Venture with Grace

David Glick is the SVP of Enterprise Business Services at Walmart. His team is responsible for finance technology and shared services, People tech and services, Payments, Trust, and the Associate Digital Experience.Prior to joining Walmart, David served as the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of Flexe. Flexe offers three main products: Flexible Fulfillment, Rapid Replenishment, and Inventory Overflow. These products are designed to be implemented without upfront fees or long-term contracts. Before his role at Flexe, David spent two decades at Amazon, where he played a crucial role in developing key aspects of their Retail and Operations technology. His teams were responsible for creating Amazon's original Automated Pricing system, numerous features in the current Warehouse Management System, and various transportation systems, including Amazon Flex. Topics: - Enterprise Business Services at Walmart - Operational Excellence in a Retail Giant - Digital Transformation at Walmart #RetailTech #WalmartLeadership #EnterpriseServices #FinTech #HRTech

Steve Sloane is a partner at Menlo Ventures focused on investments in Menlo’s Inflection Fund, which targets fast-growing Series B/C companies. He has made a number of supply chain technology investments, including Enable, Scout, 6 River Systems, ShipBob, CloudTrucks, and Parade. Steve joined the firm in 2015 as an associate, became a principal in 2017, and a partner in 2019. Prior to Menlo, Steve worked in growth-stage investing at Insight Venture Partners in New York and founded a YC-backed company in the social space. Steve graduated from Princeton University with bachelor’s degrees in both mechanical and aerospace engineering and a minor in robotics and intelligent systems. In what little free time he now has with two boys under three, he enjoys skiing, following the New York Giants, and road biking. Topics: - Investing in Supply Chain Technology - Scaling Companies from Series B to C - The Future of Supply Chain and Automation #VentureCapital #SupplyChainTech #MenloVentures #SeriesBCInvestments #TechInvestor

As Managing Partner and Co-Founder of 645, Nnamdi oversees the firm’s investment strategy and enjoys partnering with founders as an investor/board member to help them achieve their entrepreneurial dreams. You can check out Nnamdi discussing tech trends on CNBC: Nnamdi Okike on investing in tech’s ‘behavioral change economy’ and on Yahoo Finance: Nnamdi Okike discusses tech investing, SPACs, Web3 and the Metaverse. Nnamdi grew up in Massachusetts as the child of immigrants from Nigeria and Germany, giving him a unique worldview and appreciation for diversity. He’s been an avid Boston sports fan since he was a kid, attending many games during championship seasons for the Patriots, Celtics, and Red Sox. He attended Harvard for college, competing in track and field in the 400 and 800 meters. At Harvard, he discovered his love for tech entrepreneurship and investing, taking a course-load encompassing biological sciences, economics/finance, and computer science. Upon graduation, he joined Insight Partners, where he worked for 8 years and rose to Principal. Nnamdi helped the firm pioneer a global outbound sourcing model targeting software companies. At Insight, Nnamdi invested in 19 companies and had nine exits, with exit value exceeding $9 billion. Nnamdi is a Board Member of the National Venture Capital Association, which unites the U.S. venture ecosystem to support the formation of high-growth companies. He serves alongside members from firms such as Benchmark Capital, Sequoia, a16z and Accel. Nnamdi also serves on the Boards of the New York Roadrunners, the Partnership Fund of New York City, and the Investment Committee of Phillips Andover Academy. Nnamdi received his BA, JD, and MBA, all with honors from Harvard University. Topics: - Software tools drive data-based decisions in seed-stage investing - Applying growth-equity practices to early-stage - Strategies for long-term success in investing #VentureCapital #SeedInvesting #TechStartups #InvestmentStrategy #FounderJourney #Innovation

Mike Droesch is a partner at Bessemer Venture Partners primarily focusing on AI applications, cybersecurity, supply chain software, and B2B marketplaces. He currently serves on the board of directors for Tackle, Curri, Raft, Cypress, Netography, Optimal Dynamics, and VendorPM. Previously, Mike worked with a few venture-backed startups in Boston, including two Bessemer portfolio companies, Fuze and InsightSquared, where he supported sales operations and analytics efforts. He started his career as a systems engineer and then spent nearly three years in management consulting at Navigant, where he helped companies build new businesses around emerging energy and infrastructure technologies in the U.S. and Middle East. He holds an MBA from the MIT Sloan School of Management, a Master’s Degree in naval architecture and engineering from the University of Michigan, and a degree in mechanical engineering from Tufts University. - The rise of multimodal AI and its impact on vertical software solutions - The emergence and potential of voice AI applications - AI agents and their potential to revolutionize business operations #AIInnovation #MultimodalAI #VoiceAI #AIAgents #ComputerVision

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

As the inaugural Executive Director of VC Platform Global Community, Joshua Goodfield leads the largest dedicated collective of platform professionals in the venture capital industry, with over 2,000 members across 1,000 funds in 45 countries representing $2.6T+ in AUM. His mission is to create value for the VC ecosystem through community building and accelerating outstanding leaders. Topics: - Global trends in venture capital and startup ecosystems - The evolution of VC firm structures and operations - Best practices for community building in the VC industry #VCPlatform #VentureCapital #StartupEcosystem #LeadershipDevelopment

Medha Agarwal is a General Partner at Defy. Prior to Defy, she was a Partner at Redpoint Ventures for seven years focused on early stage investments across fintech, vertical saas, marketplaces, and healthcare. Medha started her career at Bain & Company and also started and built 2 companies, skedge.me & Roomidex, before starting her investing career at Bessemer Venture Partners. - Trends and opportunities in fintech, vertical SaaS, marketplaces, and healthcare startups - Early-stage investment strategies - The evolution of the VC landscape #VentureCapital #TechStartups #FounderToVC #FintechInvesting #SaaS

TX Zhuo is a General Partner at Fika Ventures. An entrepreneur at heart, TX has been involved with startups since his college days where he started then successfully sold an online college textbook marketplace. After a stint at McKinsey where he was a core member of their financial services and consumer goods practices, he came back to his roots and served as the CFO for an electric vehicle startup, Lit Motors. Thereafter, he worked for Innovation Endeavors, a seed stage venture fund backed by Eric Schmidt. In 2012, he co-founded Karlin Ventures, based in Los Angeles, where he served as the managing partner for 4 years before co-founding Fika Ventures. He is a strong proponent of transparency and efficiency and is constantly on the lookout for new platforms that seek to disrupt old, antiquated industries. Once a competitive badminton player who trained 4-5 days a week, he now can be found on the golf course or maxing out his ClassPass account on the weekends. He is also passionate about supporting initiatives that help cancer fighters. TX holds an MBA from Stanford and a BA in Mathematics and Economics from Wesleyan University. Topics: - Disrupting antiquated industries through technology - CFO experience shaping investment strategies in venture capital - The Southern California startup ecosystem and opportunities #VentureCapital #StartupLife #TechInnovation #EntrepreneurMindset #InvestorInsights

Chon Tang is the Founding & General Partner of Berkeley SkyDeck Fund. Chon is an experienced Silicon Valley engineer, entrepreneur and investor. He was formerly founding partner and Managing Director of Junzi Capital Engineering, a leading quantitative hedge fund investing in the commodity space. He has been actively investing in Silicon Valley startups for 12 years, and has personal investments in over 25 deals with multiple IPOs and exits. Chon is a proud Cal Bear (BS EECS), and also has a SM EECS from MIT. Topics: - Key factors in evaluating early-stage tech startups - How SkyDeck leverages UC Berkeley's resources to support startups - Quantitative investment strategies in venture capital #BerkeleyStartups #SiliconValleyEast #UCBInnovation #SkyDeckFund

Rob Biederman is the Managing Partner of Asymmetric. Prior to founding Asymmetric, Rob co-founded and served as co-CEO for eight years of Catalant Technologies, the market leader enabling companies to frictionlessly access and deploy talent, ranging from employees to over 70,000 elite independent consultants and 1,000 boutique firms. He is currently Chairman of Catalant. Rob is also co-author of a book titled, Reimagining Work: Strategies to Disrupt Talent, Lead Change, and Win with a Flexible Workforce, which lays out a vision and path for a new relationship between global companies and talent. Prior to founding Catalant, Rob was a private equity investor at Goldman Sachs and Bain Capital, where he focused on the healthcare and high-tech industries. In these roles, he served as an advisor to and collaborator with both public and private management teams on topics including organic growth, competitive strategy, mergers and acquisitions, capital allocation, and financing strategy. Rob is also an Executive Fellow at Harvard Business School in the Entrepreneurial Management unit, co-teaching the Scaling Technology Ventures course on funding and accelerating the growth of disruptive internet companies. Rob graduated from Princeton University with an A.B., cum laude, in Economics and Finance, and from Harvard Business School as a Baker Scholar. He played on the junior varsity basketball team and served as Student Body President. Topics: - Key strategies for scaling B2B software companies - The impact of AI and automation on the future job market - The future of work and talent acquisition #FutureOfWork #TalentDisruption #VentureCapital #TechStartups #WorkforceInnovation