The VentureFuel Visionaries

Untapped markets to rising tides, Ruchi Desai career has spanned law, craft beer, and now venture investing. As co-founder of EIGHT Brewing Co. with NFL legend Troy Aikman, Ruchi scaled one of Texas’s fastest-growing beer brands before launching Rising Tide Ventures, a fund dedicated to fueling untapped consumer markets with often overlooked founders. She shares lessons from navigating industry to her playbook for spotting disruptive opportunities to the trends shaping the future of consumer goods and venture capital.

This week, we’re using NotebookLM, Google’s AI-powered research tool, to share insights from Alice Ponti’s on-the-ground experience at Shoptalk Spring in March. This conversation is a comprehensive, insight-rich overview of the conference, organized around ten core themes transforming retail. From the rise of Agentic AI and multimodal search, to the fast-evolving world of retail media, this episode captures the pulse of where commerce is headed, and what brands need to do next. We're excited to share this POV on key trends spotted last spring, as Alice prepares to take the stage at Groceryshop next week, where she'll moderate a conversation on Embracing Agility and Innovation featuring Emily Xu, Chief Digital & Information Officer, Republic National Distributing Company, Alastair Dorward, CEO, Dropps and Harshad Agashe, VP Data Products, Albertsons. Visit Groceryshop.com to learn more. .

We go inside Northwestern Medicine’s Innovation Engine to see how they are solving healthcare’s biggest challenges with Kali Arduini Ihde, Director of Ventures and Innovation at Northwestern Medicine. Kali is at the forefront of bringing emerging technologies into one of the country’s top academic health systems to help shape the future of patient care through innovation. She leads the Northwestern Medicine Healthcare Accelerator, which partners with AI and digital health startups to solve real, high-impact challenges in healthcare. We discuss the value of creating organized programmatic innovation to solve important problems (prior authorization, physician burden, supply chain) in a safe space that allows for co-creation to accelerate scale.

In this episode, we bring you an exclusive recording from the Innov8rs LearningLab featuring Tito Obaisi, Senior Manager of Pipeline and Insights at Comcast NBCUniversal LIFT Labs, in conversation with our Founder and CEO Fred Schonenberg. Tito shares how his team captures and socializes insights from startup collaborations across Comcast, NBCUniversal, and Sky to inspire colleagues, educate teams, and uncover opportunities for transformation. Tune in for a behind-the-scenes look at how strategic partnerships with startups fuel enterprise-wide innovation and shape the next generation of products, technologies, and services.

Rohit Nuwal is a Partner at TELUS Global Ventures, Canada’s largest and most active corporate venture capital fund, with over 100 investments across transformative sectors such as HealthTech, AgTech, IoT, and AI. In this episode, we explore TELUS’ unique approach to commercialization beyond capital — and how they leverage deep insights from their global businesses to provide investment partners with a pathway to real-world traction and growth. Rohit shares how their Strategic Portfolio Development team, combined with a distinctive incentive structure within the core business, accelerates adoption — generating over $100M in P&L value.

Rikesh Shah is a visionary in public sector innovation and the driving force behind the Innovation Procurement Empowerment Centre at Connected Places Catapult. Rikesh shares how rethinking procurement can catalyze transformative solutions in the public sector, fostering environments where governments proactively solve pressing societal challenges. Drawing from his groundbreaking experience at Transport for London, Rikesh reveals how opening up city data empowered entrepreneurs to reshape mobility for millions, and how adopting a venture mindset in public procurement can deliver remarkable outcomes. Tune in to explore how procurement strategies can shift from cautious compliance to bold innovation, redefining what's possible for cities around the world.

Today’s guest is Alon Chen, Co-Founder and CEO of Tastewise, and former Google CMO — who just raised a $50M Series B to transform how the food and beverage industry leverages AI. We dive into why big companies shouldn’t build everything in-house, especially when AI is costly to develop and maintain, and why they should instead focus on their true edge. Alon shares how Tastewise predicted the rise of air-fried vegetables, leading to 3x profits for one client. We talk about the future of food and beverage, how AI enables companies to stay close to their customers. From trend forecasting to strategic innovation, this is a must-listen for anyone navigating the intersection of AI, technology, and taste.

On today’s show, I sit down with Flossie Hall, CEO of Stella Foundation, a powerhouse organization serving 10,000 women founders and investors worldwide. Flossie shares her journey from serial entrepreneur—having built and exited multiple seven-figure businesses—to leading a global movement that empowers women to launch, scale, and sustain their ventures. We will talk about how Stella’s initiatives, including the acclaimed Women’s Venture Summit, have facilitated over $200 million in fundraising for women-led companies. The conversation dives into the mission of Stella: to inspire, equip, and propel diverse female founders while cultivating a thriving network of investors to increase equality for women-led startups.

A CVC masterclass from Bill Taranto, Founder and President of Merck’s Global Health Innovation Fund, a $600M fund that is considered one of the most impactful corporate venture funds in the world. Bill has over 20 years of healthcare investing and is focused on digital health companies transforming the future of care. Bill was just named to the Global Corporate Venturing Power List for the 14th time. We talk about the dual mandate to predict and prepare as well as the unique structure he has created which includes multiple levers like accelerators, studios, the growth equity fund, and a private equity roll-up function. We talk about the right relationship with the corporate parent, flying too close to the sun in the strategic/financial balance and why communication is often what determines success and makes innovation tangible for large organizations.

On today’s show, we have Tito Obaisi, the Senior Manager of Pipeline and Insights for Comcast NBCUniversal LIFT Labs. Tito leads efforts to identify strategically relevant, enterprise ready AI startups that are at the cutting edge of new technology that not only deliver new capabilities but also shape insights from working with the world’s largest media and technology companies. Tito brings a unique perspective on how large organizations can drive innovation through collaboration – the value of an always learning mindset, grounding insights in tangible business needs, delivering insights at the speed of AI. We talk about the disruption of SaaS, Agentic Orchestration, Intelligence Allocation and how Enterprise-Ready startups are spinning up faster, with less people, and more impact for enterprise organizations.