Speakers
Co-founder & President Human Capital
Co-founder & Managing Partner Base10 Partners
Managing Director Sequoia Capital India
SVP & Global Head, Fintech Visa
Partner Venrock
Founder & CEO Reforge
Co-founder & CEO Carbon Health
Venture Partner, The Frontier Long Journey Ventures
CEO D-Wave Systems
Partner Cherry Ventures
Partner Lightspeed Venture Partners
Founder & CEO Conductor
Partner Anthemis
Global Vice President Digital Hewlett Packard Enterprise
Managing Director General Catalyst
Partner Sequoia Capital
Co-founder Ureeka
Founder & Chief Creative Officer Movers & Shakers NYC
Partner EQT
Founder & CEO Superplastic
Partner Index Ventures
Co-founder & Co-CEO Atlassian
Founder & CEO Movers & Shakers NYC
Co-Founder & General Partner Reach Capital
Founder & CEO Q&A Music & Technology
General Partner Andreessen Horowitz
General Partner Balderton Capital
President & CEO IonQ
Co-founder & CEO Chief
Managing Director Owl Ventures
Vice President, Messenger by Facebook Facebook
Managing Director Madrona Venture Group
Co-founder & CEO Reboot.io
Vice President, Data Strategy Yodlee
Vice President Bessemer Venture Partners
Founder & CEO Blavity, Inc.
Partner Accel
General Partner The Longevity Fund
Co-founder & Managing Partner BBG Ventures
Founder, Group Managing Director & CEO Interswitch
Founder & CEO Promise
Co-founder & CEO AptDeco
Co-founder & CTO DoorDash
Epidemiologist & Senior Fellow Federation of American Scientists
Co-founder, CTO & CIO Peloton
General Partner Benchmark
Partner Kleiner Perkins
Chief Product Officer Zoom
Co-founder & Co-CEO TechStyle Fashion Group
Co-founder & Managing Partner Construct Capital
Founder Imagine Impact
Founding Partner Forerunner
Principal Storm Ventures
Founder and Managing Partner Conviction
Partner Mayfield Fund
Co-founder, COO & Chief Engineer SmartNews
Managing Director, YC Continuity Y Combinator
Brand Partner Fabletics Men
Founder & CEO Threads Styling
CEO LanzaTech, Inc.
Co-founder & CEO Dropbox
Founder Imagine Impact
Managing Partner Precursor Ventures
Partner Bain Capital Ventures
General Partner Canaan Partners
Partner East Ventures
Co-founder & CEO Egnyte
Founder & Partner FirstMark
Partner Hoxton Ventures
Fuel Cell Business Analyst Toyota Motor Corporation
Founder, Atrium Sales Analytics AtriumHQ
Co-founder & CEO Lidya
Co-founder & General Partner Equal Ventures
Founder & CEO Insitro
CEO All Raise
Managing Director Cleo Capital
Co-founder & CEO Color
Co-Founder Premise
Co-founder & CEO Squire
Founder & Managing Partner Cowboy Ventures
Founder & CEO The Black List
Co-founder & CEO mmhmm
Co-founder & CEO Airtable
Partner Accel
Congresswoman Representing California's 19th District United States House of Representatives
Chief Executive Officer Triller
Co-founder & General Partner BBG Ventures
Managing Partner Kindred Ventures
General Partner Coatue Management L.L.C.
Founder & CEO Uncharted Power
Partner Y Combinator
Co-founder & Principal Sparrow Advisers
CEO Imagine Impact
Co-founding Partner Floodgate
Vice President & Managing Director, Facebook India Facebook
Founder & Managing Director Base Ventures
General Partner GV
Founder, CEO & Owner The Shade Room
Host of CONAN & President Team Coco Digital
Managing Director Kapor Capital
Co-founder Creative Artists Agency
Co – founder & CEO Supercell
Producer, The Chainsmokers & Partner and Co-Founder MANTIS Venture Capital
Founder & CEO PlayVS
General Partner Backstage Capital
CEO Boston Dynamics
Founder & CEO Checkout.com
Vice President & Head Scientist, Alexa AI Amazon
US President & General Manager AppsFlyer
General Partner Spark Capital
Co-Founder and Managing Director Renegade Partners
Founder & CEO BYJU’S
General Partner Spark Capital
Co-founder & Managing Partner Blume Ventures
Vice President of Alexa Experience & Echo Devices, Amazon Amazon
Partner Bessemer Venture Partners
Founder & Expert Partner Bain Innovation Exchange (BIE)
Growth Strategist & Startup Advisor Stage 2 Capital
Co-founder Future Ventures
Founder & CEO Boom Supersonic
Partner & Startup Accelerator CEO Y Combinator
Founder & Managing Partner Felicis
Vice President, Technology Development & 5G Labs Verizon
Next in Marketing Podcast Host & Founder Shields Strategic Consulting
Co-founder & CEO GitLab
Founder & CEO KITE
Co-founder Campaign Zero
Co-founder & CEO Quantum Machines
Founder and General Partner Moxxie Ventures
Startup Growth Advisor & Head of Portfolio Sound Ventures
Producer, The Chainsmokers & Partner and Co-Founder MANTIS Venture Capital
Managing Partner Initialized Capital
Vice President, Developer Experience Yodlee
Chief Operating Officer Corindus
Co-founder & CEO Homage
Co-founder & Managing Partner Harlem Capital Partners
Founder & Managing Partner Inspired Capital Partners
Founding Managing Partner Plexo Capital
Co-founder & President Kaltura
Managing Partner Notable Capital
General Partner Andreessen Horowitz
General Partner GV
Managing Director Morgan Stanley
Partner Index Ventures
CEO Arevo
Co-founder & Partner Homebrew
Co-founder & Managing Partner Fifth Wall
Partner Cowboy Ventures
Actor, Producer, Activist Simpson Street
Product Leader Advisor
Co-founder Zebras Unite
Partner Greycroft
CEO Chrysalis Cloud
Co-founder & CEO Driver's Seat Cooperative
Founder & CEO Bumble
Founding Partner & Managing Director Cake Ventures
Founder & CEO Anker
President of Product and Technology Glean
General Partner Race Capital
Co-founder PlanGrid
Co-founder, President & COO Cloudflare
Co-founder Inspirit
Founding Partner & CEO 500 Global
Co-Founder and Chairman Life Science Angels
Member, Board of Directors Life Science Angels
Co-Founder Scribe Therapeutics
David Adefeso is the Founder and CEO of the full-service financial advisory firm The Pacific Group (TPG) and Sootchy Inc. (Sootchy), a mobile and desktop college savings platform. His experiences at TPG, which provides innovative investment strategies and wealth management services to individuals and families, made him realize that many American’s lack financial literacy—especially when it comes to saving for higher education. As an immigrant and self-made financial success, his desire to give back inspired him to launch Sootchy in the fall of 2020 to help families across the economic spectrum avoid the crushing blow of student debt.
David's Sessions
TC Include Reception sponsored by Sootchy
PRIVATE EVENT – TC Include kicks off this year’s founder cohort with organizational partners Black Female Founders, Female Founders Alliance, Latinx Startup Alliance and StartOut with remarks by Sootchy.
Baris Akis is co-founder and President of Human Capital, a venture firm and engineering talent agency with more than $250M AUM and 5,000 members. Human Capital has invested in 6 companies worth more than $1B since 2016—including Brex, Livongo, Snowflake, Anduril and Wildlife Studios—and connected its engineers to 12 unicorns when they had less than 50 engineers—including Robinhood, Nuro, Snowflake, and Brex. Baris was raised in Istanbul and got his BS in computer science from Stanford University. While in college, he started and sold a web-development automation business, and met with and helped guide more than 500 of his software engineer peers with their post-grad career plans. His insights from that experience and those conversations created the foundation behind Human Capital.
Baris's Sessions
Managing Tech Talent
Human Capital is both an investment firm and a talent agency for engineers and aspiring entrepreneurs. Hear Human Capital cofounder Baris Akis and investor Michael Ovitz, the founder of CAA, discuss the importance of talent acquisition and retention in the tech world.
Adeyemi (“Ade”) is Co-founder & Managing Partner at Base10 Partners. Before Base10, Ade had a successful career as an entrepreneur and investor. Ade was the co-founder and CEO of Tuenti (The “Spanish Facebook” which was acquired by Telefonica in 2010 for $100M), co-founder and CEO of Identified (“AI for HR” acquired by Workday in 2014) and a founding investor of Cabify (the largest ridesharing company in Latin America currently valued at over $1B). While at Workday, Ade led launch to Workday Ventures, the first fund focused on Applied AI for Enterprise Software and was VP of Technology Strategy. Ade is originally from Spain and half Nigerian. He holds an MBA from Stanford’s Graduate School of Business. He also holds a J.D. in Law and a M.S in Economics from Icade University in Spain and studied a certificate on Machine Learning at Stanford. Ade volunteers with CODE2040 who tries to create access, awareness and opportunities for gifted Black and Latin engineering talent.
Adeyemi's Sessions
Startup Battlefield – Session 1
TechCrunch’s iconic startup competition is back, as entrepreneurs from around the world pitch expert judges and vie for the Battlefield Cup and $100,000.
Disrupt Desk
Hang with us at the Disrupt Desk to catch up on what you’ve missed from across the show and get a sneak peek at new technology, demos, news and more. Ade Ajao joins us to talk about his new fund.
As part of the leadership team at Sequoia Capital India, Rajan is focusing on developing its early-stage program Surge, into the world’s top scale-up program for startups by acting as an investment advisor and mentor to the programme’s founders. Surge aims to engineer rapid early progress for startups, by enabling disproportionate access to capital, talent, network and decades of company-building knowledge. Rajan’s deep understanding of technology, operating expertise and a track record of growing tech businesses across the region will help Surge’s founders scale and build the businesses of tomorrow. Prior to Sequoia, as Head of Google India and Southeast Asia, Rajan played a key role in expanding the regions internet ecosystem while accelerating Google’s innovation and growth units. He is also a prolific angel investor who has backed a large number of successful startups at very early stages. Rajan also led Microsoft and Dell in India and was earlier a Partner at McKinsey & Company in Chicago.
Rajan's Sessions
How to Craft Your Pitch Deck for 2020
Today you might be pitching by email, audio, video, VR or IRL to all types of investors across the globe. How do you tell your story in a way that reaches the right people the right way without you diverting too much time from building your company? The traditional deck of powerpoint slides still has a place, but you need to manage many more opportunities for fundraising, too. We’ll talk through the latest tactics that founders are using around the world.
Terry Angelos is the Global Head of Visa’s Fintech team. Terry is a serial entrepreneur who has successfully founded and sold three venture backed companies and is an angel investor and advisor to startups focused in Advertising and Fintech markets. He holds a BS in Electrical Engineering from WITS University, an SM in Engineering Science from Harvard University, and an MBA from MIT Sloan.
Terry's Sessions
It Takes An Ecosystem To Innovate: Startups, Corporations and the Connectors that Bring Them Together
We convene top innovation leaders from around the ecosystem — Alice Vilma of Morgan Stanley, Rishi Roongta of Bain & Company and Terry Angelos of Visa — to learn how they discover innovative solutions and get to outcomes faster. Many already know that startups plus large enterprises can fuel each other’s growth and bottom line, whether it’s a partnership, investment or acquisition. But bringing the right ones together needs more than serendipity: it requires a dynamic ecosystem that includes consultants, accelerators and VCs (aka the connectors). Join us for rich insights and actionable advice that will enhance your firm’s approach.
Brian Ascher is a partner at Venrock, where he invests broadly across enterprise and fintech and serves on the boards of several companies, including Personal Capital, 6Sense, Socrates AI, Dynamic Signal, Retail Solutions, SmartBiz Loans, and Inrix.
Brian's Sessions
How to Reinvent Your Sales Team in 2020
We’re bringing together the smartest leaders on sales in the Valley to discuss tactics and more. Brian Ascher is a partner at Venrock where for more than two decades he has invested in B2B sales-driven companies like 6Sense, Socrates AI, and Dynamic Signal. Next, Pete Kazanjy is one of the leading startup authorities on sales through his written works like “Founding Sales” and community building while also founding sales performance platform Atrium HQ. Finally, we have Jill Rowley, who has spent decades advising startups on sales and was also an early employee at Salesforce and Eloqua.
Brian Balfour is the Founder/CEO at Reforge and Venture Partner at Long Journey Ventures. Reforge helps top performers do the best work of their careers through advanced professional education programs. Prior to starting Reforge, Brian was the VP of Growth at HubSpot helping establish new product verticals. Brian has spent his career on growth and product strategy. He also occasionally write at https://brianbalfour.com.
Brian's Sessions
How to Think Strategically About Growth in 2020
Users in 2020 are split across more and more platforms and splintered by geographies. They’re also jaded about marketing and have less money than before the pandemic. So how do you find the right customers and audience members to build a business with your limited time and budget? Hear from the experts on big growth marketing trends and cutting-edge tactics in key acquisition channels including SEO, social, email and more.
Eren leads the Carbon Health team towards his vision to democratize healthcare and make quality care accessible for everyone. Previously, Eren paved the way to make education accessible by founding Udemy, the world’s largest marketplace for online courses, with over 10 million students worldwide. In his youth, Eren was a star mathematician, winning awards in mathematics, physics, computer science and chess including the International Mathematical Olympiads. He still loves chess today and plays to unwind after a long day at the office.
Eren's Sessions
Tech, Test and Treat: Healthcare Startups in the COVID-19 Era
Both Carbon Health and Color have shifted significant portions of their business to focus on addressing the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. We’ll talk to them about the challenges of making that quick turn, and about how healthcare innovation can address our pandemic needs.
Cyan Banister is a partner at Founders Fund, where she invests across sectors and stages with a particular interest in augmented reality, fertility, heavily regulated industries and businesses that help people with basic skills find meaningful work.
Cyan's Sessions
Pitch Deck Teardown
Talk through the nuts and bolts of what makes a great deck (or not) with top investors as they go through your submitted pitches live on stage.
Dr. Alan Baratz became the CEO of D-Wave in 2020. Previously, as executive vice president, R&D and chief product officer, he drove the development, delivery, and support of all of D-Wave’s products, technologies, and applications. He has over 25 years of experience in product development and bringing new products to market at leading technology companies and software startups. As the first president of JavaSoft at Sun Microsystems, Baratz oversaw the growth and adoption of the Java platform from its infancy to a robust platform supporting mission-critical applications in nearly 80 percent of Fortune 1000 companies. He has also held executive positions at Symphony, Avaya, Cisco, and IBM. He served as CEO and president of Versata, Zaplet, and NeoPath Networks, and as a managing director at Warburg Pincus LLC. Baratz holds a doctorate in computer science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Alan's Sessions
The Business of Quantum
Quantum computing is having a moment. We now have limited but working hardware available from a number of vendors and there is a growing startup ecosystem that is creating novel hardware approached and a new class of software tools to run these machines and program them. In this panel, we’ll talk about what’s next for quantum computing, the challenges ahead and the roles startups play in fulfilling the promise of this technology.
Sophia is a Partner at Cherry Ventures. Based in Stockholm. Sophia brings her expertise on Nordic startups and a growing interest in the femtech space. Sophia joined Cherry from Atomico, where she also served as Partner and created the firm’s well-known Angel Program. Sophia is passionate about supporting ambitious, early-stage founders, an interest she discovered through 40+ angel investments of her own across Europe and North America. For seven years, Sophia also served as Spotify’s Global Marketing Director, developing the audio platform from an apartment-based Swedish startup into an international household name. Aside from venture capital, she also acts as Board Director at the non-profit organization Race for the Baltic, is cofounder of AllBright.se, and is an innovation advisor to the Swedish Prime Minister. Sophia is a graduate from Stockholm University.
Sophia's Sessions
From Early Stage to Growth: Unpacked by Sophia Bendz and Carolina Brochado
Sophia Bendz left Atomico to pursue her passion of early-stage investing, while Carolina Brochado has joined EQT Ventures to target growth-stage startups. We’ll look at this full spectrum investing with these experienced investors.
10:30 AM (CET) Live Q&A with Sophia Bendz and Carolina Brochado
Come to this live Q&A prepared with your questions for Sophia Bendz and Carolina Brochado.
Mercedes Bent is a partner at Lightspeed where she invests in consumer, edtech and fintech companies.
Mercedes's Sessions
Startup Battlefield – Session 3
TechCrunch’s iconic startup competition is back, as entrepreneurs from around the world pitch expert judges and vie for the Battlefield Cup and $100,000.
Making Cents of Edtech in the Coronavirus Era
Edtech has been thrown into the spotlight during COVID-19. But did a scramble to adopt and surge in usage impact the sector for better or for worse? In this session, we’ll hear from investors who have bets in the biggest edtech companies on how the landscape has changed during the pandemic, and what they’re most excited for ahead.
Since founding Conductor, Seth Besmertnik has led the company through multiple financing rounds and extraordinary growth, including Conductor’s successful spin out from WeWork in 2019. Conductor has been nationally recognized as a best place to work for 7 years running, and Seth was named Marketing Technology CEO of the year in 2019. Today, a growing list of the world’s greatest brands, like Citibank, SAP, and CVS, partner with Conductor to humanize marketing and deliver greater value to their customers. Seth speaks at industry events and universities as an expert in customer-first marketing, people-first culture, and entrepreneurship. You can watch his most recent keynote here, follow him on Twitter, or get to know him better on Instagram. You can read his point of view on a variety of topics here, including this post on modern leadership.
Seth's Sessions
How to Build an Alternative Company
Beyond raising traditional venture capital and beyond the pursuing-growth-at-all-costs strategy, there are people in the startup ecosystem that are finding success through less mainstream avenues. Conductor CEO Seth Besmertnik, Driver’s Seat CEO Hays Witt and Aniyia Williams of Black & Brown Founders and Zebras Unite, are three of these people. These founders have all taken alternative approaches in their entrepreneurial journeys, whether that’s been forming as a cooperative, buying back a startup from a tech giant and then turning it into a majority employee-owned operation or converting into a cooperative fund that invests in startups tackling social issues. In this discussion, you’ll learn how to build a company that puts profits and users first, and VCs last.
Anjul Bhambhri is vice president of Platform Engineering at Adobe. In her role, Anjul leads Adobe Experience Platform strategy, development and technology partnerships with Microsoft Azure. Anjul has nearly three decades of experience in enterprise technology development with a focus on establishing industry leadership in big data, databases and analytics. She has launched technology ventures within mature companies, growing them into global organizations with significant revenue streams. Prior to joining Adobe in 2016, Anjul spent 14 years at IBM, most recently serving as vice president of Engineering for the Big Data and Analytics Platform where she has helped integrate technology and teams, all while growing combined customer bases. Anjul holds a Bachelor’s in Electrical Engineering from the University of Delhi. She was ranked #8 in on Business Insider’s “Most Powerful Female Engineers” list in 2018 and in 2013, selected by Strata Today as “Your Top Picks” in the Women in Data category, and YWCA of Silicon Valley “Tribute to Women” award in 2009.
Anjul's Sessions
How to Invest in Infrastructure to Deliver Experience
Gabie Boko, Global VP Digital, Hewlett Packard Enterprise & Adobe VP of Platform Engineering, Anjul Bhambhri discuss digital transformation and experience delivery.
Ruth Foxe Blader is a Partner at Anthemis and thought leader in fintech and insurtech. At Anthemis, Ruth leads strategic investment efforts across Europe and North America. Ruth specializes in technology-enabled business models, insurance technology, risk transfer, early stage investing, product strategy and digital transformation. Prior to joining Anthemis, Ruth worked for Allianz SE, where she spearheaded leading digital innovation efforts. She was a founding member of the AllianzX team, where she led investments in startups including Lemonade, MoneyFarm, Argus Cyber Security and SimpleSurance. A New Jersey native, Ruth has spent the last decade between New York, London and Paris. In 2018 and 2019, Ruth was recognized for her outstanding contribution to the global financial technology ecosystem and listed among the Women in Fintech Powerlist by Innovate Finance. She currently serves on the boards of Axle, Demex, Hokodo, Hometree, Kaiko, Proportunity and Stable.
Ruth's Sessions
How Embedded Finance Represents the Future of FinTech
The fintech industry has had a wild couple of years. Consumer fintech startups have been massively successful and managed to attract millions of customers. At the same time, enterprise companies have created the infrastructure that will make finance truly digital, from payments to API-driven integrations and risk assessment. In this panel, we’ll talk about what’s next for the fintech industry. Will tech companies all become fintech companies at some point with embedded financial products? Will new tech giants thrive by powering those embedded financial products?
Gabie has spent over 20 years in the technology industry and led transformations in senior marketing roles for companies including Cognos, SAP, Sage and HPE. Her experience has focused on connecting customer success to innovative customer experiences in software applications, digital marketing and websites, customer storytelling and events. Born and raised in Alaska, Ms. Boko is an avid outdoors person, wildlife photographer and advocate for protecting our natural resources and rural communities.
Gabrielle's Sessions
How to Invest in Infrastructure to Deliver Experience
Gabie Boko, Global VP Digital, Hewlett Packard Enterprise & Adobe VP of Platform Engineering, Anjul Bhambhri discuss digital transformation and experience delivery.
Niko Bonatsos is a managing director at General Catalyst Partners.
Niko's Sessions
Pitch Deck Teardown
Talk through the nuts and bolts of what makes a great deck (or not) with top investors as they go through your submitted pitches live on stage.
I’ve always thought, “What can I do that opens up possibilities?” I grew up in South Africa and went to an Afrikaans high school, and we didn’t speak English at home. But I pushed myself to go to an English-speaking university, and that opened up a door. Then I chose to work for McKinsey, because I thought it would open another door and maybe I’d get a chance to work overseas. I was reading about what was happening in Silicon Valley in the mid 90s, before I came to the U.S. Already, I’m starting to see the beginnings of the internet. Did I fathom how big it would be? Absolutely not. I didn’t know what venture capital was. I didn’t know that I would join a startup. I just had an intuition that I needed to be here. A friend of mine introduced me to Elon in 1999 and I joined PayPal. Then when Mike Moritz asked me to come interview at Sequoia, that was just another door opening. Where might this one lead? Whenever I interview people, I ask about those key moments in somebody’s life where they’ve made career decisions. And I think about companies in the same way—there are these crucible moments that have an enormous bearing on ultimate outcomes.
Roelof's Sessions
Looking into the Future
Botha is the U.S. head of Sequoia Capital. It’s a powerful position but it also comes with great responsibility, including to help steer the company’s portfolio companies through the pandemic and its ripple effects. Hear how Botha is advising founders and why, even in trying times, he expects startup founders to reshape the world.
Pitch Deck Teardown
Talk through the nuts and bolts of what makes a great deck (or not) with top investors as they go through your submitted pitches live on stage.
Melissa L. Bradley is a co-founder of venture backed Ureeka, a community where small businesses gain unprecedented access to the expertise needed to grow their business. The Ureeka mission is to democratize economic opportunity by enabling community and by reducing the cost and risk associated with growing a small to medium business (SMB). She is also founder and Managing Partner of 1863 Ventures, a business development program that accelerates New Majority entrepreneurs from high potential to high growth. In this role she created a community of over 10,000 New Majority entrepreneurs in three years. Melissa also serves as advisor to the New Voices Foundation and New Voices Fund, as well as the Halcyon Fund. Melissa is the former Co-Chair, National Advisory Council for Innovation and Entrepreneurship and was recently named one of The Most Entrepreneurial Women Investors in 2018. Melissa is a professor at the McDonough School of Business at Georgetown University where she teaches impact investing, social entrepreneurship, P2P economies and innovation.
Melissa's Sessions
Startup Battlefield – Session 4
TechCrunch’s iconic startup competition is back, as entrepreneurs from around the world pitch expert judges and vie for the Battlefield Cup and $100,000.
Finding the Right Business Leadership Style for Your Startup
Becoming a successful leader isn’t a one-size-fits-all formula. It’s critical for founders to determine what leadership style best suits the needs and culture of their startup as well as the employees who work there. Carolyn Childers, co-founder and CEO of women leadership network Chief, Melissa Bradley co-founder of SMB networking platform Ureeka and Jerry Colonna, co-founder and CEO of executive coaching firm Reboot.io will dig into what makes a successful leader and how to find the right management style to fit you and your startup.
Idris is an innovative and passionate individual who uses his technical and artistic expertise to disrupt traditional narratives through immersive experiences, all the while empowering others to do the same. His background is in Cognitive Science and Computer Science. As an artist, Idris spends his time focusing on blending technology and the material world as a means of cultivating space for black radical imagination. idris’s creative expertise includes immersive technology, painting, computational art, and hip-hop production. As an educator, idris worked for Google, developing an educational program called Code Next that exposes black and brown youth to the world of computer science, allowing them to have the tools to build their own future. He is also the subject of the documentary, “American Promise” winner of the Special Jury Award at the Sundance Film Festival.
Idris's Sessions
Speed of Thought: The First 5G Visionaries
Innovators are using the power of 5G to tackle some of the biggest challenges and opportunities being faced today. See the premiere of Speed of Thought, a documentary about the first wave of 5G visionaries, and hear industry leaders discuss how the need for 5G tech and solutions is more urgent than ever.
Carolina focuses on fintech, digital health and B2B. Prior to joining Softbank, Carolina was a Partner at Atomico, where she sourced and collaborated with portfolio companies for almost five years. Some of her investments included Lendinvest, Gympass, Hinge Health, Ontruck and Rekki. Previously Carolina has worked as Head of Ops to a now defunct gifting e-commerce start-up, as an investor at Chicago-based private equity firm Madison Dearborn Partners and within Consumer/Retail Investment Banking at Merrill Lynch in New York. Carolina has a Bachelor of Science degree in Foreign Service from Georgetown University and an MBA from Columbia Business School. She is originally from Brazil.
Carolina's Sessions
From Early Stage to Growth: Unpacked by Sophia Bendz and Carolina Brochado
Sophia Bendz left Atomico to pursue her passion of early-stage investing, while Carolina Brochado has joined EQT Ventures to target growth-stage startups. We’ll look at this full spectrum investing with these experienced investors.
10:30 AM (CET) Live Q&A with Sophia Bendz and Carolina Brochado
Come to this live Q&A prepared with your questions for Sophia Bendz and Carolina Brochado.
PAUL BUDNITZ is an American entrepreneur, artist, designer, filmmaker, photographer, author, and database programmer. He has founded over a dozen companies including the world’s top animated celebrity & synthetic media brand Superplastic, art toy brand Kidrobot, luxury bicycle manufacturer Budnitz Bicycles, and Ello, the social network for creators. Budnitz’ designs appear in permanent collection of MoMA, and his films have won awards worldwide. He wrote backend software that runs most of his companies, is the author of four books, and lectures on creativity worldwide. Budnitz studied art Yale University and lives in Burlington, Vermont.
Paul's Sessions
Disrupt Desk
Hang with us at the Disrupt Desk to catch up on what you’ve missed from across the show and get a sneak peek at new technology, demos, news and more. Paul Budnitz of Superplastic joins us for a special announcement.
Sarah's Sessions
Building a Startup During the “Work From Home” Revolution
We’re delighted to bring together a trio of the world’s best expert investors on the topic and explore this critical trend further. Sarah Cannon is a partner at Index Ventures where she has backed such team productivity tools as Notion, focused messaging app Quill, and Pitch. Next we have Sarah Guo, who is a general partner at Greylock where she has invested in Clubhouse, family benefits platform Cleo and several cybersecurity companies. Finally, Dave Munichiello will join. He is a general partner at GV who has backed Slack, GitLab, Plaid, and a whole lot of other well-known enterprise startups.
Mike Cannon-Brookes is the Co-founder and Co-CEO of Atlassian, a collaboration software company that helps teams organize, discuss and complete shared work. More than 160,000 large and small organisations across the world, including companies like Spotify, NASA, Mercy Ships, Sotheby’s and Visa use Atlassian’s collaboration products to help their teams work better together. Outside Atlassian, Mike is a technology investor in the areas of software, fintech, agriculture and energy and sits on the board of Zoox. He also cares deeply about giving back and is a board member of Room to Read. A passionate clean-energy evangelist, Mike was a driving force behind Australia getting the world’s biggest lithium ion battery and the “Fair Dinkum Power” movement. He serves as an adjunct professor at the University of New South Wales’ School of Computer Science and Engineering and holds a Bachelor of Science in Business Information Technology from the University of New South Wales, Australia.
Mike's Sessions
What's Next for Atlassian?
Atlassian’s tools have become ubiquitous for software teams around the world, but in today’s world, its collaboration tools also play a wider role inside of many companies. We’ll talk to the company’s co-founder Mike Cannon-Brookes about life after the company’s successful IPO and how he plans to stay ahead of the next set of trends in software development.
Glenn Cantave is an activist, performance artist and social entrepreneur who uses immersive technology to highlight the narratives of the oppressed. Through his non-profit Movers & Shakers NYC, he organized a pop up slave auction performance piece/AR exhibit, ran the NYC Marathon in chains, and is creating AR educational content focused on highlighting the narratives of marginalized communities. He is also the Creator, Executive Producer of We the People, a 360 documentary focused on activism in the age of Trump. His team has documented the actions of several New York based activist groups and captured footage from events such as the Trump Inauguration, Charlottesville Riots, and a White Lives Matter Rally in Tennessee. He is a TED Resident, incoming artist in resident at Eyebeam NYU Something un Residence and a member at New Inc, an arts/tech incubator with the New Museum. He will be speaking about his work at TEDx in Ghent, Belgium this December.
Glenn's Sessions
Speed of Thought: The First 5G Visionaries
Innovators are using the power of 5G to tackle some of the biggest challenges and opportunities being faced today. See the premiere of Speed of Thought, a documentary about the first wave of 5G visionaries, and hear industry leaders discuss how the need for 5G tech and solutions is more urgent than ever.
Jennifer Carolan is a general partner and co-founder of Reach Capital.
Jennifer's Sessions
Making Cents of Edtech in the Coronavirus Era
Edtech has been thrown into the spotlight during COVID-19. But did a scramble to adopt and surge in usage impact the sector for better or for worse? In this session, we’ll hear from investors who have bets in the biggest edtech companies on how the landscape has changed during the pandemic, and what they’re most excited for ahead.
Troy Carter is the founder and CEO of Q&A, a technology and media company focused on powering the business of music via distribution, services, and data analytics. Formerly, Troy was the founder and CEO of Atom Factory, where he rose to prominence, nurturing the careers of global superstars, including Lady Gaga and John Legend. He most recently served at Spotify as its Global Head of Creator Services, overseeing the company’s growth strategy for artists and record labels. In 2017, Troy was also named Entertainment Advisor to the Prince Estate. His interest in the intersection of technology and culture resulted in the formation of AF Square Investments. Early investments include Uber, Lyft, Dropbox, Spotify, Warby Parker, theSkimm, Blavity, Gimlet Media, Thrive Market, PlayVs, and FazeClan. Troy currently serves as a trustee for The Aspen Institute, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and CalArts.
Troy's Sessions
Catching Dubs
When it comes to esports, perhaps no org commands as much respect as FaZe Clan. The esports organization competes across a wide range of titles, including CoD, Fortnite, PUBG, FIFA, and CounterStrike. With streamers like NateHill, NICKMERCS and Mongraal, and a thriving apparel business, FaZe Clan is a dominant force in gaming. Hear from FaZe Clan CEO Lee Trink, investor Troy Carter, and streamer NICKMERCS about what to expect from the pro gaming scene over the next decade and how the org uses tech to optimize its operations across every department.
Startup Battlefield Final
The final round of TechCrunch’s iconic startup competition is back, as entrepreneurs from around the world pitch expert judges and vie for the Battlefield Cup and $100,000.
Connie Chan is a general partner at Andreessen Horowitz where she focuses on investing in consumer technology and currently serves on the board of KoBold. Connie joined the firm in 2011 as a deal partner on the investment team. In this role, she worked on sourcing and diligence for numerous consumer tech deals including micro-mobility company Lime. She also spearheaded the creation of the firm’s Asia network and was a leading conduit between early stage companies in Silicon Valley and Asia. Prior to joining Andreessen Horowtiz, Connie worked at HP leading the company’s webOS efforts in China. She started her career as a private equity investor at Elevation Partners, investing in media and entertainment. She has been named a LinkedIn NextWave Top Professional 35 and Under, Wired’s Next 20 Tech Visionary, and Fast Company’s Most Creative People 2017. She has won a Sidney award for her writing on WeChat, and is a Young Global Leader at the World Economic Forum. Connie received her B.A. in Economics and M.S. in Management Science and Engineering from Stanford University.
Connie's Sessions
The Changing Landscape of Property Tech
Connie, Chan, general partner at Andreessen Horowitz, Merritt Hummer, partner at Bain Capital Ventures and Brendan Wallace, co-founder and managing partner at Fifth Wall are at the center of these changes. These investors will discuss the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead in property tech as well as advice for startups in the industry.
Suranga joined Balderton as a General Partner in 2014, he was previously an entrepreneur and engineer.
Suranga founded blinkx, the intelligent search engine for video and audio content in Cambridge in 2004. He then led the company for eight years as CEO through its journey of moving to San Francisco, building a profitable business and going public in London where it achieved a peak market capitalization in excess of $1Bn. Before founding blinkx, Suranga was an early employee at Autonomy Corporation, where he ultimately served as the company’s US CTO in San Francisco.
In 2017, Suranga joined the UK Government’s Council for Science and Technology. Suranga was granted an OBE for services to technology and engineering in the 2018 UK New Year’s Honours.
Suranga's Sessions
Entrepreneur to VC: Unpacking Suranga Chandratillake's Journey
Suranga Chandratillake has (almost) seen it all, and predicted much. He was the early CTO for Autonomy. He then founded blinkx in 2004 because he figured there would be a need for a search engine for video and audio content. Blinx shifted from London to San Francisco, became profitable, and even IPO’d for $1Bn. He now invests in many of Europe’s hottest startups. We will be unpacking all that experience and more at this special Disrupt SF session in Europe.
10:30 AM (CET) Live Q&A with Suranga Chandratillake
Come to this live Q&A prepared with your questions for Suranga Chandratillake.
Peter Chapman
President & CEO, IonQPeter Chapman is director at Heavybit, a nine-month program for post-seed startups building developer products.
Peter's Sessions
The Business of Quantum
Quantum computing is having a moment. We now have limited but working hardware available from a number of vendors and there is a growing startup ecosystem that is creating novel hardware approached and a new class of software tools to run these machines and program them. In this panel, we’ll talk about what’s next for quantum computing, the challenges ahead and the roles startups play in fulfilling the promise of this technology.
Carolyn Childers is the Co-Founder and CEO of Chief, the private network built to drive more women into positions of power and keep them there. She is an experienced leader and operator, having successfully scaled several early-stage businesses. Prior to founding Chief, Carolyn was SVP of Operations at Handy, then led the launch of Soap.com and acted as GM through its acquisition by Amazon. Carolyn was named to Inc.’s Female Founders 100 List.
Carolyn's Sessions
Finding the Right Business Leadership Style for Your Startup
Becoming a successful leader isn’t a one-size-fits-all formula. It’s critical for founders to determine what leadership style best suits the needs and culture of their startup as well as the employees who work there. Carolyn Childers, co-founder and CEO of women leadership network Chief, Melissa Bradley co-founder of SMB networking platform Ureeka and Jerry Colonna, co-founder and CEO of executive coaching firm Reboot.io will dig into what makes a successful leader and how to find the right management style to fit you and your startup.
Ian is a Managing Director at Owl Ventures, the world’s largest venture capital fund exclusively focused on education technology. Across his career, Ian has been an investor, entrepreneur, and advisor to education and technology companies. He currently serves on the boards of Degreed, Benchprep, LeLe Ketang, Sanjieke, and Abl. Prior to joining Owl Ventures, Ian was an education and technology investor at Warburg Pincus and Silver Lake Partners and a consultant at Bain & Company. He also helped launch BigMachines a SaaS company which was acquired by Oracle. Ian serves on the Advisory Board for SEO, a non-profit that provides educational, career, and mentoring programs for young people from underserved and underrepresented communities. He is also a member of the Advisory Council for Gladeo, a social enterprise dedicated to helping underserved youth from diverse backgrounds gain awareness, preparedness, and access to upwardly mobile careers. Ian is a graduate of Stanford University, where he earned a B.S. in Industrial Engineering, with Distinction, and an M.S. in Industrial Engineering, with a concentration in technology management and entrepreneurship. He also received his M.B.A. from the Stanford Graduate School of Business, where he was an Arjay Miller Scholar and Arbuckle Leadership Fellow.
Ian's Sessions
Making Cents of Edtech in the Coronavirus Era
Edtech has been thrown into the spotlight during COVID-19. But did a scramble to adopt and surge in usage impact the sector for better or for worse? In this session, we’ll hear from investors who have bets in the biggest edtech companies on how the landscape has changed during the pandemic, and what they’re most excited for ahead.
Stan Chudnovsky is the Vice President of Messenger from Facebook.
Stan's Sessions
Hitting Send
More than 1 billion messages are sent through Facebook Messenger every single day. Hear from Stan Chudnovsky on how his team has evolved through the pandemic, how he thinks about shipping features for a product used by billions of people, and what’s next for one of the biggest communication platforms in the world.
Hope Cochran is an investor at Madrona Venture Group, where she invests in early-stage fintech and ML/AI applications for the business environment.
Hope's Sessions
How Embedded Finance Represents the Future of FinTech
The fintech industry has had a wild couple of years. Consumer fintech startups have been massively successful and managed to attract millions of customers. At the same time, enterprise companies have created the infrastructure that will make finance truly digital, from payments to API-driven integrations and risk assessment. In this panel, we’ll talk about what’s next for the fintech industry. Will tech companies all become fintech companies at some point with embedded financial products? Will new tech giants thrive by powering those embedded financial products?
Russell is the Group Managing Director, Operations at Grab, and is based out of Singapore. Russell has over 19 years leadership experience in the mobile, telecom, software and distribution industries, leading teams and businesses across Asia Pacific whilst living in Australia, Hong Kong, Singapore and Japan. Prior to Grab, Russell was with SoftBank C&S in Tokyo as Board Director and VP of Business Development & Corporate Strategy from 2014 to 2017, leading all new business, partnerships, global vendor management and M&A strategy. Russell joined SoftBank following the acquisition of Brightstar Corp, where he was Regional MD of Asia from 2012 to 2014, covering 9 markets across the region. Russell also established and ran the Greater China region for Brightstar from Hong Kong, between 2009 and 2012. Prior to Brightstar, Russell worked at Telstra Corp. in Australia. Russell holds a Master of IT from University of Melbourne and a Bachelor of Commerce (Accounting & Finance) from Monash University in Melbourne, Australia.
Russell's Sessions
Grabbing The Market
Hear from Russell Cohen, Group Managing Director of Grab (the region’s first decacorn startup) on how coronavirus has reshaped the ride-sharing industry and what’s next for the transportation giant.
2:00 PM (HKT) Live Q&A with Russell Cohen
Come to this live Q&A prepared with your questions for Russell Cohen.
Jerry Colonna is CEO and co-founder of Reboot.io, an executive coaching and leadership development firm, and author of ‘REBOOT: Leadership and the Art of Growing Up’ (HarperBusiness, June 18). For nearly 20 years, he has used the knowledge gained as an executive, venture capitalist (VC), journalist and a board member for 100+ organizations to help people lead with humanity, resilience, and equanimity.
Jerry's Sessions
Finding the Right Business Leadership Style for Your Startup
Becoming a successful leader isn’t a one-size-fits-all formula. It’s critical for founders to determine what leadership style best suits the needs and culture of their startup as well as the employees who work there. Carolyn Childers, co-founder and CEO of women leadership network Chief, Melissa Bradley co-founder of SMB networking platform Ureeka and Jerry Colonna, co-founder and CEO of executive coaching firm Reboot.io will dig into what makes a successful leader and how to find the right management style to fit you and your startup.
Brian J. Costello is responsible for data access strategy and solutions for Envestnet | Yodlee (Yodlee), tasked with enabling Yodlee’s global data aggregation, financial enablement and data analytics portfolios. A tireless advocate for responsible innovation in financial services, he leverages his relationships with industry and regulators to enable Yodlee and their clients to develop digital financial solutions that provide positive outcomes to consumers and small businesses. He contributes his expertise to develop emerging regulations and standards as a Member of FDATA Europe, a Steering Committee Member of FDATA North America, a Board Member of the Financial Data Exchange and a member of the OpenID FAPI Working Group. Brian is a frequent author and presenter on topics related to how governance and compliance are enablers to building trust and adoption of digital financial solutions.
Brian J.'s Sessions
Making Data Meaningful for the FinTech Ecosystem
Open finance/banking represents a new era of financial data transparency. It brings an unprecedented opportunity for FinTechs to provide personalized guidance consumers need to improve financial wellness. Envestnet | Yodlee experts will discuss empowering the entire FinTech ecosystem with enriched financial data and insights, plus the future of open banking in the U.S.
Mary D’Onofrio is a partner and co-founder of the growth investment practice at Bessemer Venture Partners, where she primarily focuses on cloud software investments.
Mary's Sessions
The Future of SaaS
In 2020 SaaS companies have seen their values drop sharply, and rebound even more quickly. TechCrunch is chatting with a few VCs with deep insight into the SaaS world to talk about which startups are accelerating, lagging, or breaking out. And we’ll explore what’s changed in terms of venture expectations for SaaS companies, and what makes them stand out from their peers when it comes to placing bets.
Since launching Blavity Inc. in 2014, Morgan has led the company to successfully acquire Travel Noire, a travel platform for Black millennials and Shadow And Act, a Black entertainment news site. Launched several profitable consumer summits, including Summit 21 for Black women creators and entrepreneurs and Bay Area’s AfroTech, the largest tech conference for Black innovators and founders. All while scaling our internal operations, raising over 11 million dollars in venture funding. Morgan is also the founder of M.Roze Essentials, a natural skin care & WorkSmart, an advising program teaching small business owners how to scale their business. Graduated top of her class from Washington University in St. Louis with a major in Political Science and minors in Entrepreneurship and Education. She was the youngest student body president elected at Wash. U. and is a recipient of the John B. Ervin Scholars Program.
Morgan's Sessions
The Next Generation of Media
Blavity and The Shade Room have both demonstrated that Black audiences are looking for digital publishers who speak to their experiences and interests. We’ll talk to their founders about how they did it, how they’re building scalable businesses and how other publications can do a better job of reaching diverse audiences.
Sonali joined the Accel team in London in 2008 and has witnessed the European ecosystem come of age firsthand. She focuses on consumer (especially marketplace), next generation financial services and software companies. Sonali was responsible for Accel’s investments in Spotify, which went public in 2018; Letgo, which joined forces with OfferUP in 2020, and Avito, which was acquired in 2015 by Naspers. In addition, Sonali led Accel’s investment in Calastone, which was acquired by The Carlyle Group in October 2020. Sonali’s current portfolio contains a number of high-potential companies, including: Kry, the pan-European digital health platform; Monzo, the digital, mobile-only bank; Primer, the automation platform for payments and commerce; Shift Technology, the leader in AI-driven fraud software; sennder, Europe’s number one digital freight forwarder; Soldo, the spend management platform, and Wallapop, the mobile marketplace for online goods. Recent investments include eldercare online marketplace Lottie, Omnea, the AI-powered procurement orchestration and supplier risk management platform, and Taito.ai, which automates performance enablement with AI. Prior to Accel, Sonali was a partner at Atlas Venture. Sonali was born and raised in Bombay, India. She attended Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania and holds an MBA from Harvard Business School.
Sonali's Sessions
Startup Battlefield Final
The final round of TechCrunch’s iconic startup competition is back, as entrepreneurs from around the world pitch expert judges and vie for the Battlefield Cup and $100,000.
Laura is the founder and managing director of the Longevity Fund, an early stage venture capital fund focused on extending healthy human lifespan. After years working on nematode longevity at the UCSF graduate school, Laura matriculated at MIT at 14 and 2 years later participated in the inaugural Thiel Fellowship class. Since then, she has built Longevity Fund and AGE1, funds focused on helping start and fund longevity companies. Longevity Fund companies have collected >$500M in follow-on funding, resulting in the 2018 IPO of the first company dedicated to reversing the diseases of aging, and multiple programs in clinic to reverse or prevent age-related disease.
Laura's Sessions
Startup Battlefield – Session 1
TechCrunch’s iconic startup competition is back, as entrepreneurs from around the world pitch expert judges and vie for the Battlefield Cup and $100,000.
Nisha Dua is a Managing Partner at BBG Ventures, which she co-founded in 2014. BBGV is an NYC-based, early-stage fund leading investments in companies built by female and diverse founders that are solving the needs of consumers, workers and employers. BBGV invests in big categories that require new thinking such as Health & Wellbeing; The Future of Work & Ed; FinTech; Climate; and solutions for Overlooked Consumers. At BBGV Nisha has invested in over 100 female-led start-ups including Spring Health, Real, Fiveable, KiwiCo, Blueland and The Mom Project. Nisha has spent over a decade working in media, tech, strategy and law. She was the General Manager of AOL’s millennial site, Cambio, which she grew 4X in less than a year. She founded BUILT BY GIRLS, a software platform which has connected over 20,000 girls or non-binary talent with professionals in technology. Nisha was previously Chief of Staff for the AOL Brand Group, working on strategy, operations and special projects. She cut her teeth as a management consultant for Bain & Company and an M&A lawyer at Australian law firm Blake Dawson.
Nisha's Sessions
Diversity as Disruption: Take action now to create a more diverse ecosystem
Recent events continue to demonstrate that change is not happening fast enough. How can we ensure the current social justice momentum is more than just talk? Guided by SVB’s recent research into the “4th wave of venture capital,” learn how three industry leaders are tackling the problem with real actions. By the close of the session, leave with tangible steps you can take today – whether as an individual or as a firm — to make a meaningful, move-the-needle impact in your organization.
Mitchell Elegbe – Founder / Group Managing Director & CEO, Interswitch Mitchell Elegbe is Group Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer and a member of the board of directors at Interswitch, a business he conceptualized and has led since 2002, when the company went into operation. Under his leadership, Interswitch has remarkably diversified its business, broadened distribution channels and expanded into new markets across Africa, driving revolutionary payment innovation and social impact and delivering strong growth in revenue and profits (recognized by Deloitte in 2014 as ‘Africa’s fastest growing technology business’). Mitchell is an Electrical/Electronic Engineering graduate from the University of Benin, Nigeria and also an alumnus of the IESE/Wharton/CEIBS Global CEO Program. He is a consummate people-centric leader who believes in motivating his colleagues at Interswitch to have confidence in their value as individuals; in the value of the work they do; and in their value as team members, whilst being relentless in his pursuit of sustainable value for stakeholders. Apart from leading Interswitch to win numerous coveted industry awards, Mitchell’s leadership abilities have earned him several awards, including the CNBC/Forbes All African Business Leader (AABLA) for West Africa in 2012, the Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award, the International Finance Corporation’s Inclusive Business Leader Award and the acclaimed African Leadership Network (ALN) 2013 Africa Awards for Entrepreneurship (AAE), which is one of the most distinguished Africa-focused award programmes, giving over USD 200 000 prize money to outstanding African entrepreneurs who demonstrate business excellence and social impact. Most recently in June 2019, Mitchell was named as the 2019 African Banker Icon by The African Banker. A Bishop Desmond Tutu fellow of the African Leadership Institute, he enjoys actively mentoring young entrepreneurs, a passion he finds expression for as a member of the board of Endeavor Nigeria.
Mitchell's Sessions
Making Bank
In 2002 Mitchell Elegbe founded digital finance startup Interswitch to connect Nigeria’s banking system. More than a decade later, his company is valued at over $1 billion and supports billions in digital payment activity across Africa. Interswitch is poised to become Africa’s first major fintech firm to list on a major exchange. Elegbe will discuss the future of digital finance in Africa and globally.
Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins is an American social justice advocate and businesswoman. Phaedra is the founder and CEO of Promise, a payment technology platform that simplifies government debt. Prior to Promise, Phaedra ran revenue and operations at Honor, a home care technology company. Before Honor, Phaedra worked with the musician Prince and led the effort to secure ownership of his masters. She is a labor and community organizer by trade who is committed to making measurable change. Earlier in her career, Phaedra was the Executive Officer of the South Bay AFL-CIO Labor Council, an organized labor federation representing more than 100 unions and more than 110,000 members in California. She was also Executive Director of Working Partnerships USA, a coalition of community groups, and labor and faith organizations working to address economic disparities in California’s Silicon Valley. She also served as the CEO of the anti-poverty organization Green For All. Over the course of her career, Phaedra has been recognized for her leadership. She was honored by the World Economic Forum as a Young Global Leader, Essence for their 25 Most Influential African Americans, Ebony for their Power 150, The Grio for their 100 History Makers in the Making, Black Enterprise for their 40 Next: Emerging Leaders for Our Future and San Jose Magazine named her one of the 100 most powerful people in Silicon Valley. Phaedra serves on the boards of Honor and Tipping Point.
Phaedra's Sessions
Scaling Good Very Well
You can’t get too far in Silicon Valley without hearing a founder utter the words “we want to change the world.” When it comes to Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins, founder of Promise, and Jessica O. Matthews, founder of Uncharted Power, they can actually bring the receipts. Hear from these entrepreneurs about how they’ve managed their businesses not only to scale good, but to scale well.
Reham is the co-founder and CEO of AptDeco, a marketplace for buying and selling used furniture. AptDeco is a vertically integrated platform combining both the marketplace and logistics in one. Prior to AptDeco Reham worked at Goldman Sachs in various engineering and management positions where she built various internal technology applications. She also managed large scale engineering teams focusing on designing, building and launching new technology applications. Reham holds a B.Sc. in Electrical Engineering from The University of Maryland, College Park and an MBA from The Wharton School of Business of the University of Pennsylvania.
Reham's Sessions
The Black Founder Experience: Tactical Advice for Underrepresented Entrepreneurs
How does the startup experience differ for founders from underrepresented groups? What are the biggest ongoing challenges, and how can they be tackled? We’ll hear from Y Combinator CEO Michael Seibel and the founders of Squire and AptDeco on their experiences starting companies and raising money as Black entrepreneurs.
Andy Fang currently works as Chief Technology Officer and Co-founder at DoorDash. He previously worked at Stanford University as CS106 Section Leader.
Andy's Sessions
How to Build a Service Marketplace
Building service marketplaces require companies to serve all sides of the ecosystem, or at least have an understanding of the ecosystem as a whole. In this panel, we’ll explore how to deliver on the value proposition for your customers, business partners and delivery partners, if you have them. DoorDash and Peloton are perfect examples of running a service marketplace, and their co-founders and CTOs Andy Fang and Yony Feng are here to tell you how.
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding (Eric Ding) is an epidemiologist and health economist and a Senior Fellow at the Federation of American Scientists in Washington DC, and Chief Health Economist for Microclinic International. He was previously a faculty and researcher at the Harvard Chan School of Public Health and Harvard Medical School between 2004 – 2020. Dr. Feigl-Ding’s work focuses on the intersection of public health and public policy. He also currently works on behavioral interventions for prevention, Medicare cost and quality improvements, drug safety, diabetes/obesity prevention, and public health programs in the US. He has further expertise in designing and conducting randomized trials, systematic reviews, public health programs, public policy implementation, and leveraging big data for improving health systems. He has published in leading journals, including the New England Journal of Medicine, Journal of the American Medical Association, The Lancet, and Health Policy. He had founded the first geo-social network and public alert system for drinking water toxic contamination, as featured in WIRED. For his work, he was awarded the 2017 Mark V. Anderson Leadership Award from Sigma Chi Foundation. Altogether, his competitively awarded projects as PI/Director have received over $10 million in funding. A World Economic Forum Global Shaper, he has chaired committees for the Health Directorate of the European Commission, advised the World Health Organization, Denmark Ministry of Health, and served as a member of the Global Burden of Disease Project. He also advised and successfully convinced the C-suite leaders of a major Fortune 100 food/beverage company to adopt the WHO health recommendations for added sugars. Dr. Feigl-Ding graduated from The Johns Hopkins University with Honors in Public Health and Phi Beta Kappa. Teaching at Harvard for over 15 years, he has advised and mentored two dozen students and lectured in more than a dozen graduate and undergraduate courses, for which he received the Derek Bok Distinction in Teaching Award from Harvard College.
Eric's Sessions
Disrupt Desk
Hang with us at the Disrupt Desk to catch up on what you’ve missed from across the show and get a sneak peek at new technology, demos, news and more. Join Eric Feigl-Ding from Federation of American Sciences for the latest on COVID-19 research.
Yony Feng is Co-founder, Chief Technology Officer and Chief Information Officer of Peloton. He is responsible for a team of more than 300 engineers who work across Peloton’s end-to-end technology — from the user interface to bike sensors — to technology supporting critical business operations. Yony holds an M.S. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Georgia Tech, and previously worked as a software engineer for Cisco Systems and Skype, and platform engineer for Ticketfly. Outside of the office, Yony loves scuba diving, snowboarding, and spending time with his daughter.
Yony's Sessions
How to Build a Service Marketplace
Building service marketplaces require companies to serve all sides of the ecosystem, or at least have an understanding of the ecosystem as a whole. In this panel, we’ll explore how to deliver on the value proposition for your customers, business partners and delivery partners, if you have them. DoorDash and Peloton are perfect examples of running a service marketplace, and their co-founders and CTOs Andy Fang and Yony Feng are here to tell you how.
Peter Fenton joined Benchmark in 2006 after spending seven years as a partner with Accel Partners. Current Board Seats: Airtable, Buoyant, Cloudera (IPO: CLDR), Cockroach Labs, Digits, Docker, Elasticsearch (IPO: ESTC), New Relic (IPO: NEWR), Optimizely, Revinate, Robocorp, TimescaleDB, Wildlife Studios, and Zuora (IPO: ZUO). Previous Investments: Coremetrics (acquired by IBM), EngineYard, FriendFeed (acquired by Facebook), Hortonworks (IPO: HDP), JBoss (acquired by RedHat), Lithium, Quip (acquired by Salesforce), Reactivity (acquired by Cisco), SpringSource (acquired by VMWare), Terracotta (acquired by Software AG), Twitter (IPO: TWTR), Wily Technology (acquired by CA), Xensource (acquired by Citrix), Yelp (IPO: YELP), Zendesk (IPO: ZEN), Zenly (acquired by SNAP) and Zimbra (acquired by Yahoo!). Education: MBA from Stanford Business School; BA from Stanford University. Peter has 4 children and lives in San Francisco. He is also on the boards of the San Francisco Opera and the California Academy of Sciences.
Peter's Sessions
Under the Radar
Sitting on the boards of Airtable, Docker, Cloudera, and New Relic (to name a few), and with investments in Twitter, Yelp, Zendesk, and Hortonworks, Peter Fenton has been a force in Silicon Valley. Catch this very rare interview with the legendary VC, who usually flies under the radar, to hear about the future of startups and VC.
Jennifer Friel Goldstein
Jennifer Friel Goldstein is the Managing Partner for Life Science & Healthcare at SVB Capital and a founding member of VentureForward, a non-profit that provides resources and education towards developing a diverse, equitable and inclusive venture ecosystem. She is also an advisory board member of SpringBoard Enterprises and the Women’s Health Innovation Coalition. A bioengineer by training, Jennifer is passionate about the role that venture investing can bring to discovery in the fields of health care and life sciences. She is currently leading SVB Capital’s Life Science & Healthcare investment team and helping develop the bank’s first life science direct investment fund for institutional Limited Partners. Jennifer has more than 20 years of experience in the venture and startup market segments, including the past 8 years at Silicon Valley Bank. Prior to that, she was a director on Pfizer’s Venture Capital team, where she helped lead or co-lead investments into several life sciences companies, led fund-of-fund investment decisions, and independently managed Pfizer’s $250 million private equity portfolio. Jennifer has also served as a consultant on private equity deals across Europe while at Bain & Company and has held operational and research roles at Chiron, Genelabs, and Genencor. Jennifer graduated magna cum laude with a BSE in Bioengineering and a Master’s of Biotechnology from the University of Pennsylvania. She holds an MBA from the Wharton School, where she was also named a Joseph Wharton Fellow. Jennifer lives in the Bay Area with her husband and their twin children.
Jennifer's Sessions
Diversity as Disruption: Take action now to create a more diverse ecosystem
Recent events continue to demonstrate that change is not happening fast enough. How can we ensure the current social justice momentum is more than just talk? Guided by SVB’s recent research into the “4th wave of venture capital,” learn how three industry leaders are tackling the problem with real actions. By the close of the session, leave with tangible steps you can take today – whether as an individual or as a firm — to make a meaningful, move-the-needle impact in your organization.
IIlya Fushman is a Partner and managing member at Kleiner Perkins. Ilya has been an early investor in and served on the boards of some of the most innovative software companies of recent times including Slack, Intercom, Optimizely, Cameo, KeepTruckin, CultureAmp, Loom, UiPath and Nova Credit. Prior to Kleiner Perkins, Ilya was a general partner at Index Ventures. Prior to Index, Fushman spent four years at Dropbox where he was one of the company’s first 75 employees. At Dropbox, he helped to build and run the company’s business and corporate development functions before taking on a product leadership role and building out the core Dropbox product, Dropbox for Business, and the developer platform. Previously, Fushman was a principal at Khosla Ventures and the Director of Technology at Solar Junction. He holds a Ph.D. in Applied Physics and an M.S. in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University and a B.S. in Physics from Caltech.
Ilya's Sessions
Startup Battlefield Final
The final round of TechCrunch’s iconic startup competition is back, as entrepreneurs from around the world pitch expert judges and vie for the Battlefield Cup and $100,000.
Oded is responsible for leading Zoom’s Product Management. He brings more than 15 years of product experience to the Zoom team, providing in depth knowledge in video-centric collaboration and hands-on experience in building large-scale, cloud-based services. Before joining Zoom, Oded held leadership positions in video conferencing and unified communications product management. He was VP of Product Management at Blue Jeans Network and head of UC integrations at Cisco Webex. Oded has also served as Director of Business Development at Radvision. Oded holds a bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering from the Technion (Israel Institute of Technology).
Oded's Sessions
How to Iterate Your Product
If getting insights on product development from current and former product heads at places like Facebook, Zoom, Slack, Hulu and Oculus doesn’t sound like something you’re interested in just get out of tech now. Leave. It’s over. Go work in an insurance company. Get your brokers license. Just do something else.
Adam Goldenberg has evolved from entrepreneurial prodigy to eCommerce industry thought leader. While still in high school, Adam founded his first company, Gamer’s Alliance, which he then sold to Intermix Media. The birthplace of MySpace, Intermix named Adam its Chief Operating Officer when Adam was just 19 – making him the youngest COO of a public company in history. At Intermix, Adam co-founded Alena Media – a first-of-its-kind eCommerce platform that would go on to serve as the template for TechStyle – with future TechStyle co-CEO Don Ressler. Adam and Don further cemented their burgeoning partnership by shepherding Intermix to a successful exit, selling Intermix to Fox News Corp. for $670 million dollars. In 2006, Don and Adam launched Intelligent Beauty, a vertically integrated beauty brand incubator. Intelligent Beauty scored a major success selling it’s flagship property Dermstore.com and portfolio of beauty brands to Target in 2013. In 2010, Don and Adam founded TechStyle Fashion Group. TechStyle’s mission: reimagine the fashion industry by creating the world’s most innovative, digitally native fashion brands. To date, TechStyle has launched successful, category-redefining fashion brands such as JustFab, Shoedazzle, FabKids, Savage X Fenty, and Fabletics. As of 2020, Don and Adam’s roster of brands have generated over $8 billion dollars in sales.
Adam's Sessions
Retail is in the Details
Fabletics is one of the most tech-forward retail brands of the past decade. Hear from co-CEO Adam Goldenberg and investor (and famed comedian) Kevin Hart on what the future holds for the Athliesure brand and which sectors are catching Hart’s attention.
Dayna Grayson is Co-founder and General Partner of Construct Capital, an early stage venture firm that invests in extraordinary founders building technology to transform the most foundational industries of our economy from manufacturing to mobility. Dayna was one of the first venture capitalists to turn her attention to transforming these sectors of our economy through software based models. She backed companies creating new advances in manufacturing, automation, and vertically integrated consumer brands. During her time as a partner at NEA (2012-2020), she was the lead investor from the earliest stages and was on the board of companies including Desktop Metal (2015 – today), Tulip (2017 – 2020), Onshape (acqd by PTC) (2013-2019), and Framebridge (acqd by Graham Holdings) (2014-2020) among others. She also led investments in Guideline, Formlabs, Evenly and Neuralmagic. At Construct, along with her co-founder Rachel Holt, Dayna is exclusively focused on early stage investments and investing behind the accelerating changes in foundational industries that together make up half our economy’s GDP are failing to meet customer expectations. Some of their investments include Copia, Veho, Hadrian, The Rounds, and Verve Motion. Dayna started her career in product development and led design efforts at Blackbaud [BLKB], the leading global provider of software to nonprofit organizations, as the company grew to over $130 million in revenue and completed a successful public offering and was an investor at North Bridge Venture Partners from 2007-2012. She is a graduate of the University of Virginia (Systems Engineering) and Harvard Business School, where she serves as a venture partner today
Dayna's Sessions
The State of Venture
All three of these VCs hail from among the most powerful investing firms in the country — NEA, Lux Capital, and GV. Yet each made the bold choice to strike out on their own, adding to a growing and diverse landscape of investment vehicles across the globe. Hear about why they did it, and learn about the trends that they’re funding as they build their businesses.
Brian Grazer is an Academy Award, Golden Globe, Emmy, and Grammy Award-winning producer. His productions have been nominated for 43 Oscars® and 198 Emmys and he won the Best Picture Oscar for A Beautiful Mind. He is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of A Curious Mind: The Secret to a Bigger Life, and Face to Face: The Art of Human Connection released this past fall. Grazer has been recognized by numerous organizations, and was named one of the “100 Most Influential People in the World” by Time Magazine. In addition to A Beautiful Mind, Grazer also produced the films Apollo 13, American Gangster, 8 Mile, Liar Liar, and Parenthood and the television series Empire, 24, Arrested Development, and Friday Night Lights just to name a few. Currently, Grazer is producing several features including the film adaptation of the NY Times bestseller Hillbilly Elegy and tick, tick…BOOM! directed by Lin-Manuel Miranda. He also produced the critically-acclaimed documentary Rebuilding Paradise released in July 2020. In television, Grazer is currently executive producing Wu-Tang: An American Saga for Hulu, an Empire spin off and Filthy Rich for Fox, Genius: Aretha for NatGeo, Outliers for HBO Max, and Langdon for NBC. Grazer also co-founded Imagine Impact to discover, cultivate and empower creative storytellers around the world through a modern development system that helps them create their best work from inception to market. In under a year, Impact built a community of 23,000 writers across 80+ countries, developed 61 projects, and set up and/or sold 27 projects – creating a diverse portfolio of projects across genres, formats, and geographies that Impact has a stake in. Impact also launched a proprietary mobile/web platform to directly connect the people who get creative projects made – writers, producers, showrunners and buyers. Grazer and his longtime friend and business partner Ron Howard founded Imagine Entertainment in the early 80’s, embarking on what is now one of the longest running partnerships in Hollywood. They continue to run the company together as chairmen.
Brian's Sessions
Greenlighting A New Generation of Storytellers
Legendary producer Brian Grazer and Ron Howard, one of the world’s most successful actors, directors and producers has created some of the most iconic films and television shows of the last 35 years (Apollo 13, Arrested Development, and The Da Vinci Code to name a few). But entertainment — like tech — is all about disruption. So, to tap into how it will be created and delivered in the future, the pair have teamed up with entrepreneur Tyler Mitchell to launch Imagine Impact, a Silicon Valley-style accelerator where promising writers connect with mentors to build their stories and help them take to market. Impact signed a deal in June with Netflix to expand that pipeline, so come hear about what else they have planned, and what the three of them think about the future of features.
Kirsten Green is the Founder and Managing Partner of Forerunner, the consumer-driven venture capital partnering with ambitious founders and companies redefining industries. Combining an unconventional and powerful blend of professional experiences and acquired investment expertise, Kirsten launched San Francisco-based Forerunner in 2012, and has since led the firm to raise nearly $3 billion in assets under management. Kirsten’s 25+ years of evaluation and investment success stem from a combination of product savvy, consumer insight, research, and a thesis-driven approach that has been the basis of all her investments — from pre-revenue startups to multi-billion-dollar enterprises. Her early investor and board member roles span Faire, Hims&Hers, Chime, Ritual, Daydream, Decagon, Warby Parker, Wonder, and Balance, among others. She is also on the Board of the National Venture Capital Association, and has been part of both the Forbes Midas List and Forbes World’s 100 Most Powerful Women List for the past nine years.
Kirsten's Sessions
Pitch Deck Teardown
Talk through the nuts and bolts of what makes a great deck (or not) with top investors as they go through your submitted pitches live on stage.
Frederik Groce is an analyst at Storm Ventures.
Frederik's Sessions
Startup Battlefield – Session 1
TechCrunch’s iconic startup competition is back, as entrepreneurs from around the world pitch expert judges and vie for the Battlefield Cup and $100,000.
Sarah Guo is the Founder and Managing Partner at Conviction, a venture capital firm founded in 2022 to invest in intelligent software, or “Software 3.0.” Prior, she spent a decade as a General Partner at Greylock Partners. She has been an early investor or advisor to 40+ companies in software, fintech, security, infrastructure, fundamental research, and AI-native applications. Sarah is from Wisconsin, has four degrees from University of Pennsylvania, and lives in the Bay Area with her husband and two daughters. She co-hosts the AI podcast “No Priors” with Elad Gil
Sarah's Sessions
Building a Startup During the “Work From Home” Revolution
We’re delighted to bring together a trio of the world’s best expert investors on the topic and explore this critical trend further. Sarah Cannon is a partner at Index Ventures where she has backed such team productivity tools as Notion, focused messaging app Quill, and Pitch. Next we have Sarah Guo, who is a general partner at Greylock where she has invested in Clubhouse, family benefits platform Cleo and several cybersecurity companies. Finally, Dave Munichiello will join. He is a general partner at GV who has backed Slack, GitLab, Plaid, and a whole lot of other well-known enterprise startups.
Arvind Gupta co-leads Mayfield’s engineering biology practice and is founder and venture adviser at IndieBio. He is the co-author of “Decoding the World,” published by Hachette.
Arvind's Sessions
Startup Battlefield – Session 4
TechCrunch’s iconic startup competition is back, as entrepreneurs from around the world pitch expert judges and vie for the Battlefield Cup and $100,000.
Kaisei Hamamoto is a passionate programmer and entrepreneur. Hamamoto graduated from Tokyo Institute of Technology’s School of Information Engineering in 2005. He is the Co-Founder, COO and Chief Engineer of SmartNews, the leading mobile news app that delivers stories from thousands of trusted publishers globally. Much of his work has focused on aggregating massive amounts of information from the Internet and creating simple visualization and organizational systems to help people better understand it. This interest turned into a personal project in 2010, then evolved into SmartNews in 2012. About SmartNews SmartNews is a leading global news-discovery company dedicated to delivering quality information to the people who need it. SmartNews provides news that matters to millions of users thanks to its unique machine learning technology and relationships with over 3,000 global publisher partners. Founded in 2012, SmartNews has been downloaded more than 50 million times globally. The company has raised $182 million in venture funding, and has achieved a valuation of $1.2 billion, making it the first news app UNICORN since 2015.
Kaisei's Sessions
Changing How We Consume News
SmartNews is tackling some of the media industry’s most complicated issues in two very different markets: Japan (where it was founded) and the United States. Join co-founder and chief operating officer Kaisei Hamamoto to learn how SmartNews gives publishers a larger platform while helping users sort through the noise to find the news they need.
2:30 PM (HKT) Live Q&A with Kaisei Hamamoto
Come to this live Q&A prepared with your questions for Kaisei Hamamoto.
Anu Hariharan is managing director of YC Continuity. She led Y Combinator’s later-stage investments in Brex, Convoy, Faire, OpenSea, Groww, Gusto, Whatnot, Instacart, Monzo, Rappi, Boom and Vouch, and sits on the boards of Brex, Convoy, Faire, Groww, Gusto, Monzo, Vouch, RevenueCat, and Whatnot. Previously, she was an investment partner at Andreessen Horowitz, where she worked with the management teams of companies including Airbnb, Instacart, Medium, OfferUp, and Udacity. Before that, Anu was a principal in BCG’s private equity practice, and a senior software engineer at Qualcomm. Anu has an MS in electrical engineering from Virginia Tech and an MBA from Wharton.
Anu's Sessions
How to Raise Money in a Dumpster Fire
Garry Tan started his first company, Posterous in 2008, so the Initialized Capital co-founder knows a thing or two about economic crises and how they can effect fundraising. Hans Tung, GGV’s Midas-list dealmaker has seen downturns on three continents in his tenure investing in the US, China, and Latin America for the globe-spanning investment firm, while Anu Hariharan has spent the last decade putting companies through their paces at BCG, A16Z, and most recently, YC. They’ll be delivering the goods on how to get that gelt during this raging dumpster fire of a year.
Emmy & Grammy nominated Kevin Hart was born and raised in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania where he launched his career as a comedian during an amateur night at a local comedy club. Over the years Hart has become Hollywood’s box office powerhouse, opening eleven films at number one at the box office and grossing more than in $4.23 billion global revenue. Hart has also become a successful Entrepreneur; he is Chairman of HARTBEAT; a global, multi-platform media company creating entertainment at the intersection of comedy and culture with a mission to keep the world laughing together. The next generation media company unites Hartbeat Productions’ best-in-class TV & film production capabilities with Laugh Out Loud’s expansive distribution network, along with its marketing, sales, experiential, branded content, digital and social capabilities. Hart is also the Founder of HartBeat Ventures. Hart continues to develop, star, and produce feature films, television, and podcasts via HARTBEAT for his various partners which include Netflix, Peacock, Sirius XM and Audible. Hart is currently touring nationally with his eighth hour of stand-up material; the tour is titled “The Reality Check” Tour. Kevin is a New York Times Best Selling author twice over and his first Audible original, “The Decision,” was nominated for an Audie award for “Best Original Audiobook in 2021.” Kevin is a founding partner the premium tequila brand Gran Coramino, and plant based quick serve restaurant Hart House. Kevin’s brand partnerships include Fabletics Men, Chase J.P Morgan, Hydrow, NutraBolt, Sam’s Club, Old Spice, Brüush, Tommy John and Therabody.
Kevin's Sessions
Retail is in the Details
Fabletics is one of the most tech-forward retail brands of the past decade. Hear from co-CEO Adam Goldenberg and investor (and famed comedian) Kevin Hart on what the future holds for the Athliesure brand and which sectors are catching Hart’s attention.
Sophie started her career in buying & merchandising roles at HQs of some of the leading fashion retail brands. This exposure to retail inspired her to found Threads in 2010. Threads uses unique technology to create a new world of retail. With social media & content, instant messaging & strong brand partnerships Threads is the leader in what they define as luxury chat commerce. Sophie is now dedicated with her team to continue to lead in this space and pioneer the next generation of retail. Education from Leeds & Harvard university.
Sophie's Sessions
Cracking the Code in Chat Commerce
With zero stock and a huge global fan base, Threads has turned heads in the luxury ecommerce space. Hear from founder Sophie Hill on building global distribution, the social channels poised to take the market and how Threads is staying ahead of the curve.
11:00 AM (CET) Live Q&A with Sophie Hill
Come to this live Q&A prepared with your questions for Sophie Hill.
Dr. Jennifer Holmgren is CEO of revolutionary carbon recycling company, LanzaTech. Prior to LanzaTech, Jennifer was VP and General Manager of the Renewable Energy and Chemicals business unit at UOP LLC, a Honeywell Company. Under her management, UOP technology became instrumental in producing nearly all of the initial fuels used by commercial airlines and the military for testing and certification of alternative aviation fuel. Today, under Jennifer’s guidance, LanzaTech is working towards deploying carbon capture and reuse facilities globally to make fuels and chemicals from waste carbon. In 2015, Jennifer and her team at LanzaTech were awarded the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Presidential Green Chemistry Award and she received the BIO Rosalind Franklin Award for Leadership in Industrial Biotechnology and the Outstanding Leader Award in Corporate Social Innovation from the YWCA Metropolitan Chicago. She was named most influential leader in the Bioeconomy by Biofuels Digest in 2017 and received the Digest Global Bioenergy Leadership Award in 2018. She was also the recipient of the 2020 William C. Holmberg Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Advanced Bioeconomy from the Digest, the most widely read online bioeconomy journal. Jennifer is on the External Advisory Council for the Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment at Princeton University and the Director and Chair of the LanzaJet Board of Directors. LanzaJet, Inc., is a new company that will produce sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) for a sector requiring climate friendly fuel options. A member of the National Academy of Engineering, a dog lover and committed greyhound rescuer, Jennifer holds a B.Sc. degree from Harvey Mudd College, a Ph.D. from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and an MBA from the University of Chicago. Prior to LanzaTech, Jennifer was VP and General Manager of the Renewable Energy and Chemicals business unit at UOP LLC, a Honeywell Company. Under her management, UOP technology became instrumental in producing nearly all of the initial fuels used by commercial airlines and the military for testing and certification of alternative aviation fuel. Today, under Jennifer’s guidance, LanzaTech is working towards deploying carbon capture and reuse facilities globally to make fuels and chemicals from waste carbon. In 2015, Jennifer and her team at LanzaTech were awarded the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Presidential Green Chemistry Award and she received the BIO Rosalind Franklin Award for Leadership in Industrial Biotechnology and the Outstanding Leader Award in Corporate Social Innovation from the YWCA Metropolitan Chicago. She was named most influential leader in the Bioeconomy by Biofuels Digest in 2017 and received the Digest Global Bioenergy Leadership Award in 2018. A member of the National Academy of Engineering, a dog lover and committed greyhound rescuer, Jennifer holds a B.Sc. degree from Harvey Mudd College, a Ph.D. from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and an MBA from the University of Chicago. Jennifer is also the Director and Chair of the LanzaJet Board of Directors. LanzaJet, Inc., is a new company that will produce sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) for a sector requiring climate friendly fuel options.
Jennifer's Sessions
Fueling the Future
Public interest in sustainability is higher than its ever been. Jennifer Holmgren, CEO of LanzaTech, has dedicated her life to this cause. Hear Holmgren discuss how LanzaTech is planning for a circular carbon economy, where carbon emissions are transformed into fuel.
Drew Houston is co-founder and CEO of Dropbox. Since founding the company in 2007 with Arash Ferdowsi, Drew has led the company’s growth from a simple idea to a service used by over 600 million people around the world. Drew received his bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from MIT in 2006. After graduating, he turned his frustration with carrying USB drives and emailing files to himself into a demo for what became Dropbox. Today, Dropbox is one of the world’s leading business collaboration platforms, with 15 million paying subscribers and nearly 3000 employees across 12 global offices.
Drew's Sessions
Thinking Outside the Dropbox
When it comes to being a founder, Drew Houston has pretty much been through it all. From launching a company to raising from some of the prestigious investors in Silicon Valley to taking the company public. Hear about how his company is playing a key role in expediting digital transformation as the pandemic has pushed companies to the cloud faster than they ever imagined.
Academy Award-winning filmmaker Ron Howard is one of this generation’s most popular directors. From the critically acclaimed Oscar-winning dramas A Beautiful Mind and Apollo 13 to the hit comedies Parenthood and Splash, he has created some of Hollywood’s most memorable films. Past films include the Grammy-winning Best Music Film The Beatles: Eight Days a Week, Pavarotti, Solo: A Star Wars Story, Rush, The Da Vinci Code, Frost/Nixon, Ransom, and Backdraft, just to name a few. Howard has also served as an executive producer on a number of award-winning television shows, such as the Emmy-winning HBO miniseries From the Earth to the Moon, the Emmy-winning series Arrested Development, and NatGeo’s award-winning anthology series Genius. Currently, Howard is working on the film adaptation of the NY Times best-selling memoir Hillbilly Elegy starring Glenn Close and Amy Adams; Thirteen Lives about the rescue of twelve boys and their soccer coach from a flooded cave in Thailand; and a documentary about renowned chef José Andrés and his World Central Kitchen. He also directed the 2020 documentary Rebuilding Paradise. Howard co-founded Imagine Impact to discover, cultivate and empower creative storytellers around the world through a modern development system that helps them create their best work from inception to market. In under a year, Impact built a community of 23,000 writers across 80+ countries, developed 61 projects, and set up and/or sold 27 projects – creating a diverse portfolio of projects across genres, formats, and geographies that Impact has a stake in. Impact also launched a proprietary mobile/web platform to directly connect the people who get creative projects made – writers, producers, showrunners and buyers. Howard and his longtime friend and business partner Brian Grazer founded Imagine Entertainment in 1986, which they continue to run together as chairmen.
Ron's Sessions
Greenlighting A New Generation of Storytellers
Legendary producer Brian Grazer and Ron Howard, one of the world’s most successful actors, directors and producers has created some of the most iconic films and television shows of the last 35 years (Apollo 13, Arrested Development, and The Da Vinci Code to name a few). But entertainment — like tech — is all about disruption. So, to tap into how it will be created and delivered in the future, the pair have teamed up with entrepreneur Tyler Mitchell to launch Imagine Impact, a Silicon Valley-style accelerator where promising writers connect with mentors to build their stories and help them take to market. Impact signed a deal in June with Netflix to expand that pipeline, so come hear about what else they have planned, and what the three of them think about the future of features.
Charles Hudson is the Managing Partner and Founder of Precursor Ventures, an early stage venture capital firm focused on investing in the first institutional round of investment for the most promising software and hardware companies. He invests in people over product at the earliest stage of their entrepreneurial journey. Under his leadership, Precursor has raised four funds and has $250+ million under management. He has invested in 400+ companies and has supported 450+ founders, including the teams behind Bobbie Baby, Carrot, Incredible Health, Juniper Square, Modern Health, Pair Eyewear, Rad AI, and The Athletic (sold to the NY Times for $525 million in 2022). Prior to founding Precursor, Charles was a Partner at Uncork Capital where he focused on identifying investment opportunities in mobile infrastructure, applications, and marketplaces and supported their portfolio companies on business and corporate development matters. He was also the Co-founder and CEO of Bionic Panda Games, an Android-focused mobile games startup. Charles is an active member of the VC community. He was the 2023-2024 Chair of the NVCA Board of Directors, a board member at Venture Forward, on the investment committee for Screendoor, and is on the Path Ahead Ventures Advisory Board. He is also an advisor and mentor to a number of emerging managers. Charles holds an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business and a B.A. in Economics and Spanish from Stanford. He maintains close connections with his alma mater and was awarded the 2021-22 Governors’ Award in honor of his volunteer service to the university as a board member and volunteer. Charles is also a co-instructor for the Entrepreneurship from Diverse Perspectives course in the Stanford Graduate School of Business.
Charles's Sessions
Pitch Deck Teardown
Talk through the nuts and bolts of what makes a great deck (or not) with top investors as they go through your submitted pitches live on stage.
Startup Battlefield – Session 4
TechCrunch’s iconic startup competition is back, as entrepreneurs from around the world pitch expert judges and vie for the Battlefield Cup and $100,000.
Merritt Hummer is a partner at Bain Capital Ventures, where she invests in the fintech, e-commerce and proptech sectors.
Merritt's Sessions
The Changing Landscape of Property Tech
Connie, Chan, general partner at Andreessen Horowitz, Merritt Hummer, partner at Bain Capital Ventures and Brendan Wallace, co-founder and managing partner at Fifth Wall are at the center of these changes. These investors will discuss the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead in property tech as well as advice for startups in the industry.
General Partner at Canaan Partners. Board Member of Deckers Brands, Lily AI & Forte.
Maha's Sessions
The Future of SaaS
In 2020 SaaS companies have seen their values drop sharply, and rebound even more quickly. TechCrunch is chatting with a few VCs with deep insight into the SaaS world to talk about which startups are accelerating, lagging, or breaking out. And we’ll explore what’s changed in terms of venture expectations for SaaS companies, and what makes them stand out from their peers when it comes to placing bets.
Melisa Irene is Partner of East Ventures, an early-stage sector-agnostic venture capital firm founded in 2009. Over 5 years, she has worked closely with startup founders across SEA to provide coordination and support for venture growth and fundraising.
Melisa's Sessions
Digitizing Indonesia
As the largest economy in Southeast Asia, Indonesia has attracted both domestic and foreign investors to bet on its burgeoning tech sector. We talk to Melisa Irene, the first female partner at Indonesia-focused East Ventures, about the aspiring startups helping brick-and-mortar businesses to go digital as well as other internet trends in the region.
1:30 PM (HKT) Live Q&A with Melisa Irene
Come to this live Q&A prepared with your questions for Melisa Irene.
Vineet Jain is the CEO and co-founder of Egnyte, a leading cloud-based collaboration and governance platform. An entrepreneur at heart, prior to Egnyte, Vineet founded Valdero, a supply chain solution provider. Egnyte has grown exponentially, serving more than 22,000 customers globally with more than 1,000 employees worldwide.
Vineet's Sessions
Getting to $100M ARR
TechCrunch speaks with three private companies that have reached the $100 million Annual Recurring Revenue mark. We’ll explore what they had to break, and rebuild in their companies as they scaled, and what they learned as they left the early-stages of startup life and built companies that are nearly ready to go public.
Amish Jani is a founder and Managing Director of FirstMark and has been an active venture capitalist for nearly 20 years. He invests broadly across the cloud and Internet landscape, including SaaS applications, ecommerce, infrastructure and more. Amish has been recognized by CB Insights and the New York Times as a Top 100 Venture Capitalist globally. Amish has invested in industry-defining companies that include Shopify (NYSE: SHOP), InVision, Pendo, Starry, Tracelink, Frame.io, Guru, Bluecore, IMImobile (LSE: IMO), Schoology (acquired by PowerSchool), Boomi (acquired by Dell), Aveksa (acquired by EMC), and many more. Prior to founding FirstMark, Amish served as a Partner with Pequot Ventures. Amish holds both a B.S. and an M.B.A. from the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania.
Amish's Sessions
Startup Battlefield – Session 2
TechCrunch’s iconic startup competition is back, as entrepreneurs from around the world pitch expert judges and vie for the Battlefield Cup and $100,000.
Hussein is a partner at Hoxton Ventures. He currently represents Hoxton on the boards of Biotx, Giraffe360, Kbox Global, Skin Analytics, SOC.OS, TourRadar, XYZ Reality and Yieldify, and serves as a board observer on Behavox, Darktrace, Fy!, Karakuri, Loveshark and Panakeia. He previously served on the boards of Babylon Health, bd4travel (acquired by Dnata), Campanja (acquired by 24/7 Media) and Deliveroo. Prior to forming Hoxton, Hussein was an associate with Accel Partners in London. He joined Accel from Microsoft Corporation in Redmond, WA. Earlier in his career, Hussein worked with three startups, Safe-View (acquired by L-3), Radiance Technologies (acquired by Comcast) and Studio Verso (acquired by KPMG), all in the Bay Area. While forming Hoxton, Hussein helped Eros STX Global develop ErosNow, an online streaming video platform for Bollywood. He also helped the UK government with policy initiatives to develop the local tech industry. He continues to appear occasionally on BBC, Bloomberg, CNN and Sky News. Hussein holds an MBA from London Business School and did his undergraduate studies in Symbolic Systems at Stanford University. He stubbornly refuses to swear allegiance to a monarch and remains a proud American.
Hussein's Sessions
Can VCs Identify New Markets?
Hoxton Ventures, the London-based seed-stage fund, is best known for backing British unicorns Babylon Health, Darktrace and Deliveroo — three companies that helped create the market categories they now compete so fiercely within. Meanwhile, according to Dealroom, Hoxton’s maiden fund has the highest ratio of unicorns to investments. But what does it take to spot a future unicorn in Europe or beyond? And can VCs really identify new markets before they exist? These are just some of the questions we’ll be putting to Hoxton founding partner Hussein Kanji.
11:00 AM (CET) Live Q&A with Hussein Kanji
Come to this live Q&A prepared with your questions for Hussein Kanji.
Mr. Kast is a Fuel Cell Business Analyst, Corporate Strategy and Planning at Toyota Motor North America. His role within the Electrified Vehicle and Technologies Office includes a number of business development activities to improve and expand the adoption of fuel cell electric vehicles in the U.S., namely the Toyota Mirai and Toyota’s Project Portal Class 8 truck. Before joining Toyota, James supported the Department of Energy’s Fuel Cell Technologies Office as a Science and Technology Policy Fellow. He holds an MS in Mechanical Engineering from the University of California Irvine, and a BS in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Idaho.
James's Sessions
Innovating with Fuel Cells
James Kast demonstrates how Toyota continues to navigate the innovation of fuel cells and the implementation across numerous industries.
Pete Kazanjy (LinkedIn, Twitter) is a serial founder, and seasoned early stage Saas executive, advisor, and investor. Pete founded TalentBin, a category-defining talent search engine and recruiting CRM, which exited to Monster Worldwide in early 2014. Pete currently is the founder of Atrium, a proactive sales performance analysis solution, author of Founding Sales, the definitive Startup Sales Handbook, and founder of Modern Sales, the nation’s largest sales operations, leadership, and enablement community.
Peter's Sessions
How to Reinvent Your Sales Team in 2020
We’re bringing together the smartest leaders on sales in the Valley to discuss tactics and more. Brian Ascher is a partner at Venrock where for more than two decades he has invested in B2B sales-driven companies like 6Sense, Socrates AI, and Dynamic Signal. Next, Pete Kazanjy is one of the leading startup authorities on sales through his written works like “Founding Sales” and community building while also founding sales performance platform Atrium HQ. Finally, we have Jill Rowley, who has spent decades advising startups on sales and was also an early employee at Salesforce and Eloqua.
Tunde Kehinde is a seasoned emerging markets entrepreneur. He was the co-founder of Jumia Nigeria, Africa’s first unicorn (publicly listed on the NYSE) and Africa Courier Express, Nigeria’s leading last-mile eCommerce delivery company. Most recently, Tunde co-founded digital SME lender Lidya in 2016 with Ercin Eksin. Lidya uses AI to lend online to small business entrepreneurs in fast-growing economies, and is on a mission to create 100 million jobs worldwide. Lidya has current operations in Lagos, Warsaw and Prague, and ambitious international expansion plans, with a next focus on further European markets. Tunde has prior experience as a business development executive with Diageo in London and as an investment banking professional with Wachovia Securities. Tunde holds a degree in Finance with honours from Howard University and an MBA Harvard Business School.
Tunde's Sessions
Finance and the Digital Divide
Fintech and e-commerce have been two of the most interesting and successful categories to emerge out of the African tech ecosystem. Join us as we talk to Tunde Kehinde, once described as the “Jeff Bezos” of Africa, about the ups and downs of building startups in the region, and how his current company, Lidya, is helping a new generation of businesses get off the ground.
10:30 AM (CET) Live Q&A with Tunde Kehinde
Come to this live Q&A prepared with your questions for Tunde Kehinde.
Richard Kerby is a vice president at Venrock, where he focuses on early stage investments.
Richard's Sessions
Startup Battlefield – Session 3
TechCrunch’s iconic startup competition is back, as entrepreneurs from around the world pitch expert judges and vie for the Battlefield Cup and $100,000.
Nick 'NICKMERCS' Kolcheff
Nick rose to fame as a competitive Fortnite streamer and one of the first top-level players to compete in tournaments using a controller instead of a mouse and keyboard, a style of play that is regarded by most as a competitive disadvantage. Currently Nick is the most watched Call of Duty-focused streamer across all platforms and is consistently amongst the top five channels watched on all of Twitch at any given time, generating millions of minutes watched on his channels daily.
Nick 'NICKMERCS''s Sessions
Catching Dubs
When it comes to esports, perhaps no org commands as much respect as FaZe Clan. The esports organization competes across a wide range of titles, including CoD, Fortnite, PUBG, FIFA, and CounterStrike. With streamers like NateHill, NICKMERCS and Mongraal, and a thriving apparel business, FaZe Clan is a dominant force in gaming. Hear from FaZe Clan CEO Lee Trink, investor Troy Carter, and streamer NICKMERCS about what to expect from the pro gaming scene over the next decade and how the org uses tech to optimize its operations across every department.
Daphne Koller is CEO and Founder of insitro, a company using machine learning and high-throughput biology to transform drug discovery. Daphne was the Rajeev Motwani Professor of Computer Science at Stanford University, where she served on the faculty for 18 years. She was the co-founder, co-CEO and President of Coursera for 5 years, and Chief Computing Officer of Calico, an Alphabet company in the healthcare space. She is the author of over 200 refereed publications appearing in venues such as Science, Cell, and Nature Genetics. Daphne was recognized as one of TIME Magazine’s 100 most influential people in 2012. She received the MacArthur Foundation Fellowship in 2004 and the ACM Prize in Computing in 2008. She was inducted into the National Academy of Engineering in 2011 and elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2014 and of the International Society of Computational Biology in 2017.
Daphne's Sessions
Daphne Koller's Push to Marry Big Data to Big Pharma
Drug discovery and testing is a complex, fraught process that modern computing methods promise to reinvent — but only with the right data, the right tools, and the right people (and a lot of money). Coursera and Calico veteran Daphne Koller thinks she has all the right ingredients in her new company Insitro.
Pam Kostka is the CEO of All Raise, a startup nonprofit on a mission to accelerate the success of female founders and funders to build a more prosperous, equitable future. Pam is a seasoned CEO with over 25 years of experience as a startup operator. Her specialties are defining go-to-market strategies and implementing operational processes that allow startups to effectively scale to successful exits. Most recently, she was CEO of Loop, a local community mobile app. Previously, she served as CEO of Bluebox Security, interim CEO and CMO at VirtuOz, SVP of Marketing and Sales for Sabrix, and CEO and Co-founder of Visiline, Inc. She has also held executive and senior marketing roles at software companies such as Arena Solutions, Connect, and Extensity. Pam earned her Bachelor of Arts degree in economics, summa cum laude, from College of the Holy Cross, and her MBA from Harvard Business School. A lifelong cyclist, runner, and outdoor adventure seeker, she enjoys Bay Area trails with her husband, Yuri, and daughter, Rae.
Pam's Sessions
Showing Your Work: VCs Investing in Diversity Share Their Secrets
More than 80% of venture capital firms don’t have a single Black investor and 68% of firms don’t have any female partners. As VCs across the country urgently seek to diversify both their investing teams and their portfolios, they could learn a lot from these amazing investors, who have made diversity a central part of their investing thesis from the start. Join us for a candid conversation about the power of investing in underrepresented founders and tapping into over $4.4 trillion in value. This panel will be moderated by Pam Kostka, CEO of All Raise featuring Sarah Kunst, Founder & Managing Director at Cleo Capital and Christie Pitts, General Partner at Backstage Capital who are both leading VCs who focus their investments on founders from underrepresented backgrounds.
Sarah's Sessions
Showing Your Work: VCs Investing in Diversity Share Their Secrets
More than 80% of venture capital firms don’t have a single Black investor and 68% of firms don’t have any female partners. As VCs across the country urgently seek to diversify both their investing teams and their portfolios, they could learn a lot from these amazing investors, who have made diversity a central part of their investing thesis from the start. Join us for a candid conversation about the power of investing in underrepresented founders and tapping into over $4.4 trillion in value. This panel will be moderated by Pam Kostka, CEO of All Raise featuring Sarah Kunst, Founder & Managing Director at Cleo Capital and Christie Pitts, General Partner at Backstage Capital who are both leading VCs who focus their investments on founders from underrepresented backgrounds.
Othman Laraki, MS, MBA, is the Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of Color, a health technology company building public health infrastructures such as scaled and efficient testing to contain the COVID-19 pandemic or using genomics for population health. Previously, Othman co-founded Mixer Labs and developed its GeoAPI platform, a powerful location engine for developers. After the company was acquired by Twitter in 2009, he served as the social media network’s Vice President of Product and helped expand its user base from 50 to 200 million unique accounts. Before this, Othman spent several years at Google, where he played an integral role developing front-end products, including the Chrome browser. Othman is a long-time investor and advisor to leading companies such as Pinterest, AngelList, Slack and Instacart, and serves as a board member for ESI Group and Frontier Medicines. He holds degrees in computer science and management from Stanford University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Othman's Sessions
Tech, Test and Treat: Healthcare Startups in the COVID-19 Era
Both Carbon Health and Color have shifted significant portions of their business to focus on addressing the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. We’ll talk to them about the challenges of making that quick turn, and about how healthcare innovation can address our pandemic needs.
Vanessa Larco is the cofounder of Premise. She is a former partner for the investment firm New Enterprise Associates (NEA) with a background in product management and leadership. She has worked in tech since 2008 and previously worked as the director of product management for mobile and web at Box. Larco specializes in providing strategic guidance to founders and management teams. She holds a bachelor’s in computer science from Georgia Institute of Technology.
Vanessa's Sessions
Startup Battlefield – Session 3
TechCrunch’s iconic startup competition is back, as entrepreneurs from around the world pitch expert judges and vie for the Battlefield Cup and $100,000.
Songe is the CEO and co-founder of Squire, an all in one platform that powers barbershop operations. Squire is YC backed and has raised over $40M in venture funding. Prior to founding Squire, Songe worked as a corporate attorney specializing in mergers and acquisitions. Songe received his B.A. from UCLA and his J.D. from Yale Law School.
Songe's Sessions
The Black Founder Experience: Tactical Advice for Underrepresented Entrepreneurs
How does the startup experience differ for founders from underrepresented groups? What are the biggest ongoing challenges, and how can they be tackled? We’ll hear from Y Combinator CEO Michael Seibel and the founders of Squire and AptDeco on their experiences starting companies and raising money as Black entrepreneurs.
Aileen is the founder of Cowboy Ventures, a leading seed-stage focused venture firm investing in enterprise and consumer software including companies like Dollar Shave Club, Drata Security, Guild and Ironclad Software. Prior to Cowboy, Aileen was a partner at Kleiner Perkins for over a decade, founding CEO of digital media company RMG Networks and worked at Gap Inc in operating roles. Aileen is also known for coining the business term “unicorn” and is a co-founder of All-Raise, a non-profit to accelerate success for women in the tech ecosystem. She has been included on the Forbes Midas List, Fortune’s Most Powerful Women, Time Magazine’s 100 most influential people. She has degrees from MIT and HBS, is a mom of 3 and wife to a startup founder. Aileen is also known for coining the business term “unicorn” and co-founding All-Raise, a non-profit to accelerate success for women in the tech ecosystem. She has been included on the Forbes Midas List, Fortune’s Most Powerful Women, Time Magazine’s 100 most influential people. Prior to Cowboy, Aileen was a partner at Kleiner Perkins for over a decade, founding CEO of digital media company RMG Networks and worked at Gap Inc in operating roles. She has degrees from MIT and HBS, and is mom of 3 and wife to a startup founder.
Aileen's Sessions
Startup Battlefield – Session 3
TechCrunch’s iconic startup competition is back, as entrepreneurs from around the world pitch expert judges and vie for the Battlefield Cup and $100,000.
Pitch Deck Teardown
Talk through the nuts and bolts of what makes a great deck (or not) with top investors as they go through your submitted pitches live on stage.
Franklin Leonard is a film and television producer, cultural commentator, and entrepreneur. He is the founder and CEO of the Black List, the company that celebrates and supports great screenwriting and the writers who do it via film production, its annual survey of best unproduced screenplays, online marketplace, live staged script readings, screenwriter labs, and film culture publications. More than 400 scripts from the annual Black List survey have been produced as feature films earning 250 Academy Award nominations and 50 wins including four of the last twelve Best Pictures and ten of the last twenty-four screenwriting Oscars. Franklin has worked in feature film development at Universal Pictures and the production companies of Will Smith, Sydney Pollack and Anthony Minghella, and Leonardo DiCaprio. He has been a juror at the Sundance, Toronto, Guanajuato, and Mumbai Film Festivals and for the PEN Center Literary Awards. He’s been one of Hollywood Reporter’s 35 Under 35, Black Enterprise magazine’s “40 Emerging Leaders for Our Future,” and Fast Company’s “100 Most Creative People in Business.” He was the recipient of the 2019 Writers Guild of America, East (WGAe) Evelyn Burkey award for elevating the honor and dignity of screenwriters. He is a contributing editor at Vanity Fair, a member of the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) and the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences (AMPAS). He is a frequent conference and corporate public speaker including keynote appearances at the Aspen Ideas Festival, Bloomberg, 99U, TBWA/Media Arts Lab, Warby Parker, Betterment, and the Chatauqua Institution. His TED talk “How I accidentally changed the way that movies get made” has been viewed more than 1.6 million times.
Franklin's Sessions
Breaking The Reel
In 2005, when he was a development executive for Appian Way Productions, Franklin Leonard disrupted a Hollywood ritual and published an industry survey of the best scripts that hadn’t made it to production. That list is now a technology driven enterprise called The Black List. It’s one of the greatest resources out there for an emerging screenwriter, democratizing access to the industry to writers from anywhere. If that’s not disruptive, I don’t know what is.
Phil Libin is co-founder and CEO of All Turtles, a mission-driven product studio, and mmhmm, a new app that makes video communication more clear and compelling. Previously he was Managing Director at General Catalyst, and before that he was co-founder and CEO of Evernote, which he grew to become a beloved product for hundreds of millions of users.
Phil's Sessions
Disrupt Desk
Hang with us at the Disrupt Desk to catch up on what you’ve missed from across the show and get a sneak peek at new technology, demos, news and more. Phil Libin of All Turtles joins us for a special announcement about his new product mmhmm.
Howie Liu is CEO of Airtable, the platform democratizing software creation that he co-founded in 2016. Netflix, TIME, Conde Nast, jetBlue, Shopify, Glossier, The City of Los Angeles, and half the Fortune 1000, currently use Airtable to power their most ambitious operations. The company has been named among the Davos World Economic Forum’s Technology Pioneers, Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies, Forbes’ Cloud 100, CNBC’s Disruptor 50, and Fortune’s 100 Greatest Designs of All Time. Prior to Airtable, Liu was a product leader at Salesforce after its acquisition of his first company, the intelligent CRM Etacts. Originally from Texas, he taught himself how to code C++ at the age of 13, after finding an unread training book in his dad’s office, and has been interested in software as a medium for creative expression and economic value creation ever since.
Howie's Sessions
Building a Low-Code Unicorn
Low-code/no-code has been a buzzword for years now, but few companies have taken this idea to its logical conclusion the way Airtable has with its spreadsheet-like interface. With a valuation of over $1 billion, the company is now at the forefront of this movement. We’ll talk to Airtable co-founder and CEO Howie Liu about building a user-friendly low-code service, enterprise sales in the age of COVID-19, and what’s next for the no-code/low-code space.
John Locke joined Accel in 2010 and helps lead the firm’s growth fund. Over the last decade, John has led or worked closely on Accel’s investments in Braintree/Venmo (acquired by PayPal), Crowdstrike (CRWD), Galileo, GoFundMe, Lightspeed (LSPD), Monzo, QMC Telecom, The Zebra, Tenable (TENB), WorldRemit, and Xero (XRO), as well as a number of other companies. John grew up in Ashland, Ohio and graduated from Princeton.
John's Sessions
How Embedded Finance Represents the Future of FinTech
The fintech industry has had a wild couple of years. Consumer fintech startups have been massively successful and managed to attract millions of customers. At the same time, enterprise companies have created the infrastructure that will make finance truly digital, from payments to API-driven integrations and risk assessment. In this panel, we’ll talk about what’s next for the fintech industry. Will tech companies all become fintech companies at some point with embedded financial products? Will new tech giants thrive by powering those embedded financial products?
Zoe Lofgren is serving her thirteenth term in Congress representing the 19th District of California, based in the “Capital of Silicon Valley,” San Jose, and the Santa Clara Valley. A lifelong Bay Area resident and the daughter of a truck driver and a cafeteria cook, Zoe attended public primary and secondary schools, Stanford University, and the Santa Clara University School of Law. Prior to being elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, she served as a member of Congressman Don Edwards’ staff, she practiced and taught immigration law, and she served on the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors. Zoe is the elected Chair of the 45-member California Democratic Congressional Delegation and is the Chair of the Committee on House Administration. She also serves as the Chair of the House Judiciary Immigration and Citizenship Subcommittee, and as a Member of the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee. Zoe is known for her work on patent reform, copyright issues, digital rights, privacy, and net neutrality. She successfully fought to initiate the “e-rate” that provides affordable internet access for schools, libraries, and rural health centers, and she led a bipartisan effort in the House to decontrol encryption technology. A staunch advocate for digital rights, Zoe was the lead early opponent of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and led a successful fight to stop the bill in the House Judiciary Committee. In 2014, Zoe successfully spearheaded a bipartisan effort to close backdoor loopholes on unwarranted government surveillance, and in early 2020, she led bicameral reform efforts to protect Americans’ civil liberties during FISA reauthorization negotiations. In the 116th Congress, along with Congresswoman Anna Eshoo, Zoe introduced the 132-page Online Privacy Act, sweeping legislation that creates user rights, places obligations on companies to protect users’ data, establishes a new federal agency to enforce privacy protections, and strengthens enforcement of privacy law violations. Zoe served as a House Manager in the 2020 impeachment trial of Donald Trump and is the first woman in U.S. history to ever present a presidential case to the Senate. She is also the only Member of Congress to have participated as part of the Judiciary Committee in all three modern impeachment proceedings. Zoe is married to John Marshall Collins, is the mother of two, and the grandmother of two.
Representative Zoe's Sessions
Keeping Big Tech in Check
Few know Silicon Valley better than one of its longest-serving lawmakers, Rep. Zoe Lofgren. Both as a defender and critic, Lofgren has led the effort to keep Big Tech in check, not just for her electorate but their internet users around the world. We’ll talk policy, privacy, and other hot-button issues affecting Silicon Valley, now and in the future.
Mike Lu is the CEO at Triller. He has over 16 years of product and technology experience working in mobile/social games and online media.
Mike's Sessions
Is Triller a TikTok Killer?
“TikTok is for kids,” reads the sign inside Triller’s HQ. The video app has even briefly hit number one on the App Store charts, beating out its rival. And let’s not forget Triller’s relatively high profile new user in the form of President Donald Trump. Obviously, we have plenty to discuss with Triller CEO Mike Lu.
Mette grew up in the very west of Denmark, leading to a very active childhood which may have been the inspiration for the outdoor fitness and training community she co-founded, Endomondo. Now, Mette is CEO of Too Good To Go where she leads a team of more than 600 from Copenhagen, Denmark. The company is committed to having a positive social impact in the fight against food waste, and this includes connecting with people, businesses, schools, and public affairs to affect real change. The Too Good To Go app has more than 23 million users across 15 countries, who collectively have saved more than 43 million meals to date. Mette is driven by purpose-led ventures, and building teams of talented people to make things happen. She regularly speaks about what she and the company have learned since embarking on this journey, and why we need to rethink the purpose that companies play in tackling the climate crisis.
Mette's Sessions
From Fighting Fit to Fighting Waste: Building Big Startups on Big Ideas
Mette Lykke made her name as the founder of Endomondo, an early app in the quantified self fitness rush eventually acquired by UnderArmor to help people track all their physical activities. Now she’s building Too Good To Go to fight food waste. The common theme? Tech for self-improvement. Join us to hear about how she turns big ideas into businesses.
11:00 AM (CET) Live Q&A with Mette Lykke
Come to this live Q&A prepared with your questions.
Susan Lyne is president and founder of BBG Ventures; board member of Gilt, Brit+Co., and Starz, LLC; and former board member of AOL, MSO and CIT.
Susan's Sessions
Pitch Deck Teardown
Talk through the nuts and bolts of what makes a great deck (or not) with top investors as they go through your submitted pitches live on stage.
Startup Battlefield – Session 2
TechCrunch’s iconic startup competition is back, as entrepreneurs from around the world pitch expert judges and vie for the Battlefield Cup and $100,000.
Kanyi serves as Managing Partner at Kindred Ventures. He focuses his investment and formation work in theme areas including frontier technology, digital health, e-commerce, financial technology, supply-chain/logistics. He currently serves a number of startups as a lead investor, including Adyton, Basis Theory, Faircraft, Cloudtrucks, Goldfinch, and Tala. He previously led or participated in the earliest stages of investments including Outschool, Just, Impossible Foods, Upstart (NASDAQ: UPST), Reddit (NYSE: RDDT), Mural, Hellosign (acquired by Dropbox), and Earnest (acquired by Navient). As an entrepreneur and operator, Kanyi is a co-founder at Heartbeat Health, the largest virtual heart health platform in the United States. He previously served as a Partner at Collaborative Fund. Early in his career before venture, Kanyi ran growth at One Block Off the Grid (acquired by NYSE: NRG for $120 million) and was an early employee at Doostang (acquired by Universum Global). Kanyi has also served as an Adjunct Professor at New York University Tisch School of the Arts, a curriculum adapted from his time as a student at Stanford University, where he studied Philosophy.
Kanyi's Sessions
Startup Battlefield – Session 3
TechCrunch’s iconic startup competition is back, as entrepreneurs from around the world pitch expert judges and vie for the Battlefield Cup and $100,000.
Caryn Marooney is general partner at Coatue Management and sits on the boards of Zendesk and Elastic. In prior roles she oversaw communications for Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Oculus and co-founded The OutCast Agency, which served clients like Salesforce.com and Amazon.
Caryn's Sessions
Startup Battlefield Final
The final round of TechCrunch’s iconic startup competition is back, as entrepreneurs from around the world pitch expert judges and vie for the Battlefield Cup and $100,000.
Jessica O. Matthews is the Founder & CEO of Uncharted Power, an award-winning, power access company, that transforms the ground beneath us into smart, secure and cost-effective infrastructure for renewable energy access. Founded by Jessica at the age of 22, the company’s proprietary suite of technology creates the “internet for decentralized energy” that can easily interconnect decentralized power applications (residential solar, electric vehicle charging stations, IoT sensors, etc.) into one sustainable network, bridging the power access gap between current grid and off-grid solutions. Jessica’s success in energy and entrepreneurship led to a White House invitation from President Barack Obama to represent small companies for the signing of the America Invents Act in 2012. In 2016, she raised what was at the time the largest Series A round ever raised by a black female founder in history, and was selected to ring the NASDAQ opening ceremony bell, representing all Forbes 30 Under 30 alumni. Jessica’s research and career center around the intersection of disruptive technology, renewable energy, human behavior, and the psychology of self-actualization. A dual citizen of Nigeria & the United States Jessica has a degree in Psychology and Economics from Harvard University, an MBA from Harvard Business School, and is listed on over 12 patents and patents pending, including her first invention of the SOCCKET, an energy generating soccer ball, at the age of 19. Her list of accolades include Fortune’s Most Promising Women Entrepreneurs, Forbes 30 Under 30, Inc. Magazine 30 Under 30, and Harvard University Scientist of the Year.
Jessica O.'s Sessions
Scaling Good Very Well
You can’t get too far in Silicon Valley without hearing a founder utter the words “we want to change the world.” When it comes to Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins, founder of Promise, and Jessica O. Matthews, founder of Uncharted Power, they can actually bring the receipts. Hear from these entrepreneurs about how they’ve managed their businesses not only to scale good, but to scale well.
Eric Migicovsky was the founder and CEO of Pebble Technology and is a visiting partner at Y Combinator. He is a contributor to Hardware Studio, a new resource for hardware creators from Kickstarter, Avnet, and Dragon Innovation that launches today.
Eric's Sessions
Building Consumer Hardware in 2020
“Hardware is hard,” as the saying goes. But has building a hardware company gotten any easier over the years? Is building a hardware company in 2020 a reasonable endeavor… or is it tougher than ever? Eric Migicovsky (Partner at Y Combinator, and founder of smartwatch pioneer Pebble) and Kate Whitcomb (CEO of Chrysalis Cloud, formerly CEO of Cocoon Health and a Partner at the HAX hardware accelerator) will share their insight on the evolving landscape of consumer hardware and the challenges involved.
Ana Milicevic is principal and co-founder of Sparrow Advisers, where she and her team of strategic consultants work with companies across adtech, martech, ecommerce, and media on strategy, scaling challenges, product, go-to-market positioning, new market launches, innovation, services, and global field enablement. Earlier in her career Ms. Milicevic held key leadership roles across product, strategy, technology, and services in early stage startups, high growth scale-ups, and established global companies like Adobe and SAS. She is a frequent speaker on topics of data management, cross-channel marketing analytics, customer experience, innovation, and emerging markets.
Ana's Sessions
Advertising Disrupted: What User Privacy Means For Marketers
This TechCrunch Disrupt session offers the unique opportunity to join a live recording of AppsFlyer’s industry podcast, Next in Marketing. Mike Shields, podcast host and former Wall Street Journal, Business Insider, AdWeek and Digiday editor along with guests (Brian Quinn, US President & GM, AppsFlyer and Ana Milicevic, Co-founder and Principal, Sparrow Advisers) will delve into the ecosystem’s pivotal privacy updates, including Apple’s IDFA opt-out and the impact of iOS 14 to measurement and attribution, as well as targeting in a cookieless world. You’ll also hear about the future of personalization post-regulations in this session that is sure to address the most pressing issues and headlines on the mind of marketers globally.
Tyler Mitchell
CEO, Imagine ImpactTyler Mitchell is a producer, writer and entrepreneur who sits at the nexus of creativity, technology and the creation of content across all mediums. Currently, Mitchell is the CEO of Impact, a ground-breaking content accelerator and marketplace platform he co-founded with Imagine Entertainment’s Academy Award winning partners Brian Grazer and Ron Howard. Impact is democratizing access to the entertainment industry, accelerating the development of original content, and innovating the way studios, producers, directors, writers and crews connect. Previously, Mitchell was Executive Vice President of Motion Pictures at Imagine Entertainment, where he oversaw a slate of live action films and also launched Imagine’s animation division in partnership with Animal Logic. Before joining Imagine Entertainment, Mitchell produced several films, including The Incredible Burt Wonderstone, starring Steve Carell and Jim Carrey; Lucky Number Slevin, starring Josh Hartnett, Bruce Willis, Lucy Liu and Ben Kingsley; and the critically acclaimed film Maudie, starring Ethan Hawke and Sally Hawkins. As an executive, Mitchell oversaw the development and production of many films, including The Rum Diary, starring Johnny Depp and The Butterfly Effect, starring Ashton Kutcher. Mitchell has also produced and written for television, including two primetime shows for NBC – Kidnapped and My Own Worst Enemy. In addition, he co-wrote the story and is producing The Heart of Rock & Roll, a new musical inspired by the songs of Huey Lewis & The News, which is heading to Broadway in 2021, after a record-breaking run at the historic Old Globe theater in San Diego.
Tyler's Sessions
Greenlighting A New Generation of Storytellers
Legendary producer Brian Grazer and Ron Howard, one of the world’s most successful actors, directors and producers has created some of the most iconic films and television shows of the last 35 years (Apollo 13, Arrested Development, and The Da Vinci Code to name a few). But entertainment — like tech — is all about disruption. So, to tap into how it will be created and delivered in the future, the pair have teamed up with entrepreneur Tyler Mitchell to launch Imagine Impact, a Silicon Valley-style accelerator where promising writers connect with mentors to build their stories and help them take to market. Impact signed a deal in June with Netflix to expand that pipeline, so come hear about what else they have planned, and what the three of them think about the future of features.
Known for her inception stage investments that range from marketplaces to highly technical companies, Ms. Miura-Ko’s investments have earned her repeat appearances on the Forbes Midas List and The New York Times list of top twenty venture capitalists worldwide. At Stanford University—where she received her Ph.D. for her work on mathematical modeling of cybersecurity—she is a lecturer in engineering, teaching on topics from blockchain to intelligent growth for startups. In addition, she is a co-director of the Stanford Mayfield Fellows Program, which helps train undergraduates to become technology leaders. Ms. Miura-Ko is a co-founding member of AllRaise, an organization dedicated to increasing the success and prevalence of female funders and founders. Ms. Miura-Ko received a B.S. in electrical engineering from Yale. As an alumna, she has served on the School of Engineering & Applied Science Leadership Council and as a non-trustee member of the Corporation Committee on Investments. She was elected an alumni fellow in 2019.
Ann's Sessions
How to Craft Your Pitch Deck for 2020
Today you might be pitching by email, audio, video, VR or IRL to all types of investors across the globe. How do you tell your story in a way that reaches the right people the right way without you diverting too much time from building your company? The traditional deck of powerpoint slides still has a place, but you need to manage many more opportunities for fundraising, too. We’ll talk through the latest tactics that founders are using around the world.
As the Vice President and Managing Director, India at Facebook, Ajit Mohan spearheads the company’s India charter. Ajit and his leadership team are focused on the company’s efforts to enable Indians to connect with people, communities, and the things they care the most about. Prior to Facebook, Ajit was the Chief Executive Officer at Hotstar. He launched and built Hotstar into India’s leading premium video streaming platform. Ajit spent five years at McKinsey & Company, first in New York in its media practice, where he worked with media companies in North America, Europe, and Latin America, and two years as a Fellow at the McKinsey Global Institute, where he co-authored India’s Urban Awakening, a 2010 report that outlined a new policy approach to India’s rapid urbanization.
Ajit's Sessions
Facebook’s Play in its Biggest Market
American social giant Facebook already reaches more users in India, the world’s second largest internet market, than any other firm. If that did not make Facebook significant enough, it has also started writing big checks to Indian firms. Remember its $5.7 billion investment in Jio? What makes India, which makes little contribution to any American firm’s bottom line, so attractive to Facebook? And what does the social giant have in store for the country ahead?
11:30 AM (IST) Live Q&A with Ajit Mohan
Come to this live Q&A prepared with your questions for Ajit Mohan.
Erik Moore is the founder and Managing Director of Base Ventures, an early-stage tech venture fund. He was one of the first investors in Zappos (sold for 1.2B to Amazon) and an early investor in Plangrid, sold to Autodesk for $875mm. Prior to Base Ventures, Erik spent 15 years in investment banking at Merrill Lynch. He recently joined the board of the Common Ground Foundation, founded by Grammy, Oscar and Emmy award winning artist, Common, and he currently serves as a board member for P.A.C.E, a private philanthropic group. He was recognized as #10 on a list of the top 25 most influential blacks in tech by Business Insider (John Thompson, Chairman of Microsoft was ranked #1). He mentors and advises several known professional athletes. Erik earned his B.A. from Dartmouth College, an MA in French from the University of Pennsylvania, and his MBA from The Wharton School of Business.
Erik's Sessions
Startup Battlefield – Session 2
TechCrunch’s iconic startup competition is back, as entrepreneurs from around the world pitch expert judges and vie for the Battlefield Cup and $100,000.
GV General Partner Dave Munichiello leads the firm’s digital investing team, spanning its consumer, enterprise, and frontier practice areas. He prioritizes time spent building long-term relationships with technologists who peak in curiosity, drive, and vision. Dave is himself deeply curious about data platforms, data science, developer tools, infrastructure, and enterprise software. His investments include Bugsnag (sold to SmartBear), Cockroach, CoreOS (sold to RedHat), DeterminedAI (sold to HPE), GitLab (IPO Nasdaq: GTLB), Jet.com (sold to Walmart), Lattice.io (sold to Apple), Modular, Pixie (sold to NewRelic), Plaid, RedPanda, SambaNova, Segment (sold to Twilio), Slack (IPO, then sold to Salesforce), Snorkel, Upbound, and Wonder. Before GV, Dave built and led enterprise software product, sales, and operations teams for highly-technical products under pressure in rapidly-changing markets. As an early executive at Kiva Systems, he helped grow its enterprise-enabling robotics and software platform from pre-PMF to $120 million in annual revenue before it was purchased by Amazon and became Amazon Robotics. Dave is a combat veteran and former paratrooper who served as a Captain in the U.S. military’s most elite units before his startup career. Dave’s military leadership roles ranged from running an Air Force technology organization; to serving as an Aide de Camp to the Four Star General running U.S. and NATO Air Forces; to deploying with elite special operations teams worldwide, ensuring they were enabled by the world’s most advanced technologies. Dave holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and a B.S. from Emory University in mathematics and computer science.
Dave's Sessions
Building a Startup During the “Work From Home” Revolution
We’re delighted to bring together a trio of the world’s best expert investors on the topic and explore this critical trend further. Sarah Cannon is a partner at Index Ventures where she has backed such team productivity tools as Notion, focused messaging app Quill, and Pitch. Next we have Sarah Guo, who is a general partner at Greylock where she has invested in Clubhouse, family benefits platform Cleo and several cybersecurity companies. Finally, Dave Munichiello will join. He is a general partner at GV who has backed Slack, GitLab, Plaid, and a whole lot of other well-known enterprise startups.
Anne Neuberger
Anne Neuberger is the National Security Agency’s Director of Cybersecurity, responsible for directing NSA’s cybersecurity mission. Prior to this role, she led NSA’s Election Security effort and served as Assistant Deputy Director of NSA’s Operations Directorate, where she led NSA’s foreign intelligence and cybersecurity operations. She also previously served as NSA’s first Chief Risk Officer, as the Director of NSA’s Commercial Solutions Center, responsible for NSA’s partnerships with the private sector, as the Navy’s Deputy Chief Management Officer and as a White House Fellow, working for Secretary of Defense Robert Gates.
Anne's Sessions
Spycraft and Cybersecurity
The NSA is one of the world’s top spy agencies, but its cybersecurity mission has taken a more transparent approach. We’ll hear from Anne Neuberger, who heads NSA’s new Cybersecurity Directorate, about its first year, current cyber threats, and how NSA seeks to disrupt foreign adversaries and enable you to be more cyber secure.
Angelica Nwandu is the founder of The Shade Room, an Instagram-based media empire reaching over 15+ Million active followers (“Roommates”) and a highly-engaged website. Founded in 2014, The Shade Room (TSR) is anchored on celebrating Black culture and entertainment but transcends all celebrity news and society. Serving viral posts daily, Angelica and her company offer a range of content from breaking headlines, exclusives and feel-good posts (TSR Positive Images, Morning Inspiration, Daddy Duties for an unmatched balance of entertainment, and enlightenment. Angie Nwandu, named to Forbes’ “30 under 30” list and called, “the Oprah of our generation,” byRefinery29, is enlightened herself. She is open about her spirituality and often refers to a scripture in the Bible that helped carry her through TSR’s early stage, specifically, a section that advises to not despise small beginnings.
Angelica's Sessions
The Next Generation of Media
Blavity and The Shade Room have both demonstrated that Black audiences are looking for digital publishers who speak to their experiences and interests. We’ll talk to their founders about how they did it, how they’re building scalable businesses and how other publications can do a better job of reaching diverse audiences.
Conan O’Brien was born in Brookline, Massachusetts, and started his path in comedy when he served twice as the president of The Harvard Lampoon. Conan went on to become a writer and producer on several television shows, including “Saturday Night Live” and “The Simpsons,” until 1993, when NBC tapped him to take over as host of “Late Night.” Since then, he’s won four Emmy Awards, six Writer’s Guild Awards, and the People’s Choice Award for “Favorite Television Host.” Conan has hosted two Emmy Awards, the MTV Movie Awards, and performed at the White House Correspondent’s Dinner for two presidents. In 2010, his live comedy tour was the subject of the documentary “Conan O’Brien Can’t Stop,” and led to a second multi-city stand-up tour in 2018. In 2015, Conan became the longest-working current late-night talk show host in the U. S., celebrating 25 years in 2018. He is currently helming the show “CONAN,” now in its 10th season on TBS. His Emmy award winning “CONAN: Without Borders” series has visited 13 countries and his podcast “Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend” currently has over 135 million downloads since it launched in 2018. Between his production company, Conaco, and leading his digital brand, Team Coco, he’s successfully expanded into branded content, podcasting, mobile gaming, pay TV, and live comedy tours.
Conan's Sessions
Cuckoo for CoCo
Conan O’Brien is one of the most recognizable faces on television. But his company, Team CoCo Digital, is hoping you recognize his voice just as much. With podcasting on the rise over the past few years, hear from O’Brien on what it takes to dominate the audio landscape.
Uriridiakoghene “Ulili” Onovakpuri is a Partner at Kapor Capital, an early stage, social impact venture capital firm that invests in gap-closing startups. At Kapor Capital, she leads healthcare and people operations practice as well as the firm’s Summer Associate program. Prior to her role at Kapor, Ulili served as Director of Global Programs at Village Capital, a global accelerator program and venture capital firm. While at Village Capital she worked side by side with entrepreneurs from around the world helping them grow their ideas into marketable businesses. Ulili received her MBA with a concentration in Health Sector Management from Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business. She is a native San Franciscan and a proud UC Berkeley Alum.
Ulili's Sessions
Startup Battlefield – Session 1
TechCrunch’s iconic startup competition is back, as entrepreneurs from around the world pitch expert judges and vie for the Battlefield Cup and $100,000.
Michael Ovitz co-founded Creative Artists Agency (CAA) in 1974 and served as its Chairman until 1995. Over that 20-year period, he grew the agency from a start-up organization to the world’s leading talent agency, representing more than 1,000 of the most notable actors, directors, musicians, screenwriters and other personalities in the entertainment industry including Martin Scorsese, Sean Connery, Robert Redford, Paul Newman, Robert DeNiro, Al Pacino, Bill Murray, Dustin Hoffman, Steven Spielberg, David Letterman, Meryl Streep, Barbara Streisand, Michael Crichton and Michael Jackson. In his journey from the mailroom to media mogul, Mr. Ovitz launched the most powerful agency in the world (to date), sold three major Hollywood studios, executed all marketing and advertising for The Coca-Cola Company (including creating the Polar Bear Campaign) and was at the forefront of the digital revolution, making alliances with Intel Corporation and other early Silicon Valley companies. Mr. Ovitz also served as President of the Walt Disney Company, from October 1995 to January 1997. In 2010, Mr. Ovitz founded the venture capital fund Broad Beach Ventures LLC, a portfolio of over thirty companies. He has been a senior advisor to Palantir Technologies for over 10 years and has invested in and advised companies from startups to black swans. He was instrumental in the creation of venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz and frequently consults for Founders Fund, 8VC and many other firms. In 2018, Mr. Ovitz wrote and published his memoir Who Is Michael Ovitz?, which was on the long list for The Financial Times and McKinsey Business Book of the Year Award. Mr. Ovitz is a graduate of University of California, Los Angeles and helped rebuild the UCLA Medical Center in 1997 while serving as its Chairman for over a decade. Mr. Ovitz is also a notable art collector and serves on The Board of Trustees at The Museum of Modern Art in New York City.
Michael's Sessions
Managing Tech Talent
Human Capital is both an investment firm and a talent agency for engineers and aspiring entrepreneurs. Hear Human Capital cofounder Baris Akis and investor Michael Ovitz, the founder of CAA, discuss the importance of talent acquisition and retention in the tech world.
Ilkka Paananen, is the CEO and co-founder of Supercell, the Helsinki-based mobile games developer behind Clash of Clans, Hay Day, Boom Beach, Clash Royale and Brawl Stars. Since its founding in 2010, Supercell’s five games have amassed 100m daily players and remain in the global top 10 years after launch. In June 2016, Supercell became the first European technology start-up to reach a valuation of $10 billion. In addition to his role at Supercell, Ilkka helps other entrepreneurs as both an investor and as an active member of the Nordic startup community where he mentors and coaches other founders. Alongside his co-founder Mikko Kodisoja, he has established the We Foundation to fight social inequality and help disadvantaged children in Finland. Prior to founding Supercell, he was the CEO & co-founder of Finnish games developer Sumea, which was later acquired by Digital Chocolate, where he worked as President until 2010. Ilkka holds a Master of Science degree from the Helsinki University of Technology.
Ilkka's Sessions
Taming Dragons in Europe
Supercell has not only been one of Europe’s biggest startup success stories; it has been one of the gaming world’s biggest success stories. Join Ilkka Paananen, the founder and CEO, as he talks about his journey building Supercell, how he continues to run it like a startup, and the opportunities — especially now — in Europe to do more.
11:00 AM (CET) Live Q&A with Ilkka Paananen
Come to this live Q&A prepared with your questions for Ilkka Paananen.
Alex Pall
Producer, The Chainsmokers & Partner and Co-Founder, MANTIS Venture CapitalGrammy® Award-winning and Billboard Chart topping artist/producer duo, The Chainsmokers, have evolved into a dominating musical force with a diverse repertoire of songs that have led them to become one of music’s hottest recording artists. Comprised of Alex Pall and Drew Taggart, their signature sound deftly reaches across indie, progressive and pop realms and has seen them develop some of the biggest breakthrough songs over the course of the last few years. Now in 2020, The Chainsmokers are currently working on their next chapter of music for their fourth full length album while simultaneously focusing on charitable and business ventures. From donating 20,000 N95 masks to hospitals in New York City and Las Vegas at the peak need for PPE during the pandemic to donations for charities aiding in wildfire relief in Australia and fighting for equal rights across the globe, Alex and Drew are always looking for ways to give back to causes that hit close to home. Most recently, The Chainsmokers were featured on the cover of Forbes for their entrepreneurial achievements as well as being named by Forbes as the highest paid DJs in the world. Using their ability to identify trends, Drew and Alex have built a track record as seasoned angel investors. Following their passion for supporting other brilliant entrepreneurs, they joined forces with a seasoned investment team, led by tech investors and entrepreneurs Milan Koch and Jeffrey Evans, to form a new venture capital firm called Mantis. Mantis Venture Capital invests in Seed & Series A consumer companies within the industries of Media & Entertainment, Fintech, and Health & Wellness that focuses on the Gen Z and Millennial population.
Alex's Sessions
Disrupt Desk
Hang with us at the Disrupt Desk to catch up on what you’ve missed from across the show and get a sneak peek at new technology, demos, news and more. The Chainsmokers Alex Pall and Drew Taggert join us for a special announcement.
Delane Parnell is currently the Founder and CEO of PlayVS, the venture-backed startup building the infrastructure for amateur esports. Prior to starting PlayVS, Delane worked at IncWell Venture Capital where he became the youngest black venture capitalist in The United States. Delane was then part of the early team at Rocket Fiber that raised $31M and focused on retail strategy directly with the CEO. While at Rocket Fiber, Delane founded Rush Esports, an esports team that was acquired by Team Solomid. A lifelong entrepreneur, Delane started his first job at 13, working 40 plus hours a week during the school year. At 17, Delane used the money he saved to purchase three cell phone stores and joined the founding team of Executive Car Rental that now has 16 locations across Michigan.
Delane's Sessions
In the Big Leagues
In a few short years, PlayVS has put eSports leagues in high schools across the country, partnering with gaming giants and school systems. The startup has raised $96 million with founder Delane Parnell at the helm, now they’re looking to expand their ambitions. With traditional high school athletic programs likely to be deeply impacted by COVID-19, will eSports see even greater adoption?
Christie Pitts is an early-stage investor at Backstage Capital and co-founder of Backstage Studio, where she leads Backstage’s global Accelerator program. In addition to her role leading Accelerator, Christie is a General Partner at Backstage Capital. She joined Backstage in August 2017, and went on to assist in sourcing and investing in more than 80 startups led by underrepresented (women, people of color, and LGBTQ) founders, helping to bring the firm’s total investment portfolio to more than 140 companies.
Christie's Sessions
Showing Your Work: VCs Investing in Diversity Share Their Secrets
More than 80% of venture capital firms don’t have a single Black investor and 68% of firms don’t have any female partners. As VCs across the country urgently seek to diversify both their investing teams and their portfolios, they could learn a lot from these amazing investors, who have made diversity a central part of their investing thesis from the start. Join us for a candid conversation about the power of investing in underrepresented founders and tapping into over $4.4 trillion in value. This panel will be moderated by Pam Kostka, CEO of All Raise featuring Sarah Kunst, Founder & Managing Director at Cleo Capital and Christie Pitts, General Partner at Backstage Capital who are both leading VCs who focus their investments on founders from underrepresented backgrounds.
Dr. Robert Playter is CEO of Boston Dynamics, the world leader in advanced mobile robots. Under his leadership, Boston Dynamics has launched two commercial products: Spot, the first commercial legged robot targeting the market for industrial inspections, and Stretch, a box-moving robot that unloads trailers for more efficient warehouse operations. Playter has spent more than three decades in leadership positions at Boston Dynamics where he launched and led the company’s early work on humanoid robots culminating in the creation of Atlas, the world’s most advanced humanoid robot. Playter also instigated the company’s development of a robot for the warehousing industry, resulting in the creation of Stretch. Prior to his role as CEO, he served as Boston Dynamics’ chief operating officer and VP of Engineering where he helped grow the company and prepare for the transition from a pure research organization to a commercial producer of advanced robot products. A former NCAA Division I National Champion gymnast at The Ohio State University, Playter’s athletic career highly influenced his work in robotics. He received his PhD in aeronautical engineering from MIT in 1994, where he worked under Marc Raibert, founder of Boston Dynamics, at the MIT Leg Lab to develop his thesis on robot gymnastics and program a bipedal robot to do the world’s first 3D robotic somersault. His most rewarding experiences are those that come as a teammate, whether in sports or business.
Robert's Sessions
Putting Robots to Work
In his first public speaking engagement since becoming the CEO of Boston Dynamics, Robert Playter will discuss the company’s transition from research robotics darlings to commercial production. As an employee for more than 25 years, Playter has unique insight into the company’s growth and plans to help robots become an increasingly important driver of our daily lives.
Guillaume Pousaz is CEO and founder of Checkout.com, a leading digital payments solution company. Guillaume believes that financial complexity is a barrier to innovation which is blocking global economic prosperity. Having witnessed the growth of the internet since he was young, he founded Checkout.com in 2012 with a mission to build the banking that businesses deserve. Over the last decade, he has worked with some of the world’s most innovative companies to provide them with solutions to complex payment problems. Checkout.com is now one of the largest fintechs globally with 13 offices and a team of 750+ people. Originally hailing from Switzerland, he has since lived all over the world as he drove Checkout.com’s ambitious international expansion.
Guillaume's Sessions
How Checkout.com Reached a $5.5 Billion Valuation in the Crowded Payment Space
Checkout.com has kept a low profile for many years. And yet, within a year, the company raised $380 million and reached an impressive valuation of $5.5 billion. Checkout.com isn’t the first payment startup that tries to cover everything, such as accepting transactions, processing them and detecting fraud. So what is the secret sauce? Founder and CEO Guillaume Pousaz will tell us more about his company’s strategy and the reason why it has experienced explosive growth.
10:30 AM (CET) Live Q&A with Guillaume Pousaz
Come to this live Q&A prepared with your questions for Guillaume Pousaz.
Rohit Prasad is vice president and head scientist, Amazon Alexa, the voice service that powers Amazon’s family of Echo products, Amazon Fire TV and third-party offerings. Prasad leads Alexa research and development in Artificial Intelligence technologies aimed at making interaction with Alexa a magical experience for customers. Prior to Amazon, Prasad was deputy manager and senior director of the Speech, Language and Multimedia Business Unit at Raytheon BBN Technologies. In that role, he directed U.S. Government-sponsored research and development initiatives in speech-to-speech translation, psychological health analytics, document image translation and STEM learning. He earned his master’s degree in Electrical Engineering at the Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago, and a bachelor’s degree in Electronics and Communications Engineering from Birla Institute of Technology, India.
Rohit's Sessions
How Voice Computing Conquered the World
Amazon’s Alexa heads Rohit Prasad and Toni Reid will join us to discuss the voice assistant’s rise from curiosity to ubiquitous computing platform. The pair will discuss life beyond the smart speaker and where voice computing goes from here.
Brian Quinn
US President & General Manager, AppsFlyerAs President and General Manager, Brian Quinn runs global attribution leader AppsFlyer’s go-to-market strategy and operations for North America. Quinn brings over 15 years of experience in sales leadership and business development—scaling revenue, building high performing growth teams, while executing go-to-market strategies in a variety of internet software businesses across the mobile, marketing, and data/analytics industries such as App Annie, Kenshoo and AT&T.
Brian's Sessions
Advertising Disrupted: What User Privacy Means For Marketers
This TechCrunch Disrupt session offers the unique opportunity to join a live recording of AppsFlyer’s industry podcast, Next in Marketing. Mike Shields, podcast host and former Wall Street Journal, Business Insider, AdWeek and Digiday editor along with guests (Brian Quinn, US President & GM, AppsFlyer and Ana Milicevic, Co-founder and Principal, Sparrow Advisers) will delve into the ecosystem’s pivotal privacy updates, including Apple’s IDFA opt-out and the impact of iOS 14 to measurement and attribution, as well as targeting in a cookieless world. You’ll also hear about the future of personalization post-regulations in this session that is sure to address the most pressing issues and headlines on the mind of marketers globally.
Megan is a General Partner at Spark Capital, focusing on growth investments. She specializes in working with world-changing entrepreneurs to design, build and scale transformative consumer products and companies. Prior to joining Spark in 2015, Megan was a partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers where she led a number of the firm’s early-stage and growth consumer investments. Megan joined KPCB from Square, the company revolutionizing payments for buyers and sellers. She led strategy and development of the company’s products across merchant and consumer audiences. Before her tenure at Square, Megan spent seven years at Google where she held various leadership positions in marketing, business development and product management. She oversaw the development and launch of some of the company’s most successful products, including Google Maps. Her team’s work continues to serve as the foundation for Google’s location-based consumer and advertising products. Megan received her degree in Political Science and History from Stanford University. Megan lives in San Francisco with her husband.
Megan's Sessions
Pitch Deck Teardown
Talk through the nuts and bolts of what makes a great deck (or not) with top investors as they go through your submitted pitches live on stage.
Renata is a venture capitalist, futurist, and co-founder of Renegade Partners. Over the past 15 years, she has invested in founding teams transforming the trajectory of humanity through technology. Prior to launching Renegade with Roseanne Wincek in 2020, Renata specialized in early-stage deep technology investments as a Partner at Lux Capital. She previously served as General Partner at Felicis Ventures, where she worked closely with companies unlocking new markets and business models, including Dollar Shave Club ($1B acquisition by Unilever), Bonobos (acquired by Walmart), Planet (micro satellites), and Cruise Automation ($1B acquisition by GM). Before becoming a venture capitalist, Renata helped manage Stanford University’s endowment, investing in both private equity and venture capital funds. She earned her MBA and LL.M (Master of Law in Law, Science, and Technology) degrees from Stanford University, and her JD law degree from Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro. She is a CFA charterholder. Renata is also a three-time state champion black belt in karate, Bossa Nova guitar player, and Brazilian immigrant.
Renata's Sessions
The State of Venture
All three of these VCs hail from among the most powerful investing firms in the country — NEA, Lux Capital, and GV. Yet each made the bold choice to strike out on their own, adding to a growing and diverse landscape of investment vehicles across the globe. Hear about why they did it, and learn about the trends that they’re funding as they build their businesses.
Byju Raveendran is the Founder and CEO of the India’s most valuable edtech company – BYJU’S – that is reinventing how students learn, through its learning app. Born to teacher parents in Azhikode, Kerala; Byju was a self-learner from a young age and used to develop different learning methods to understand concepts better on his own. An avid sportsperson (expert in six games), Byju believes that children can learn a lot more outside the classrooms by playing multiple games. An entrepreneur by chance and a teacher by choice, he is a two-time Common Admission Test (CAT) topper and National Math Olympiad winner. He started BYJU’S with the vision to help students fall in love with learning and change the way India learns. He is the recipient of the Fortune 40 under 40 Award (2020), Impact Person of the Year Award (2019), Manorama Newsmaker of the Year Award (2019, 2020), Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award – Startup (2018), CNBC Young Turk of the Year Award(2017) and Express IT Newsmaker of the Year Award (2017)
Byju's Sessions
Decoding Decacorn Byju’s Journey and Future Ambitions
At a time when startups are struggling to raise capital, Indian edtech giant has not only raised hundreds of millions of dollars, it has also bought a startup for $300 million. How did Byju build this startup in a country where very few people are willing to pay? And what does India’s second most valued startup plan to do next?
11:30 AM (IST) Live Q&A with Byju Raveendran
Come to this live Q&A prepared with your questions.
Yasmin Razavi is General Partner at Spark Capital, where she invests in growth-stage enterprise, fintech, and developer companies. Since joining the firm in 2017, Yasmin has led investments on behalf of Spark in Marqueta, Deel, Rapyd, Niantic, Capitolis, and Earnin. Before joining Spark, she was a consultant at McKinsey & Company. She later joined Snap Inc. as a product manager to build the technology behind the app’s monetization stack. Yasmin holds a bachelor’s degree in engineering from the University of Toronto and an MBA from Harvard Business School.
Yasmin's Sessions
Getting to the Growth Stage
Hear from leading growth stage investors Yasmin Razavi at Spark Capital and Elliott Robinson at Bessemer Venture Partners about what they look for in hyper-scaling startups and the metrics they evaluate before writing a check.
Karthik Reddy
Co-founder & Managing Partner, Blume VenturesKarthik Reddy is the Co-founder and Managing Partner at Blume Ventures, one of India’s leading early stage Venture funds. Blume focuses on seed to Pre-Series A stages of funding and has made over a 100 investments across its 8 year history across multiple funds. Blume is now investing from Fund III starting 2019. At Blume, he has led the majority of the investments, and advises and serves on the boards of some of the leading investments at the firm – Servify, Belong, Zopper, Exotel, Grey Orange Robotics, Unacademy, Healthifyme and Railyatri amongst other emerging stars. Blume has scored significant exits from 2015 through 2018, the most prominent of which are Mettl (to Mercer Consulting), Minjar (to Nutanix), Runnr (to Zomato), Taxiforsure (to Ola), Promptec (to Havells) and Zipdial (to Twitter).
Karthik's Sessions
State of India’s Startup Ecosystem
10 years ago, a $50 million check was unheard of in India. Now several startups are raising more than $1 billion each a year in the country. How did Indian startups get here, and what lies ahead of them? What opportunities do VCs see in the country?
11:30 AM (IST) Live Q&A with Karthik Reddy
Come to this live Q&A prepared with your questions for Karthik Reddy.
Toni Reid oversees the Alexa Experience organization. She focuses on driving feature awareness and engagement, building Alexa’s personality, and maintaining customer trust, among other areas. Toni joined the Alexa team in 2014. Toni joined Amazon in 1998 as a recruiter, and has worked on several different Amazon teams, including Amazon Fresh, IMDb, and Amazon Media Group. Over the course of her career, she has helped launch several of Amazon’s high-profile initiatives, such as Dash, X-ray on Amazon Video, and most recently Echo devices and Alexa. Named to Fortune’s list of Most Powerful Women, Fast Company’s list of Most Creative People, and the Recode 100, Toni is passionate about innovating on behalf of customers. Toni earned her bachelor’s degree in Anthropology from the University of North Texas.
Toni's Sessions
How Voice Computing Conquered the World
Amazon’s Alexa heads Rohit Prasad and Toni Reid will join us to discuss the voice assistant’s rise from curiosity to ubiquitous computing platform. The pair will discuss life beyond the smart speaker and where voice computing goes from here.
Elliott Robinson is a Partner at Bessemer Venture Partners where he leads the growth investment practice and is primarily focused on cloud software investments. He is currently a board member for Coactive AI, Databook, Hinge Health, Hyperscience, Imply Data, Netlify and Render.
Elliott's Sessions
Getting to the Growth Stage
Hear from leading growth stage investors Yasmin Razavi at Spark Capital and Elliott Robinson at Bessemer Venture Partners about what they look for in hyper-scaling startups and the metrics they evaluate before writing a check.
Rishi is an Expert Partner and Founder of the Bain Innovation Exchange, Bain’s center of excellence that builds relationships with the global VC/Startup ecosystem and helps accelerate innovation for clients. He has over 14 years of experience in innovation, venture capital, startups and strategy. Prior to Bain, Rishi was a founder at two startups and a VP at Pritzker Group Venture Capital, investing in D2C, consumer mobile, ecommerce and B2B early stage startups.
Rishi's Sessions
It Takes An Ecosystem To Innovate: Startups, Corporations and the Connectors that Bring Them Together
We convene top innovation leaders from around the ecosystem — Alice Vilma of Morgan Stanley, Rishi Roongta of Bain & Company and Terry Angelos of Visa — to learn how they discover innovative solutions and get to outcomes faster. Many already know that startups plus large enterprises can fuel each other’s growth and bottom line, whether it’s a partnership, investment or acquisition. But bringing the right ones together needs more than serendipity: it requires a dynamic ecosystem that includes consultants, accelerators and VCs (aka the connectors). Join us for rich insights and actionable advice that will enhance your firm’s approach.
20 years in SaaS, the majority in MarTech. Early employee at Salesforce (first 100) and Eloqua (#13). Former Chief Growth Officer at Marketo. Been through numerous acquisitions, including Oracle ($871 million), Cisco ($270 million) and Adobe ($4.75 billion). Social Selling evangelist. Advisor, Investor, and Board of Directors member at various B2B SaaS companies, including Vidyard, Terminus, Engagio, People.ai, HubSpot, LoopVOC, Folloze, and Affinio. Fund Advisor and Limited Partner at Stage 2 Capital. Love startups, especially category creators. In tech, but not technical. Born Sales, Bred Marketing, Bleed Customer. Passionate about advancing and shining the spotlight on women in tech, sales, and venture capital. After 20 years in the Bay Area, I moved to Charleston, South Carolina.
Jill's Sessions
How to Reinvent Your Sales Team in 2020
We’re bringing together the smartest leaders on sales in the Valley to discuss tactics and more. Brian Ascher is a partner at Venrock where for more than two decades he has invested in B2B sales-driven companies like 6Sense, Socrates AI, and Dynamic Signal. Next, Pete Kazanjy is one of the leading startup authorities on sales through his written works like “Founding Sales” and community building while also founding sales performance platform Atrium HQ. Finally, we have Jill Rowley, who has spent decades advising startups on sales and was also an early employee at Salesforce and Eloqua.
Maryanna Saenko is an early-stage venture capitalist with an interest in robotics, quantum computing, blockchain, aerospace, and the future of food. Previously she was at Khosla Ventures, and prior to that at DFJ, where she worked with Steve Jurvetson (Co-Founder of Future Ventures) to focus on frontier technology investments. She was also an investment partner at Airbus Ventures where she led a series of venture investments strategically aligned with Airbus’ future-of-aerospace initiatives. Before Airbus, Maryanna was a consultant at Lux Research and a research engineer at Cabot Corporation. Maryanna graduated from Carnegie Mellon University with a BS in BioMedical Engineering and a BS and MS in Materials Science and Engineering.
Maryanna's Sessions
Startup Battlefield – Session 1
TechCrunch’s iconic startup competition is back, as entrepreneurs from around the world pitch expert judges and vie for the Battlefield Cup and $100,000.
David E. Sanger is a national security correspondent and senior writer for the New York Times, a contributor to CNN and an adjunct lecturer at the Kennedy School of Government. In a 38-year reporting career for The Times, he has been on three teams that have won Pulitzer Prizes, most recently in 2017 for international reporting. His latest book, “The Perfect Weapon: War, Sabotage and Fear in the Cyber Age,’’ published in 2018, examined the emergence of cyberconflict as the primary way large and small states are competing and undercutting each other, changing the nature of global power. An HBO documentary based on the book will air in the Fall of 2020. He is also the author of two Times best sellers on foreign policy and national security: “The Inheritance: The World Obama Confronts and the Challenges to American Power,” published in 2009, and “Confront and Conceal: Obama’s Secret Wars and Surprising Use of American Power,” published in 2012. For The Times, Mr. Sanger has served as Tokyo bureau chief, Washington economic correspondent, White House correspondent during the Clinton and Bush administrations, and chief Washington correspondent. He co-teaches “Central Challenges in American National Security, Strategy and the Press” at Harvard.
David E.'s Sessions
Disrupt Desk
Hang with us at the Disrupt Desk to catch up on what you’ve missed from across the show and get a sneak peek at new technology, demos, news and more. Author David Sanger joins us to talk about the new HBO film, “The Perfect Weapon.”
Blake Scholl founded Boom Supersonic in September 2014 with the goal of making high-speed travel mainstream and enabling a new world of human connection. Blake is passionate about tackling big problems which the world has overlooked. After seeing Concorde in a museum, he dreamed of the return of commercial supersonic flight. A few years later, Blake dove into aerospace engineering—reading textbooks and taking classes—to figure out from first principles how to enable a supersonic renaissance. As a leader, Blake focuses on inspiring the best people from a range of disciplines to unite in pursuit of Boom’s vision. Prior to founding Boom, Blake held leadership roles at Amazon and Groupon and co-founded mobile technology startup Kima Labs. He started his career at Amazon as a software engineer in 2001, where he developed software for personalized and automated merchandising and later owned a $300M P&L at age 24. Blake pioneered the automation of digital ad buying, enabling advertisers to build their own “long tail” by promoting niche products to relevant customers. Later, Blake was the first employee and director of product development at Kleiner-backed mobile startup Pelago. In 2010, he co-founded mobile technology startup Kima Labs, which was acquired by Groupon in 2012. At Groupon, Blake held multiple executive roles, culminating in responsibility for relevance, email, and search. Blake’s interest in aviation started in childhood—he grew up in suburban Cincinnati, where his parents often took him to the local airport to watch Cessnas take off and land. He started flying for fun in college, earning his private pilot license in 2008 and instrument rating in 2011. Blake holds a BS in Computer Science from Carnegie Mellon University; he lives in Denver and is the father of three.
Blake's Sessions
Disrupt Desk
Hang with us at the Disrupt Desk to catch up on what you’ve missed from across the show and get a sneak peek at new technology, demos, news and more. Blake Scholl of Boom Supersonic joins us for a special announcement.
Michael Seibel is a Partner at YC and CEO of YC’s startup accelerator. He was the cofounder and CEO Justin.tv and Socialcam. Socialcam sold to Autodesk in 2012 and under the leadership of Emmett Shear, Justin.tv became Twitch.tv and sold to Amazon in 2014. Before getting into startups, he spent a year as the finance director for a US Senate campaign and in 2005, Michael graduated from Yale University with a BA in political science.
Michael's Sessions
The Black Founder Experience: Tactical Advice for Underrepresented Entrepreneurs
How does the startup experience differ for founders from underrepresented groups? What are the biggest ongoing challenges, and how can they be tackled? We’ll hear from Y Combinator CEO Michael Seibel and the founders of Squire and AptDeco on their experiences starting companies and raising money as Black entrepreneurs.
Startup Battlefield Final
The final round of TechCrunch’s iconic startup competition is back, as entrepreneurs from around the world pitch expert judges and vie for the Battlefield Cup and $100,000.
An original super angel turned multi-stage investor, Aydin has been named on the Forbes Midas List for the past ten years (2014-2023) as well as the New York Times Top 20 Venture Capitalists list for four consecutive years (2016-2019). Before starting Felicis, he was the first product manager at Google and helped launch their first ten international sites. He received a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration with Honors from Boston University, an MBA in Marketing from the Wharton School, and a master’s degree in International Studies from the University of Pennsylvania. Aydin currently sits on the Graduate Board of the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.
Aydin's Sessions
Startup Battlefield – Session 4
TechCrunch’s iconic startup competition is back, as entrepreneurs from around the world pitch expert judges and vie for the Battlefield Cup and $100,000.
Sanyogita Shamsunder is the Vice President of Technology Development and 5G Labs at Verizon. Previously, she was Director of Advanced Wireless and Mobile Technology Planning, and has led the 5G network planning and Device Technologies teams at Verizon. Sanyogita has directed and managed teams in all areas of the wireless business, including silicon, and network technology development, marketing, planning and strategy. Sanyogita received an MBA from The Wharton School, and a PhD in Electrical Engineering and Math from The University of Virginia.
Sanyogita's Sessions
Speed of Thought: The First 5G Visionaries
Innovators are using the power of 5G to tackle some of the biggest challenges and opportunities being faced today. See the premiere of Speed of Thought, a documentary about the first wave of 5G visionaries, and hear industry leaders discuss how the need for 5G tech and solutions is more urgent than ever.
Mike Shields is host of AppsFlyer’s podcast, Next in Marketing and the founder of Shields Strategic Consulting, where he advises media, advertising and marketing companies’ content strategies. Shields also serves as an analyst with an expertise in digital advertising, video, gaming and marketing technology. Shields covered the ad business for over 15 years at Business Insider, The Wall Street Journal, Adweek and Digiday.
Mike's Sessions
Advertising Disrupted: What User Privacy Means For Marketers
This TechCrunch Disrupt session offers the unique opportunity to join a live recording of AppsFlyer’s industry podcast, Next in Marketing. Mike Shields, podcast host and former Wall Street Journal, Business Insider, AdWeek and Digiday editor along with guests (Brian Quinn, US President & GM, AppsFlyer and Ana Milicevic, Co-founder and Principal, Sparrow Advisers) will delve into the ecosystem’s pivotal privacy updates, including Apple’s IDFA opt-out and the impact of iOS 14 to measurement and attribution, as well as targeting in a cookieless world. You’ll also hear about the future of personalization post-regulations in this session that is sure to address the most pressing issues and headlines on the mind of marketers globally.
Sid Sijbrandij is the Co-founder and CEO of GitLab, the single application for the DevOps lifecycle and the world’s largest all-remote company. Sid’s career path has been anything but traditional. He saw the first Ruby code in 2007 and loved it so much that he taught himself how to program. It was during his time as a Ruby programmer that he first encountered GitLab, and quickly discovered his passion for open source. In 2012, he helped commercialize GitLab, and by 2015, he led the company through Y-Combinator’s Winter 2015 batch. Under his leadership, the company has experienced 50x growth in the last 5 years, expanded from 9 to more than 1,200 remote team members across 65+ countries and regions. A champion of the open source community and a pioneer in scaling remote organizations, Sid is altering conventional wisdom on DevOps practice.
Sytse's Sessions
Getting to $100M ARR
TechCrunch speaks with three private companies that have reached the $100 million Annual Recurring Revenue mark. We’ll explore what they had to break, and rebuild in their companies as they scaled, and what they learned as they left the early-stages of startup life and built companies that are nearly ready to go public.
Mark Silva is founder and CEO of KITE, the leading SaaS Startup Ecosystem Management platform. Global 2000 corporations,consultancies and ecosystem partners leverage KITE to centralize startup knowledge and activities for their enterprise and to share effortlessly with other networks. Use cases include informing strategy and corporate development, running open innovation, managing scouting and startup ecosystem engagements, and automating data rooms with one powerful system. Silva has founded multiple companies connecting the world’s biggest and best enterprises with emerging, disruptive technologies. He is an active board director, advisor, investor and speaker at the intersection of enterprise+startups on stages such as CES, CDX, MWC, 4YFN and SXSW.
Mark's Sessions
It Takes An Ecosystem To Innovate: Startups, Corporations and the Connectors that Bring Them Together
We convene top innovation leaders from around the ecosystem — Alice Vilma of Morgan Stanley, Rishi Roongta of Bain & Company and Terry Angelos of Visa — to learn how they discover innovative solutions and get to outcomes faster. Many already know that startups plus large enterprises can fuel each other’s growth and bottom line, whether it’s a partnership, investment or acquisition. But bringing the right ones together needs more than serendipity: it requires a dynamic ecosystem that includes consultants, accelerators and VCs (aka the connectors). Join us for rich insights and actionable advice that will enhance your firm’s approach.
Samuel Sinyangwe is a data scientist who co-founded Mapping Police Violence and Campaign Zero, two data-driven platforms to track, analyze and end police violence in America.
Samuel's Sessions
How Data Can Power the Racial Justice Movement
Insights from data can help us see the shape of the problem — and create solutions for change. Join data scientist and co-founder of Campaign Zero, Samuel Sinyangwe to discuss.
Dr. Itamar Sivan is the CEO and Co-founder of Quantum Machines, a quantum technology startup that introduces Quantum Orchestration, a powerful platform to accelerate quantum research and development and deliver unprecedented capabilities for reaching new breakthroughs in quantum technologies. Designed for quantum, the platform empowers research and development teams to realize the full potential of any quantum device. With its robust architecture and powerful yet intuitive programming language, QM makes it possible to run even the most advanced experiments and algorithms right out of the box. Dr. Itamar Sivan is a quantum physicist and entrepreneur. He completed his Ph.D. in the Weizmann Institute of Science, working on quantum electronics and topological quantum states of matter, and did his MS.c thesis at Oxford University, working on cold-atoms systems.
Itamar's Sessions
The Business of Quantum
Quantum computing is having a moment. We now have limited but working hardware available from a number of vendors and there is a growing startup ecosystem that is creating novel hardware approached and a new class of software tools to run these machines and program them. In this panel, we’ll talk about what’s next for quantum computing, the challenges ahead and the roles startups play in fulfilling the promise of this technology.
Katie is the Founder and General Partner of Moxxie Ventures, an early-stage venture fund. Prior to Moxxie, Katie served in numerous executive operating roles at Twitter, Google, Yahoo, and Color. In addition to working in Silicon Valley, Katie served in the (Obama) White House and State Department and began her career as a banker at JP Morgan Chase. Katie sits on the Board of Vivendi, a French multinational media company headquartered in Paris, and previously served on the Board of Time Inc. Katie started her venture career as a Founding Partner of #Angels and has invested in over 100 early-stage companies including Airtable, Calm, Cameo, Carta, Coinbase, Literati, Modern Fertility, and Shape Security.
Katie's Sessions
Diversity as Disruption: Take action now to create a more diverse ecosystem
Recent events continue to demonstrate that change is not happening fast enough. How can we ensure the current social justice momentum is more than just talk? Guided by SVB’s recent research into the “4th wave of venture capital,” learn how three industry leaders are tackling the problem with real actions. By the close of the session, leave with tangible steps you can take today – whether as an individual or as a firm — to make a meaningful, move-the-needle impact in your organization.
Susan is a startup growth advisor and executive-in-residence at Sound Ventures. Susan started in product, moved into marketing, and the hybrid of the two became growth around the time that scaled distribution platforms started taking off. She has previously owned startup growth at Stripe, served as an in-house growth advisor at 500 Startups, and led growth marketing as the founding team member at Reforge. In addition to working with Sound’s portfolio of companies, Susan continues to advise teams from seed stage startups to public companies on growth and marketing.
Susan's Sessions
How to Think Strategically About Growth in 2020
Users in 2020 are split across more and more platforms and splintered by geographies. They’re also jaded about marketing and have less money than before the pandemic. So how do you find the right customers and audience members to build a business with your limited time and budget? Hear from the experts on big growth marketing trends and cutting-edge tactics in key acquisition channels including SEO, social, email and more.
Drew Taggart
Producer, The Chainsmokers & Partner and Co-Founder, MANTIS Venture CapitalGrammy® Award-winning and Billboard Chart topping artist/producer duo, The Chainsmokers, have evolved into a dominating musical force with a diverse repertoire of songs that have led them to become one of music’s hottest recording artists. Comprised of Alex Pall and Drew Taggart, their signature sound deftly reaches across indie, progressive and pop realms and has seen them develop some of the biggest breakthrough songs over the course of the last few years. Now in 2020, The Chainsmokers are currently working on their next chapter of music for their fourth full length album while simultaneously focusing on charitable and business ventures. From donating 20,000 N95 masks to hospitals in New York City and Las Vegas at the peak need for PPE during the pandemic to donations for charities aiding in wildfire relief in Australia and fighting for equal rights across the globe, Alex and Drew are always looking for ways to give back to causes that hit close to home. Most recently, The Chainsmokers were featured on the cover of Forbes for their entrepreneurial achievements as well as being named by Forbes as the highest paid DJs in the world. Using their ability to identify trends, Drew and Alex have built a track record as seasoned angel investors. Following their passion for supporting other brilliant entrepreneurs, they joined forces with a seasoned investment team, led by tech investors and entrepreneurs Milan Koch and Jeffrey Evans, to form a new venture capital firm called Mantis. Mantis Venture Capital invests in Seed & Series A consumer companies within the industries of Media & Entertainment, Fintech, and Health & Wellness that focuses on the Gen Z and Millennial population.
Drew's Sessions
Disrupt Desk
Hang with us at the Disrupt Desk to catch up on what you’ve missed from across the show and get a sneak peek at new technology, demos, news and more. The Chainsmokers Alex Pall and Drew Taggert join us for a special announcement.
Garry Tan is managing partner at Initialized Capital, a seed-stage VC firm. He was previously a partner at Y Combinator. Before that he was co-founder of Posterous (acquired by Twitter) and an early employee at Palantir Technologies.
Garry's Sessions
How to Raise Money in a Dumpster Fire
Garry Tan started his first company, Posterous in 2008, so the Initialized Capital co-founder knows a thing or two about economic crises and how they can effect fundraising. Hans Tung, GGV’s Midas-list dealmaker has seen downturns on three continents in his tenure investing in the US, China, and Latin America for the globe-spanning investment firm, while Anu Hariharan has spent the last decade putting companies through their paces at BCG, A16Z, and most recently, YC. They’ll be delivering the goods on how to get that gelt during this raging dumpster fire of a year.
Sebastien Taveau is a puzzle solver and beyond-the-horizon watcher. Seb’s experience spans more than 20 years in the fields of POS, mobile payment, mobile security, mobile identity and consumer solutions. At Envestnet Yodlee, Seb’s role is to manage the developer experience via the developer portal and other engagements with developers to make Yodlee a true destination experience for all, from the fintech entrepreneur to the large corporate coder.
Seb's Sessions
Making Data Meaningful for the FinTech Ecosystem
Open finance/banking represents a new era of financial data transparency. It brings an unprecedented opportunity for FinTechs to provide personalized guidance consumers need to improve financial wellness. Envestnet | Yodlee experts will discuss empowering the entire FinTech ecosystem with enriched financial data and insights, plus the future of open banking in the U.S.
Doug is a forward-thinking medical device executive with a 20+-year track record of driving operational excellence for research and product development organizations. He has contributed millions to top- and bottom-line growth of companies through operational improvement and implementation of emerging and disruptive technologies. Since joining Corindus in 2016, Doug has transformed the organization into a fast-growing, healthcare robotics company aimed at disrupting the current care model for stroke and heart attack. He has positioned Corindus as the global leader in vascular robotics through development of a second-generation robotic system and advanced capabilities in procedural automation and telerobotics. Under Doug’s leadership in 2018, Corindus completed the world’s first-in-human remote robotic interventional heart procedure. That was followed by the first in-human robotic neurovascular intervention in 2019. Prior to joining Corindus, Doug served as Vice President in Boston Scientific’s development organization, responsible for strategy and operations of its global clinical and preclinical research functions. He played a key role in returning BSC to profitability and growth by accelerating pivotal cardiovascular development programs and improving multiple large-scale laboratory and research facilities. Doug holds a Master of Science and Bachelor’s degree from Purdue University and served as an Engineer in the United States Army Reserves.
Doug's Sessions
Speed of Thought: The First 5G Visionaries
Innovators are using the power of 5G to tackle some of the biggest challenges and opportunities being faced today. See the premiere of Speed of Thought, a documentary about the first wave of 5G visionaries, and hear industry leaders discuss how the need for 5G tech and solutions is more urgent than ever.
Gillian Tee is a technopreneur who has leveraged on her professional and personal experiences to establish Homage, which seeks to use technology to overcome long-standing gaps in the delivery of holistic healthcare for seniors and families. Under her leadership, the company has built a proprietary engine which connects qualified Homage Care Professionals – including caregivers, nurses, doctors and therapists – to care recipients according to their specific needs, in addition to using real-time data to help their loved ones monitor their health and appointment status remotely. First established in Singapore and now in Malaysia, Homage has set sights on further expanding regionally to help seniors and families – especially people with chronic conditions – by replicating its proprietary technology across markets and working with ecosystem stakeholders to improve accessibility to healthcare for all.
Gillian's Sessions
How Tech Can Help Asia’s Aging Population
Caregiving, especially for elderly people, is one of Southeast Asia’s most pressing social issues. We talk to Gillian Tee, co-founder of Homage, about building a platform that pairs specific, qualified carers with clients, and how startups can do more to address the needs of families.
1:30 PM (HKT) Live Q&A with Gillian Tee
Come to this live Q&A prepared with your questions for Gillian Tee.
Jarrid Tingle is Co-founder and Managing Partner of Harlem Capital, a $40mm venture capital firm focused on investing in women and minority founders. Jarrid was featured on the 2019 Forbes 30 under 30 list and 2019 Inc. 30 under 30 list. He received his MBA from Harvard Business School (HBS) in 2019 where he was a Baker Scholar (top 5% of class). Previously, Jarrid was a Private Equity Investment Professional at ICV Partners. Prior to ICV, Jarrid was an Investment Banker in the Global Technology, Media & Telecommunications Group at Barclays. Jarrid graduated cum laude from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.
Jarrid's Sessions
Diversity as Disruption: Take action now to create a more diverse ecosystem
Recent events continue to demonstrate that change is not happening fast enough. How can we ensure the current social justice momentum is more than just talk? Guided by SVB’s recent research into the “4th wave of venture capital,” learn how three industry leaders are tackling the problem with real actions. By the close of the session, leave with tangible steps you can take today – whether as an individual or as a firm — to make a meaningful, move-the-needle impact in your organization.
Alexa is the Founder and Managing Partner of Inspired Capital. Prior to Inspired Capital, Alexa founded LearnVest in 2008 with the goal of helping people make progress on their money. After raising nearly $75 million in venture capital, LearnVest was acquired by Northwestern Mutual in May 2015 in one of the biggest fintech acquisitions of the decade. Following the acquisition, von Tobel joined the management team of Northwestern Mutual as the company’s first-ever Chief Digital Officer. She later assumed the role of Chief Innovation Officer through which she oversaw Northwestern Mutual’s venture arm. Alexa, who holds a Certified Financial Planner™ designation, is the New York Times-Bestselling Author of Financially Fearless and Financially Forward. She is also the host of The Founders Project with Alexa von Tobel, a weekly podcast with Inc. that highlights top entrepreneurs. Alexa is a member of the 2016 Class of Henry Crown Fellows and an inaugural member of President Obama’s Ambassadors for Global Entrepreneurship. She has been honored with numerous recognitions including: a Forbes Magazine cover story, Fortune’s 40 Under 40, Fortune’s Most Powerful Women, Inc. Magazine’s 30 Under 30, and World Economic Forum’s Young Global Leader. Originally from Florida, Alexa attended Harvard College and Harvard Business School before settling in New York City where she currently resides with her husband, Cliff, and three children, Toby, Cashel, and Rosey.
Alexa's Sessions
How to Raise Your First Dollars
Deciding how to go about getting your initial funding is always a tricky subject, as the wrong move could adversely impact your young company. In this session we’ll hear from experts who’ve shepherded multiple companies from the earliest to the latest fundraises.
Lo is the Founding Managing Partner of Plexo Capital, which he incubated and spun out from GV (Google Ventures), based on a strategy to increase access to early-stage deal flow. Plexo Capital invests in emerging seed-stage VCs (led by diverse managers) and invests directly into companies sourced from the portfolios of VCs where Plexo Capital has an investment. Investors in Plexo Capital funds include Alphabet/Google, Intel Capital, Cisco Investments, RBC, Southern New Hampshire University, Home Depot, Hearst Corporation, Hampton University Endowment, JIMCO + Ford Foundation. His expertise includes investing into areas such as enterprise infrastructure, cybersecurity, financial technology, marketplaces, e-commerce, gaming + technology enabled consumer. In addition to managing Plexo Capital, Lo is a CNBC Contributor providing his expertise on financial markets and technology companies on a regular basis. Prior to founding Plexo Capital, Lo was a Partner on the investing team at GV, where he focused on marketplaces, mobile, and consumer products. Lo received his M.B.A from the Haas School of Business (University of California at Berkeley), where he completed the Management of Technology program, a joint curriculum program with the College of Engineering. Lo received his B.S from Hampton University in Virginia.
Lo's Sessions
How to Craft Your Pitch Deck for 2020
Today you might be pitching by email, audio, video, VR or IRL to all types of investors across the globe. How do you tell your story in a way that reaches the right people the right way without you diverting too much time from building your company? The traditional deck of powerpoint slides still has a place, but you need to manage many more opportunities for fundraising, too. We’ll talk through the latest tactics that founders are using around the world.
The State of Venture
All three of these VCs hail from among the most powerful investing firms in the country — NEA, Lux Capital, and GV. Yet each made the bold choice to strike out on their own, adding to a growing and diverse landscape of investment vehicles across the globe. Hear about why they did it, and learn about the trends that they’re funding as they build their businesses.
Dr.Michal Tsur currently Michal leads Kaltura’s Product, Platform and Growth, after having led Kaltura’s product, marketing and community globally since its inception. Prior to Kaltura, Michal co-founded Cyota, a world leading provider of security and anti-fraud solutions to financial institutions. Michal had been part of Cyota’s management team from its inception up until its acquisition by RSA Security, Inc (NASDAQ: RSAS) in 2005 (RSA was subsequently acquired by EMC Inc (NYSE: EMC)). Michal holds a doctoral degree in the application of game theoretic models to law from New York University, and was a post-doctoral fellow at Yale Law School’s Information Society Project, where her research focused on Open Source. Michal clerked at the Supreme Court of Israel and had also been a competitive swimmer and tri-athlete. Michal regularly blogs and writes for the Huffington post and other publications.
Michal's Sessions
Getting to $100M ARR
TechCrunch speaks with three private companies that have reached the $100 million Annual Recurring Revenue mark. We’ll explore what they had to break, and rebuild in their companies as they scaled, and what they learned as they left the early-stages of startup life and built companies that are nearly ready to go public.
Lee Trink is an entrepreneur in the entertainment and media industries focused on the convergence of gaming and entertainment as both a cultural movement and an explosive business. As the CEO and co-owner of FaZe Clan, the largest, most followed esports and gaming organization in the world, Trink is creating a brand that extends beyond esports to mainstream entertainment through content, collaborations and e-commerce. In 2001, Trink served as General Manager for artist-first label Lava Records. Next, Trink went on to lead Virgin Records as General Manager and COO with much success, ultimately resulting in his promotion to President of EMI’s Capitol Music Group, comprised of Capitol Records, Virgin Records, Blue Note Records and Astralwerks Records. While at the helm, Trink was instrumental in accomplishing the company’s EBITA target for the first time in a decade during the toughest climate in music industry history. Simultaneously, he launched the careers of global superstars such as Katy Perry and Jared Leto’s 30 seconds to mars, along with architecting global marketing campaigns for The Rolling Stones, Coldplay, and Lenny Kravitz, among others. Following his tenure at EMI, Trink built his own business where he managed multi-platinum global recording artists such as Kid Rock, The Backstreet Boys and Ice Cube; produced a charity album for the King of Thailand; and worked with iconic brands, such as General Motors, Harley-Davidson and Jim Beam. In this role, Trink also co-produced the Tony Scott directed Unstoppable starring Denzel Washington as well as Sean Penn’s short film Americans.
Lee's Sessions
Catching Dubs
When it comes to esports, perhaps no org commands as much respect as FaZe Clan. The esports organization competes across a wide range of titles, including CoD, Fortnite, PUBG, FIFA, and CounterStrike. With streamers like NateHill, NICKMERCS and Mongraal, and a thriving apparel business, FaZe Clan is a dominant force in gaming. Hear from FaZe Clan CEO Lee Trink, investor Troy Carter, and streamer NICKMERCS about what to expect from the pro gaming scene over the next decade and how the org uses tech to optimize its operations across every department.
Hans Tung is a Managing Partner at Notable Capital, and have invested in early-stage investments across the global digital economy. He has partnered with top founders from everywhere in ecommerce and fintech where US is a key end user market. Hans’ consumer internet portfolio has included notable companies like Airbnb, Coinbase, Ibotta, Peloton, Poshmark, Quince, StockX, and TikTok. a dedicated fintech and related AI applications investor, Hans has invested in over 14 fintech firms worldwide, including Affirm, Aven, Novo, ADDI, Clara, Rupeek, Slope, and Stori. He and his team launched the FintechInnovation 50 List with NASDAQ in early 2023, highlighting emerging leaders in fintech. Globally recognized, Hans has been on the Forbes Midas list for 12 years, consistently in the top 10 for five years, and is among the Top 100 Asian Americans by Gold House. Originally from Taiwan and raised in Los Angeles, Hans earned a B.S. in Industrial Engineering from Stanford. His career spans Wall Street in New York, Silicon Valley startups, and eight years of investing in Asia before coming back to Silicon Valley in 2013 and joining Notable Capital.
Hans's Sessions
How to Raise Money in a Dumpster Fire
Garry Tan started his first company, Posterous in 2008, so the Initialized Capital co-founder knows a thing or two about economic crises and how they can effect fundraising. Hans Tung, GGV’s Midas-list dealmaker has seen downturns on three continents in his tenure investing in the US, China, and Latin America for the globe-spanning investment firm, while Anu Hariharan has spent the last decade putting companies through their paces at BCG, A16Z, and most recently, YC. They’ll be delivering the goods on how to get that gelt during this raging dumpster fire of a year.
David Ulevitch is a general partner at Andreessen Horowitz where he focuses on enterprise and SaaS investments. He was previously the founder and CEO of OpenDNS, a cloud-delivered security service that was acquired by Cisco in 2015. His vision and leadership were responsible for creating a cloud-delivered security service that today protects over 85 million people worldwide across more than 10,000 enterprise customers. While at Cisco, David was a senior vice president and general manager of Cisco Security — a $2.4 billion annual revenue business — where he oversaw the company’s global security strategy, portfolio, and architecture. Prior to OpenDNS, David founded EveryDNS, an authoritative DNS service, and grew it into the world’s largest free DNS service, which he sold to Dyn (now Oracle) in 2010. David holds a BA in Anthropology from Washington University in St. Louis, which turned out to be way more useful than he expected.
David's Sessions
The Future of SaaS
In 2020 SaaS companies have seen their values drop sharply, and rebound even more quickly. TechCrunch is chatting with a few VCs with deep insight into the SaaS world to talk about which startups are accelerating, lagging, or breaking out. And we’ll explore what’s changed in terms of venture expectations for SaaS companies, and what makes them stand out from their peers when it comes to placing bets.
Jessica is an investor and operator who has built her career partnering with founders building hyper-growth startups. She is on the Board of Digits, Lambda School and The Wing. She is also a co-founder of #ANGELS, an investment collective she started with five other women who built their careers together at Twitter. Previously, Jessica spent nearly a decade at Twitter helping scale the company from 34 employees to several thousand. As the VP of Corporate Development and Strategy, she oversaw dozens of acquisitions and played a critical role in catalyzing Twitter’s new product, technology, and business initiatives. She brought dozens of executives into the company along with products like Vine, Periscope, TweetDeck and many more. Jessica is a Stanford University graduate, where she was a Mayfield Fellow and varsity lacrosse player. She is on the board of the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy and loves to trail run—including an occasional ultramarathon—in the Marin headlands. Jessica grew up in Seattle and currently lives in the Bay Area but is happy to get on a plane to meet entrepreneurs across the world.
Jessica's Sessions
Startup Battlefield – Session 2
TechCrunch’s iconic startup competition is back, as entrepreneurs from around the world pitch expert judges and vie for the Battlefield Cup and $100,000.
Alice Vilma is a Managing Director in the Multicultural Client Strategy Group at Morgan Stanley in New York City, where she strengthens Morgan Stanley’s connection to the multicultural business community through development and execution of commercial opportunities with corporate, government, institutional and individual clients. She is also Co-head of the Morgan Stanley Multicultural Innovation Lab, an accelerator that invests in and supports tech and tech-enabled startups with a multicultural or woman founder. Ms. Vilma has been with Morgan Stanley for nearly 15 years and has had different roles within the Firm, including Equity Capital Markets and Securitization. She has over 20 years of investment banking, capital markets, structured finance and investing experience, executing over $25Bn of securitization, structured finance and equity transactions. She graduated Cum Laude with a B.B.A. in Finance from the University of Miami and received her MBA from the Harvard Business School.
Alice's Sessions
It Takes An Ecosystem To Innovate: Startups, Corporations and the Connectors that Bring Them Together
We convene top innovation leaders from around the ecosystem — Alice Vilma of Morgan Stanley, Rishi Roongta of Bain & Company and Terry Angelos of Visa — to learn how they discover innovative solutions and get to outcomes faster. Many already know that startups plus large enterprises can fuel each other’s growth and bottom line, whether it’s a partnership, investment or acquisition. But bringing the right ones together needs more than serendipity: it requires a dynamic ecosystem that includes consultants, accelerators and VCs (aka the connectors). Join us for rich insights and actionable advice that will enhance your firm’s approach.
Mike Volpi is a general partner at Index Ventures. He joined the firm in 2009 to help establish Index’s San Francisco office with Danny Rimer.
Before Arevo, Sonny was President and CTO (Connected Devices) at Fossil Group (NASDAQ: FOSL) which acquired Misfit, a wearable tech company he founded, for $260m. He previously founded Elemental Machines (remote process monitoring / analytics), AgaMatrix (biosensors for diabetes), and FireSpout (natural language processing). Sonny is a founder of Alabaster with investments in 30+ deeptech startups. Previously, he worked at Microsoft Research in NLP under Kai-Fu Lee, pursued a Linguistics PhD at MIT under Noam Chomsky, and studied math at UIUC.
Sonny's Sessions
How Things Get Built in the Middle of a Pandemic
How has COVID-19 impacted how and where the stuff we use gets built? We’ll hear from Arevo’s Sonny Vu and Anker CEO Steven Yang to learn more about how the world of manufacturing has had to adapt in 2020 and what might lay ahead.
1:30 PM (HKT) Live Q&A with Sonny Vu and Steven Yang
Come to this live Q&A prepared with your questions for Steven Yang and Sonny Vu.
Hunter co-founded Homebrew, a seed stage venture fund, in 2013 with his friend and former colleague Satya Patel. They’ve since been fortunate to invest in a wide range of startups including Chime, Plaid, Cruise, Gusto, Bowery Farming, Finix and more. Prior to Homebrew, he spent nearly a decade at Google, most recently leading product efforts at YouTube. Hunter’s first job in Silicon Valley was with Linden Lab, creators of the innovative virtual world Second Life. Earlier in his career he was a management consultant and also spent a year at Late Night with Conan O‘ Brien. His parents are proud of his BA in History from Vassar and MBA from Stanford University.
Hunter's Sessions
How to Raise Your First Dollars
Deciding how to go about getting your initial funding is always a tricky subject, as the wrong move could adversely impact your young company. In this session we’ll hear from experts who’ve shepherded multiple companies from the earliest to the latest fundraises.
Brendan Wallace is a Co-founder and Managing Partner at Fifth Wall, where he guides the firm’s strategic vision. Prior to starting Fifth Wall, Brendan co-founded Identified, a workforce optimization data and analytics company that raised $33 million of venture funding and was acquired by Workday (NYSE: WKDY) in 2014. He also co-founded Cabify, the largest ridesharing service in Latin America, and has been an active investor, leading more than 60 angel investments including Bonobos, Dollar Shave Club, Lyft, SpaceX, Clutter, and Philz Coffee. Brendan started his career at Goldman Sachs in the real estate, hospitality, and gaming group before joining The Blackstone Group’s real estate private equity practice. Brendan is from New York City and currently lives in Venice. He graduated from Princeton University, where he received his BA in political science and economics. He received his MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.
Brendan's Sessions
The Changing Landscape of Property Tech
Connie, Chan, general partner at Andreessen Horowitz, Merritt Hummer, partner at Bain Capital Ventures and Brendan Wallace, co-founder and managing partner at Fifth Wall are at the center of these changes. These investors will discuss the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead in property tech as well as advice for startups in the industry.
Ted is an investment partner at Cowboy Ventures and has spent his career helping start ups, from a founding team with an idea to the world’s largest technology companies like Facebook, Twitter, and Dropbox. Prior to Cowboy, Ted was a partner at the law firm of Fenwick & West where he was recognized as one of the country’s leading technology lawyers. Ted is a Duke Blue Devil, a wandering traveler, a devotee of live music, a low skill but high energy outdoorsman, and an overly emotionally committed local sports fan. Ted is also active in the community, particularly around the areas of mental health and homelessness. He has two children, a patient and understanding wife, and a crazy dog named Charlie.
Ted's Sessions
How to Raise Your First Dollars
Deciding how to go about getting your initial funding is always a tricky subject, as the wrong move could adversely impact your young company. In this session we’ll hear from experts who’ve shepherded multiple companies from the earliest to the latest fundraises.
Kerry Washington is an acclaimed Emmy, SAG, and Golden Globe nominated actor, director, producer, and activist. Washington received widespread public recognition for her role as Olivia Pope on the hit ABC drama Scandal, breaking barriers by becoming the first African-American woman since 1974 to headline a network TV drama. In 2016, she launched her production company, Simpson Street, which recently produced Hulu’s “Little Fires Everywhere” and Netflix’s AMERICAN SON. The film received a PGA nomination as well as three NAACP nominations. Her other producing credits include the WGA Award-winning CONFIRMATION, ABC’s “Live in Front of a Studio Audience” and Magnolia’s upcoming documentary THE FIGHT. Washington is currently in production for Ryan Murphy’s THE PROM for Netflix – she will star opposite Meryl Streep and Nicole Kidman. Washington’s film credits include: CARS 3, DJANGO UNCHAINED, RAY, THE LAST KING OF SCOTLAND, SAVE THE LAST DANCE, and many more. In addition to acting and producing, Washington is also directing. Her most recent director credits include “SMILF”, “Scandal”, and “Insecure”. Washington is a tireless crusader in her advocacy for equal rights for all people across all landscapes. In 2013, Washington was honored with the NAACP President’s Award recognizing her special achievements and in 2014, Time magazine included Washington on its annual Time 100 list of the Most Influential People in the World. Washington received the GLAAD Media Vanguard Award in 2015 and the ACLU Bill of Rights Award in 2016. In 2018, Washington joined Natalie Portman, America Ferrera, Reese Witherspoon, and many more in the Time’s Up movement. She is currently a co-chair of Mrs. Obama’s When We All Vote campaign and the Founder of Influence Change 2020, a strategic initiative that partners with high impact, non-profit organizations to increase voter turnout.
Kerry's Sessions
Little Wires Everywhere
Kerry Washington is perhaps best known for her work in Hollywood, but she’s been making a name for herself in tech over the last few years. An investor in The Wing, Community and teeth-straightening service Byte, Washington’s portfolio consists of products and services that aim to give people a voice or improve their quality of life. In this fireside chat, Washington will discuss what brought her into the tech industry, her investment strategy and the rise of streaming platforms. And, as an activist and someone who has spoken up about the lack of diversity in Hollywood, Washington will share her views on diversity, inclusion and equity in tech.
Longtime product executive working at the intersection of technology and media. A graduate of Stanford University, I ran product teams at Amazon.com, Hulu, Flipboard, and Oculus.
Eugene's Sessions
How to Iterate Your Product
If getting insights on product development from current and former product heads at places like Facebook, Zoom, Slack, Hulu and Oculus doesn’t sound like something you’re interested in just get out of tech now. Leave. It’s over. Go work in an insurance company. Get your brokers license. Just do something else.
Aniyia Williams is a creator, inventor and tech changemaker. She is a co-founder of Zebras Unite, an entrepreneur-led movement focused on creating a more ethical and sustainable startup ecosystem, and Executive Director of Black & Brown Founders, which provides education and resources to Black and Latinx tech entrepreneurs.
Aniyia's Sessions
How to Build an Alternative Company
Beyond raising traditional venture capital and beyond the pursuing-growth-at-all-costs strategy, there are people in the startup ecosystem that are finding success through less mainstream avenues. Conductor CEO Seth Besmertnik, Driver’s Seat CEO Hays Witt and Aniyia Williams of Black & Brown Founders and Zebras Unite, are three of these people. These founders have all taken alternative approaches in their entrepreneurial journeys, whether that’s been forming as a cooperative, buying back a startup from a tech giant and then turning it into a majority employee-owned operation or converting into a cooperative fund that invests in startups tackling social issues. In this discussion, you’ll learn how to build a company that puts profits and users first, and VCs last.
Ellie Wheeler is a Partner at Greycroft and is based in the firm’s New York office. Prior to joining Greycroft, Ellie worked in a similar role evaluating investment opportunities at Lowercase Capital. Ellie also worked at Cisco in Corporate Development doing acquisitions, investments, and strategy within the unified communications, enterprise software, mobile, and video sectors. While at Cisco, she was involved in multiple acquisitions and investments, including PostPath, Jabber, Xobni, and Tandberg. She began her career in growth capital private equity at Summit Partners in Boston. Ellie graduated magna cum laude from Georgetown University with a BA in Psychology and holds an MBA from Harvard Business School.
Ellie's Sessions
Startup Battlefield – Session 4
TechCrunch’s iconic startup competition is back, as entrepreneurs from around the world pitch expert judges and vie for the Battlefield Cup and $100,000.
Kate Whitcomb is a program director for HAX Boost and a former Target executive.
Kate's Sessions
Building Consumer Hardware in 2020
“Hardware is hard,” as the saying goes. But has building a hardware company gotten any easier over the years? Is building a hardware company in 2020 a reasonable endeavor… or is it tougher than ever? Eric Migicovsky (Partner at Y Combinator, and founder of smartwatch pioneer Pebble) and Kate Whitcomb (CEO of Chrysalis Cloud, formerly CEO of Cocoon Health and a Partner at the HAX hardware accelerator) will share their insight on the evolving landscape of consumer hardware and the challenges involved.
Hays is a strategist and policy expert working at the intersection of technology and economic justice. He has advised cities, progressive non-profits, and small businesses on issues related to the future of transportation and labor in an era of rapid change.
Hays's Sessions
How to Build an Alternative Company
Beyond raising traditional venture capital and beyond the pursuing-growth-at-all-costs strategy, there are people in the startup ecosystem that are finding success through less mainstream avenues. Conductor CEO Seth Besmertnik, Driver’s Seat CEO Hays Witt and Aniyia Williams of Black & Brown Founders and Zebras Unite, are three of these people. These founders have all taken alternative approaches in their entrepreneurial journeys, whether that’s been forming as a cooperative, buying back a startup from a tech giant and then turning it into a majority employee-owned operation or converting into a cooperative fund that invests in startups tackling social issues. In this discussion, you’ll learn how to build a company that puts profits and users first, and VCs last.
Whitney Wolfe Herd is the CEO + Founder of Bumble, a global group that builds and operates leading dating and social networking apps including Badoo, the first free dating site with over 500 million users worldwide, and Bumble, the women-first social networking platform with over 100 million users globally. In 2014, Wolfe Herd launched Bumble as the only connection platform where women make the first move and control the interaction. As the company has grown, Wolfe Herd has executed upon her vision of making Bumble the first social network where women make the first move to create empowered connections across all areas of life. The company launched Bumble BFF in 2016 as a friend-finding feature and launched Bumble Bizz for professional networking in 2017. In five years, her vision has led to Bumble’s growth of over 100 million users worldwide in 150 countries. In January 2020, Wolfe Herd welcomed Blackstone as Bumble’s new majority owner with a shared vision of growth for Badoo and Bumble. Prior to Bumble, Whitney Wolfe Herd co-founded Tinder, where she served as the Vice President of Marketing. In 2018, Wolfe Herd was named to TIME Magazine’s 100 Most Influential People, Forbes “30 Under 30” list, the Bloomberg 50 and InStyle’s 50 Women Who Are Changing the World. Wolfe Herd was also recently on the cover of Fast Company, Forbes and WIRED magazines.
Whitney's Sessions
Love in the Time of COVID-19
Whitney Wolfe Herd was on the founding team at Tinder before charting her own course with Bumble. The dating app, which currently has more than 100 million users, puts the brand front and center. In the past year, following a scandal at parent company Badoo, Wolfe Herd has taken the reigns of the entire Magic Lab corporation, which owns Badoo, Bumble, Lumen and Chappy dating apps. Hear from Wolfe Herd about the future of online dating and how she’s stayed down to earth during her meteoric rise to the top of the dating industry.
Monique Woodard is the founder and managing director of Cake Ventures.
Monique's Sessions
Startup Battlefield – Session 2
TechCrunch’s iconic startup competition is back, as entrepreneurs from around the world pitch expert judges and vie for the Battlefield Cup and $100,000.
Steven Yang is the Founder and CEO of Anker Innovations. He holds a bachelor’s degree in computer science from Peking University and a master’s in computer science from the University of Texas – Austin. He was a senior engineer at Google in California before leaving to found Anker in 2011.
Steven's Sessions
How Things Get Built in the Middle of a Pandemic
How has COVID-19 impacted how and where the stuff we use gets built? We’ll hear from Arevo’s Sonny Vu and Anker CEO Steven Yang to learn more about how the world of manufacturing has had to adapt in 2020 and what might lay ahead.
1:30 PM (HKT) Live Q&A with Sonny Vu and Steven Yang
Come to this live Q&A prepared with your questions for Steven Yang and Sonny Vu.
Tamar Yehoshua oversees product strategy and development, design, and research at Slack. Previously, Tamar was a Vice President at Google holding product and engineering leadership roles on Google’s most important products, including Search, Identity and Privacy. Prior to that, Tamar was the Vice President of Advertising Technologies at Amazon’s A9. Tamar has a BA in Mathematics from the University of Pennsylvania and an MSc in Computer Science from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Tamar's Sessions
How to Iterate Your Product
If getting insights on product development from current and former product heads at places like Facebook, Zoom, Slack, Hulu and Oculus doesn’t sound like something you’re interested in just get out of tech now. Leave. It’s over. Go work in an insurance company. Get your brokers license. Just do something else.
Edith Yeung is a partner at 500 Mobile Collective.
Edith's Sessions
Looking Toward the Future of Tech in China and Silicon Valley
Edith Yeung, general partner at Race Capital and the creator of the China Internet Report, has invested in over 50 startups including Lightyear/Stellar, Silk Labs, Chirp and Fleksy. Join us in a conversation about which emerging technology trends in China and the United States will leave an impact.
1:30 PM (HKT) Live Q&A with Edith Yeung
Come to this live Q&A prepared with your questions.
Tracy Young is the co-founder and CEO of TigerEye, the go-to-market platform that helps companies make strategic decisions and is currently offering early access.
Tracy's Sessions
Planning for Your Startup’s Exit: The How’s and the When’s
When Cloudflare IPO’d last year it certainly wasn’t the end of its 10 year journey, and nor was it PlanGrid’s when it was acquired by Autodesk in 2018. Cloudflare’s Michelle Zatlyn and PlanGrid’s Tracy Young will guide us through both their respective company’s journey and their own as founders.
Michelle Zatlyn is co-founder, President, and COO of Cloudflare, the Internet security, performance, and reliability company on a mission to help build a better Internet. Cloudflare is a publicly traded company on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE: NET). Prior to co-founding Cloudflare, Michelle held positions at Google and Toshiba and launched two successful startups. Michelle currently serves on the board of directors for Atlassian and the World Economic Forum Young Global Leaders Foundation. Michelle has been named to Fortune’s 40 Under 40 list and was part of Marie Claire’s 7th Annual New Guard. She holds a B.S. degree, with distinction, from McGill University, and an MBA from Harvard Business School, where she was awarded the Dubilier Prize for Entrepreneurship.
Michelle's Sessions
Planning for Your Startup’s Exit: The How’s and the When’s
When Cloudflare IPO’d last year it certainly wasn’t the end of its 10 year journey, and nor was it PlanGrid’s when it was acquired by Autodesk in 2018. Cloudflare’s Michelle Zatlyn and PlanGrid’s Tracy Young will guide us through both their respective company’s journey and their own as founders.
Building a Company from a Bold Idea
When Cloudflare launched at TechCrunch Disrupt in 2010, it aspired to do nothing less than fix the internet. We’ll talk to co-founder Michelle Zatlyn about how she and her co-founders took this audacious idea and built a successful public company.
Julie Zhuo is currently the co-founder of Inspirit, a product strategy, data and design advisory firm for high-growth tech companies. Before that she was the VP of Product Design for the Facebook app, where she helped scale the service from 10 million users to over 2 billion during her 13 years there. Her field guide to management, The Making of a Manager, became an instant Wall Street Journal bestseller and was selected as one of Amazon’s Best Business and Leadership Books of 2019. She writes about technology, design, and leadership on her popular blog and mailing list, The Looking Glass. She graduated with a computer science degree from Stanford University and lives with her husband and three children in California’s Bay Area.
Julie's Sessions
How to Iterate Your Product
If getting insights on product development from current and former product heads at places like Facebook, Zoom, Slack, Hulu and Oculus doesn’t sound like something you’re interested in just get out of tech now. Leave. It’s over. Go work in an insurance company. Get your brokers license. Just do something else.
Christine Tsai is the CEO and founding partner of 500 Global.
Christine's Sessions
Taiwan Reception: Innovations and investment opportunities amid COVID19 Pandemics with Christine Tsai (500 Startups), Allan May (Life Science Angels)
Join Christine, Allan, Tico Blumenthal (Life Sciences Angels), and Laura Dietch (BioTrace Medical) to explore the investment and innovation framework in post-COVID19, and to discuss the driver of innovation healthcare amid the pandemic and economic collapse. TTA will also present the key anti-COVID19 innovative measurements in Taiwan to achieve the lowest infection rate around the world. “
Allan is a founder of Life Science Angels (www.lifescienceangels.com ), the largest angel organization in the U.S. focused solely on early stage medical device and life science start-ups, and comprised solely of high net worth individuals from the medical device or biotech fields. Since 2005, LSA has invested over $35M in 32 early stage companies, attracted in excess of $700M in contemporary or follow-on venture capital, and achieved five favorable exits. In 2011, Allan initiated the Life Science Angel Network, a syndicate of angel groups throughout the United States, which will focus on increasing the syndication and capitalization of highly vetted medical device and biotech startups. In 2007, Allan joined renowned inventor, entrepreneur and cardiac surgeon, Dr. Thomas Fogarty, in co-founding Emergent Medical Partners, a boutique venture fund focused on early stage medical device company creation and investing. EMP has made 25 investments to date with 4 successful exits, including eValve and Ardian. In 2010, Allan was elected Chairman of the Board of the Kauffman Foundation’s Angel Capital Education Foundation, now known as the Angel Resource Institute. ARI, a nonprofit devoted to the promotion and study of angel investing, works closely with the Angel Capital Association in furthering angel investing and entrepreneurial mentoring. Allan has been founder, Chair/CEO, or investor in over 50 medtech and biotech startups, including Athenagen (Comentis), Nanostim, nSpine, and BioMimedica. He lectures frequently at universities, conferences and government programs on trends and developments affecting early stage biotech and medtech investing. He co-chaired Singularity University’s Innovation and Entrepreneurship Track at its 2011 FutureMed Program, and is a member of the editorial board of Elsevier Windhover’s In Vivo magazine.
Allan's Sessions
Taiwan Reception: Innovations and investment opportunities amid COVID19 Pandemics with Christine Tsai (500 Startups), Allan May (Life Science Angels)
Join Christine, Allan, Tico Blumenthal (Life Sciences Angels), and Laura Dietch (BioTrace Medical) to explore the investment and innovation framework in post-COVID19, and to discuss the driver of innovation healthcare amid the pandemic and economic collapse. TTA will also present the key anti-COVID19 innovative measurements in Taiwan to achieve the lowest infection rate around the world. “
Laura's Sessions
Taiwan Reception: Innovations and investment opportunities amid COVID19 Pandemics with Christine Tsai (500 Startups), Allan May (Life Science Angels)
Join Christine, Allan, Tico Blumenthal (Life Sciences Angels), and Laura Dietch (BioTrace Medical) to explore the investment and innovation framework in post-COVID19, and to discuss the driver of innovation healthcare amid the pandemic and economic collapse. TTA will also present the key anti-COVID19 innovative measurements in Taiwan to achieve the lowest infection rate around the world. “
Tico Blumenthal
Tico is the Chair of the Device & Digital Health Committee of Life Science Angels and the head of Global Strategic Marketing at Cardinal Health’s Cordis interventional vascular division. Tico brings over 15 years of operational experience in sales, marketing and innovation management in medical devices, including over 10 years with Medtronic, where he co-founded and developed Medtronic’s Innovation Center in Shanghai. Tico is passionate about serving the aim of better health, globally, and advises and invests in a diverse portfolio of early stage ventures, including implantable diagnostics, cardiovascular devices and digital health.
Tico's Sessions
Taiwan Reception: Innovations and investment opportunities amid COVID19 Pandemics with Christine Tsai (500 Startups), Allan May (Life Science Angels)
Join Christine, Allan, Tico Blumenthal (Life Sciences Angels), and Laura Dietch (BioTrace Medical) to explore the investment and innovation framework in post-COVID19, and to discuss the driver of innovation healthcare amid the pandemic and economic collapse. TTA will also present the key anti-COVID19 innovative measurements in Taiwan to achieve the lowest infection rate around the world. “
Victor Sadauskas
Victor Sadauskas is a digital health investment analyst at Life Science Angels and a resident physician in Emergency Medicine at Stanford University. He has also worked as a consultant for Longitude Capital, a healthcare focused venture capital fund, and advised multiple early stage digital health companies. He specializes in mapping market trends and analyzing digital health verticals, including: digital therapeutics, telehealth, and remote patient monitoring. In addition to his clinical work, Victor is passionate about digital health’s potential to transform healthcare and drive cost effective, clinically validated outcomes. He received his MD from the University of Illinois and his BS from the University of Notre Dame.
Victor's Sessions
Taiwan Reception: Innovations and investment opportunities amid COVID19 Pandemics with Christine Tsai (500 Startups), Allan May (Life Science Angels)
Join Christine, Allan, Tico Blumenthal (Life Sciences Angels), and Laura Dietch (BioTrace Medical) to explore the investment and innovation framework in post-COVID19, and to discuss the driver of innovation healthcare amid the pandemic and economic collapse. TTA will also present the key anti-COVID19 innovative measurements in Taiwan to achieve the lowest infection rate around the world. “
As an internationally renowned professor of Chemistry and Molecular and Cell Biology at U.C. Berkeley, Dr. Jennifer Doudna and her colleagues rocked the research world in 2012 by describing a simple way of editing the DNA of any organism using an RNA-guided protein found in bacteria. This technology, called CRISPR-Cas9, has opened the floodgates of possibility for human and non-human applications of gene editing, including assisting researchers in the fight against HIV, sickle cell disease and muscular dystrophy. Doudna is an investigator with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, senior investigator at Gladstone Institutes, and the Executive Director of the Innovative Genomics Institute. She is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Medicine, the National Academy of Inventors, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Doudna is also a Foreign Member of the Royal Society and has received numerous other honors including the Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences, the Japan Prize, and the Kavli Prize. Doudna’s work led TIME to recognize her as one of the “100 Most Influential People” in 2015, and she is the co-author of “A Crack in Creation,” a personal account of her research and the societal and ethical implications of gene editing. She is a vocal proponent of its responsible use, first calling for a moratorium on using CRISPR technology to make permanent changes to the human germline in 2015.
Jennifer's Sessions
CRISPR in the post-COVID Era
What has the global COVID-19 pandemic changed about the biotech industry in general, and CRISPR in particular? Dr. Jennifer Doudna, who co-discovered the revolutionary CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing technology, joins us to discuss the immediate and lasting implications of the novel coronavirus and transformations in genetic science.
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Put your company front and center for 10,000+ tech leaders and VCs at Disrupt 2025. Only a few exhibit tables left. Claim yours today to capture hot leads, spark real connections, and boost your brand at the heart of San Francisco’s tech scene, October 27–29.
Book before your competitor does!
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