Kick the 10 Worst Startup Habits
With voices across the internet giving their two-cents on how to run a great business, Fuel Capital’s Leah Solivan, who was CEO at TaskRabbit for 8 years, will share a list of things that a founder should NOT do. Avoid the pitfalls that could break your momentum, or worst case, your company and ask Solivan your own questions.
TC Early Stage Pitch-Off – Session 1
Watch 10 global early-stage companies pitch to our panel of top VCs for a chance to get featured on TechCrunch.com, an annual Extra Crunch subscription and admission to TC Disrupt this September.
Alexa founded Inspired Capital because she deeply understood the unique challenges of the founder journey. Before Inspired, she dropped out of Harvard Business School to launch LearnVest, one of the first fintech companies aimed at making a financial planning software accessible to millions. Discouraged by the capital partners available in NYC at the time, Alexa promised herself she would one day become the kind of investor she wished had existed. In 2015, LearnVest was acquired for nearly $400 million, marking one of the decade’s largest fintech acquisitions. Alexa went on to establish herself as an industry authority and New York Times bestselling author, with three books on financial planning. Born in Kentucky and raised in Florida, Alexa attended Harvard College, where she earned an AB in Psychology with Honors. Her career began on Morgan Stanley’s Proprietary Trading Desk, before helping to build Drop.io, an early-stage startup that was later acquired by Facebook. After LearnVest’s acquisition, Alexa became Northwestern Mutual’s first-ever Chief Digital Officer, leading product and technology strategy as the company achieved $30 billion in annual revenue. She later became Chief Innovation Officer, overseeing Northwestern Mutual’s venture arm. Alexa is a 2016 Henry Crown Fellow and an inaugural member of President Obama’s Ambassadors for Global Entrepreneurship, where she first met her co-founder, Penny Pritzker. Her achievements have earned her numerous accolades, including a Forbes cover, Fortune’s 40 Under 40, Most Powerful Women, Inc. Magazine’s 30 Under 30, and the title of World Economic Forum Young Global Leader. She is also the New York Times bestselling author of Financially Fearless, Financially Forward, and Money Matters. Alexa lives in New York City with her husband, Cliff Ryan, who leads Galvanize Climate Solutions’ venture and growth strategy, one of the world’s leading climate tech funds. Together, they are raising three children.
Alexa's Sessions
Finance for Founders
As a founder, you not only have to master your company’s finances, you also have to tackle your own personal finances. Managing your money as a founder comes with a unique set of questions (see: QSBS). Leveraging her expertise from LearnVest and as a Certified Financial Planner™, Alexa will share financial planning best practices so founders can remove this layer of stress from the pressure of building a business.
Job is the CEO and co-founder of Remote. Job previously worked as a neuroscientist before leaving academia to become the VP of Product at GitLab, the world’s largest all-remote company, where he hired talent in 67 different countries. Job is a sought-after presenter, speaking on topics related to scaling a remote-first startup, remote culture, and the future of work. Job has two kids and five hundred hobbies.
Job's Sessions
How to Scale a Remote-First Startup
You can’t compete in a global market without a global team — but where do you start? Job van der Voort, CEO of Remote and former VP of Product at GitLab, understands better than anyone the challenges of scaling an international workforce. In this talk, Job will teach you how to onboard your first international team member; how to scale a distributed team while retaining your culture; and how to leverage your global footprint into funding, revenue, and beyond.
Stephanie Zhan is a partner on the early-stage investing team at Sequoia Capital. She loves partnering with companies across consumer and enterprise, starting at the earliest of stages at the Seed and Series A and helping them scale over time. She is on the board of companies including Rec Room, Linear, Middesk, Sunday, and Brud.
Stephanie Zhan is a partner on the early-stage investing team at Sequoia Capital. She loves partnering with companies across consumer and enterprise, starting at the earliest of stages at the Seed and Series A and helping them scale over time. She is on the board of companies including Rec Room, Linear, Middesk, Sunday, and Brud.