Venture Capital: Supporting change, innovation, and entrepreneurship
Wednesday, October 19 • 6:00 to 7:30 p.m.
Our First Community Salon of 2022-23 focused on the topic of Venture Capital.
Venture Capital fuels growth in the Bay Area and beyond, offering precious resources to the risk-takers, innovators, and entrepreneurs launching innovative products and services. This salon features three experienced Venture Capitalists, sharing their experience on a panel moderated by a parent entrepreneur. Read more about our panelists below.
Our Salon Series continues throughout the year. Check back to our Salon home page for information about our next event.
Speakers
- Andy McLoughlin, Managing Partner at Uncork Capital
Uncork Capital is a seed-stage venture capital firm based in San Francisco. Andy invests in early-stage software startups that help businesses operate like the best companies in the world, either by building better products, selling more, or operating more effectively. His portfolio includes LaunchDarkly, Human Interest, Fountain, Crossbeam, and Tailscale. Prior to joining Uncork in 2015, Andy was co-founder of Huddle, a London-based enterprise collaboration platform which was acquired in 2017. He was also an active angel investor with a personal portfolio of 40+ startups including Intercom, Pipedrive, Calm, and Postmates. Born and raised in the UK, Andy holds a BA with honors in Economics from the University of Sheffield. He is a co-founder and Trustee of the Founders Pledge, and was awarded an OBE (Order of the British Empire) as part of the 2015 Queen’s Birthday Honors List for services to the UK technology industry.
- Mathias Schilling, Co-Founder/Managing Partner of Headline
Headline is a VC firm actively on the ground in seven cities around the world. Mathias describes his investment philosophy as “simple—finding obsessed founders with a talent for making their customers almost as obsessed as they are.” His portfolio includes Acorns, Angie’s List, AirVet, AppFolio, Axios, BlueKai (acq. Oracle), Carewell, Creditas, eGroups (acq. Yahoo), Gopuff, Farfetch, Fetch Rewards, GotoMeeting (acq. Citrix), Groupon, HiMedia, Keeper Tax, Maker Studios (acq. by Disney), Pismo, Shipt (acq. TGT), Shopping.com (acq. EBAY), Solid, Sonos, The RealReal, Yeahka, and Yume Networks.
- Loren Straub, General Partner at Bowery Capital
Loren focuses on supply chain, B2B marketplaces, and general enterprise resource planning. Prior to joining Bowery Capital, Loren was at Goldman Sachs in the Investment Banking Division, where she participated in a number of equity, debt, and M&A transactions, predominantly in the enterprise software and internet sectors. Prior to Goldman Sachs, Loren worked at Groupon in the Corporate Finance Division where she built and led the initial Investor Relations department, and subsequently ran Financial Planning & Analysis for the company’s 12 countries in APAC. Loren started her career at Activision Blizzard in the Investor Relations department, and has a BS in Communication from Boston University.
Moderator
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Sambou Makalou, COO of Ready Set
An entrepreneurial leader, passionate about developing great SaaS (Software as a Service) companies, Sambou has founded, helped create, and grown companies in healthcare, consumer internet, digital advertising, and finance. He has previously served as VP of Strategic Accounts at Nanigans, and a Senior Director at Yahoo!, focused on pricing and yield management. He has also held roles in product management, analytics, and customer success at Etrade and Ernst & Young. He is currently COO at Ready Set, which provides fresh video creative for performance marketers like DoorDash and Coinbase. Sam has a Mechanical Engineering degree from MIT and a MBA from Stanford University.