Garry Cooper is the CEO of Rheaply , a Series-A Climate Tech company in Chicago, and one of six GPs at Longjump VC , a first-check, founder-led fund investing in the next generation of Chicagoland founders. Garry shares his fundraising journey for Rheaply and for Longjump, and ideation process behind the two ventures. LongJump VC had been an idea for Garry and his network of Chicago founders, until George Floyd's death last summer solidified the formation of the fund. The GPs successfully raised...
Nov 29, 2021•36 min•Season 1Ep. 12
Fion is the co-founder and COO of Fairly AI , an AI Governance, Risk, and Control (GRC) solution that keeps organizations' AI responsible and regulated. She discusses her career as a technical and business leader at ATG before, during, and after its Oracle acquisition, her experience with late-stage investing, followed by her interest in early-stage venture investing. She joined Founder Institute, where she met her co-founder and together they launched Fairly AI in April 2020. Fion shares how Fa...
Oct 23, 2021•28 min
A C-suite executive connector and facilitator, Nicole Ward is the National Director of Sales at Moss Adams LLP, and Podcast host of Watermark Women of the C-Suite . In her conversation with Kelly, she shares her journey in angel investing, her appetite for risk, and the joy she finds in supporting those building something they are passionate about. She shares her journey of making one of her first investments in Porfolia, where women can learn about venture investing from other women. Nicole app...
Sep 29, 2021•22 min•Season 1Ep. 11
Leigh-Ann Buchanan is the President of aīre ventures, a venture studio scaling technology, entrepreneurial and innovative solutions to systemic gaps in access, opportunity and racial equity. Leigh discusses the Miami Venture Capital ecosystem, her REDI (Racial Equity Diversity and Inclusion) framework for closing opportunity gaps in investing, and why people, purpose and impact are core to everything she does.
Jul 30, 2021•27 min•Season 1Ep. 10
Judith Levey is the co-founder and COO of The Desire Company, a content and media platform that helps customers learn new skills from professionals and introduces them to the best products available. Judith shares how her previous corporate PR career at The Coca-Cola Company taught her the skills she needed to found and lead DesireCo, including the lessons she learned from a PR stunt gone horribly wrong. She identifies the “trust gap” between retailers and consumers on ecommerce platforms such a...
Jul 06, 2021•29 min•Season 1Ep. 9
Excited to have interviewed Aihui Ong, exited founder turned VC and hired, to learn about her lessons as a female solo founder who Immigrated to the US post-college. She shared her experiences on how was overlooked as a founder because of her gender and background and how she was able to use those experiences to support the founders that she invests in now. She also shared the difference of being a CEO vs a founder and how having a CEO coach really helped her to scale her companies. As an entrep...
Jun 29, 2021•38 min•Season 1Ep. 8
Plentina is the buy now pay later fintech startup building a new digital-first experience for financial services leveraging artificial intelligence. Earl is an aerospace engineer by training, and Kevin was a computer vision researcher at NASA Ames. The two met as graduate students at Stanford, where they bonded over dinner discussions on how to best serve their shared Filipino community. Realizing that credit card penetration in most Southeast countries (except Singapore) fell below ten percent,...
Jun 14, 2021•35 min•Season 1Ep. 7
What was your introduction to investing? For Elle Bruno, the Managing Director of the Techstars Western Union Accelerator Program, it was when her father helped her invest her babysitting money in Target - her favorite place to shop as a teenager. Today, with 18 years of startup operator experience under her belt, Elle runs the Techstars Western Union Accelerator Program. The program just closed its third round of applications with applicants from 50 countries. Elle is also an active Angel Inves...
May 28, 2021•22 min
Sajid Rahman is the General Partner at MyAsiaVC. He has been a prolific investor at tech companies ranging from Silicon Valley, Asia, Latin America, and Africa and has managed over 700 syndicates. He shares his experience of becoming an “accidental investor” when he was running a bank in Jakarta, Indonesia. He is attracted to startup investing because it gives him a frontrow seat in the tech and innovation world, and provides a “crash course on business building.” He discusses why he rarely writ...
May 26, 2021•34 min•Season 1Ep. 4
We share an inspiring conversation with Carmelle Cadet , Founder and CEO of EMTECH , a Fintech company on a mission to create financial inclusion for all, especially those who are underbanked, unbanked and deemed "unbankable." She shares her personal story of growing up in Haiti, gaining access to financial services when her family moved to the US, and going on to have a 10-year career at IBM working in blockchain technology. She describes her lightbulb moment of deciding to quit her 6-figure sa...
May 21, 2021•33 min•Season 1Ep. 4
A conversation with Manan Mehta , Founding Partner at Unshackled Ventures . Unshackled Ventures was founded in 2014 with the mission to help immigrant founders succeed. The firm invests in immigrant entrepreneurs at the ideation stage (60% of commits made before incorporation), sponsors visas, and provides full immigration support for immigrant founders who often do not have the support network of native-born founders. Unshackled has made 55 investments to date, backing founders from 6 different...
May 11, 2021•29 min•Season 1Ep. 3
Arlan Hamilton is an investor and the founder and managing partner of Backstage Capital. She's also one of our advisors at Finclusive Ventures! In May 2020, Hamilton released her first book from Penguin Random House entitled " It's About Damn Time ", which is based on her personal journey into entrepreneurship and venture capital. Listen to our interview with Arlan Hamilton by Lauren Nham and Kelly Lei on how Arlan spot founders and people that she would want to work with. What she defined as un...
Apr 27, 2021•22 min•Season 1Ep. 2
Founder and investor Elizabeth Yin shares how Hustle Fund is democratizing wealth through entrepreneurship. Elizabeth shares strategies behind how Hustle Fund is able to write the earliest checks for new startups based on thoughtful evaluations of the founding team and the existence of “market pull.” For new VC firms, Elizabeth offers advice on portfolio construction. She highlights the importance of building a unique brand and leveraging other investors in the ecosystem. Through Hustle Fund and...
Apr 27, 2021•27 min•Season 1Ep. 1
Ali and Kelly founded Finclusive Ventures and we are here to tell you why we are doing the Finclusive podcast.
Apr 23, 2021•1 min
