Kaila J. Lim

New partnership alert!! Excited to announce that Black Flag is partnering with xAI to give founders free credits and direct access to Grok - xAI’s family of powerful, multi-modal, real-time models. Across essentially any end product you're applying to Black Flag with, Grok will deliver: - Deep reasoning across text, code, and context - Faster inference and improved function calling - CUI: Secretary of War Pete Hegseth just announced that Grok is being adopted for handling Controlled Unclassified Information If you're building in critical technology areas important to the West - space, energy, autonomy, cyber - the next generation of secure software will be built with Grok and you can now get a head start through Black Flag. Only 18 days left to apply to Black Flag’s January batch - apply at the link in the comments!

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Announcing the first ASVLP 2026 Masterclass Hiring for Expansion & Scaling Up - Talent as Infrastructure With Sarah FitzMorris Most scale-ups don’t break because they lack capital. They break because they hire the wrong leader at the wrong moment. Funding closes. Strategy decks look sharp. Expansion markets are mapped. Then one critical hire derails 12–18 months of momentum - and burns serious capital. After 17 years placing C‑suite leaders across African markets, Sarah FitzMorris has seen the same pattern repeat: scaling isn’t blocked by ambition - it’s blocked by leadership misalignment. This 45‑minute high‑impact masterclass will unpack: • Why Talent as Infrastructure must be treated like capital allocation - not HR admin • The RST Framework - aligning Revenue, Systems & Team at each stage of scale • A practical 4‑Phase Strategic Hiring Checklist you can apply immediately • Where to find real A‑players (hint: they’re not on job boards) If you’re a growth‑stage founder - or a seed founder building ahead of your curve - this session is preparation. If you’re an Angel, VC, or LP - this is portfolio risk management. Scaling companies don’t just raise capital. They architect leadership. 45 minutes. Practical tools. Live Q&A. Real operator insight. To attend, repost, share a thought in the comments and head over here lu.ma/asvlp PS: Interested in facilitating a Masterclass for Founders or Investors - very limited slots available > bit.ly/ASVLP-MC-Speakers #ASVLP2026 #TalentAsInfrastructure #ScalingUp #LeadershipMatters #AfricaStartups

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🔥🚪👀 𝗢𝗙𝗙𝗜𝗖𝗘 𝗗𝗥𝗢𝗣 𝗜𝗡𝗦, weekly profiles of cracked teams | Ep 16: Garden (w/ Adi Sidapara and Justin Mack) The culture at Garden is 1/1. Founders Adi and Justin think about the world in terms of bet sizing, and their ‘if you couldn’t be a founder’ plans give a sense of their ambition and love of building (deep science research and building the Dyson Sphere, respectively). And they continue to compound on that culture with a focus on hiring spikey people who, like each of them, love hard problems. The hard problem in focus at Garden is automating patent research and filing, with a proprietary model for prior art search, and a series of tools for tasks claims enhancement and portfolio mining built atop this core capability. cc Office Drop Ins #startups #venturecapital #AI #hiring #officedropins

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For the past few years, I’ve been deeply focused on one question: What does it actually take to help #Black and underfunded founders build businesses that scale? A recent Pew Research Center study reinforced something many of us working in this space already know: while access to capital is the most visible barrier, it’s rarely the only one. Many #underfunded businesses struggle to grow not because the founders lack talent or vision, but because the structures around their businesses weren’t designed for efficiency or scale in the first place. Why? Because access to: • the right networks • technical assistance • stage-specific guidance has historically been uneven. So instead of focusing on just one intervention (like #funding), I started designing a support structure that tackles the how of business growth. Here’s the framework we’ve been building: 1. Assess: Founders evaluate where their business actually is today. 2. Equip: They get access to the tools, education, and resources that match their stage. 3. Support: They receive targeted opportunities to grow based on that stage. Today I want to highlight #3: Support. One way we’re doing this is through the Rialto Business Directory. Yes, #founders can list their products or services, but the real value is deeper than that. The directory can also be used to: • find early customers • recruit beta users • run market research • test new ideas with a supportive ecosystem In other words, it’s not just a directory, it’s a growth tool. And the best part? It’s free for founders. If you’re building something and want a space to test, learn, and grow, I’d love for you to join us. Sign up here: https://lnkd.in/eMteVkGX #MelsMondayMusings

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Year in Review: 𝗙𝗮𝗹𝗹 𝗛𝗮𝗿��, 𝗥𝗶𝘀𝗲 𝗛𝗮𝗿𝗱𝗲𝗿 2025 delivered major wins: product breakthroughs at Envisify, gained full ownership, network expansion as Fractional CEO, and Ambitio's growth alongside powerhouse women execs. The falls? They mattered just as much, shaping core values, resilience under fire, and standing taller after every hit. 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗥𝗼𝗮𝗱 𝗔𝗵𝗲𝗮𝗱 More bold learning (what others call "failures"), purpose-driven leadership, and relentless focus on scalability & innovation across business, friendships, and life. This morning, while listening to a podcast, one line stuck with me: 𝘼𝙫𝙤𝙞𝙙 𝙙𝙞𝙨𝙩𝙧𝙖𝙘𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣𝙨 𝙩𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙞𝙢𝙥𝙚𝙙𝙚 𝙖𝙘𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣. Here's to 2026, the Year of the Fire Horse: fierce, unstoppable, ready to charge 🔥 #motivation #leadership #growth #innovation

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You can feel it, something’s shifting in hard tech. From materials to manufacturing to energy, we’re seeing founders take on harder problems, and raising from investors who finally understand what it takes to build in these sectors. When Harpoon Ventures started Black Flag, our goal was simple: help critical-tech founders close the distance between great ideas and the right capital. Over the past few months, we asked hundreds of founders which investors they trust and recommend most. Their answers became something worth sharing: a public list of the most active deep-tech funds today. It’s meant to save founders time, connect them to the right partners, and make this ecosystem a little easier to navigate. 🏴‍☠️ Introducing The Black Flag Investor List → https://lnkd.in/dYsCnpnd

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“We’ll support you.” It’s the most misunderstood sentence in venture. Founders hear safety. Investors often mean optionality. Support can mean different things. Emotional support. Encouragement in tough quarters. Strategic support. Intros. Advice. Pattern recognition. Signaling support. Joining the next round to calm the market. Financial support. Writing the next check when things are hard. Only one truly keeps a company alive. Capital. Everything else helps. But when runway shortens, only one form of support extends it. The mistake founders make is assuming all four are the same. They aren’t. Before you take capital, clarify the definition. When you say “support,” what exactly does that mean here? Thoughts? NUK! #venturecapital #founders #startups

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I’m thrilled to officially announce our $3M seed investment in Propel People, a company we built inside the 1848 Ventures studio to tackle one of the biggest challenges facing the #construction industry today: the skilled #labor shortage. For small and medium-sized contractors, hiring isn't just a challenge. It's the number one threat to their growth, profitability, and safety. With 94% of contractors struggling to find qualified workers, it’s clear that traditional hiring methods aren't built for the trades. That’s why we built Propel People. It’s a mobile-first, AI-powered hiring platform designed for how construction actually works: in the field. By leveraging smart candidate ranking, instant #SMS-based screening, and a fully #bilingual interface, Propel helps contractors build great crews faster and more efficiently. I’m also thrilled to formally announce that industry veteran Dexter Bachelder is at the helm as CEO. Having worked with Dexter and the team over the last few months, we've already seen the impact of his leadership. His 25 years of experience scaling construction tech companies will be instrumental as Propel People enters this initial stage of growth. This investment reinforces our core thesis at 1848 Ventures: building AI-native companies that solve fundamental pain points for the #SMBs that form the backbone of our economy. A huge congratulations to Dexter and the entire Propel People team on this milestone. We are incredibly proud to partner with you to support the people who build our world. Read the full announcement below. #constructiontech #venturecapital #seedfunding #ai #skilledtrades #smb

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Harpoon Ventures + Black Flag is teaming up with Microsoft for Startups to provide founders with access to up to $250,000 in Azure credits, empowering builders to scale faster, train models more efficiently, and access world-class AI infrastructure. What’s included: ⚡ Up to $250K in Azure credits (usable across Azure OpenAI, Grok 3, Llama 4, and more) 💻 On-demand GPU VMs for model training and fine-tuning 🧠 Access to GitHub Enterprise + Microsoft 365 Business Premium 🤝 Dedicated Microsoft technical + GTM support This partnership is designed to give deep-tech and dual-use founders the tools and resources they need to win. To keep pace with an increasingly hostile near peer environment, we need the complete resource stack: political, capital, technological. This is a great addition.

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Today is an incredible day for Luster, as we announce our $3m Seed round, led by High Alpha and Ivy Ventures. As a fully female co founded company, getting to this stage is massive validation for what we are building. 2% of VC funding is invested in women owned companies. One day that number will be higher. Luster set out to change the way that GTM teams produce revenue. To remove reactive fire drills and guess work around degrading metrics. Unlike traditional sales enablement and single-solution AI role-play and training tools that react after a call has already gone wrong, Luster's first-of-its-kind technology proactively prepares reps by diagnosing their individual skill gaps, predicting where those gaps are likely to surface in upcoming conversations, and prescribing a variety of custom enablement interventions before it's too late. To prescribe without a diagnosis is medical malpractice. To practice without a diagnosis is revenue malpractice. While most companies see a dip in revenue during funding periods, we tripled our revenue while raising our round. Why? Our customer results: 42% higher average contract value (ACV) 2x increase in conversion rates 2x faster ramp time 48% more pipeline generated per rep 26% more opportunities created Over 3,000 revenue-impacting mistakes prevented It’s about to be an amazing season for Luster! Thank you to our investors and customers for believing in us, and allowing us the incredible opportunity to bring Predictive Enablement™️ to market. AI Role Play is only the beginning…

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When NinjaOne announced their $500M Series C at a $5B valuation, one point stood out from the press release: "NinjaOne has no debt and remains a founder-led and controlled business after the Series C extensions. Co-founders Sal Sferlazza and Chris Matarese remain the biggest equity holders in the company, have majority control of the Board of Directors, and hold a majority of the company's voting power." Sal Sferlazza knows exactly why that matters. When you're selling to enterprise customers, they ask one critical question: "Will this company keep innovating?" His answer: "So I think for good or for bad, our customers and our employees are stuck with me and Chris." We had Sal on Unicorn Builders to break down why founder control became their competitive advantage in a market with deeply entrenched competitors. We also cover: → Why enterprise buyers fear startups will pivot or get acquired mid-contract → How spending 25 hours/week on product as CEO signals long-term commitment → The accidental discovery that doubled their addressable market overnight → Why throttling growth built more trust than racing to scale → How consensus-based leadership creates better products than founder ego → Why homogeneous tech stacks beat "best of breed" acquisitions → The "spy network" management style that prevents product issues Full ep: https://lnkd.in/eN9QQAKt

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🚨NEW EPISODE: Recorded live at FUTURE TITANS 2026 - Jeff Perry of Carta sat down with the iconic Seth Levine, co-founder of Foundry. Seth has been in venture for 25 years, built Foundry from scratch as an emerging manager himself, and has backed about 50 emerging manager funds through his fund of funds. He has genuinely seen every side of this table. They went deep on building Foundry, why VCs are in the influence business, not the decision business, and why the concentration problem in venture is not only bad for LPs, but also for the innovation ecosystem overall. And why Seth's new book, Capital Evolution, is so important for the future of America. 🎧 Links to listen... Apple: https://lnkd.in/ehQUQ2EM Spotify: https://lnkd.in/eU4FExpg

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ICYMI: ~80% of Trustible's $4.6M Seed Series fundraising round includes VCs and angel investors based in the #WashingtonDC area. The D.C. area is the nation’s third-best city for tech (https://lnkd.in/gbSUKNZw) – with 1,000+ startups and a 24 % rise in tech jobs since 2019—all supported by some of the highest average tech salaries in the world. It also boasts the nation’s deepest cybersecurity talent pool—roughly 3.5× the U.S. average— the densest concentration of federally funded R&D, and nearly a dozen top-ranked universities. Our region’s strengths translate directly into an opportunity for Trustible: we can build at the intersection of policy and tech, proving that the next generation of responsible AI leaders will come from a place that understands that governance and innovation are two sides of the same coin. Being headquartered in the DMV area means we can be at the center of emerging policy and innovation, and take advantage of the enormous talent pool with deep technical expertise and commitment to public benefit grown across the region. Our sincere thank you to to Technical.ly for the Exclusive and for sharing our story about our commitment to building locally in the DMV! 📰 Read More: https://lnkd.in/eSyF4di3

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𝗜𝗻 𝗰𝗮𝘀𝗲 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗺𝗶𝘀𝘀𝗲𝗱 𝗶𝘁 👇 This part of my conversation with Andrew Ackerman, Executive Director, REACH Labs, at Second Century Ventures, really stuck with me. Andrew didn’t set out to build “summer camp tech.” He stumbled into it by recognizing an underserved market at exactly the right moment—and then stayed long enough to build something real. It’s a reminder that some of the best opportunities don’t start with trends. They begin by paying attention. 👉 𝗪𝗮𝘁𝗰𝗵 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗳𝘂𝗹𝗹 𝗲𝗽𝗶𝘀𝗼𝗱𝗲 𝗼𝗻 𝗬𝗼𝘂𝗧𝘂𝗯𝗲, 𝗦𝗽𝗼𝘁𝗶𝗳𝘆, 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗔𝗽𝗽𝗹𝗲 𝗣𝗼𝗱𝗰𝗮𝘀𝘁𝘀 for more lessons from both sides of the table. 𝘞𝘩𝘺 𝘚𝘵𝘳𝘰𝘯𝘨 𝘚𝘵𝘢𝘳𝘵𝘶𝘱𝘴 𝘈𝘳𝘦 𝘉𝘶𝘪𝘭𝘵 𝘓𝘪𝘬𝘦 𝘊𝘩𝘢𝘪𝘯𝘴, 𝘕𝘰𝘵 𝘙𝘰𝘱𝘦𝘴 (𝘈𝘯𝘥 𝘞𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘔𝘰𝘴𝘵 𝘉𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘬) #FounderJourney #StartupLessons #VentureCapital #GrowthCapital

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Excited to share Aether raised $15m led by Tribe Capital. Most founders would celebrate the headline. I'm celebrating the resilience story nobody sees. As an early investor and advisor to the company, I witnessed the resilience of the founder first hand. So many VCs told him it was "too early" and "unproven." He had two choices: Pivot to what investors wanted, or keep building molecular machines that could reindustrialize America. While others chased AI chatbots, Pavle was in the lab at 2am testing proteins that print 10X faster and 2X stronger than anything on the market. No glamorous demos. No viral tweets. Just obsessive iteration on technology that matters. The brutal truth about deep tech: You're always too early until suddenly you're inevitable. Today's $15M from Tribe Capital validates what we knew from day one. When you combine AI-designed proteins with actual manufacturing, you don't just disrupt industries - you rebuild them. Aether isn't making incremental improvements. They're creating super materials for defense and aerospace. Extracting rare earth metals. Breaking down forever chemicals. The kind of problems that take a decade to solve but change centuries when you do. This brings their total to $64M. But the number that matters? Seven new classes of proteins already working. Not in simulations. In the real world. Pavle could have built another AI wrapper and raised faster. Instead, he chose the harder path: turning breakthrough science into physical products. That's the difference between founders who fundraise and founders who build the future. Proud to have backed this journey early. The best investments aren't obvious - they're inevitable in hindsight. Congrats Pavle Jeremić, Jay Z. and team. Now the real work begins. #DeepTech #VentureCapital #AI #Manufacturing #Biotech

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We hosted another Open Mic night and it was chaotic. I invited Kenneth Kashif Thomas from Backfuture VC to talk about fundraising trends for 2026. He was completely honest about what is happening in the market. We also had Anthony Rose from SeedLegals. He gave feedback to founders live on stage. Here is what we learned: • AI wrappers are done; you need to build something real. • If you wait for funding to build your product, you are doing it wrong. • Don't be an asshole to other founders. • If you pitch for more than one minute, you get sprayed with water.    It is brutal but necessary. The full video is up on YouTube. Watch the madness and see who got soaked. The link is in the featured section on my profile. #startups #fundraising #pitching #RareFounders

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We’ve just opened applications for Female Founders Circle at Pear VC. This program exists for a simple reason: to help more exceptional women start and scale ambitious companies. A few things that feel worth sharing: Pear was co-founded by Mar Hershenson, who was herself a startup founder before becoming an investor. She’s also the top-ranked woman on the 2025 Midas List. Many of the standout founders I’ve partnered with over the years have been women. Some examples include Lillian Chou, Mahima Chawla, Amber Feng, Lauren Dai, Riya Jagetia, Pallavi K., Jayce Hafner, Jessica Chen Riolfi, Eva Pittas and Tess Bloch – builders with exceptional clarity and grit. And the data backs this up. Female founders consistently generate more venture dollars per dollar raised than their male peers. Female Founders Circle is designed to be a real operating community – not a logo program – for ambutuous women building companies. It’s about peer learning, honest conversations, and tangible help at the moments that matter most. If you’re a woman who has recently started something, is tinkering, or even just seriously thinking about what’s next, I’d encourage you to apply – or share this with someone who should.

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I built Amela so women stop learning from theory. They learn from builders like ⚡️Dora Palfi who are in the arena now. Met Dora Palfi through Sara Vicente Barreto, one of our angel investors - and within minutes, I knew she was the real deal. Dora is the Co-Founder & CEO of @imagi, building tech education for the AI era. Products that reach real customers. Revenue that goes beyond hype. Her story is international from day one: • Swedish national • Studied at NYU Abu Dhabi • Built a global career Along the way she became: • Forbes 30 Under 30 Europe • Cartier Women's Initiative Fellow • One of the few Andreessen Horowitz scouts in Europe But what stands out most is not her credentials. It’s that she’s building a real company in a hard space - education - while navigating the AI shift with clarity and depth. Today, Dora joins us live for an Amela Masterclass. We’ll go deep on: • What it takes to start and scale • How to think about AI without getting lost in the noise • What investors look for from the inside • How to build the future of education responsibly We’ll open it up to the audience - come ready with sharp questions. If you want to build your own company, or do something meaningful, this is for you. Grateful to Sara Vicente Barreto for the intro, to Tzvete Doncheva for the reminder of an amazing person to have in our webinars and to ⚡️Dora Palfi for saying yes right away. This is what Amela is about: learning from those who are building, not just talking. Join us today: https://luma.com/i3rbizvd #Amela #WomenEntrepreneurs #TechEducation #BuildYourBusiness #WomenInBusiness #Fundraising #AI #Leadership #CommunitySupport

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