Barr Yaron

Amplify Partners

Barr Yaron is a Principal at Amplify Partners, where she partners with early-stage founders building transformative technologies in developer tools, infrastructure, and applied AI. With a strong technical background and deep product intuition, Barr focuses on supporting teams solving complex engineering challenges. She brings a hands-on approach to company-building, helping startups scale from idea to impact.

barr@amplifypartners.com

Natalie Vais

Amplify Partners

Natalie began her career as a Sales Engineer at Oracle before joining analytics startup Interana in its stealth days, where she became the first Solutions Architect and later Director of Product. Driven by a desire to understand planet-scale infrastructure, she joined Google’s Core Infrastructure team, contributing to products powering Search, Ads, and Google Cloud. There, she built tools for internal developers and helped scale infrastructure solutions across Google’s ecosystem. Natalie is especially drawn to founders with unconventional paths—“career swerves”—believing that diverse experiences shape sharper insights. Her background spans enterprise software, data infrastructure, and developer tools, making her a valuable partner to technical teams tackling complex challenges.

natalie@amplifypartners.com

Lenny Pruss

Amplify Partners

Lenny began his venture career in New York during the peak of the social and mobile era, when the industry was chasing the next Instagram or WhatsApp. But for Lenny, technology has always been about leverage—enabling people to build better, faster, and more efficiently. Over the past decade, his deep dive into cloud computing, DevOps, data infrastructure, and security has led him to partner with generational founders behind companies like Datadog, HashiCorp, and Cockroach Labs. Lenny brings a systems-thinking approach to investing, backing builders reshaping foundational layers of the modern tech stack.

lenny@amplifypartners.com

Sarah Catanzaro

Amplify Partners

Sarah focuses on startups applying machine intelligence and enterprise infrastructure to solve real-world problems. Her career began as Research Director at the Center for Advanced Defense Studies (CADS), where she led the use of advanced statistical models to predict the behavior of covert groups like Somali pirates and jihadist networks. She later worked with U.S. public agencies—including Joint Forces Command and the Secret Service—using computational methods to identify and disrupt complex threats. At Mattermark, as Head of Data, she applied these techniques to messy, incomplete datasets on private companies. Sarah began her VC journey at Canvas Ventures, where her analytical approach helped source investments in Fluxx, Platform9, and Kinetica.

sarah@amplifypartners.com

Mike Dauber

Amplify Partners

Mike is a venture investor who thrives on partnering with founders driven by deep domain expertise and relentless passion. He’s drawn to entrepreneurs who are borderline obsessed with their ideas—a quality that fuels success in recruiting, sales, and fundraising. Mike began his VC journey at Battery Ventures, where he discovered a love for working hands-on with founders and navigating a broad spectrum of technologies. He brings a founder-first mindset and a strong belief in the power of conviction-led company building.

dauber@amplifypartners.com

Sunil Dhaliwal

Amplify Partners

Sunil Dhaliwal is the Founder and General Partner at Amplify Partners, which he launched in 2012 to support technical founders at the earliest stages. He returned to the Forbes Midas List in 2020 for his continued success in venture investing. Prior to Amplify, Sunil was a General Partner at Battery Ventures, where he spent 14 years backing iconic IT infrastructure companies, including Chef, Netezza (acquired by IBM), Splunk (NASDAQ: SPLK), CipherTrust, and @stake. Sunil thrives on helping startups go from zero to one, transforming bold ideas into impactful products, teams, and businesses.

sunil@amplifypartners.com

Fang Yuan

AIX Ventures

Fang Yuan is a General Partner at AIX Ventures, with a strong track record in AI venture investing. Prior to AIX, she was with Baidu Ventures, where she led the firm’s investment in Covariant, a leader in robotics and AI. Fang brings deep expertise at the intersection of frontier technology and early-stage investing, backing founders building the next generation of intelligent systems.

fang@aixventures.com

Shaun Johnson

AIX Ventures

Shaun Johnson is a Founding Partner at AIX Ventures, bringing deep operational experience in AI-driven product development. Prior to AIX, he served as VP of Engineering, Product, and Design at Lilt, an AI-powered translation platform, and as VP of Product and Design at NimbleRX, a digital pharmacy startup. Shaun combines technical leadership with product strategy, helping early-stage AI startups scale breakthrough technologies into real-world solutions.

shaun@aixventures.com

Richard Socher

AIX Ventures

Richard is the founder of You.com, the AI search engine designed for user control and customization. He previously founded MetaMind, which was acquired by Salesforce, where he later served as Chief Scientist, leading a 520-person AI team across engineering, research, and product. Richard is also a prolific angel investor, backing 30+ AI startups and participating in 16 venture funds. With deep expertise in applied AI and enterprise solutions, he continues to shape the future of search, productivity, and intelligent systems.

richard@aixventures.com

Andrew Ng

AI Fund

Dr. Andrew Ng, a globally renowned AI expert, is the Managing General Partner of AI Fund. He’s also the Founder and CEO of Landing AI, founder of DeepLearning.AI, chairman and co-founder of Coursera, and an adjunct professor at Stanford University. A trailblazer in machine learning and online education, Andrew authored over 200 research papers and led AI adoption as the founding lead of Google Brain and Chief Scientist at Baidu. With a Ph.D. from UC Berkeley, a master’s from MIT, and a bachelor’s from Carnegie Mellon, he’s transforming lives through AI. Explore Andrew Ng’s impact on artificial intelligence and education.

ng@landing.ai

Mark Suster

Upfront Ventures

Mark Suster, a prominent venture capitalist, focuses on computer vision, SaaS, and Web 3.0 investments. Before entering VC, he founded and led two successful enterprise software companies, the latest acquired by Salesforce, where he served as VP of Products. Discover Mark’s journey from startup founder to influential investor driving tech innovation.

mark@upfront.com

Aydin Senkut

Felicis Ventures

Aydin Senkut, founder of Felicis, focuses on infrastructure, security, and the future of health as a pioneering super angel turned multi-stage investor. He backed iconic companies like Adyen (AMS: ADYEN), Credit Karma (acquired by Intuit), Fitbit (NYSE: FIT), Guardant Health (NASDAQ: GH), Notion, Opendoor (NASDAQ: OPEN), Pluralsight (NASDAQ: PS), Shopify (NYSE: SHOP), and Soundhound (NASDAQ: SOUN). Before Felicis, Aydin was a Senior Manager at Google, driving strategic partnerships in Asia Pacific. Joining Google in 1999, he launched its first 10 international sites, online search licensing, and Safe Search as its first Product Manager, later becoming its first International Sales Manager. Explore Aydin’s legacy in venture capital and tech innovation.

aydin@felicisvc.com

Anna Patterson

Gradient Ventures

Anna co-founded Xift and Cuil, clustering-based search engines, and Recall, the first history-based search engine over Internet Archive’s corpus (recall.archive.org), all acquired by Google. As Google’s VP of Engineering, she designed a search serving system that scaled the index 10X, grew Android from 3 million to over a billion devices, launched Google Play, and led search, infrastructure, and recommendation teams. With a PhD in Computer Science from the University of Illinois, Anna was an AI Research Scientist at Stanford and earned the Technical Leadership ABIE Award. She serves on Labelbox’s Board of Directors and previously sat on Square and Streamlit boards. Explore Anna’s impact on search technology and AI innovation.

anna+external@gradient.com

Alana Goyal

Base Case Capital

Alana launched Base Case while serving as a product manager at Samsara, driven by a passion to support early-stage founders. During college, she gained experience at Greylock, General Catalyst’s Rough Draft Ventures, and Sequoia’s scout program. Discover Alana’s journey in product management and venture capital, empowering the next generation of startups.

alana@basecase.vc

Eliot Durbin

Boldstart Ventures

Eliot is a seasoned venture capitalist whose investments span top tech startups, including Divide (acquired by Google), Replicated, Preact (sold to Spotify), SecurityScorecard, Rapportive (acquired by LinkedIn), Snyk, BigID, Front, Kustomer, Superhuman, Catalytic, Blaze (acq. by Akamai), and GoInstant (acquired by Salesforce). His portfolio also includes Techstars (NYC) and Amplify.LA. Before co-founding Penny Black—a private venture firm where he drove exits like Anchor Intelligence (sold to Comscore) and Klout (acq. by Lithium)—Eliot founded Templates.com, an online software retailer acquired in 2002. He later joined Permal Group, a multi-billion-dollar hedge fund (acq. by Legg Mason in 2006). Explore Eliot’s success in venture capital and tech innovation.

eliot@boldstart.vc

Ed Sim

Boldstart Ventures

Ed, a seasoned venture capitalist with over 25 years of experience, excels in leading first-round investments for developer-first, engineering-driven founders. He founded Boldstart in 2010, becoming a day-one partner and board member or observer for innovative tech companies like Common Paper, Env0, and Spectro Cloud. Discover Ed’s legacy in venture capital and support for cutting-edge startups.

ed@boldstart.vc

Shruti Gandhi

Array Ventures

Shruti began her career as a developer, building mainframe security, collaboration tools, and data analytics solutions. She later transitioned into investing, backing early-stage companies at True Ventures and Samsung’s venture fund. With an MBA from the University of Chicago and an MS from Columbia University, Shruti brings deep expertise to tech innovation. Learn more about her journey in software development and venture capital.

shruti@array.vc

Lan Xuezhao

Basis Set Ventures

Lan founded Basis Set, the largest seed fund raised by a solo GP in 2017, cementing her status as a top venture capitalist. She built and led Dropbox’s Corporate Development Strategy team during its peak acquisition phase. Before that, Lan managed teams at McKinsey in New York and Shanghai, advising Fortune 500 firms on big data, AI, and growth strategy. Earlier, she founded a brain training game company and earned a Ph.D. studying human brain functions, plus an M.A. in Statistics, both from the University of Michigan. Discover Lan’s impact on seed funding and tech innovation.

lan@basisset.ventures

Amanda Robson

Cowboy Ventures

Amanda, better known as Robson or Robby, is passionate about partnering with expert founders driving innovation. She works with enterprise companies, specializing in developer tooling, data management, security, applied AI, and supply chain solutions. Currently at Cowboy, Amanda brings 3.5 years of early-stage investing experience from Norwest Venture Partners. Before that, she honed her expertise as a sell-side M&A investment banker on William Blair’s enterprise software team. Explore Amanda’s work with cutting-edge startups and enterprise tech.

amanda@cowboy.vc

Nathan Benaich

Air Street Capital

Nathan is an investor specializing in AI-first tech startups and pioneering life sciences companies. As a co-author of the State of AI Report, Nathan contributes to a leading analysis of artificial intelligence trends and future opportunities. Their focus centers on supporting businesses that leverage AI to revolutionize healthcare, biotechnology, and other critical industries. Discover more about Nathan’s investments and expertise in the AI ecosystem.

nathan@airstreet.com

Alex Kolicich

8VC

Alex is a seasoned venture capitalist, engineer, and technology strategist with a deep background in early-stage product development and investment. Before joining 8VC, he was a Partner at Formation 8, a leading venture firm backing transformative technology companies. Previously, Alex worked closely with Peter Thiel as a Principal at Mithril Capital Management, a growth-stage venture fund, where he played a key role in investments in AppDirect, C2FO, and Helion Energy. Engineering & Product Expertise Before transitioning into venture capital, Alex was instrumental in engineering and product development at some of the world’s most influential technology companies: Google Research – Worked on Google Street View, contributing before and during its launch. Google Checkout – Played a key role in its development and rollout. Palantir & Clarium Capital – As an early advisor and engineer, he collaborated with the founding team, shaping Palantir’s early product and contributing to Clarium Capital’s quantitative engineering team alongside Joe Lonsdale.

alex@8vc.vom

Joe Lonsdale

8VC

Joe is a pioneering entrepreneur and investor, best known as the co-founder of Palantir (NASDAQ: PLTR), a global software company recognized for its impact in defense, intelligence, and enterprise data analytics. Palantir also played a crucial role in managing the COVID-19 common operating picture, supporting key decision-makers across 35+ countries. Following Palantir, Joe founded and continues to serve as Chairman of: Addepar – A wealth management technology platform handling over $4 trillion USD in assets. OpenGov – A software provider serving 2,000+ municipalities and state agencies, enhancing transparency and governance. Expanding his influence in mission-driven technology, Joe has co-founded companies such as Affinity, Epirus, Resilience Bio, and others. He continues to build and scale transformative ventures through the 8VC Build program, driving innovation in technology, finance, defense, and healthcare.

joe@8vc.com

Kimmy Scotti

8VC

Kimmy is a visionary entrepreneur, investor, and co-founder of Monthly Gift, a leading women’s health and wellness company. With a passion for innovation and accessibility in healthcare, she has spearheaded multiple ventures that have transformed industries. Prior to joining 8VC, Kimmy was the Executive Director of Business Development & Operations at a prominent New York Family Office, where she incubated and invested in groundbreaking businesses. Most notably, she co-founded a direct-to-consumer healthcare company, helping millions of Americans access affordable prescription medications. Beyond healthcare, Kimmy played a pivotal role in developing WORKS by Nicole Williams, a multi-platform lifestyle brand dedicated to empowering young professional women on their career journeys. Her expertise spans venture capital, business development, digital health, and women-focused innovation, making her a sought-after leader in the entrepreneurial space.

kimmy@8vc.com