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

Jett Fein is a General Partner at Headline, where he invests in technology businesses globally. Jett joined Headline in 2014 and has led or co-led the firm’s early investments in Gopuff, Fancy (acquired by Gopuff), Honeycomb.io, gettacar, Playbook, Sprout Therapy, Air, Swell, Avoma, Candid Co., NomNomNow (acquired by Mars), Rocket.Chat, Tonebase, Copa90, and is involved in several other investments in the US and Europe, including Shopmonkey and GRIN. Prior to joining Headline, Jett was at Fung Capital, where he invested in companies that enabled global omni-channel commerce. Before Fung Capital, Jett held various roles at Palantir Technologies and Cambridge Associates. Jett holds a B.A., with distinction, from Stanford University, where he received the J.E. Wallace Sterling Award. He also received a J.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law. Topics: - Trends in SaaS, media, e-commerce sectors - Passion economy, experiences, self-improvement, convenience, combating loneliness - Adapting investment strategies across different geographies #VentureCapital #TechInvesting #Startups #EarlyStageInvestments #GlobalInvesting

Ed Sim is the Founder of boldstart, partnering from Inception with developer first, infrastructure and SaaS founders. He loves working with engineering-driven founders with bold ideas and laser-sharp focus on product well before writing their first lines of code. Ed has been in the trenches with Snyk, Kustomer (sold to Meta), BigID, Blockdaemon, Superhuman, Security Scorecard, Front and so many more from inception. Ed also co-founded MState in 2017, an enterprise blockchain lab in partnership with IBM, where seed investments include Fireblocks and Amberdata. He is a true partner from day one—helping bold founders start, scale, exit and have fun along the way. Ed has been recognized as a top-10 investor on the Forbes Midas Seed List for the last two years, and as the No. 1 seed investor in the Business Insider Seed 100. Prior to boldstart, Ed was a Co-Founder of Dawntreader Ventures, where he inception investments in Greenplum (sold to EMC, Pivotal—IPO), GoToMeeting (sold to Citrix), and LivePerson (IPO). Previous to that, he worked at J.P. Morgan, where he learned how to code and build quantitative trading models. Ed graduated from Harvard College and was a four-year letterman on the men’s lacrosse team. Topics: - Key qualities boldstart looks for in technical founders aiming to reinvent the enterprise - Developer tools, cybersecurity, and infrastructure in modern enterprises - The long-term outlook for AI investments versus short-term market reactions #EnterpriseAI #AIinEnterprise #VCInsights #TechInvesting #AI

Deon Nicholas is the Co-Founder & CEO of Forethought, the first AI platform for customer support automation. Previously, Deon built products and infrastructure at Facebook, Palantir, Dropbox, and Pure Storage. Deon is a sought-after futurist and expert on generative AI, with appearances on CNBC, Bloomberg, and Yahoo Finance. He has authored several machine learning publications and holds numerous infrastructure patents. Deon was a World Finalist at the ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest and was named to Forbes 30 under 30. Topics: - The current state and future potential of AI in customer service - The challenges and opportunities in building an AI-focused startup - Generative AI and its impact across industries #AIInnovation #CustomerSupport #GenerativeAI #TechEntrepreneur #FutureOfWork