Speed mentoring

Because we know how valuable mentorship is for successful leaders, a core focus of our programming this time around is Speed Mentoring. Founders will get the opportunity for 1:1 pitch feedback and product advice from seasoned investors and operators. You’ll be matched with a mentor based on specific topics you need help with and areas of their expertise. 

Our amazing mentors include:

  1. Allie Felix (Embarc Collective): She previously led community at Work-Bench, an enterprise technology venture fund, and business development at 37 Angels, a women's angel investing network in NYC, before joining Emabarc Collective as Director of Platform.

    • Pitch feedback / fundraising


  2. Aravinda Seshadri (Venturous Counsel): She’s founding partner of a legal firm providing seasoned and strategic legal advice to startups and funds led by individuals from marginalized groups.

    • Pitch feedback / fundraising


  3. Bedy Yang (500Startups): She oversees 500’s ecosystem development programs including investor education courses (in partnership with top institutions such as Stanford, Berkeley and INSEAD), has helped launch strategic partnerships and accelerator programs across the globe, and leads 500’s corporate-startup innovation and consultancy.

    • Pitch feedback / fundraising

    • Business operations and strategy

    • Sales and Go-to-Market

  4. Bethany Iverson (The Coven): She’s a co-founder and COO, responsible for fundraising and future expansion to new markets while thoughtfully tending to the sustained growth of the organization.

    • Pitch feedback / fundraising

    • Marketing

    • Business operations and strategy

  5. Cheryl Campos (Republic): A director at Republic, she is focused on introducing underrepresented founders to alternative funding sources in order to help their startups thrive.

    • Pitch feedback / fundraising

    • B2B SaaS

    • B2C or DTC

    • Sales and Go-to-Market, Business operations and strategy


  6. Christy Brown (Launchpad2X): As a serial entrepreneur and executive, Christy has spent 20 years as an accomplished leader focusing on human capital services and technologies.

    • Pitch feedback / fundraising

    • Business operations and strategy

    • Hiring teams


  7. Dana Kuhn (Personify): With over 10 years of experience in executive people and business operations in SF Bay Area tech startups, she partners with CEOs and founders to help realize their vision for building the company and its organizational culture.

    • Business operations and strategy

    • Hiring teams

    • Pitch feedback / fundraising


  8. Donna Griffit (Corporate Storyteller): A corporate storyteller and pitch coach who has helped her clients have raised over half a billion dollars.

    • Pitch feedback / fundraising

    • Sales and Go-to-Market


  9. Eduardo Zalvidar (TXV Partners): He helped grow Zyston, a high-growth cybersecurity startup, to over $10M in revenue within two years. Eduardo is now at a technology private equity firm and an advisor at TXV.

    • Pitch feedback / fundraising

    • B2B SaaS

    • Business operations and strategy

    • Hiring teams


  10. Jackie Hyland (Unruly Ventures): She supports early-stage funds and companies in the U.S. and Latin America.

    • Pitch feedback / fundraising

    • Business operations and strategy

  11. Jai Malik (Rocana Venture): He invests in food and beverage through Rocana Ventures and is the Founding Partner for 208 Seed Ventures.

    • Pitch feedback / fundraising

    • How to build better products

    • B2C or DTC

    • Sales and Go-to-Market

    • Business operations and strategy

    • Hiring teams

  12. Kate Brodock (Women 2.0 + W Fund): Through her work as a startup CEO to launching her new fund, Kate is passionate about creating an inclusive startup ecosystem and building equitable access to capital.

    • Pitch feedback / fundraising

    • Marketing

    • Sales and Go-to-Market

    • Business operations and strategy

    • Hiring teams

  13. Katelin Holloway (Initialized Capital): People executive and angel investor turned venture capitalist, Katelin is passionate about building scalable, inclusive institutional cultures.

    • Business operations and strategy

    • Hiring teams

    • Pitch feedback / fundraising

  14. Katie Palencsar (Anthemis): She is an investor at Anthemis Group, leading the Female Innovators Lab in partnership with Barclays. She recently advised on state legislation for investment in female and minority-owned businesses that was successfully passed in 2019.

    • Pitch feedback / fundraising

    • Marketplaces, B2B SaaS

    • Sales and Go-to-Market

    • Business operations and strategy

    • Hiring team

  15. Kenny Mendes (Coda): Prior to joining Coda, he led recruiting at Box where he built the recruiting team from scratch and scaled Box from 40 employees to over 1,200.

    • Low-code or no-code engineering

    • B2B SaaS

    • Business operations and strategy

    • Hiring teams

    • Pitch feedback / fundraising


  16. Kirsti Chou (Angel investor): Most recently led Growth at Vungle, with a background in supply chain management and sales. As an angel, she’s passionate about climate change, sustainability, and empowering underrepresented people.

    • How to build better products

    • Hiring teams

    • Sales and Go-to-Market


  17. Kofi Ampadu (SKU’D Ventures): As founder and GP of a pre-seed fund, venture partner with Republic, and a venture scout for Prototype Capital and Indie.VC, Kofi advises and invests in consumer brand startups.

    • B2C or DTC

    • Pitch feedback / fundraising


  18. Lee Fan (Hunter Pacific Fund): As founding partner of Hunter Pacific and CFO of GrubMarket, she brings a unique blend of operational skills, financial expertise, and strategic advisory to venture investing.

    • Pitch feedback / fundraising

    • Marketplaces

    • B2C or DTC

  19. Lisa Molinaro (Kapor Capital): She’s an investor at Kapor Capital with a focus on health, food, and sustainability. Prior to Kapor Capital, Lisa ran Tara Health's early stage investing in women's health startups and was a private equity strategy consultant with Parthenon - EY.

    • Pitch feedback / fundraising


  20. Miles Lasater (Purpose Built Ventures): He’s been a 3x founder, VC, angel investor, business school professor, board member, donor, improv comedian, and dancer. (Yes, it’s all true.)

    • Pitch feedback / fundraising

    • How to build better products

    • B2B SaaS

    • Sales and Go-to-Market

    • Business operations and strategy

    • Hiring teams


  21. Namrata Banerjee (Swartz Center Carnegie Mellon): As the director of VentureBridge Accelerator at Carnegie Mellon and a venture partner with Republic, her expertise is in product development from startups to Fortune 500 companies.

    • Pitch feedback / fundraising

    • How to build better products

    • Sales and Go-to-Market

    • B2B SaaS

    • Low-code or no-code engineering

    • Business operations and strategy

    • Hiring teams


  22. Noramay Cadena (MiLa Capital and Portfolia's Rising America fund): She’s managing partner at MiLA Capital, an early-stage venture capital firm in Los Angeles, and a lead investor in Portfolia's Rising America fund investing in Latinx, Black and LGBTQ founders.

    • Pitch feedback / fundraising

    • Business operations and strategy

    • How to build better products, Marketplaces, Marketing, Hiring teams


  23. Sarah K. Lee (Peak State Ventures): She’s a former education company founder with 16+ years of experience scaling innovative education programs/schools and coaching founding teams of EdTech Startups globally. Now, she invests in the future-of-learning/future-of-work companies (seed-Series C) at Peak State Ventures.

    • Pitch feedback / fundraising

    • Business operations and strategy

    • B2B SaaS


  24. Serena Ziskroit (ThirdLove): She’s an angel investor, and VP of People at DTC startup ThirdLove, which aims to help every woman be comfortable and confident. 

    • Hiring teams

    • Business operations and strategy


  25. Sydney Thomas (Precursor Ventures): She’s an investor at Precursor Ventures, a preeminent Silicon Valley seed fund that invests in people over product at the earliest stage of the entrepreneurial journey.

    • Pitch feedback / fundraising

    • Marketplaces

    • B2B SaaS

    • B2C or DTC

    • Marketing

    • Sales and Go-to-Market

    • Business operations and strategy


  26. Tanya Koshy (Startup Advisor): Tanya has 10+ yrs experience applying her entrepreneurial spirit and leading product & growth teams at Facebook, Google, and Groupon. Her expertise is in building highly cross-functional, diverse, & inclusive B2B Product teams that use customer insights & data to drive growth.

    • How to build better products

    • Marketplaces

    • B2B SaaS

    • Sales and Go-to-Market

    • Business operations and strategy

    • Hiring teams


  27. Tiho Bajic (LTSE Software): From engineer to CEO, Tiho is a serial product builder and is passionate about tools that help people work smarter.

    • Pitch feedback / fundraising

    • How to build better products

    • Low-code or no-code engineering

    • B2B SaaS

    • Hiring teams


  28. Timothy Chen (Essence VC): Managing partner at Essence VC, and was previously CEO of Hyperpilot which exited to Cloudera.

    • Pitch feedback / fundraising

    • Low-code or no-code engineering

    • B2B SaaS

    • Hiring teams

    • Sales and Go-to-Market


  29. Yu Chen (TBD Angels): A product management leader and angel investor, she spent over a decade building technology products for global audiences at Google and Flatiron School. Yu angel invests individually and with TBD Angels, and is especially passionate about supporting underrepresented founders.

    • Pitch feedback / fundraising

    • How to build better products

    • Low-code or no-code engineering