John Frankel is a Partner at ff Venture Capital. He is passionate about working with founders that are building the big businesses of tomorrow. He founded ff Venture Capital in 2008 to work with founders who share this vision, which has since funded over 150 seed and early-stage companies that have in turn created thousands of jobs and impacted the lives of millions. While ff Venture Capital’s investments span a number of industries, John is currently fascinated by applied artificial intelligenc...
Oct 22, 2024•1 hr
Omar Shaya is the founder of MultiOn, an AI company that develops autonomous agents. Prior to this, he led product management for Core Product Ranking at Meta and worked on product management at the Microsoft Search, Assistant, and Intelligence (MSAI) organization. Additionally, Omar has worked as a product manager at Crealytics and LiquidM, two successful startups where he helped incubate and develop AI-based marketing automation platforms. Omar holds an MS in Management from the Stanford Gradu...
Oct 19, 2024•52 min
Nick Adams is the co founder of Quill. Quill is a local meeting tool designed to free you to be present in meetings, and get work done fast afterward. Whether you're capturing notes from startup pitches, documenting founder updates, or organizing insights from multiple discussions, Quill makes post conversational work a breeze. With customizable templates for various roles and industries, Quill functions like a Notion for conversations, enabling users to effortlessly record, organize, and follow...
Oct 18, 2024•1 hr 3 min
Mark Kraynak is a Founding Partner at Acrew Capital. 🚀 This episode is brought to you by Quill Meetings. 🚀 Mark Kraynak is a technology executive, company builder and erstwhile poet/engineer. Before co-founding Acrew, Mark joined Aspect Ventures as Entrepreneur in Residence and converted to a full time investor at the end of 2017. Prior to joining Aspect, Mark spent nearly 13 years at Imperva, where he held a number of marketing, product, corporate development and strategy roles. Mark has led ...
Oct 17, 2024•1 hr 5 min
Chris Picardo is a Partner at Madrona. Chris joined Madrona in 2017. As a partner on the investment team, Chris focuses on identifying, evaluating, and leading new investment opportunities and working closely with existing companies. Chris helps lead Madrona’s investments in companies innovating around the intersection of life and computer science through combining novel wet lab science with cutting-edge machine learning. He also helps lead investing activities in consumer technology and commerc...
Oct 16, 2024•1 hr 4 min
Arvind Jain is the Co-founder and CEO of Glean ($4.6 Billion valued), the Work AI platform connected to all your data. 🚀 This episode is brought to you by Quill Meetings. 🚀 Find, create, and automate anything. Prior to Glean, Arvind co-founded and led R&D at Rubrik, one the fastest growing companies in cloud data management. Arvind also spent over a decade at Google as a distinguished engineer, where he led teams in Google’s Search, Maps, and YouTube products. Earlier in his career, Arvind...
Oct 15, 2024•1 hr 1 min
Sumit Chauhan is the Corporate Vice President of Office Product Group at Microsoft. 🚀 This episode is brought to you by Quill Meetings. 🚀 She heads up a wide portfolio of Microsoft 365 experiences, guiding product, design, and engineering teams for both M365 Copilot and M365’s flagship applications and creator tools. Her portfolio includes M365 Copilot, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, Designer as well as Microsoft 365’s video solutions. She and her team are working to evolve the way we accom...
Oct 12, 2024•1 hr 3 min
Scott Walbrun is a venture capital investor at BMW i Ventures, BMW's independent VC fund, where he focuses on investments targeting the future of mobility, energy, supply chain, and artificial intelligence. In addition to this role, he provides workshops and coaching to hundreds of startups each year through various accelerator/incubator programs. Prior to joining BMW i Ventures, he provided M&A and capital markets advisory to technology companies and investors as a member of Jefferies' Tech...
Oct 12, 2024•1 hr 2 min
Amin Shaykho is the CEO of Kadama, social media star, and TED talk speaker honored on the Forbes 30 under 30 list. Shaykho is a former senior software engineer at Apple on teams like iMessage and Health. Shaykho raised $1.7M for Kadama and grew it to 2M+ users, 2.5M+ followers and 1B+ views on social media, and reached a peak App Store ranking of #2 in education. Shaykho has over 2M+ followers across his personal Instagram, TikTok, Facebook and Snapchat. Topics: The future of edtech, building a ...
Oct 10, 2024•1 hr 4 min
Elana Gold is a partner at Red Beard Ventures (RBV), a pioneering Web3 fund with over $25M in capital, investing in blockchain consumer apps, infrastructure, gaming, metaverse, and DeFi, both in equity and tokens. She leads the RBV Syndicate, which invests in startups at any stage and sector, with over 3,900 LPs, 210+ company investments, and over $50M deployed. An advocate for women in investing, she founded The Girls Table, a platform (for men and women) boosting entrepreneurs, creators, and i...
Oct 10, 2024•1 hr 1 min
René Lomelí is a Partner at 500 Global, he joined the team back in 2013. Since then, he has been responsible for the 16-week program they run for their investments in Spanish-speaking LatAm "Somos Lucha". He's also been part of the +240 investments they've made in the region such as Konfio, Clip, Ayenda, 99Minutos, Conekta, Jüsto, Terapify, and Graviti. He enjoys helping early-stage companies in several areas, such as business strategy, product-market fit, marketing, fundraising, team, culture b...
Oct 08, 2024•1 hr 4 min
Ashu Garg is a General Partner at Foundation Capital. Foundation Capital is a leading Silicon Valley based early stage venture capital firm. He focus on investing in bold founders who have a vision to transform markets and build enduring companies. Ashu has extensive experience across the stack from AI 1st applications to data/ML infrastructure, cyber security, and cloud infrastructure. Ashu is an early investor in Databricks, Cohesity, Eightfold, Amperity (via an acquisition), Anyscale, Turing,...
Oct 05, 2024•59 min
Jeff Seibert is the co-founder and CEO of Digits, where he's building the world's first AI-powered accounting platform for startups and small businesses. He previously served as Twitter's Head of Consumer Product, leading the company's teams across Twitter for iOS, Android, and the Web, as well as its Developer and Data platforms. Jeff was the co-founder and CEO of Crashlytics, the award-winning mobile performance analytics platform, which today runs on over 6 Billion monthly-active smartphones ...
Oct 04, 2024•1 hr 1 min
Kyle Harrison is a General Partner at Contrary. Contrary is a talent and research-driven investment firm. We back a small number of exceptional people and the companies they build, from seed to scale. He is an investor in Ramp, Replit, Anduril, OneSchema, Zepto, Moment, Nomic, Pave, Patch, Modern Intelligence, Teamshares, Leland, Synthesis, Armada, Power, and more. Prior to Contrary he is a Partner at Index Ventures and Growth Investor at Coatue Management and TCV. Topics: Supporting Founders fr...
Oct 04, 2024•59 min
Wei Lien Dang is a General Partner at Unusual Ventures and leads investments in infrastructure software, security, and developer tools. He has spent more than a decade building products at startups. Wei was a co-founder of StackRox, a cloud-native security company, where he was responsible for product management, user experience, product marketing, and technical evangelism prior to its acquisition by Red Hat. Before that, Wei held product leadership roles at CoreOS (also acquired by Red Hat), Br...
Oct 01, 2024•1 hr 4 min
#159 JuE Wong is the former President & CEO/ Executive Board Director of Olaplex Inc. (Nasdaq: OLPX). Prior to Olaplex, she was the Global CEO/ Executive Board Director of Moroccanoil, the President of Elizabeth Arden, and an Independent Board Director of The Red Door by Elizabeth Arden. Other notable companies she has served as a leader include Murad and Perricone MD, among others. You can learn more about: - How to Be the CEO of an Iconic Cosmetic Brand - The Career Journey of a Public Com...
Sep 28, 2024•53 min
🚀 This episode is brought to you by LG NOVA. 🚀 Watch the latest Smart Venture Podcast episode. #156 Mark Rostick is a Vice President & Senior Managing Director located in Raleigh, NC. He is a voting member of Intel Capital’s investment committee. He joined Intel Capital in 1999. Mark also co-manages our Cloud domain investment activities and portfolio. He has deep investment experience in cloud applications, infrastructure hardware and software, as well as AI/ML. As a member of Intel Capit...
Sep 26, 2024•57 min
🚀 This episode is brought to you by LG NOVA. 🚀 Amit Vasudev is the Managing Partner of Earl Grey Capital. Earl Grey Capital is an early-stage venture fund run by Amit Vasudev, Alex MacCaw, and Matt Sornson. They were part of the founding team at Clearbit. Clearbit helps companies create, capture, and convert demand from ideal customers — all from one powerful and flexible go-to-market platform. It was acquired in 2023 by HubSpot (NYSE: HUBS). Earl Grey Capital invests in companies that make it...
Sep 25, 2024•1 hr
🚀 This episode is brought to you by LG NOVA. 🚀 Matthew Weinberg is a Partner at Max Ventures Partner. Matt joined Max Ventures in 2018 after serving several years as an Obama Administration White House appointee where he helped drive $6 billion in federal funding to early-stage technology startups and investment groups. Matt has led several key investments at Max and is the Co-founder of Elion Health. Topics: - Investing trends in the digital health space - New York City's startup ecosyste...
Sep 24, 2024•1 hr 5 min
🚀 This episode is brought to you by LG NOVA. 🚀 Rajeev Dham has been a Partner at Sapphire Ventures since 2013, splitting his time between applied AI companies across horizontal and vertical SaaS, as well as category-defining innovators in fintech and healthcare. For his work, he has been recognized as a Top 40 Under 40 Growth Investor by GrowthCap and most recently, the Silicon Valley Business Journal honored him in their annual 40 Under 40 list. Prior to Sapphire Ventures, Rajeev worked for S...
Sep 20, 2024•57 min
🚀 This episode is brought to you by LG NOVA. 🚀 Jason Yeh is the Co-Founder & General Partner of Patron Fund. Patron, an early-stage VC firm investing in the next generation of consumer startups announced the raise of a $100 million USD Fund II. The company's second fund has attracted significant institutional and individual support, anchored again by Horsley Bridge Partners and joined by new institutional investors including university endowments, sovereign wealth funds and institution...
Sep 20, 2024•58 min
🚀 This episode is brought to you by LG NOVA. 🚀 Giuseppe Stuto is the CO-Founder and Managing Partner of 186 Ventures. Giuseppe built his first software company, Fam, where he was the founder and CEO shortly after he graduated college. Fam built one of the largest group video communities ever by scaling to more than seven million users in about a year. Fam was acquired by DraftKings in 2018, and Giuseppe stayed on to serve in product & strategy roles leading up to the company’s successful I...
Sep 19, 2024•58 min
🚀 This episode is brought to you by LG NOVA. 🚀 Eric Zhu the co-founder of Aviato, which is the "Bloomberg Terminal" for private markets, and an Investor at Bachmanity Capital. Topics: - Content marketing strategies for a B2B startup - Leveraging social media and digital platforms to reach potential clients and investors - Leveraging unique Gen Z perspectives and skills in product development and company culture #TeenFounder #VCDisruptor #GenZEntrepreneur #StartupHustle #DataDriven 🚀...
Sep 18, 2024•1 hr 1 min
🚀 This episode is brought to you by LG NOVA. 🚀 Shira Eting is a Partner at Vintage Investment Partners. Prior to joining Vintage, Shira managed ‘Mechinat Bnei Zion,’ an NGO for non-formal education. Before that, Shira worked as a Strategic Consultant for McKinsey & Company, focusing on a wide range of industries. Shira was also a ‘Milken’ fellow in the Ministry of Economy, focusing on the export of Israel’s water technologies. Shira holds a BSc in Math and Computer Science from Ben Gurion ...
Sep 17, 2024•58 min
🚀 This episode is brought to you by LG NOVA. 🚀 Caroline Winnett is the Executive Director at Berkeley SkyDeck. Berkeley SkyDeck is UC Berkeley's startup accelerator and incubator. Through the Berkeley SkyDeck Fund, they invest $200,000 in each of their cohort startups, and provide the powerful resources and network of UC Berkeley to help cohort companies grow. The Berkeley SkyDeck Fund shares one-half of all fund profits with UC Berkeley. Formed as a partnership between the Haas School of ...
Sep 14, 2024•1 hr 1 min
Sponsor Spotlight:🚀 This episode is brought to you by LG NOVA. 🚀 Sokwoo Rhee is Corporate Executive Vice President for Innovation at LG Electronics and Head of LG NOVA, LG Electronics' Silicon Valley-based innovation center. He leads LG Electronics’ global innovation projects, new business creation, strategic partnerships, and ecosystem development. Prior to joining LG, Sokwoo served as Associate Director for Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) Innovation at the National Institute of Standards an...
Sep 14, 2024•1 hr 6 min
🚀 This episode is brought to you by LG NOVA. 🚀 David Cohen is the Founder and CEO of Techstars, a pre-seed investor that provides access to capital, programming and connections to early-stage entrepreneurs. David is a lifelong entrepreneur, and has founded three companies, two of which had successful exits. Since founding Techstars in 2006, the company has invested in more than 4,400 startups through its 40+ accelerator programs worldwide. The company has invested in over 20 unicorns including...
Sep 14, 2024•59 min
🚀 This episode is brought to you by LG NOVA. 🚀 Yuri Lee is a partner at IVP who leads investments across Consumer Internet, Health, and Application Layer AI. She works closely with companies like Abridge, Clipboard Health (Board), Discord, LegalZoom, Papaya Global, and Accompany Health in the portfolio. Yuri was previously an indie game developer and globally ranked competitive gamer. She spent a few years working with enterprise software companies like Slack, SentinelOne, and Affirm at Morgan...
Sep 14, 2024•1 hr
🚀 This episode is brought to you by LG NOVA. 🚀 Elizabeth Jarvis-Shean is Vice President of Communications at DoorDash. Prior to that, she oversaw Airbnb's global public affairs and corporate communications teams. Elizabeth has managed strategic communications at pioneering companies including Tesla Motors, healthcare technology startup Nuna, and data science firm Civis Analytics. She helped shape and drive research, rapid response and messaging for both of Barack Obama’s presidential campa...
Sep 13, 2024•53 min
🚀 This episode is brought to you by LG NOVA. 🚀 Neil Sequeira is the Founder & Managing Director at Defy (defy.vc). Prior to Defy, he was a Managing Director at General Catalyst Partners for 12 years, where he joined in 2004, a couple of years after the firm’s founding. Some of the companies Neil worked with include: The Honest Company, Entropic Communications, Nautilus Biotech, Everyday Health, Virtue (Oracle), Elemental (Amazon AWS), HotPotato (Facebook), ThisTech (Comcast), Cozy (Costar)...
Sep 13, 2024•1 hr 11 min
