Sam Bankman-Fried, known as SBF, is a crypto founder, investor and philanthropist. He is the co-founder and CEO of FTX.com, a global crypto exchange valued at $32B, and FTX.US, a US exchange valued at $8B. Sam is also a co-founder of the ​​quantitative trading firm Alameda Research. Prior to founding FTX.com, and Alameda Research, Sam was a trader on Jane Street Capital’s international ETF desk, where he helped design their automated OTC trading system. Sam graduated from MIT with a degree in physics. He is a vegan and an effective altruist.

Devin Finzer (YC W18) is the co-founder and CEO of OpenSea, the world’s leading marketplace for NFTs. OpenSea is on a mission to help the world’s creators, collectors and collaborators own and shape their relationships directly, without gatekeepers. OpenSea is building the world’s most trusted and inclusive NFT marketplace with the best selection – making minting, purchasing and selling NFTs frictionless and friendly, and offering unmatched selection and multi-chain options for creators and collectors of all kinds.

Devin received a Bachelors of Science in Computer Science from Brown University, and has a background in software engineering, spending time at Pinterest, Google and more. Devin founded and sold his previous company, Claimdog, to Credit Karma. He and OpenSea's co-founder Alex Atallah.

Laura Shin is a crypto journalist and hosts the crypto podcast Unchained. Formerly a senior editor at Forbes, she was the first mainstream journalist to cover crypto full-time and is the author of the forthcoming book, The Cryptopians: Idealism, Greed, Lies, and the Making of the First Big Cryptocurrency Craze.

She graduated Phi Beta Kappa with Honors from Stanford University and has a master of arts from Columbia University’s School of Journalism.

Dylan Field is the co-founder and CEO of Figma, the collaborative design platform transforming how teams build products together. Before starting Figma, Dylan studied computer science and mathematics at Brown University where he and his co-founder Evan Wallace first saw the potential of browser-based design software: to break down silos in design, open up access and bring people together. Dylan was previously an intern at O'Reilly Media, LinkedIn, and Flipboard. He champions openness and access in technology development, so more people can use new software platforms. He tweets @zoink.

Kimberly Bryant is the Founder and CEO of Black Girls CODE, a non-profit organization dedicated to “changing the face of technology” by introducing girls of color (ages 7-17) to the field of technology and computer science with a concentration on entrepreneurial concepts.

Prior to starting Black Girls CODE, Kimberly enjoyed a twenty year engineering and technical leadership career in the pharmaceutical and biotech industries for various Fortune 50 companies such as Genentech, Merck, and Pfizer.

Since 2011 Kimberly has helped Black Girls CODE grow from a local grassroots initiative serving only the Bay Area, to an international organization with fourteen chapters across the U.S. and in Johannesburg, South Africa. Black Girls CODE has currently reached over 18,000 students and continues to grow and thrive.

Kimberly is a nationally recognized thought leader for her work to increase opportunities for women and girls in the technology industry and has received numerous awards for her work.. Kimberly has been awarded the Jefferson Award for Community Service for her work to support communities in the Bay Area, named by Business Insider on its list of “The 25 Most Influential African-Americans in Technology,” and included in The Root 100 and the Ebony Power 100 lists in 2013. Kimberly has been named one of FastCompany’s Most Creative People. In 2015, the White House honored her as a Champion of Change for her work in tech inclusion , and she received an Ingenuity Award in Social Progress from the Smithsonian Institute among many other awards and recognition.. She has spoken nationally and internationally on diversity, equity, and inclusion at conferences and is a thought leader in tech education for underserved students.

Sriram Krishnan is a general partner at Andreessen Horowitz where he invests in early stage consumer startups. Today, Sriram serves on the boards of Bitski, Hopin, and Polywork.

Prior to joining a16z, Sriram held numerous senior product roles. Most recently, he led core consumer teams at Twitter where he was responsible for products including the home timeline, new user experience, search, discovery, and audience growth. Before this, Sriram created and oversaw various mobile ad products for both Snap and Facebook, including Snap’s Direct Response ads business and the Facebook Audience Network, one of the largest networks in display advertising.

Sriram started his career at Microsoft where he touched numerous projects related to Windows Azure. He is the author of "Programming Windows Azure" published by O'Reilly.

Michelle Bailhe is a partner at Sequoia, where she focuses on crypto, software and Internet investments. Michelle is involved with Sequoia’s investments in FTX, Fireblocks, Pilot and more. Prior to Sequoia, Michelle worked at Hellman & Friedman, Google and McKinsey. 

Alex Bouaziz is the co-founder and CEO of Deel, the fastest-growing global compliance and payroll solution that helps businesses hire anyone, anywhere. Founded in 2019, Deel’s technology offers payroll, HR, compliance, and benefits needed to hire and manage a global team. In just under three years, the company has grown to 700+ employees worldwide in 60 different countries and has 6000-plus customers, including Shopify, Coinbase, and Cloudflare.

Alex grew up in Paris and graduated from Technion and then MIT with a Masters in Civil and Environmental Engineering. Prior to Deel he co-founded investment fund Sarona Ventures. In 2020 he was featured on Forbes’ 30 Under 30 Finance list. Outside of Deel, Alex enjoys cheering on Paris Saint-Germain Football Club.

Alexandr Wang is the founder and CEO of Scale AI, the data infrastructure for AI. Alex founded Scale while at MIT, to help customers build long-term AI strategies by providing the highest quality AI data and tools. Prior to MIT, Alex worked at Quora and Addepar where he noticed the inefficiencies of developing AI infrastructure and recognized he could accelerate companies’ abilities to deploy AI. Under Alex's leadership, Scale has grown to a $7bn valuation serving hundreds of customers across industries from finance to e-commerce to U.S. government agencies.

Maria is a partner on the investment team at Electric Capital.

Prior to Electric, Maria was CTO and co-founder of a startup that helped SMBs easily create their supply chains with manufacturers around the world. Prior to that, she worked on search technology at Microsoft, with her features shipped to more than 1 billion devices.

Maria received her A.B. in Government from Harvard and M.Eng. in Computer Science from Cornell.

Anu Hariharan is managing director of YC Continuity. Previously, she was an investment partner at Andreessen Horowitz, where she worked with the management teams of companies including Airbnb, Instacart, Medium, OfferUp, and Udacity. Before that, Anu was a principal in BCG’s private equity practice, and a senior software engineer at Qualcomm. Anu has an MS in electrical engineering from Virginia Tech and an MBA from Wharton. She led YC Continuity’s investments in Boom, Brex, Convoy, Faire, Groww, Gusto, Instacart, Monzo, Rappi, and Vouch, and sits on the boards of Brex, Convoy, Faire, Groww, Gusto, Monzo, Vouch, RevenueCat, and Whatnot.

Adam Jackson is the Co-founder of Braintrust, the first user-controlled talent network that provides enterprises with the highly skilled technical and design talent they need.

Prior to founding Braintrust, Adam co-founded Doctor on Demand, the popular video telemedicine provider, with daytime talk show personality Dr. Phil. Other notable ventures include DriverSide, a marketplace that connects car owners with mechanics, which was acquired by Advance Auto Parts in September of 2011 and MarketSquare, the first online local shopping destination on the Internet which was acquired by Intuit in September of 2006. Adam is a passionate Angel investor in 100+ companies including LTSE, SuperHuman, Filecoin, Binance, BlockFi, Automatic, Apero Health, Zenefits, and more.

Ali Rowghani is managing director of YC Continuity, where he built the team and fund from inception. He led YCC's investments in Stripe and DoorDash and is on the boards of several YC companies, including Checkr, Gusto, Ironclad, Deel, Pave, among others. He is also a Restoration Hardware (NYSE: RH) board member. Ali served as COO of Twitter from 2012 to 2014 and was hired as the company's first CFO and served in that role from 2010 to 2012. Previously, Ali spent nine years in several roles at Pixar Animation Studios, including CFO and SVP of strategic planning. Ali holds a BA and MBA from Stanford.

Nina focuses on venture and growth investments in enterprise SaaS, vertical SaaS, and AI. She is excited by the combination of software and payments to help legacy industries transition from using pen and paper workflows to adopting more modern, vertical-specific solutions. Nina also believes that the combination of voice and AI is unlocking new business applications and soon will become the new system-of-record for enterprises. Previously, Nina was an FP&A Lead for Google’s AdSense team where she managed a multi-billion dollar book of business covering Amazon, IAC and eBay. Nina started her career as a high yield bond trader at Citigroup. She also started HIVE Ventures, the first seed venture fund focusing on Armenian entrepreneurs, where she invested in over 30 companies. Nina graduated from Harvard University with a B.A. in government and is a recipient of the Michael C. Rockefeller Scholarship. Nina currently lives in San Francisco and enjoys watching football and Formula 1.

Founder/Contributor at Alliance - Web3 accelerator 

Gaby is an investor at The Chernin Group, where she focuses on the firm’s investments at the intersection of consumer and crypto.

Before joining TCG, Gaby invested in early-stage consumer companies at both Bessemer Venture Partners and Chapter One. Outside of work, Gaby writes about web3 and digital culture on her Mirror publication, gaby.mirror.xyz.

Amber Atherton is a British Entrepreneur and Angel Investor based in Silicon Valley. A community building expert and life-long founder, Amber is the former founder of zyper (ycw18) which was recently acquired by Discord where she currently serves as the head of strategic communities. 

Andrew Chen is a general partner at Andreessen Horowitz where he invests in consumer technology, including social, marketplace, entertainment, and gaming experiences. Today, Andrew serves on the boards of All Day Kitchens, Clubhouse, Envoy, Hipcamp, Maven, Reforge, SandboxVR, Singularity6, Sleeper, Snackpass, and Substack.

Andrew is a prolific writer and leading voice on mobile, metrics, and user growth. For the past decade, he’s covered the topic on andrewchen.com. He is the author of The Cold Start Problem, which explores how new start-ups launch and scale by leveraging network effects. He is also a board member and instructor at Reforge, which offers selective growth-focused programs for experienced professionals in marketing, product, data, and engineering.

Prior to joining a16z, Andrew led the Rider Growth teams at Uber.

Andrew holds a B.S. in Applied Mathematics from the University of Washington.

Brett is a general partner at Initialized Capital where he’s led deals for companies such as Bison Trails, Alliance DAO, Depict.ai, Shogun, Talos, TRM Labs and Hummingbot.

As a self-taught coder, engineer, 4x founder, and now early-stage investor focused on crypto and web3, Brett brings a career of shipping software to venture. Prior to Initialized, Brett co-founded the blog platforms Posthaven and Posterous (acquired by Twitter) and later wrote software for Y Combinator, building their essential internal software systems.

He graduated with a BA in philosophy from the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Brett Goldstein is Co-Founder of Launch House, a community for founders, builders, and creators.

Prior to Launch House, Brett was a Product Manager at Google, where he worked cross-functionally with engineering, design, marketing, machine vision research, and art as well as served as an M&A strategy analyst for the CEO of Google. He then took the role of Senior Product Manager at Clearbit where he was responsible for Platform (APIs & Infrastructure) and Integrations teams.

He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Cognitive Science & Psychology from the University of California, Berkeley.

Arlan Hamilton is the Founder and Managing Partner of Backstage Capital, a venture capital firm investing in founders who are people of color, women, and/or LGBT. Backstage Capital has raised more than $20 million and invested in nearly 200 companies. She is the founder of Runner, an operations and HR talent source for inclusive startups. Arlan was on the cover of Fast Company magazine, authored the book “It’s About Damn Time,” and hosts the podcast “Your First Million”. Arlan and her mother, Mrs. Earline Butler-Sims, also started a scholarship for Black students at Oxford University and HBCU Dillard University.

Anis Uzzaman, Founder & CEO, Pegasus Tech Ventures

​With over US$2 billion under Pegasus Tech Ventures’ management, Anis is responsible for overall global investments and operations of the firm. Anis also serves as the Chairman of Startup World Cup, a global platform that fosters innovation and entrepreneurship around the world.

Anis has invested in over 220 startups globally. Some of Anis’s prominent startup investments are SpaceX, Airbnb, Doordash, 23andMe, Bird, Coinbase, Robinhood, SoFi, Calm, Color, Gojek, Bukalapak, and Money Forward.

Anis currently serves and previously served as the board director in multiple global public and private companies including Lark, Asteria, Zuu, Tech in Asia, Affectiva, Jetlore, Blue Frog Robotics, Afero, Kii, Sano, I&C Cruise, Abivin and so on.

Anis holds a Bachelor of Engineering degree from Tokyo Institute of Technology in Tokyo, Japan, a Master of Science in Engineering from Oklahoma State University in the USA, and a Ph.D. in Computer Engineering from Tokyo Metropolitan University in Tokyo, Japan.

Anis is a Forbes Finance Council member and contributor at Forbes. Anis is also a contributing editor at Inc. Magazine, and an Entrepreneur Leadership Network Contributor at the Entrepreneur Magazine. Anis is an honored guest speaker in international conferences, workshops and seminars, has published more than 30 technical papers, and is the author of several books published globally

Andrew Reed is a partner at Sequoia Capital. He focuses on product- and design-driven software and consumer companies, including Bolt, Figma, Loom, Medallion, Productboard, Rec Room, Snapdocs, Sourcegraph, Vanta, and Zapier. Andrew was previously involved with Sequoia's investment in GitHub (Microsoft). Prior to joining Sequoia in 2014, Andrew worked at Goldman Sachs in the technology, media, and telecom group in San Francisco. Andrew holds a BA with Distinction in Economics and Classics from Amherst College.

Jason Williamson is vice president and global head of Oracle for Startups, Oracle’s program for startups and innovators worldwide. Oracle for Startups helps people build things never built before, and helps them to do it with Oracle.

Prior to Oracle, Jason was at Amazon Web Services (AWS), where he created and led several key initiatives within the investment and startup community. He has a background in both Fortune 500 firms and the startup world.

As an entrepreneur, he co-founded the construction industry’s first CRM SaaS offering, served as an assistant professor at the University of Virginia’s McIntire School of Commerce, and authored three books.

Scott Stanford is a Co-Founder and Partner at ACME Capital leading investments in game-changing companies, including Astra, Braintrust, Cue, and Savage x Fenty.

Prior to founding ACME in 2018, he was a co-founder of Sherpa Capital. Scott also co-headed Goldman Sachs’s Global Internet Investment Banking business for 12 years where he was deeply involved in investments in companies such as Facebook, Uber, DST/Mail.ru, Demand Media, LinkedIn, Palantir, and Square.

Scott received his A.B. with Honors from Harvard College (Social Studies) and M.B.A. from Harvard Business School.

David is a lifelong programmer who founded Expensify in 2008 and built it into the most popular preaccounting platform on the planet. He’s recognized as one of the world’s top network engineers, having created Expensify’s blockchain-powered database a year before Satoshi’s white paper on Bitcoin. Prior to Expensify, David led engineering for Red Swoosh — which was acquired by Akamai Technologies in 2007 — and held various roles in 3D graphics and VR development. When he’s not fearlessly leading Team Expensify from Portland, David enjoys playing Minecraft with his daughter.

Jordan’s purpose is to create teams and groups where people can be their true selves. She co-founded Medley, a membership-based community that fosters personal and professional growth, because throughout her life she’s felt the power that comes from being part of a team and felt a void when it was missing.

Prior to founding Medley, Jordan worked in media as Chief of Staff at Mic and was a consultant at the Boston Consulting Group. She received her AB from Harvard College and her MBA from Harvard Business School where she was a Baker Scholar.

YJ exists as a collaborating visionary to enable discovery for communities to see what is possible. As the Sr. Program Manager for Dell for Startups team at Dell Technologies, he leads the team in engaging with startup communities and leaders all across the U.S. to drive more corporate and technology partnerships to support entrepreneurs. Passionate about developing sustainable communities, YJ helps lead conversations on developing culture, creating insight, and scaling communities with entrepreneurs, non-profit organizations, and employee resource groups.

Romeen Sheth is an active angel investor and has invested in 50+ startups, including: Bolt, Boom Aerospace, Shiprocket, Mati, Republic, Slice, Skill Lync and others.

Romeen routinely works with hyper scale startups on strategy, talent and operational excellence.

He also serves as an Advisor to Tribe Capital. Specifically, Romeen is an Advisory Board Member for Tribe Capital Growth Corporation I and Tribe Capital Growth Corporation II, a $276M SPAC and $300M SPAC respectively.

Romeen has a Juris Doctorate (JD) from Harvard Law School and a Bachelor of Arts (BA) in Philosophy, magna cum laude from Duke University.

Nick Tooker has helped lead Partnership Marketing for Expensify for nearly 5 years working with some of the most influential companies in the FinTech space. Nick's compounding success transitioned him to leading Investor Relations through Expensify's IPO in November 2021. Prior to Expensify, Nick was the Director of Business Development for a 500 Start-up's backed, seed stage company based in the Bay Area.

Nicolle Willson, JD, CFP®, C(k)P®, heads the Retirement Consulting department at Guideline. Formerly an attorney who graduated from the UCLA School of Law, Nicolle found her true passion to be financial planning and helping individuals achieve their retirement and other financial goals. She now combines her financial planning experience with her ERISA expertise to help small business owners create the perfect 401(k) plans for themselves and their employees. 

Peter Fishman is the CEO and co-founder of Mozart Data. He has over a decade of running data and data-adjacent teams at startups in a variety of industries, including gaming, social, HR/benefits, real estate, and cannabis. When he realized that he was building the same types of modern data stacks at each company, he teamed up with a close friend to start Mozart Data in 2020 and make it easy for anyone to gather data, automate reporting, and generate insights. He also co-founded Bacon Hot Sauce in 2010, which sold hundreds of thousands of bottles of hot sauce. 

Melissa Chambers leads Strategic Partnerships at Guideline. A recovering lawyer, Melissa transitioned into tech leading Strategy and Analytics for several lines of public and private partnerships at Lyft and never looked back. Now she’s leveraging her passion for people and growth mindset to build relationships that unlock exponential growth for partners and Guideline, all in service of enabling small and medium businesses to build a safe, secure future. 

Jessica Day is a content and community-building marketer who is currently the Customer Marketing Manager for Dropbox's HelloSign. She uses her entrepreneurial experience and her background in creative writing to illuminate customer stories and build relationships across a scaled, B2B SaaS customer base. Prior to this role, she was Co-Founder and Chief Marketing Officer at IdeaScale — leading idea management software for the enterprise and government. Day volunteers for sustainability organizations and lives in Napa, CA. She holds a MFA in English, Creative Writing from the University of Washington.

Lily Zhang is Senior Director of Engineering of Fulfillment Experience at Instacart, leading a 100+ engineering team. Her expertise spans social media, eCommerce, and marketplaces. Lily cochairs and serves as a board member of Silicon Valley Leadership Community, a non-profit community with hundreds of leaders in tech.

Edith is the co-founder of Medley, a membership-based community for personal and professional growth. She launched Medley in July 2020 with her daughter, Jordan Taylor, to bring decades of experience in creating environments where people can perform to their potential to a broader audience. She is one of the nation's leading Black business executives, having spent 30 years on Wall Street. Most recently, she was a Partner, Executive Vice President, and the Head of Human Capital Management at Goldman Sachs. Edith serves on several public company boards, including Amazon and PepsiCo, and nonprofit boards, including the Museum of Modern Art, the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, and Mount Sinai Hospital.

Born in the Midwest and based in Silicon Valley, Christina Cacioppo sits at the intersection of security, tech, and business. After starting her career in early stage VC at Union Square Ventures, Christina went on to lead product management for Dropbox Paper, bringing the product to market. At Dropbox, Christina experienced firsthand the challenges and tradeoffs many teams face when trying to scale adoption of a SaaS product without first having security certifications in place. The Y Combinator alum is now the co-founder and CEO at Vanta, a leading security and compliance platform backed by Sequoia Capital, where she is pioneering a continuous, automated approach to security monitoring. Christina received her Masters in Management Science and Engineering from Stanford University and has taught Entrepreneurial Design courses at the School of Visual Arts in New York City. In her spare time, she reads books, runs with no destination, and cooks Sunday dinners for friends.

Annie Grace is the author of This Naked Mind: Control Alcohol, Find Freedom, Discover Happiness & Change Your Life and The Alcohol Experiment: A 30-day, Alcohol-Free Challenge to Interrupt Your Habits and Help You Take Control. She grew up outside Aspen, Colorado, in a one-room log cabin without running water or electricity. Having discovered a passion for marketing, Annie Grace earned a Masters of Science (Marketing) and dove into corporate life. As the youngest vice president in a multinational company at the age of 26, her drinking career began in earnest. At 35, in a global C-level marketing role, she was responsible for marketing in 28 countries; she was drinking almost two bottles of wine a night. Knowing she needed a change but unwilling to submit to a life of deprivation and stigma, Annie Grace embarked on a journey to painlessly gain control of alcohol -- for her that process resulted in no longer wanting to drink. Never happier, she left her executive role to write and share This Naked Mind with the world. In her free time, she loves to ski, travel (26 countries and counting), and enjoy her beautiful family. Annie Grace lives with her husband and three children in the Colorado mountains.

Denise Schaefer is the Peruvian-American co-founder of Surge Women. Surge is a female-led organization educating and onboarding women to Web3. They operate as content creators simplifying the technical capabilities of blockchains and have fostered a global community of womxn in Web3. 

Andrei joined Accel in 2014 and works with the team on Web3/crypto, enterprise software, developer-oriented software, open-source, security, and financial services. Prior to Accel, Andrei spent a decade in the US and worked with Foundation Capital and KCG/Virtu, the largest equities high-frequency trading firm in the US. Previously, he helped build an algorithmic trading startup on Wall Street focused on commodity futures. Andrei hails from Romania. He holds an AB summa cum laude in Mathematics from Princeton and an MBA with Distinction from Harvard Business School.

Maya Noeth joined Accel in 2018 and leads the firm’s growth-stage consumer technology investing efforts. She invests across the entire B2C and B2B2C landscape, including within the digital media, eServices, eCommerce, travel, gaming, and health & wellness verticals, and across internet, mobile, marketplace, and subscription platforms. Prior to Accel, Maya spent seven years at TCV. Maya began her career in TMT banking at Morgan Stanley. She has also spent time doing early-stage investing at Thrive Capital. Maya graduated from Harvard College and Harvard Business School.

Pratik Agarwal joined Accel in 2019. Prior to joining Accel, Pratik helped to set up the SaaS investing practice at SAIF Partners. Pratik grew up in Rajasthan, India and holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and a bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi.

Ray Kruck has over 25 years of experience working at the intersection of sales and cybersecurity. He’s held leadership positions in corporate development, marketing and sales at Check Point Software, Proofpoint, Websense and Voltage Security. In 2011, he co-founded Nexgate, which delivers compliance and security solutions to enterprises. It was Proofpoint’s biggest acquisition in 2014. After Nexgate, he co-founded Pointgrey Partners, an early-stage venture investment firm specializing in the enterprise and life science markets. In 2017, Ray founded Tugboat Logic and has been its CEO since. The company helps SaaS businesses get secure, build trust and sell more. It was acquired by OneTrust in 2020.

VP of Marketing at Nifty's - formerly Brand and Digital Marketing Director at Nike

As an Investor for Samsung Next based out of the company’s SIlicon Valley office, Joan is focused on crypto and Web3. Her recent investments include FTX, Axie Infinity, Metaplex and Offchain Labs. Prior to joining Samsung Next, Joan led corporate strategy for Flex and spent several years as an investment analyst.

Erik is founding partner of the global venture fund Firstrock Capital, Chief Economist of Toptal, and an expert on black swan events. He got his start learning directly from Dr. Nassim Taleb, the world-famous expert on extreme risk, and served as an editor for his first book ‘Fooled by Randomness’ that introduced the concept of the ‘black swan.’ He subsequently worked in New York to help the global financial sector react to black swan events such as the subprime crisis.

Sekou is a marketing professional with 20 years of experience in the technology, entertainment and digital media industries. He is currently the VP and Head of Developer Marketing at Turing, a unicorn startup disrupting the developer staffing industry with technology powered by AI. Here, he leads a team of 12 marketers responsible for advertising, PR, events, digital strategy and developer outreach. Prior to Turing, Sekou has held positions at IBM, Facebook, Microsoft XBOX, Activision Blizzard and CBS. He has a BA in Economics from Boston University and an MBA from NYU Stern.

Zarah Nazari started working when she was nine years old to help support her family. Over the years, she has been a reporter for Paiwand Radio, Bamyan Radio, BBC, and Rah-e-Farda Radio Television. She has served as a social worker for endangered children at UNICEF (2018). She is the President of Gowharshad Handicrafts Association in Bamian (Bamian Women's Market), President of the Bamian Businesswomen's Association, a Master Trainer in the USAID office embroidery project (Goldozi) (2019), a legal assistant for children at UNICEF (2019), Founder of Bamyan Tourism Union (2019), Director of Handicrafts Project in Peace Village Headquarters (2016-2021). She was a student at Bamian University until last year. Zahra supported the Afghan Army until the country fell in August, 2021

Andrea is behind Snaxshot, a new media type of publication that has garnered exponential growth since it began less than 2 years ago, and has built an international cult around emerging food and beverage trends.

Jeff Ma VP, Microsoft for Startups, Author, and Veteran Entrepreneur: As a member of the infamous MIT Blackjack Team, Jeff Ma created an ingenious method for counting cards—using talent, creativity, math, and teamwork to win millions in Las Vegas. (Card-counting, by the way, is not illegal; casinos just don’t like it). Ma was the inspiration for the best-selling book Bringing Down the House and the hit movie, 21, which topped the box office in its first two weeks. He has since helped start four different companies including CircleLending (sold to Virgin) and Citizen Sports (sold to Yahoo) and become a sought-after corporate speaker. Beyond his work as an entrepreneur, Ma has been a pioneer in the “Moneyball” movement working with professional sports teams like the San Francisco 49ers and the Portland Trail Blazers and media powerhouses like ESPN and Major League Baseball Advanced Media, helping them to make better decisions using data and analytics. His most recent book, “The House Advantage: Playing the Odds to Win Big in Business” draws on his unique experiences at the table and in the sports world to create a truly accessible book about analytics. In 2012, Ma founded a company called tenXer with the vision to revolutionize human capital management by using data and analytics to create better management, recruiting and evaluation tools. In April of 2015, tenXer was acquired by Twitter. Jeff Ma has joined Microsoft as Vice President of Microsoft for Startups overseeing Microsoft’s program to accelerate the success of startups around the world.

Lahini Arunachalam, Director of Product Management and Marketing, has spent most of her career in product management at late stage B2B startups building and launching products for a variety of customers in different verticals. She is passionate about customer discovery, design thinking methodologies, and lean startup principles. She joined the Microsoft for Startups team to better understand technical and business founders and identify how Microsoft can better help startups at all phases of their journey.

She is focused on identifying and building solutions to ensure that everyone has the opportunities, network, mentorship, and skills to become entrepreneurs and start and grow successful businesses.

In her spare time, Lahini can be found spending time with her husband, daughter, and newborn son in San Francisco, running trails, and drinking coffee.

David leads partnerships @ SuperRare Labs and works with marquee brands, top galleries, and agencies to amplify the SuperRare artist + Collector network. SuperRare is the premier digital NFT art marketplace with over $250M in sales in 2021 and is often compared to the Sothebys + Christies of the NFT art market. 

Koh Kim has been building businesses in consumer tech and gaming for more than a decade. As Head of Ecosystem, she leads marketing and partnerships initiatives at Mysten Labs. Previously, she co-led the Google Play gaming business development team where she helped scale the games business 10x to $10B revenue in 3 years. She has served as an investor and advisor to numerous crypto, e-commerce and gaming brands and was selected as a 2020 Tory Burch Foundation Fellow.

Mike Tria is the Head of Platform Engineering at Atlassian. Mike oversees Atlassian's global cloud infrastructure, identity & front-end platforms, enterprise offerings, and our third-party developer ecosystem. Mike has 15+ years of experience as a software engineer and leader, ranging from cloud-native startups to larger companies. He's built and run all facets of product development, including product management, design, engineering, QA, and SCM/release, focusing on SaaS, e-commerce, and building communities. As a former comedian, Mike brings high energy and humor to the tough challenges he faces. He holds a B.S. in Computer Science from the George Institute of Technology.

Medha Kothari is a research partner at Variant Fund, a crypto venture fund focused on investing in the Ownership Economy. She's been in the crypto space since 2017, mostly as a software engineer, and most recently was developing the Celo Protocol. She also runs a 501c3 called she256, which aims to increase diversity in the crypto space through educational initiatives, mentorship, career-development, as well as most recently spinning out Komorebi Collective: an investment DAO focused on investing in female and non-binary crypto founders. 

Lily Wu is currently the Startup Partner Lead, SEA at Stripe and co-founder of WOW Pixies, the first DAO to invest in the women-led web3 ecosystem. Previously, she was immersed in the startup world where she bootstrapped two 7-figure businesses from the ground up and was the Head of Programs for NewCampus, a Series A edutech startup based in Singapore. She is the founding ambassador of Future Females Singapore, a global organisation dedicated to helping female entrepreneurs get the resources and connections. Fun fact, she is also an illustrator, published author and has a black belt in Japanese martial arts, Taido.

Visionary Digital Leader with 8+ years experienced in digital industry and in depth understanding on corporate - startup deals and synergy. Currently working as venture capitalist for The Biggest Bank in Indonesia.

Ajeet Khurana is a leading name in the cryptocurrency industry. He is the former head of the Blockchain and Cryptocurrency Committee (BACC), which as part of the IAMAI is India's foremost industry body for cryptocurrency. Ajeet is an author, entrepreneur, prolific angel investor, former CEO of Zebpay, former CEO of the business incubator at IIT Bombay, and former advisor to Kalaari Capital. He has raised venture capital, expanded businesses globally, developed low-cost customer-acquisition strategies, and is a wizard at tokenomics and financial engineering. He spends his time creating awareness about digital assets. Presently, he is building his own crypto startup.

Soona is founder and general partner of Volt Capital, a venture firm focused on early stage crypto and web3 companies.

Alice Bentinck MBE is cofounder and General Partner at Entrepreneur First. Entrepreneur First invests in top technical individuals to help them build world-class deep technology startups from scratch in six locations across Europe, South East Asia and Canada. Since 2011, Entrepreneur First has created over 500 startups worth over $5bn including Magic Pony Technology, Tractable and CloudNC.

EF’s investors include LinkedIn cofounder Reid Hoffman and Greylock Partners, alongside Mosaic Ventures, Lakestar and Founders Fund.

She also set up Code First: Girls, a not-for-profit that has taught 30,000 women to code for free while at university.

Alice started her career at McKinsey & Co. She was awarded an MBE for services to business in the 2016 Queen’s Birthday Honours. Alice is also a member of the UK AI Council, representing the UK AI Sector on the international stage.

Zhuoxun is a Co-Founder at Magic Eden, the leading next-gen NFT marketplace. Prior to starting Magic Eden, he was on the Product team at Coinbase as well as the second employee at dYdX. Before being red-pilled into crypto, he was a consultant at Bain & Company. 

Giovana is a Strategy and Operations Manager for the Customer Success team at Mixpanel. She has a passion for technology and has worked in Silicon Valley for the past decade. In her previous roles as Implementation Manager, Giovana has helped dozens of clients leverage software solutions to achieve their business goals.

Stephen Hess is CEO of Metaplex Studios, which aims to grow the ecosystem of developers and makers that are building on the Metaplex protocol by providing the tools and resources needed to create the internet of Web3. Prior to joining Metaplex Studios, Stephen was the Head of Product at Solana Labs where he supported the development of the Solana ecosystem and played a key role in the explosion of NFT projects on Solana.

Casey Caruso is an Investment Partner at Paradigm. Previously, Casey was an engineer at Google where she worked on a machine learning research team studying user behavior and UX. In parallel, she worked at Bessemer Venture Partners part-time as an investor focused on frontier tech (crypto, machine learning, quantum). Before Google and Bessemer, Casey was a researcher at Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab on the Intelligent Systems team under a grant from DARPA. She earned her B.S. in Computer Engineering from Lehigh and began her M.S. in Neuro Engineering at Harvard University. Casey first became interested in crypto in university and entered the space originally as a miner.

Chandan is the co-founder and President of CoinTracker, the leader in cryptocurrency portfolio tracking and tax compliance. Previously, he was a product manager at Google and Google[x]. Chandan graduated from Harvard with a degree in Chemistry and Physics.

As a Super Bowl champion, entrepreneur, and seasoned tech investor, Ryan co-founded Next Play Capital in 2014 to focus on investing in top-tier funds and venture-backed companies across consumer, fintech, and IT/SaaS verticals. With $500M in assets under management, Next Play Capital’s unique community of professional athletes, GPs, entrepreneurs, CEOs, and investors provides a powerful ecosystem to access funds and companies that are generally inaccessible to most investors. Ryan’s career began with a distinguished seven-year NFL stint with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, and his entrepreneurial interests later saw him co-found StraightCast Media, a mobile app that empowered athletes to create their own HD content (later sold to FOX Sports). Ryan has led co-investments for Next Play Capital into Hippo, Brandless, ByteDance (TikTok), Flexport, Hims, Impossible Foods, Peloton, Rubrik, and Walker & Co. 

Jeff began investing in crypto in 2016 as an angel and was a seed investor in Dapper Labs, Compound Finance, The Graph, Dharma Labs (acq. OpenSea), Blockfolio (acq. FTX).

Jeff is the Managing Partner at Chapter One and was previously the VP of Product, Revenue at Tinder.

I am always looking for ways to streamline and change businesses to the better through Digital Transformation.

- Digital Transformation through Ripple Effect Consultancy
- Agile product development advisor to Ipseity Network
- Startup Grind Co-Director for Hong Kong
- Video blogger with the weekly Digital Coffee Videos
- Startup mentor and business developer

Speaker at the 20 plus “Internationalisation Through Digitalisation” seminars as part of Google and ALMI Swedens Digital Academy, focusing on "Key Success Factors for Digital Growth".

Over 23 years of experience doing business in Hong Kong, China, India and Sweden.

You find me where Digital Transformation, Experience and Business meet! 

Ivan is a fierce advocate of remote work with over a decade of professional experience in connecting technology experts to remote-first startups. With a strong tech background, Ivan co-founded or co-founded 3 startups with successful exits. At Turing.com, Ivan is helping hundreds of startups get first pick at the best software engineers available globally.

Olivia is the Social Media Specialist at Vidyard, where she works on establishing Vidyard's brand online. When Olivia isn't crating witty captions or creating stunning graphics you can find her catching waves on the West Coast or living under the stars.

Laura Krieger is a Product Manager at Mixpanel, where she has shaped Mixpanel's product and business strategies, and developed a strong understanding of what success looks like in the product analytics space. Her research and data analysis laid the foundation for a company-wide effort to better understand Mixpanel's own metrics and has shaped Mixpanel's strategy to help startups understand their product metrics.

Russ is the co-founder of DocSend, a document sharing platform for business critical files. Previously founded and sold Pursuit.com, a social recruiting platform, to Facebook. Worked in engineering and product management at Microsoft, Trulia, Dropbox, and Greystripe.

BS and MS in Computer Science from Stanford. MBA from Harvard.

Win Reis joined Guideline in 2021 as a Partner Manager, Strategic Partnerships where he manages SEP and personal IRA partnerships outside of payroll processors. Prior to Guideline, Win spent the last 15+ years managing partnerships at HP, NetApp, ShoreTel, Vocera, Conversica, and others. Win has an MBA from Kellogg and BS with Honors from Stanford.

Sandra has broad experience with companies ranging from world-leading organizations to privately-held. She leverages experience in consulting, enterprise account management and partnerships to enable startups to reach their business expansion goals. As Market Connect lead for Oracle for Startups in North America, she creates meaningful connections between startups and Oracle’s global sales teams, facilitating mutually beneficial connections with enterprise customers.

Luke Butler is Executive Director of Startup Engagement for Comcast NBCUniversal. In this role he leads the LIFT Labs Accelerator and overall programming for startups interested in working with and accessing opportunities at Comcast NBCUniversal. Previously Luke led strategy and operations at Curalate, a venture-backed startup company and served in Philadelphia city government as Special Assistant to the Mayor and Chief of Staff to the Deputy Mayor. Luke has a Bachelor's Degree from the London School of Economics and Political Science and a Master’s Degree from the University of Pennsylvania where he studied as a Thouron Fellow. He has served on the boards of Philly Startup Leaders and World Café Live and on the GreenLight Fund’s Selection Advisory Council. Originally from the North East of England, Luke worked in politics in London before relocating to the United States in 2006. He lives in Chicago with his wife Megon, son Freddie, and their energetic puppy Dougal.

Building the partner, startup and investor communities for Startup Grind globally.

Dr. Ajai Chowdhry is one of the six founder members of HCL. HCL today is valued at US $ 50 Bn. Starting from India, Dr. Chowdhry took HCL to Singapore in 1980 and created a business spanning ASEAN, China and Hong Kong. In 1995, Dr. Chowdhry took over the reins of HCL Infosystems and created a 12,000 crore (US $ 1.6 Bn) organization over the next 15 years. HCL Infosystems was the leader in hardware products, system integration and Nokia phone distribution.

In 2011, in recognition for helping build the IT & Electronics industry in India, the Hon'ble President of India, conferred the prestigious Padma Bhushan, one of the highest civilian honour in India. He has received many awards including Electronics Man of the Year 2010, CNBC’S India Innovation of the Year Award 2010 and Cybermedia Business ICT Award 2013 for Lifetime Achievement in ICT.

Dr. Chowdhry has focused on giving back to the society and has set up a Charitable Trust called Swayam where he contributes to many areas including education, women empowerment and providing relief during Covid to citizens.

Apurva Chamaria is currently the Head of Partnership Solutions, Startups and Venture Capital at Google India.Prior to joining Google he was the SVP & Chief of Staff to CEO & MD at Tech Mahindra where he was integral in transforming the company performance which resulted in the share price going up from Rs 700 to Rs 1600 within a span of 12 months. Before Tech Mahindra, Apurva Chamaria was the Chief Revenue Officer of RateGain, one of world’s leading SaaS companies where he and his team successfully grew the company from 20 Mn to 63 Mn within a span of 34 months. RateGain IPOed in India in Dec 2021. Apurva is a well known angel investor and the "Entrepreneur in Residence" for India for Harvard Alumni Entrepreneurs for 22-23.

Anisha Singh is the Founding Partner of She Capital, an early-stage venture fund that invests in high growth women led or focused start-ups. She is the Founder and Former CEO of Mydala, one of India’s largest local services marketing platform which she led to over 100 crores in revenue across 200 cities in India, UAE and South Asia. Her focus now is towards investing in extraordinary Beauty Tech Brands to help them achieve great scale and outshine.

Anisha was recently recognized as one of The Top 20 Most Influential Women in the venture capital and private Equity landscape of India by Business World. She was also recognized as one of the Top 100 Global Diversity Leaders in 2019 and under the Business category in Women in Asia – 50 Most Influential 2018. She was ranked amongst the Top 7 women start up CEOs located outside the US by Crunchbase in 2018. She was also a judge on a MTV start-up reality show, similar to Shark Tank, called Dropout.

Katherine Liu is the CEO and co-founder at Formfunction, an eco-friendly Solana NFT marketplace designed for independent artists and creators. She was previously a designer at Instagram working on well-being and anti-harassment initiatives. Outside of work, Katherine is an artist and a lifelong tinkerer. Some of her favorite projects include building a platform for adding a cute virtual pet assistant to your website, illustrating a children's book, and designing a large-scale public mural.

Alda brings over a decade of investing and legal experience to both Initialized and our portfolio companies. Prior to joining Initialized, she was a managing partner at 137 Ventures where she led investments in Planet Labs, Wish, Coupang, CourseHero, and Work Market (acquired by ADP). Additionally, she made personal early-stage investments in companies such as Maven, Legalzoom (acquired by Permira), SpaceX, and Osaro. Previously she was COO at Airtime, General Counsel at Founders Fund, Assistant General Counsel at Peter Thiel’s Clarium Capital Management, and practiced as a litigator for IP disputes at WSGR. She graduated from Stanford with BAs in economics and political science, and a JD from UCLA.

Edith Harbaugh is CEO & Co-Founder of LaunchDarkly, the leading feature management platform. LaunchDarkly serves 2,000+ global customers like IBM, Atlassian, and Intuit. She has more than 15 years of experience in engineering, product, and marketing with both consumer and enterprise startups, including TripIt and Concur. She is co-host of "To Be Continuous," a podcast on software trends. She holds two patents in deployment. Edith earned a B.S. in Engineering from Harvey Mudd College.

Jayni focuses on venture and growth investments in fintech, vertical SaaS, and web3. Most recently at early-stage venture capital firm Accomplice and previously at multi-stage firm Menlo Ventures, Jayni has long been interested in businesses at the intersection of payments and software. Before venture, Jayni spent several years within Corp Dev & Strategy at PayPal and Venmo. She started her career in investment banking in New York City, and received her BA from Wellesley College. Jayni currently lives in San Francisco.  

Partner at Bain Capital Crypto investing in applications - NFTs, DAOs and consumer. Avid runner & dog mom. SF maxi.

Amar Kapadia is cofounder and CEO at Aarna Networks, an open source software company creating a platform for orchestration, lifecycle management, and automation of 5G network services and edge computing applications.

Prior to Aarna, Amar was the NFV product marketing head at Mirantis. Before Mirantis, he was responsible for defining and launching EVault’s public cloud storage service (acquired by Seagate) based on OpenStack Swift and a variety of marketing and engineering leadership positions at Emulex, Philips, and HP. Amar is also the author of the ONAP Demystified book and holds an MS EE degree from the University of California, Berkeley.

Founder of CogniCor, the leading AI-based cognitive digital assistant platform that delivers revolutionary operational efficiency and productivity for financial and insurance firms, Sindhu has six patents, 20 years of AI research experience, and won the SheLovesTech global award for best female founded tech company in 2020, and more recently, the Pathfinder award for a top women leader in wealth management from the Wealth Solutions Report (WSR). CogniCor was also named as an “Innovator for Conversational AI platforms in 2018” by global research firm IDC, and named ‘one of the hottest startups’ by Wired Magazine.

Dogan Demir is a prolific researcher and the CEO of Ouva, automating the hospital care operations to reduce the burden on frontline caregivers. Dogan works across projects to guide teams on people-centered design and builds partnerships with Ouva's customers, bringing artificial intelligence automation to health systems worldwide. As a published computer scientist, Dogan has 10+ years of experience solving complex technical challenges such as tracking, computer vision, and natural interfaces.

Born and brought up in Gibraltar her entrepreneurial journey started at the age of 22 launching the first company in PR and promotional work ‘DM Promotions’, since the early days her passion for running and creating her own business models was clear with a fiercely entrepreneurial family background.

Also involved in a landmark case at a young age for Gibraltar when she was denied the right to vote in the first European elections the case was taken to the European Court of Human Rights and was successful. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthews_v_United_Kingdom

After taking time out to start a family and living abroad she returned to her hometown in 2017 and soon set up a new business One Media and Events. The application to become City Chapter Director for Gibraltar for the organisation Startup Grind powered by Google for Entrepreneurs was successful and the first event which sold out with over 100 attendees was launched in March 2017. In February 2018 Denise was given the “Rookie of the Year” Award in San Francisco during the director’s retreat organised at the SuG Global Conference for being the best new chapter in a city with a population of only thirty thousand.

During this time Gibraltar Government announced the regulatory framework for Distributed Ledger Technology also known as Blockchain. Because of her work in supporting startups, tech and creating a network they became actively involved by sponsoring her events. The platform that SuG together with this development locally has opened up multiple opportunities in this new tech industry and in the past 4 months she has been appointed to represent two globally well known blockchain related groups the GSX Group’s Blockchain Innovation Centre and Coinsilium. 

Holly Liu is co-founder of the mobile gaming company, Kabam, a world leader in AAA mobile games. Her work has contributed to record revenue growth for Kabam year over year from $0 to $400 million in 2014, which has led to Kabam’s valuation of $1 billion in 2014. She led the design for Kabam’s award-winning Kingdoms of Camelot franchise, which has grossed more than $250 million in less than four years. She was also the founding mobile designer for extension Kingdoms of Camelot: Battle for the North, which was the top grossing app on iOS in 2012. Currently, Holly is Chief Development Officer leading the development of Kabam internationally through key relationships and industry presence, focusing primarily on China. In addition, she continues to develop global cultural initiatives within Kabam.