Venture with Grace

Chris Picardo is a Partner at Madrona. Chris joined Madrona in 2017. As a partner on the investment team, Chris focuses on identifying, evaluating, and leading new investment opportunities and working closely with existing companies. Chris helps lead Madrona’s investments in companies innovating around the intersection of life and computer science through combining novel wet lab science with cutting-edge machine learning. He also helps lead investing activities in consumer technology and commerce, marketplaces, and Web3, focusing on how new technological innovations can create new consumer experiences and interactions with the digital world. Topics: Evolution of the "Intersections of Innovation" strategy Innovation and trends in personalized medicine and healthcare The potential impact of ML-driven approaches on the pharmaceutical industry #VentureCapital #LifeSciences #AI #BioTech #IntersectionsOfInnovation

Arvind Jain is the Co-founder and CEO of Glean ($4.6 Billion valued), the Work AI platform connected to all your data. 🚀 This episode is brought to you by Quill Meetings. 🚀 Find, create, and automate anything. Prior to Glean, Arvind co-founded and led R&D at Rubrik, one the fastest growing companies in cloud data management. Arvind also spent over a decade at Google as a distinguished engineer, where he led teams in Google’s Search, Maps, and YouTube products. Earlier in his career, Arvind held leadership positions at Akamai and Microsoft. He earned his BTech in Computer Science from the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, and his Masters in Computer Science from the University of Washington. Topics: The evolution of AI in the workplace Lessons from scaling multiple startups Building a successful AI company #AIStartup #TechInnovation #FutureOfWork #EnterpriseAI #WorkplaceProductivity __________________ 🚀 Today’s sponsor is Quill Meetings, the private AI meeting client that I use daily to prepare for conversations and follow-up. Whether you’re learning about a founder’s latest pivot during a coffee chat, capturing partner meeting decisions, or organizing portfolio updates from a dozen conversations, Quill thrives on the messiness of work and enables you to be your most human and creative self in every conversation. Quill is for more than just VCs with customizeable templates for dozens of roles, like Notion for conversations. Quill provides a powerful toolkit to make sure everything is organized and actionable. Share selectively, set next steps on autopilot, or keep things private for your own reference. Plus, with deep integrations into tools like Notion or Asana, managing the complexities of startup life has never been easier. Quill’s local-first approach means no bots, no cloud data—just you in control. Trusted by leading investors like Lerer Hippeau, 500 Startups, and Mosaic Ventures, Quill is designed to take your venture work to the next level. Learn more at quillmeetings.com.

Sumit Chauhan is the Corporate Vice President of Office Product Group at Microsoft. 🚀 This episode is brought to you by Quill Meetings. 🚀 She heads up a wide portfolio of Microsoft 365 experiences, guiding product, design, and engineering teams for both M365 Copilot and M365’s flagship applications and creator tools. Her portfolio includes M365 Copilot, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, Designer as well as Microsoft 365’s video solutions. She and her team are working to evolve the way we accomplish modern productivity across our lives, with a mission to create the next generation of authoring and storytelling experiences powered by new and powerful AI services. Prior to this, Sumit led the Office Engineering team. Her multi-disciplinary team was responsible for driving radical improvements in engineering workflow. Under her leadership, the Office team revolutionized its engineering methodology, moving from three-year cycles to continuous engineering with monthly "evergreen" releases. She also drove significant improvement on the core infrastructure for legacy engineering systems. Since joining Microsoft in 1996, Sumit has held numerous engineering leadership roles and is recognized for her technical acumen and product leadership. Earlier in her career, Sumit focused on development in Excel and led the Access product through several releases. In May 2021, Sumit was recognized by Forbes in the magazine’s 30 Inspirational Women series. She is an avid supporter and board member of Pratham Seattle – Pratham is an innovative learning organization created to improve the quality of education in India. Topics: Integrating AI into everyday work Building a culture of innovation within large, established organizations Developing a successful career at an iconic tech company #TechLeadership #AI4Productivity #WomenInTech #MicrosoftInnovation #CareerGrowth __________________ 🚀 Today’s sponsor is Quill Meetings, the private AI meeting client that I use daily to prepare for conversations and follow-up. Whether you’re learning about a founder’s latest pivot during a coffee chat, capturing partner meeting decisions, or organizing portfolio updates from a dozen conversations, Quill thrives on the messiness of work and enables you to be your most human and creative self in every conversation. Quill is for more than just VCs with customizeable templates for dozens of roles, like Notion for conversations. Quill provides a powerful toolkit to make sure everything is organized and actionable. Share selectively, set next steps on autopilot, or keep things private for your own reference. Plus, with deep integrations into tools like Notion or Asana, managing the complexities of startup life has never been easier. Quill’s local-first approach means no bots, no cloud data—just you in control. Trusted by leading investors like Lerer Hippeau, 500 Startups, and Mosaic Ventures, Quill is designed to take your venture work to the next level. Learn more at quillmeetings.com.

Scott Walbrun is a venture capital investor at BMW i Ventures, BMW's independent VC fund, where he focuses on investments targeting the future of mobility, energy, supply chain, and artificial intelligence. In addition to this role, he provides workshops and coaching to hundreds of startups each year through various accelerator/incubator programs. Prior to joining BMW i Ventures, he provided M&A and capital markets advisory to technology companies and investors as a member of Jefferies' Technology Investment Banking team. He joined Jefferies after completing his MBA at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. While completing his MBA, he worked at Kinzie Capital Partners evaluating private equity investments, as well as at the Polsky Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation supporting the commercialization of science-based and deep tech companies. Topics: Intersection of AI and automotive technology The future of mobility Deep tech commercialization #VentureCapital #MobilityTech #BMWiVentures #AIinAutomotive #StartupCoaching

Amin Shaykho is the CEO of Kadama, social media star, and TED talk speaker honored on the Forbes 30 under 30 list. Shaykho is a former senior software engineer at Apple on teams like iMessage and Health. Shaykho raised $1.7M for Kadama and grew it to 2M+ users, 2.5M+ followers and 1B+ views on social media, and reached a peak App Store ranking of #2 in education. Shaykho has over 2M+ followers across his personal Instagram, TikTok, Facebook and Snapchat. Topics: The future of edtech, building a successful edtech startup Startup marketing strategies leveraging social media platforms Insights on viral content creation across different platforms (TikTok, Instagram, etc.) #TechEntrepreneur #EdTechInnovation #SocialMediaInfluencer #Forbes30Under30 #AppleAlumni

Elana Gold is a partner at Red Beard Ventures (RBV), a pioneering Web3 fund with over $25M in capital, investing in blockchain consumer apps, infrastructure, gaming, metaverse, and DeFi, both in equity and tokens. She leads the RBV Syndicate, which invests in startups at any stage and sector, with over 3,900 LPs, 210+ company investments, and over $50M deployed. An advocate for women in investing, she founded The Girls Table, a platform (for men and women) boosting entrepreneurs, creators, and investors through her podcast, Newsletter, and IRL events. Her efforts have brought over 20,000 individuals into the investing space. Her work has earned speaking roles at events like VeeCon, NFT NYC, NFT LA, and Consensus. She has received Forbes 30 Under 30 and Business Insider's Rising Stars of VCs recognition. As a CPA in New York, she combines financial acumen with a passion for innovative tech and community building. Topics: Building and managing a successful syndicate Key factors in evaluating early-stage blockchain and crypto startups Predictions for the next wave of innovation coming out of LA #LATech #SiliconBeach #StartupLA #TechEcosystem #VentureCapital

René Lomelí is a Partner at 500 Global, he joined the team back in 2013. Since then, he has been responsible for the 16-week program they run for their investments in Spanish-speaking LatAm "Somos Lucha". He's also been part of the +240 investments they've made in the region such as Konfio, Clip, Ayenda, 99Minutos, Conekta, Jüsto, Terapify, and Graviti. He enjoys helping early-stage companies in several areas, such as business strategy, product-market fit, marketing, fundraising, team, culture building, and hiring. Topics: Key trends and sectors driving innovation in LatAm Strategies for building strong startup teams and cultures in LatAm Fundraising landscape for Latin American startups: local vs. global investors #LatAmStartups #VCPodcast #500Global #TechInnovation #StartupAccelerator

Ashu Garg is a General Partner at Foundation Capital. Foundation Capital is a leading Silicon Valley based early stage venture capital firm. He focus on investing in bold founders who have a vision to transform markets and build enduring companies. Ashu has extensive experience across the stack from AI 1st applications to data/ML infrastructure, cyber security, and cloud infrastructure. Ashu is an early investor in Databricks, Cohesity, Eightfold, Amperity (via an acquisition), Anyscale, Turing, Alation, Skyflow, Fortanix, TubeMogul (acquired by Adobe post IPO), and Tubi.tv. (acquired by Fox) amongst others. Topics: The evolution of AI and its impact on various industries The future of cloud computing and infrastructure Strategies for scaling AI startups from early-stage to market leaders #AIVentures #CloudInnovation #DataDriven #TechFounders #VCInsights #FutureOfTech

Jeff Seibert is the co-founder and CEO of Digits, where he's building the world's first AI-powered accounting platform for startups and small businesses. He previously served as Twitter's Head of Consumer Product, leading the company's teams across Twitter for iOS, Android, and the Web, as well as its Developer and Data platforms. Jeff was the co-founder and CEO of Crashlytics, the award-winning mobile performance analytics platform, which today runs on over 6 Billion monthly-active smartphones worldwide. Crashlytics was acquired by Twitter in 2013 and then re-acquired by Google in 2017, and has become the de-facto crash reporting solution for both iOS and Android. In 2007, he co-founded Increo and served as COO until its acquisition by Box in 2009. At Box, he was the Engineering Manager for Desktop Sync and Mobile, and he founded the company's East Coast R&D office in Boston. Seibert gained experience at Apple in Mac OS engineering, while serving as the Campus Rep for Stanford, and led Stanford University's Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders seminar series as Co-Coordinator. He was selected as a Mayfield Fellow in 2007 and received a B.S. in Computer Science from Stanford University in 2008. Seibert is a frequent presenter on both entrepreneurial and technical topics and has lectured at Stanford, Harvard, MIT, and Tufts, as well as keynoted Scaling New Heights, Twitter Flight, AppsWorld, AnDevCon, EclipseCon, and others. Topics: Lessons learned from launching and scaling multiple startups Balancing user needs with business objectives in product design Approach to angel investing and supporting new founders #TechEntrepreneur #StartupJourney #Fintech #ProductDevelopment #AngelInvesting

Kyle Harrison is a General Partner at Contrary. Contrary is a talent and research-driven investment firm. We back a small number of exceptional people and the companies they build, from seed to scale. He is an investor in Ramp, Replit, Anduril, OneSchema, Zepto, Moment, Nomic, Pave, Patch, Modern Intelligence, Teamshares, Leland, Synthesis, Armada, Power, and more. Prior to Contrary he is a Partner at Index Ventures and Growth Investor at Coatue Management and TCV. Topics: Supporting Founders from Seed to Scale The Role of Research in Venture Capital The Importance of Storytelling in Investing #VentureCapital #StartupInvesting #TechTrends #Entrepreneurship #InvestmentStrategy