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New York, New York, United States
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500+ connections
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Articles by Kaila J.
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What Are Public Speakers Doing During Coronavirus?
What Are Public Speakers Doing During Coronavirus?
I love public speaking. Every time I finish a presentation or a story and I come off that stage, the feeling is so…
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5 Lessons I Hated Learning But Made Me Who I Am TodayJun 15, 2019
5 Lessons I Hated Learning But Made Me Who I Am Today
There are very few things I am 100% certain of in life. One of those few is that I am the result of a lot of people’s…
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Activity
8K followers
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Kaila J. Lim shared thisI'm making the most delicious charcuterie board for my fellow female founders next week. Come through, knock out your life admin tasks, build agents, and hang with me and Alua 📍3-6pm Thursday May 7th in Flatiron Antler Ramp RSVP: https://lnkd.in/ehw2hdq4AI & Life Admin Day: Female Founders with Antler and Ramp · LumaAI & Life Admin Day: Female Founders with Antler and Ramp · Luma
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Kaila J. Lim shared thisI’ve landed in SF! Working out of our South Park space with Helen & Chubs ❤️ we’re hosting investor + engineer events: Tonight 6PM 📍Physical AI Bites & Drinks with Tandem founders Kunal and Arjun - https://luma.com/l3xh4cwt Thursday 4PM 📍Carta x Antler Fundraising Data in the Pre-Seed Stage with Peter Walker and Bob Rosin - https://luma.com/nl38zkfc
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Kaila J. Lim shared thisMy day started in the UWS to chat about career stories and AI literacy at the preseed stage at Columbia University with Ran at Microsoft for Startups and Levi and Andrew, thank you Mike Rho for organizing! PS. I get giddy each time I get to talk about my career path into community building at Antler because it’s all so personal and intuitive and innerwork-focused that I get to open up my heart and show you how I thought about things, what I’m seeing 🫶 PPS. You can 1000% deeply love your work and make a living from it
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Kaila J. Lim shared thisCalling all early stage founders who are fundraising!!! In SF next week Helen and I are bringing together Peter Walker from Carta's data team and our GP at Antler Bob for a brutally honest conversation on how pre-seed fundraising is *actually* working right now Chatham house rules, no question is off limits Date: April 23rd Place: Antler Office South Park Time: 4-5pm RSVP: https://luma.com/nl38zkfcFrom Idea to Capital: Navigating Pre-seed Fundraising · LumaFrom Idea to Capital: Navigating Pre-seed Fundraising · Luma
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Kaila J. Lim shared this120+ engineers, running on no sleep just on the largest parameters, 22 teams demoing their products, VC investors and SOs who came to support and a big congrats to our track and bounty winners!!!!! walk around with me at our Sunday Hack Fair, the culmination of our Antler x NVIDIA x Acer public dataset of NYC hackathon after 40 hours of straight coding leveraging the Acer GN100s ft NVIDIA GB10s! You all seriously inspire me 🚀 Ryan Ayesha Jake McKenzie
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Kaila J. Lim shared thisAnd we are off!!!!! Antler x NVIDIA x Acer weekend hackathon kicking off right now with Pensar in NYC 🗽 Sunday 2PM is our Hack Fair where 30 teams will show what they’ve built in 36 hours, it’s open to the public - https://lnkd.in/eAG9U5F7
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Kaila J. Lim shared thisEven in the stress and BUSIEST time of investment cycle I always leave these meets more energized. Grateful for our operational wizards and community leaders of NYC VC Platform, brought together with the industry’s most thoughtful Carina and Theophila last week! Excited to host you at the next — sunny and outside 🌷☀️
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Kaila J. Lim reacted on thisKaila J. Lim reacted on this"Why do you need a co-founder?" I started my last company solo. Started this one with a co-founder. The difference is hard to put into words. Having a co-founder is not just about splitting the work or having different skill sets. It is also about having someone who is in it the same way you are. Someone who confronts the same problems you do, hiring, product, investors, and feels the same urgency around all of it. Building a company is a hard and lonely mental journey. It is harder to go through alone than with someone who genuinely gets it. I started Harper with Tushar Nair, my co-founder and CTO. I could not imagine doing this without him. Find the person who is in it the same way you are. It changes everything! Harper (YC W25)
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Kaila J. Lim reacted on thisKaila J. Lim reacted on thisLast month, my son Toby McDougall and I visited NYC — and I couldn't pass up the chance to drop in on some old friends at Sprinklr: Tony Vargas, Kristina H., and Tina M. Graziosi. We also caught up with Sprinklr alumni Chris Lynch, Lindsey Fletcher, Yakov Teytelman, CPA, Jacob Wyse and Alex Romero. Being back together brought a flood of memories — the late nights, the wins, the grind of building something real over so many years. These aren't ex-colleagues to me. They're family.
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Kaila J. Lim reacted on thisKaila J. Lim reacted on thisJust came back from TroopHR's annual Member Retreat and this photo captures the biggest & best part of why I go: Nadia Eran I know for years now. I've advised her, she advised me. We've shared a drink, a laugh, a challenge. I absolutely loved seeing her and learning even more about her over lunch. Patty Izquierdo and I are not even connected on LinkedIn yet and I absolutely loved meeting her. We had two sessions together and after the first one I said "I gotta sit next to Patty again, she's awesome". And like...keep in mind...I got to learn from the Industry Leaders like Melanie Naranjo and Vanesa Cotlar, MBA...seriously so cool, while expert level HR people casually peppered in their genius (looking at you Melanie Manning, Thach Nguyen, and Jasmine M. Beal). But that just goes to show you: it's not what you know, it's the friend you make along the way...or something like that. I need a nap after that redeye :P
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Kaila J. Lim reacted on thisKaila J. Lim reacted on thisGame. Set. Match. Partnership. 🎾 Last night, we co-hosted a Padel and Partnerships event at Padel Haus in Williamsburg, and it delivered on every level. An invite-only group of people in the sports industry came together to connect, compete, and talk partnerships, in one of the most fun atmospheres we've had to date. The energy on and off the court said it all. Conversations that started between games carried well past the final point. The kind of night that reminds you why building relationships in person makes such a difference. At PlayMaker, we're not just building software for sports partnerships, we're building a community of people who are shaping the future of this industry. Events like this are where that community comes to life. Grateful to Rival for co-hosting, and to everyone who showed up and made the night what it was. These are exactly the kinds of connections that turn into real partnerships. Want to join the next one? Comment "PlayMaker Community" below or fill out the form in the comments and we'll add you to our mailing list. -- Huge shoutout to Allison Fenton from Fenton's Faces (Fenton Films Media) 📸 for capturing the energy of the night.
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Kaila J. Lim reacted on thisKaila J. Lim reacted on thisWe had a fantastic Applied AI in FinTech event as part of the official #NewYorkFintechWeek lineup! We had talks on: • AI for revenue recovery • AI in risk modeling • AI for Compliance Engineering Big thank you to our guest speakers • Luke Benton from ExChao • Jeff Becker from Antler • Rahul Ramesh from Brex
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Kaila J. Lim reacted on thisKaila J. Lim reacted on thisCommunity Week is coming to New York. Community has been the biggest unlock for me in building, connecting, and growing. It has also led me to meet some of the coolest people. Which is why I'm excited to be a host 🎉. The people of New York are doing great things. And this is your chance to be a part of it. 🔌 Shameless plug for my event on May 6th!
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Kaila J. Lim reacted on thisKaila J. Lim reacted on thisOur initial goal was 30 events for Community Week. We’re currently sitting at 118 with more getting added every day! On Monday, we hosted a Karaoke event to get people hyped. Wait, karaoke? on a Monday!? Yes. And 50 community builders, neighbors, and friends showed up. Check out the calendar in the comments. #CommunityWeekNYC
Volunteer Experience
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Panel Facilitator & Meetup Host Community Campfires
Seoul Startups
- 2 years 8 months
Economic Empowerment
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Judge, Community-Driven Investments for Startups in Asia
Impact Collective
- 1 month
Civil Rights and Social Action
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Teacher, Virtual Presentation and Communication Skills
CampaignWith
- 1 month
Civil Rights and Social Action
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Club Member, Advanced Public Speakers
Toastmasters International
- Present 6 years 11 months
Education
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Ideation Mentor, Ventura Hackathon
Ventura County Office of Education
- 1 month
Science and Technology
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Project Lead, Medical Interview & Presentation Skills Workshop
Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School
- 2 months
Education
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Judge, Public Speaking Contest for Undergraduate Study
Rutgers University School Of Communication and Information
- Present 11 years 2 months
Education
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President and District Liaison, Academies @ Englewood
American Red Cross of Northern New Jersey
- 1 year 10 months
Disaster and Humanitarian Relief
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Presenter, Strengthen Your Willpower Workshop, District 83 Fall Conference
Toastmasters International
- Present 11 years 7 months
Education
Recommendations received
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LinkedIn User
“We were delighted to have Kaila as a speaker at our inaugural networking event for startups. Given that it was the debut event in our series, we aimed to set the right tone from the outset, making the selection of the evening's speaker/presenter crucial to us. Kaila excelled in her role, garnering praise and recognition from all attendees. Her attitude, professionalism, and preparation significantly contributed to the success of the event. We look forward to collaborating again in the future!”
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Riley Loftus
Harpoon • 5K followers
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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Uche Aniche
SSE Angel Network • 13K followers
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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Max Abram
Scale Venture Partners • 6K followers
🔥🚪👀 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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Melanie (Akwule) Nnogo, MBA
MINWO • 4K followers
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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Natasha Pongonis
Envisify Global Intelligence • 5K followers
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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Matias Zorrilla
Harpoon • 3K followers
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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Abdelkader (Abdel) Y.
1004 Venture Partners • 12K followers
“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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Kal Amin
7K followers
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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Jacob Windle
Black Flag • 9K followers
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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Christina Brady
Luster • 33K followers
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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Brett Stapper
The Front Lines • 20K followers
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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Daniel Dart
Rock Yard Ventures • 10K followers
🚨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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Gerald Kierce
Trustible • 7K followers
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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Justin Dixon, MBA
Hire Tomorrow • 21K followers
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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Milad Alucozai
Pamir Ventures • 37K followers
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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Vasily Alekseenko
SoPhy: Network Intelligence • 16K followers
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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Ryan Sells
Pear VC • 7K followers
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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Anais Cisneros
Amela • 13K followers
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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Isaac Saul Kassab
Pearl Talent • 13K followers
Most founders are terrible at investing in their teams. They'll spend $50k on ads. Six figures on new hires. But won't invest in training, coaching, or upskilling the team they already have. We brought Joe Stolte onto an all-hands Q&A where he shared advice, frameworks on delegation, systems thinking, and high-performance habits. Watching our team lean in, ask sharp questions, and immediately start thinking about how to apply the lessons- that's when it clicked for me again: When you invest in your people's growth: - Their skills expand and output 2x's. - They stay longer because they feel valued. - Impact compounds as your best people build momentum together. Monty Ngan and I are obsessed with empowering our team because your company's ceiling isn't what you can build alone. It's what your people are empowered to build with you. The best investment you can make is in the team you already have. #startups #entrepreneurship #leanstartups #leadership #businessgrowth #recruiting
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