Sparking Innovation at LA Tech Week
Mingle, Play, and Work. LA Tech Week instigated an ecclectic collection of thoughtful and fun gatherings for builders and enablers. I was pleased to see my NYC and SF friends and colleagues in attendance.
Executing Change
Great panel promoting women founders and capital allocators in the Batgirl Cave 🦇🏍💥 at Google in San Francisco!
I was joined on the panel by Laura Lucas, GP of L'ATTITUDE VENTURES, Joy Mbanugo, J.D., MAcc., CFO of CXAI (NASDAQ CXAI), Julie Castro Abrams, Managing Partner of How Women Invest/CEO How Women Lead, and Azin Radsan van Alebeek, Co-Founder and GP of Emmeline Ventures. Giselle Valdez Jackson, Executive Director in the Wells Fargo Tech Banking group was a terrific moderator as usual.
Topics discussed ranged from personal journeys as founders, operators, and investors to advice for everyone on the role they can play in facilitating and benefiting from a more inclusive economy.
CAN YOU MAKE A DIFFERENCE?
For sure.
Sisters (and Allies) Empowering Sisters in NYC!
Energy. Education. Empowerment. Friendship.
I loved participating in the second annual Women Business Collaborative Conference in NYC that brought together female founders and investors for two days of excellent content and networking. Great organizing and moderating by Gwen Young, CEO of the Women Business Collaborative, and Judith Goldkrand of the Women Presidents Organization (WPO) & Wells Fargo Corporate & Investment Banking.
Girl Power! Flex It!
I loved chatting with our Columbia female founders, funders, and innovators at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC. We got to know each other, exchange ideas, share journeys, network, and relax in one of the most beautiful venues of one of the greatest cities in the world.
STANFORD SUMMIT FOR LATINX FOUNDERS & FUNDERS
We know the numbers. Women and founders of color are dramatically underfunded in their entrepreneurship efforts. While it is a lost opportunity to remedy that only 2% of overall venture funding is going toward women, the numbers are even worse for LatinX founders. Funding for underrepresented founders is not a pipeline problem. It is an opportunity problem which countless talented people face in launching enterprises which require a strong network and extensive external funds to build, grow, and eventually exit.
WOMEN FOUNDERS ARE UNSTOPPABLE!
Great showing at USC’s ATHENA Women’s Entrepreneurial Summit. These talented women and allies are unstoppable!
SHOW HER THE MONEY ROCKS SANTA BARBARA FILM FESTIVAL!
Thoroughly enjoyed the Santa Barbara International Film Festival where Show Her the Money sizzled! So grateful to be an Associate Producer with Portola Valley Partners.
SHOW HER THE MONEY!
So excited that Portola Valley Partners, where I serve as an Operating and Investment Partner, is an Associate Producer of Show Her the Money. Show Her the Money is a meaningful documentary directed by the talented and award winning Ky Dickens, backed by the formidable Catherine Gray as Executive Producer. The film follows the uphill path to the launching and funding of four female founded startups and the women investors who join them on their journeys.
Show Her the Money won Best Documentary at the Los Angeles International Film Festival, the Twin Cities Film Festival, and the Fort Lauderdale International Film Festival, and has been awarded several other accolades.
LatinX MBAs = Excellence
Our community sizzles! Last November, I attended the incredibly well-organized, inaugural LatinX MBA alumni leadership summit hosted at Amazon Studios in Los Angeles and sponsored by TPG, Fidelity Investments, Google, Capital Group, Morrison Foerster Foundation, and ServiceNow.
Columbia Venture Community in LA welcomes you!
Great turnout at Firestone Walker Brewing Company in Marina del Rey for happy hour of the SoCal Chapter of the Columbia Venture Community. It was a great opportunity for founders, aspiring entrepreneurs, investors, and interested innovators to gather in a relaxed setting to socialize and build community.
Taking Action on Climate, Sustainability, and Environmental Justice.
The right people in the room can move mountains. I organized a gathering founders, funders, corporates, government, and community stakeholders in Long Beach, California to address climate, sustainability, and environmental justice issues and opportunities to solve them.
Crowdsourcing Solutions for Humanity and the Planet: Columbia Does It Again!
Last Wednesday at Columbia, hardworking venture teams and early stage investors discussed humanitarian, social, and environmental problems, solutions, and scalable market opportunities to make the biggest impact. A Spring cohort of thirteen startup teams of talented students, researchers, faculty, and alumni in my impact venture incubator course competed for the top seven spots in round 1 judging to pitch live at Demo Day. They were joined by the top seven venture teams of the Fall cohort of sixteen startups. It was impressive to see the traction all of these early ventures have made.
In six weeks of programming, venture teams comprised of people from across Columbia University’s schools, programs, and alumni community validated problems with stakeholders, proposed solutions, created and iterated MVPs, derived go to market strategies, drafted pro forma financials, chose actionable performance metrics, and pitched their ventures to expert mentors and investors. The presentations of their business highlights were met with insightful questions from investors evaluating their offerings.
Our ventures span many sectors: climate impact/environmental sustainability, health and wellness, fintech, proptech/construction, edtech, civtech, safety wearables, journalism/new media, sustainable food, and DEI. Their offerings consist of software solutions, marketplaces, media platforms, and products.
Is It Possible to Launch a Startup in a Weekend?
Columbia unites to propel early stage ventures addressing problems affecting people and the planet.
I am so excited about this upcoming event I have organized with my colleagues at Columbia University! Columbia’s 17 schools have joined forces to crowdsource solutions for the common good. Columbia Business School’s Tamer Center of Social Enterprise is hosting the event.
We are entering the last stretch before Columbia University’s inaugural cross-campus startup hackathon, Hacking for Humanity, taking place September 10-12th. We have 294 people in the process of forming teams, including 83 founders. We have three days of excellent programming ahead. Ten speakers and workshop leaders, thirty-six expert mentors, and nineteen investor judges will provide guidance, perspective, and networking opportunities for our promising founders.
Be the Founder You Want to Be
Last week, I co-instructed the workshop on Pricing at the Long Beach Accelerator with CSULB’s Director of Innovation & Entrepreneurship and LBA Board Chair, Dr. Wade Martin. It has been terrific being part of the launch team of this private-public partnership now accepting applications for its third cohort!
Founders, hit the West Coast and enjoy the lifestyle you deserve while you build out your company and network with the right people to get the traction you seek. $75,000 to $100,000 of equity funding is offered backed by excellent tailored programming, mentorship, municipal support, and corporate partnerships. Members of the first two cohorts have already raised above their ask targets and two have received lucrative acquisition offers validating their traction achieved in the challenging conditions of the pandemic.
Ready to Scale on the West Coast?
Last week I had the opportunity to lead a workshop on Customer Discovery and Validation at the newly launched Long Beach Accelerator.
Founders, now you have the opportunity to engage with the Long Beach Accelerator as the applications are now open for its second cohort to begin in the Summer of 2021. $75,000 to $100,000 of equity funding is offered backed by excellent programming (if I do say so myself), mentorship, municipal support, and corporate partnerships.