Amber Atherton is a Partner at Patron, an early-stage venture capital firm investing in a future shaped by games. She is a former founder, whose Y Combinator backed start-up was acquired by Discord. She is the author of the best selling book ‘The Rise of Virtual Communities’ published by Apress. Born in Hong Kong, Atherton began coding as a kid. Building websites, mini-games and Neopets communities. At 16, she started a popular blog, which evolved into one of Europe’s largest online jewelry marketplaces. After the merger of her first startup, she toyed around with computer vision, creating an app that generated captions for your instagram posts that immediately went viral. Amber then found fame in the UK, co-creating and briefly starring in a hit TV show. At 24, she was named by the Evening Standard as one of London’s Most Influential Londoners, by Vogue as 1 of the top 5 people in Digital Fashion, and joined Forbes’ 30 under 30 list. Topics: - Investing trends in the gaming space - Growth strategies for community-driven platforms - Applying AI and machine learning (NLP, Computer Vision) in startups #VCInvesting #GamingTech #CommunityBuilding #AIStartups