Venture with Grace

Casber Wang is a Partner at Sapphire Ventures where he is focused on security, enterprise infrastructure, and data and analytics. Born in China to parents who were both small-business entrepreneurs, Casber is familiar with and excited by the founder’s journey. Casber is on the boards of Cyera, Huntress, JumpCloud, Rewst, StarTree, and Zesty. Prior to Okta’s acquisition, he was also a board observer at Auth0. He also helped lead Sapphire’s investments in Glean and Weights & Biases. For his work, he has been recognized by Business Insider as a Rising Star, and is often sought after by media publications for insights on tech trends related to AI and cybersecurity.Prior to Sapphire, Casber was part of the technology investment banking group at Bank of America Merrill Lynch where he worked on high-profile IPO and M&A transactions. Casber graduated with honors from the University of California, Berkeley with a bachelor’s in business. While there, he was actively involved with the startup scene and co-founded Etch.ai, a personal CRM company incubated at Berkeley Skydeck.Topics: The Evolution of Cybersecurity InvestmentThe AI Revolution in EnterpriseSecurity and Enterprise Tech Investing Trends#VentureCapital #CyberSecurity #AIInvesting #EnterpriseInfrastructure

Joseph Floyd is a General Partner at Emergence and a Kauffman Fellow. Joe’s expertise in building cloud startups has evolved from over fifteen years of advising and investing in rocketship startups like SalesLoft, project44, Mya, Total Expert, LogDNA and more. Before joining Emergence, Joe was a Senior Associate in American Capital’s technology group where he focused on investing in fast-growing internet and software companies including HomeAway. Joe was also an Associate at McKinsey & Co. in their corporate finance practice and did hard time in tech investment banking before that.Joe earned an MBA from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. While at Wharton, Joe won first place at the International Venture Capital Investment Competition. He is also a proud Cal Bear with a BA in Economics and BS in Business Administration from the University of California, Berkeley.Topics: Evolution of the cloud startup landscapeHow to evaluates AI SaaS sales and revenue tools Impact of AI on enterprise SaaS business models#EnterpriseVC #CloudInvesting #B2BSaaS #AIStartups #VCStrategy

Brian Peterson is the Chief Technology Officer and co-founder of Dialpad, a leader in AI-powered communication and collaboration. With a background as a Senior Software Engineer at Google, where he contributed to the development of Google Voice, Peterson has been instrumental in driving technological innovation at Dialpad. His leadership continues to shape the company's growth and product development in the evolving landscape of hybrid work.Topics: The evolution of AI in business communication tools Building and scaling a communication platformThe role of real-time voice analytics and AI transcription #VoiceAI #Dialpad #CTO #EnterpriseAI #FutureOfWork

Iliana Oris Valiente is the Managing Director (Partner) of NA Innovation Hubs Lead at Accenture. She leads all NA innovation hubs at Accenture, working with senior exec clients and boards to support their transformation journeys. This includes a focus on our AI, metaverse/web3, and cross industry plays. In this role, she oversees teams that bring together specialists in design, data science, the venture ecosystem, tech, along with variety of industry experts to educate clients, inspire change and move forward with results.Michael Ströck is the Co-Founder and CEO of Allocator One. Allocator One is the leading platform for first-time venture capital funds. Since its founding, Allocator One has invested in numerous first-time GPs, including standout funds like Common Magic and Don't Quit Ventures. Today, Allocator One has built a powerful community of emerging fund managers and provides the tools and support needed to launch successful venture funds.Topics: Building Effective Innovation EcosystemsAI's Impact on Investment StrategiesThe Evolution of VC Funding Models#CorporateInnovation #VCFunding #EmergingManagers #AI

Anna Barber is a partner at M13, Anna was the managing director of Techstars LA and also a partner in The Fund LA. A certified executive coach, Anna has worked as a corporate lawyer, McKinsey consultant, product exec, and entrepreneur. She serves on the Advisory Board of PledgeLA and is a member of AllRaise.Topics: The rise of solopreneurship and its impact on the business landscapeHow AI is transforming the economics of small businessesThe concept of "business-in-a-box" solutions#venturecapital #startup #AI #innovation #entrepreneurship #funding

Stefan Weitz is the co founder and CEO of HumanX. He is a veteran of Microsoft with 18 years of experience, has led billion-user technologies, including Bing.com, while also pioneering strategic initiatives in online platforms and cybersecurity, showcasing a profound understanding of technology trends and a talent for transforming concepts into thriving ventures.Topics: The role of conferences in fostering innovation and collaborationLeading billion-user technologiesThe vision behind HumanX#TechLeadership #AIInnovation #CybersecurityTrends #EntrepreneurshipJourney

Yousuf Khan is a Partner at Ridge Ventures. Having held many operational roles in his previous positions, he’s uniquely qualified to not only grow Ridge’s portfolio, but more importantly to support founders through the vantage point of deep start-up experience. He currently serves as board director for Ridge-backed Archera, Cerby, Chisel Labs, Lightyear, Rafay, and Rewind.Prior to joining Ridge, Yousuf was the first CIO of Automation Anywhere, the CIO and Vice President of Customer Success at cloud-based AI platform Moveworks, as well as CIO of Pure Storage and Qualys. He has been an advisor to early-stage companies such as Zoom, Productiv and Material Security as well as an active member of the CIO community. He holds a BSc in Business Management from King’s College London.Topics: The evolving role of CIOs in modern enterprises Key trends in enterprise software and AI The future of cloud-based AI platforms#VC #RidgeVentures #StartupInvesting #EnterpriseSoftware #CloudTechnology

Andrew Brown, founder and CEO of Check, has built a career transforming industries through technology. After co-founding Oyster, the "Netflix for books" acquired by Google, Andrew turned his focus to solving payroll complexities for businesses. With Check, he created a payroll-as-a-service API that enables software platforms to integrate payroll seamlessly. Backed by investors like Stripe and Index Ventures, Andrew is redefining how businesses manage payroll while sharing insights from his entrepreneurial journey and expertise in building scalable platforms.Topics: Integrate payroll functionality directly into their existing softwarePerform all payroll-related tasks through the APIBuild custom user interfaces on top of Check's API#PayrollInnovation #FintechSolutions #EmbeddedPayroll #FutureOfWork

Jae Lee is the Co-Founder and CEO of Twelve Labs, a leading AI research and product company headquartered in the San Francisco Bay Area with a significant presence in APAC, based in Seoul, South Korea. Under Jae’s leadership, Twelve Labs has pioneered groundbreaking advancements in multimodal neural network architecture, establishing itself as the world’s leader in video understanding AI. The company’s proprietary technology empowers enterprises and developers globally with transformative capabilities in video intelligence, powering critical video understanding use cases in industries like Media, Entertainment, Sports, Surveillance, and Government.Recognized for its innovation and impact, Twelve Labs has been featured on the prestigious CB Insights AI100 List for three consecutive years (2022-2024) and was named one of Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies in 2023. Since its inception in 2021, Twelve Labs has secured $100 million in funding from a select group of top-tier investors, including New Enterprise Associates, Index Ventures, Nvidia, Intel, Samsung, Databricks, and Snowflake.Jae also serves on the board of the Republic of Korea Foundation Model Association, collaborating with influential leaders from South Korea's largest conglomerates, including Samsung, SK, and LG, to shape the future of AI. He holds a BSc in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from UC Berkeley.Topics: The future of video intelligenceMultimodal AI breakthroughsEnterprise video AI use cases#AI #VideoUnderstanding #TwelveLabs #Innovation #ArtificialIntelligence

Reed McGinley-Stempel is the co-founder and CEO of Stytch, an all-in-one platform for modern authentication, authorization, and fraud prevention. Their mission is to eliminate friction on the internet -- without compromising security. They offer solutions that are purpose-built for the needs of both consumer and B2B apps, including features like Google One-Tap & Biometrics to optimize conversions for B2C, and SSO, RBAC, and SCIM to meet the demands of enterprise customers for B2B SaaS. Before Stytch, Reed worked at Plaid, where he met his co-founder Julianna Lamb. They witnessed firsthand the endless frustration experienced by teams — engineers wasting valuable time building authentication solutions instead of focusing on their own product and users suffering the pain of clunky authentication experiences. He is also a proud Duke alum - go blue devils!Topics: The evolution of authenticationThe future of identity management and fraud preventionImpact of AI and machine learning on authentication and fraud prevention#Stytch #Authentication #Passwordless #FraudPrevention #CyberSecurity