Best Startup
At Best Startup US we track over 1,000,000 US startups and over 3 million people who hold key positions in these companies. We use this directory of startups to highlight top employees, founders and board members we think deserve more appreciation than they are currently getting.
This list showcases the top California based Founder operating in the FinTech space. If you think a Founder is missing from this list, feel free to contact our editor on editor@beststartup.us.
The individuals on this list have been included because of exceptional performance in one of the following categories:
- Innovation – Operating as a key part in an extremely innovative business or startup.
- Growth – Operating as a key figure in the growth and upscale of a market leading business or startup.
- Management – Showing exceptional management skills.
- Societal impact – Putting their business on the map for their positive societal or environmental impact.
Our Data – We source our data from OSINT (open source intelligence) and public directories such as Crunchbase, SemRush and many more. The data from these sources should be treated with a degree of caution and verified yourself.
Jeff Seibert
Co-Founder & Co-CEO of Digits
As Senior Director of Product at Twitter, Jeff has led the company’s consumer, developer, and publisher facing products, including Twitter for iOS, Android, and the Web, Fabric, Crashlytics, Answers, Digits, Twitter Kit, TweetDeck, Twitter’s Publisher Platform, and Gnip. Previously, Seibert was Twitter’s Director of Developer Platform where he led Fabric, the company’s suite of mobile developer tools, as well as its enterprise Data Platform and Content Syndication efforts. Seibert was the co-founder and CEO of Crashlytics, an award-winning crash analysis service for iOS and Android apps. Crashlytics was acquired by Twitter in 2013 and has become an essential piece of the mobile developer toolchain – today powering over a million apps across well over two billion devices worldwide. Seibert co-founded Increo in 2007 and served as its COO and lead architect until its acquisition by Box in 2009. He subsequently oversaw the integration of Increo’s document preview and annotation technologies into Box’s cloud content platform. Seibert gained experience at Apple in both marketing and engineering capacities and led Stanford University’s Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders seminar series as Co-Coordinator. He was selected as a Mayfield Fellow in 2007 and received a B.S. in Computer Science from Stanford University in 2008. Seibert is a frequent presenter on both entrepreneurship and technical topics and has lectured at Stanford, Harvard, MIT, and Tufts, as well as keynoted Twitter Flight, AppsWorld, AnDevCon, EclipseCon, and others. Find him on Twitter at @JeffSeibert.
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About Digits: Digits is building financial technology so powerful.. you’ll think they stole it from the future
Doug Ludlow
Co-Founder and CEO of MainStreet
Doug is the Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of MainStreet, a company creating jobs in rural and suburban communities. Previously, Doug was the Founder of Hipster, which was acquired by AOL in March of 2012. Hipster had raised $1M from Google Ventures, BoxGroup, CRV, Lerer Hippeau, Ludlow Ventures, Techstars, 500 Startups, Mitch Kapor, David Tisch, and other distinguished angels. In addition, Doug is a 2007 alumni of TechStars Boulder, having founded madKast (acquired by ShareThis.com in 2008).
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About MainStreet: MainStreet is a financial platform that helps startups and small businesses discover and claim tax credits and government incentives.
Dan Lindquist
CPO and Co-Founder of MainStreet
Dan Lindquist is the Co-founder and Chief Product Officer of MainStreet.
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About MainStreet: MainStreet is a financial platform that helps startups and small businesses discover and claim tax credits and government incentives.
Daniel Griffin
Co-Founder and CTO of MainStreet
Daniel Griffin is the Chief Technology Officer and Co-Founder of MainStreet. Prior to that, he was the Founder of Peak Podcasting.
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About MainStreet: MainStreet is a financial platform that helps startups and small businesses discover and claim tax credits and government incentives.
Raj Chowdhury
Co-Founder and CEO of HashCash Consultants
Raj Chowdhury is the CEO of HashCash Consultants and a Blockchain pioneer. He is the author of the book The Dark Secret of the Silicon Valley. He is the co-founder of several high tech and web based companies. Chowdhury is an eminent voice in Blockchain and cryptocurrencies globally. He is a contributor to Economic Times, Business World and advises industry leaders in adoption of Blockchain. He is a member of Asha Silicon Valley chapter, a non-profit committed to the spread of education for children in emerging countries.
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About Bitrump, HashCash Consultants, Satoshi Angels: HashCash Consultants is a software company offering Blockchain, AI, Big Data and IoT products, platforms and services.
Tim Draper
Founder and Managing Partner of Draper Associates
Timothy Draper is founding partner of leading venture capital firms Draper Associates and DFJ. Tim’s original suggestion to use “viral marketing” in web-based e-mail to geometrically spread an Internet product to its market was instrumental to the successes of Hotmail and other web-based email providers and has been adopted as a standard marketing technique by hundreds of businesses. Tim launched the DFJ Global Network, an international network of early-stage venture capital funds with offices in over 30 cities around the globe. Tim founded or co-founded DFJ ePlanet (global), Draper Fisher Jurvetson Gotham (NYC), Zone Ventures (LA), Epic Ventures (Salt Lake City), Draper Atlantic (Reston), Draper Triangle (Pittsburg), Timberline Ventures (Portland), Polaris Fund (Anchorage), DFJ Frontier (Sacramento and Santa Barbara), DFJ Vina Capital (Vietnam), Draper Nexus (Tokyo), and DFJ DragonFund (Shanghai). Tim recently launched “Six Californias,” a statewide initiative to create six new states and dissolve a failed one in California. Previously, Tim served on the California State Board of Education. In November of 2000, Tim launched a statewide cyber-initiative on school choice for the California General Election. Tim was a Member of Singapore’s International Economic Council and Ukraine’s Orange Circle. Tim was on the Board of U.C. Berkeley’s Haas School of Business. Tim was ranked 52 on the list of the 100 most influential Harvard Alumni, and seven on the Forbes Midas List. Tim was named Always-On #1 top venture capital deal maker. Tim was awarded the Commonwealth Club’s Distinguished Citizen Award for achievements in green and sustainable energy. To further encourage entrepreneurship, Tim started BizWorld.org, a non-profit for children to learn entrepreneurship, Draper University of Heroes, a school for entrepreneurs 18-28 and he leads SixCalifornias, an initiative to improve the governance of California. Tim has a B.S. degree in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University and an MBA from Harvard Business School.
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About Bancor, DDF, DFJ DragonFund, DFJ VinaCapital, Draper Associates, Draper Athena, Draper Dragon, Draper University Ventures, ePlanet Capital, Gotham Ventures, SpeedUPAfrica, Threshold, VenturesLab, Zone Ventures: Draper Associates is an early-stage venture capital firm that invests in industry-transforming companies.
Vlad Tenev
Co-Founder and Co-CEO of Robinhood
Vlad Tenev is the co-founder and co-CEO of Robinhood. A first-generation immigrant from Bulgaria, Tenev earned his B.S. in Mathematics at Stanford University before starting two finance companies in New York City, selling trading software to hedge funds. In 2013, Tenev and longtime friend Baiju Bhatt co-founded Robinhood, a zero commission brokerage dedicated to democratizing the finance system. The company has millions of users across the country and is currently valued at $5.6 billion.
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About Robinhood: Robinhood is a stock brokerage that allows customers to buy and sell stocks, options, ETFs, and cryptocurrencies with zero commission.
Baiju Bhatt
Co-Founder and Co-CEO of Robinhood
Baiju Bhatt is the co-founder and co-CEO of Robinhood, the fastest growing brokerage in the world. Bhatt earned his B.S. in Physics and M.S. in Mathematics at Stanford University before starting two finance companies in New York City. In 2015, Bhatt co-founded Robinhood with Vlad Tenev, aiming to democratize the financial system. The company has millions of users across the country and is currently valued at $5.6 billion.
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About Robinhood: Robinhood is a stock brokerage that allows customers to buy and sell stocks, options, ETFs, and cryptocurrencies with zero commission.
Siqi Chen
Co-Founder of Runway Financial
Siqi Chen is the Co-Founder of Runway and a Member Board Of Directors at Sandbox VR. Siqi holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Mathematics from the University of California, San Diego.
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About Newco, Runway Financial: Runway is a ground up rethink of the role of financial data inside modern businesses.
Henry Ward
Founder & CEO of Carta
Henry Ward is the CEO and co-founder of Carta (formerly eShares), With a background in finance and technology. Prior to eShares, Henry was the Founder and CEO of Secondsight, a portfolio optimization platform for retail investors. Mr. Ward received a BGS in Mathematics and Computer Science at the University of Michigan and an MSC in Market Finance at EDHEC Business School.
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About Carta: Carta is a global ownership management platform that helps companies, investors, and employees manage equity and ownership.
Immad Akhund
CEO & Founder of Mercury Technologies
Immad Akhund is the CEO and Founder of Mercury.
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About Mercury Technologies: Mercury is the banking stack for startups.* FDIC-insured accounts, debit cards, currency exchange, APIs, 3rd party integrations & more.
Robert Leshner
Founder and CEO of Compound
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About Citywide Special, Compound, Robot Ventures, Safe Shepherd: Compound is an open-source interest rate protocol that unlocks new financial applications.
Geoffrey Hayes
CTO and Founder of Compound
Maintainer of Exthereum, technology founder of two startups, led Core Services at Postmates
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About Compound: Compound is an open-source interest rate protocol that unlocks new financial applications.
Jesse Powell
Co-Founder and CEO of Kraken
Jesse Powell is an expert in virtual currencies, online/international payments and fraud, as well as co-founder and CEO of Kraken, the most trusted and one of the largest Bitcoin exchanges in the world with no.1 EUR market share. He is a 15-year veteran of the virtual currency industry.
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About Kraken: Kraken is a cryptocurrency exchange that provides spot and futures trading between Bitcoin, Ethereum, and 40+ other digital assets.
Max Levchin
Founder & CEO of Affirm
Max Levchin is an investor and advisor to emerging technology companies. He was previously the chairman and chief executive officer of HVF, a startup lab focused on extracting insights from recordable information. Levchin co-founded Confinity Inc. in December 1998, and served as the Chief Technology Officer and a director. He also founded NetMeridian Software, a developer of early Internet applications Levchin also serves as chairman of the boards of directors of Yelp Inc. and Kaggle Inc., and as a director of Evernote Corporation.
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About Affirm, Glow, HVF Labs, SciFi VC: Affirm is a financial technology services company that offers installment loans to consumers at the point of sale.
Eric Ries
Founder & CEO of Long-Term Stock Exchange
Eric is the author of New York Times bestseller The Lean Startup, The Startup Way, and The Leaders Guide (funded by one of the top Kickstarter book campaigns of all time). He’s also the creator of the Lean Startup methodology, practiced by individuals and companies around the world and the inspiration behind the LTSE. He has founded a number of startups, including IMVU, where he served as CTO, and has advised on business and product strategy for startups, venture capital firms, and large companies across many industries.
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About IDEO, Long-Term Stock Exchange, Pivotal: The Long-Term Stock Exchange designs an SEC-regulated national securities exchange that aligns great companies and long-term investors.
Raj Ganguly
Co-Founder and Partner of B Capital Group
Raj Ganguly is a Founding Partner of B Capital Group where he focuses on creating exponential growth by bringing together thought leaders, technology and capital. With 18 years of deep industry knowledge, Mr. Ganguly has earned a reputation for building businesses and driving growth. Previously, he co-founded and served as a Managing Partner at Velos Partners, a venture capital firm with offices in Los Angeles, Singapore and London. At Velos, he led numerous venture investments and served on the boards of Surf Air, Silvercar and Pong. Prior to founding Velos, Mr. Ganguly spent six years at Bain Capital investing and driving operational excellence in consumer-focused companies across the U.S. and Asia. Earlier in his career, he was with McKinsey & Company, Diageo plc. and Miradiant, one of the first internet payment startups. Currently, Mr. Ganguly serves as an external consultant (‘Senior Advisor”) to The Boston Consulting Group.
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About B Capital Group: B Capital Group is a venture capital firm that backs global entrepreneurs in the field of information technology.
Yahya Mokhtarzada
Co-Founder & CRO of Truebill
Prior to cofounding Truebill Yahya served as VP of Business Development at Nanigans, an advertising technology platform focused on social and mobile channels. At Nanigans, Yahya executed platform licencing agreements with enterprise advertisers including Ebay, Zappos, EA, Zynga, Amazon and Wayfair. Prior to Nanigans, Yahya held business development roles at SGN and Webs.com. Yahya is also a mentor at 500 Startups and has instructed at the Startup Institute.
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About Truebill: Truebill is a personal finance app that utilizes AI to enable users to manage their personal finances and improve their financial health.
Idris Mokhtarzada
Founder, CTO of Truebill
He is the Founder & CTO at Truebill.
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About Truebill: Truebill is a personal finance app that utilizes AI to enable users to manage their personal finances and improve their financial health.
Jack Dorsey
Co-Founder & CEO of Square
Jack Dorsey is the Co-Founder & CEO of Twitter Ventures
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About Cash App, Square, Twitter Ventures: Block is a merchant services aggregator and mobile payment company that aims to simplify commerce through technology.
Jojo Flores
Co-Founder & Vice President of Operations of Plug and Play Tech Center
Jojo is currently involved in the overall strategic planning and prioritizing of Plug and Play. Jojo’s immediate focus is on building strategic alliances in the Philippines and other reigns of South East Asia.
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About Launchgarage, Plug & Play, Plug and Play Brand & Retail, Plug and Play Tech Center: Plug and Play is an innovation platform bringing together startups and large corporations.
Wade Bitaraf
Founder and Director of Plug and Play Energy & Sustainability of Plug and Play Tech Center
Wade is the head of Energy & Sustainability practice at Plug and Play, an active early stage investor and global corporate innovation center. Wade holds master degrees in Chemical Engineering and Petroleum and Natural Gas engineering. His mission at Plug and Play is to bring innovation into the energy industry by bridging large corporations to the startup ecosystem. In the past 3 years, Wade has worked closely with the entrepreneurs that are building innovative products and solutions for the electric Utilities and Oil and Gas companies.
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About Plug and Play Tech Center: Plug and Play is an innovation platform bringing together startups and large corporations.
Ron Hose
Founder and CEO of Coins.ph
Ron Hose CEO of Coins.ph, a company that delivers financial services over mobile to people in Southeast Asia. Prior to coins.ph, Ron was the CTO of the video communication service [TokBox](/organization/tokbox). He co-founded the company with Serge Faguet in 2007. Most recently, Ron was a founding partner at Innovation Endeavors, an early stage venture capital fund backed by [Eric Schmidt](/person/eric-schmidt). Ron graduated from Cornell University with a Masters degree in Computer Science.
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About Coins.ph: Coins.ph delivers financial services over mobile to people who are currently unserved by traditional banks.
Matt Humphrey
Co-Founder & CEO of LendingHome
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About LendingHome, Quiet Capital: LendingHome offers fix-and-flip bridge loans and rental loans for real estate investors.
James Herbert
Co-Founder, Board Member of LendingHome
Current: Co-Founder, Board Member of LendingHome; SVP at First Republic Bank. Previous: Founder of Two Bridges Real Estate; Co-Founder and EVP of Colony American Homes; VP at Colony Capital; VP in Investment Banking at Morgan Stanley. BA and MBA from Stanford. Investor in / advisor to seed to Series C companies
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About First Republic Bank, First Republic Bank, LendingHome: LendingHome offers fix-and-flip bridge loans and rental loans for real estate investors.
Jed McCaleb
Co-Founder of Stellar Development Foundation
Jed McCaleb, Stellar cofounder, believes in consciously leveraging technology to reduce inefficiency and improve the human condition. He created eDonkey, one of the largest file-sharing networks of its time, as well as Mt. Gox, the first bitcoin exchange. In 2011, Jed founded Ripple. Recognizing that the world’s financial infrastructure is broken and that too many people are left without resources, he cofounded Stellar in 2014. Jed leads technical development of Stellar, a universal financial network that aims to increase economic participation for all individuals. The Stellar network is supported by Stellar.org, a nonprofit that couples technology with digital financial literacy and contributes to open-source software. Jed is also an advisor to MIRI, which researches artificial intelligence for positive impact.
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About Pantera Capital, Stellar Development Foundation: Stellar Development Foundation supports the development and growth of Stellar, a blockchain network that connects financial infrastructure.
Howard Lindzon
Founder & General Partner of Social Leverage
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About 140Labs, Knight’s Bridge Capital Partners, Marketbright, Social Leverage: Social Leverage is a Venture Capital firm which specializes in early-stage investments in the Software, Consumer, and Fintech industries.
Max Simkoff
Founder & CEO of Doma
Max started States Title in 2016 after personally experiencing the friction and labor caused by title insurance in the homebuying process. Since then he has worked to provide an innovative solution to homeowners, brokers, and mortgage bankers. Max is an entrepreneur with experience founding and operating technology companies. Prior to States Title, Max was Founder and CEO of Evolv, Inc., an enterprise predictive analytics software company, which he led through their acquisition by Cornerstone (NASDAQ: CSOD) in 2014 where he served for two years on the senior executive team post-acquisition as the Vice President of Strategic Initiatives.
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About Doma: Doma is an insurtech platform that uses machine intelligence to remove friction from residential real estate transactions.
Eyal Shinar
Executive Chairman and Co-Founder of Fundbox
Founder and Executive Chairman of Fundbox, Eyal is an expert in financial technology, AI and technology management. Prior to Fundbox, Eyal served as VP at Battery Ventures, leading projects and investments in finance, machine learning and SaaS. Notable examples are IDI Direct Insurance, Istra Research, Cortera, cVidya, Leadspace, Champions Oncology, Relay Foods, and Sportority. Prior to his work in Battery Ventures, Eyal was one of the first employees of Old Lane, a $5.5B NYC-based global hedge fund (later acquired by Citigroup) and also worked for Castle Harlan, a leading $6B NYC-based buyout firm. Eyal graduated from the special program for outstanding students at the Hebrew University with an LLB in Law and advanced degree in Finance. He earned his MBA from The Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania. Eyal was recently recognized by Goldman Sachs as one of the 100 Most Intriguing Entrepreneurs of 2016 at its Builders + Innovators Summit.
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About Fundbox: Fundbox is an AI-powered financial platform for small businesses.
William Hsu
Co-Founder & Partner of Mucker Capital
William Hsu is the Co-Founder & Partner at Mucker Capital.
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About Mucker Capital: MuckerLab is a venture capital firm specializing in incubation, pre-seed, seed, startup, early-stage, and Series A investments.
Erik Rannala
Co-Founder & Partner of Mucker Capital
Erik Rannala is the Co-Founder & Partner at Mucker Capital.
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About Mucker Capital: MuckerLab is a venture capital firm specializing in incubation, pre-seed, seed, startup, early-stage, and Series A investments.
Thaddeus Dryja
Founder and Developer of Lightning Network
Thaddeus Dryja is the founder and developer of Lightning Netwok.
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About Lightning Network: Bitcoin Lightning Network is built upon bitcoin’s blockchain technology, making peer to peer micropayment transactions through off-chain.
Aydin Senkut
Founder & Managing Partner of Felicis Ventures
Aydin Senkut is the Founder and Managing Partner of Felicis Ventures. An original super angel turned multi-stage investor, he has been named on the Forbes Midas List for the past seven years (2014-2020) as well as the New York Times Top 20 Venture Capitalists list for the past four years (2016-2019). His recent focus areas include consumerization of enterprise, security, cloud optimization, and longevity. He is well-known as an early backer of a number of iconic companies including Shopify (NYSE:SHOP), Fitbit (NYSE:FIT), Rovio (HEL:ROVIO), Adyen (AMS: ADYEN), Pluralsight (NASDAQ:PS), Guardant Health (NASDAQ:GH), Credit Karma (acquired by Intuit), SoundHound & Vicarious. Prior to starting Felicis Ventures, Aydin was a Senior Manager at Google responsible for strategic partner development and account management in Asia Pacific, including Japan. Aydin joined Google in 1999 as its first Product Manager to launch Google’s first 10 international sites, its first online search licensing products, and its first Safe Search. He then became the first International Sales Manager at Google, responsible for worldwide licensing deals. Before joining Google, Aydin was the Product Manager for Data Visualization and Data Mining software MineSet at SGI. He received a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration with Honors from Boston University. He also earned an MBA in Marketing from the Wharton School and a master’s degree in International Studies from the University of Pennsylvania. He is an avid pilot, loves playing tennis, and speaks five languages: English, German, French, Portuguese, and Turkish.
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About Felicis Ventures, Guideline, Paravision: Felicis invests in seed through Series C stage companies across multiple sectors, industries, and frontier tech.
Dasha Maggio
Partner & Head of Founder Success of Felicis Ventures
Dasha Maggio is the Partner and Head of Founder Success at Felicis Ventures.
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About Felicis Ventures: Felicis invests in seed through Series C stage companies across multiple sectors, industries, and frontier tech.
Andrew Gazdecki
Founder and CEO of MicroAcquire
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About Altcoin.io, Bizness Apps, MicroAcquire: MicroAcquire is a startup acquisition marketplace that helps startups find buyers and get acquired.
Daniel Friedland
Co-Founder and Managing Director of Goldcrest Capital
Daniel Friedland is the Co-Founder and Managing Director of Goldcrest Capital.
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About Goldcrest Capital: Goldcrest is a venture capital fund that invests in private technology companies.
Assaf Wand
CEO & Co-Founder of Hippo Insurance
Assaf Wand is the CEO & Co-Founder at Hippo Insurance.
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About Hippo Insurance: Hippo Insurance is an InsurTech company that uses technology to help homeowners maintain their properties.
Miriam Rivera
CEO, Co-Founder & Managing Director of Ulu Ventures
Miriam co-founded Ulu Ventures, where she is the Managing Partner. Ulu is an early stage angel fund focused on IT investments and has made 30 investments in the last three years. She is also the co-founder and co-president of Stanford Angels & Entrepreneurs.
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About Stanford Angels and Entrepreneurs, Ulu Ventures: Ulu Ventures provides early-stage investments to enterprise cloud and smart data companies.
Clint Korver
Co-Founder & Managing Director of Ulu Ventures
Clint is a co-founding partner at Ulu Ventures where his investment interests include technology-enabled services, educational technology, and companies that turn data into actionable information. Along with Miriam, Clint is the co-founder and co-president of Stanford Angels & Entrepreneurs a Stanford University alumni organization helping to build and connect Stanford’s entrepreneurial community. Prior to becoming a full-time investor, he co-founded and led four companies including Outcome Software, where he raised $10 million in venture capital to build web-based decision tools for large enterprises and was granted multiple patents in web-based decision analytics. He also co-founded Decision Quality International which trained over 1000 Fortune 500 executives in the principles of decision quality, licensed decision training programs to over 10,000 end users, and consulted to six of the largest financial institutions in the US. He also co-founded and led the consumer internet company, DecisionStreet and the analytics consulting firm, The Decision Company. Clint has a passion for teaching and regularly guest lectures at Stanford on entrepreneurship, decision-making, and ethics. He has taught courses in ethical decision-making at both Stanford and Grinnell College, and co-authored Ethics for the Real World (Harvard Business Press 2008) with Stanford professor Ron Howard. Clint is a Kauffman Fellow and Venture Partner at Crescendo Ventures and an advisory board member at the Decision Education Foundation. He holds a PhD and MS degree from Stanford University in Management Science and Engineering with an emphasis in decision analysis and a BA with honors in mathematics from Grinnell College where he currently serves as Vice Chair of the Board of Trustees.
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About Ulu Ventures: Ulu Ventures provides early-stage investments to enterprise cloud and smart data companies.
Adolfo Babatz
Co-Founder & CEO of Clip
Adolfo Babatz is the Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of PayClip Inc., a mobile payments platform for Emerging Markets. The company is based in Redwood City, California and Mexico City. Before Clip, Adolfo was responsible for Customer Engagement for PayPal LatinAmerica. Before moving into the product team Adolfo led the team that opened PayPal in Mexico. Right before PayPal, Adolfo studied his MBA at MIT where he specialized in Entrepreneurship & Economics of Information. Prior to MIT, Adolfo was part of the founding team at The Carlyle Group Mexico where he worked as an Analyst. Before joining Carlyle, Adolfo worked as an Advisor for the Executive VicePresident of GrupoDesc, one of Mexico’s largest industrial conglomerates.
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About Clip: Clip is the leading digital payments and commerce enablement platform in Mexico.
Eric Bahn
General Partner & Co-Founder of Hustle Fund
Eric Bahn is a Co-Founder and General Partner at Hustle Fund, an early-stage venture capital firm based in San Francisco. Hustle Fund invests in software startups at the pre-seed and seed stages, backing founders who exhibit great execution and high velocity (aka, hustle). Previous to Hustle Fund, Eric was an angel investor and partner at 500 Startups. And prior to becoming a professional investor, he spent over a decade as an operator (Facebook, Instagram) and entrepreneur (Beat The GMAT, The Hustle). Eric draws from his product and growth experience to advise his founders in scaling their own enterprises. Eric is a native of Detroit, Michigan and first arrived to Silicon Valley to attend Stanford University (BA, MA), which launched his career into software and startups. Eric is happily married with two kids.
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About Hustle Con, Hustle Fund: Hustle Fund is a seed fund that seeks to invest in early-stage startups.
Elizabeth Yin
Co-Founder & General Partner of Hustle Fund
Elizabeth Yin is co-founder and CEO of LaunchBit. She frequently speaks at conferences and events and has previously spoken at Women 2.0 partner events, Web 2.0, Lean Startup events, TechStars, MIT, Stanford, Yale, and Babson among others. Prior to LaunchBit, she built profitable niche websites and previously worked as a product marketing manager at Google. She holds a BS in electrical engineering from Stanford and an MBA from MIT Sloan.
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About Hustle Fund: Hustle Fund is a seed fund that seeks to invest in early-stage startups.
Cathy Han
Founder and CEO of Levro
Cathy Han is Founder & CEO of 42 Technologies. She also the founder and CEO at Levro.
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About Levro: Levro is a financial technology company.
Kevin Gosschalk
Founder & CEO of Arkose Labs
Kevin Gosschalk is the founder of Arkose Labs.
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About Arkose Labs, Forbes Technology Council: Arkose Labs provides fraud prevention, anti-spam, and abuse analysis for businesses, companies, and industries.
Jessica McKellar
Founder and CTO of Pilot
Jessica McKellar is a founder and the CTO of Pilot, a bookkeeping firm powered by software. Previously, she was a founder and the VP of Engineering for a real-time collaboration startup acquired by Dropbox, where she then served as a Director of Engineering. Before that, she was a computer nerd at MIT who joined her friends at Ksplice, a company building a service for rebootless kernel updates on Linux that was acquired by Oracle. Jessica is also a former Director for the Python Software Foundation and PyCon North America’s Diversity Outreach Chair. For her outreach efforts in the Python community, she was awarded the O’Reilly Open Source Award in 2013.
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About Pilot: Pilot is a platform that offers bookkeeping, tax, and CFO services for growing businesses.
Waseem Daher
Founder & CEO of Pilot
Waseem Daher is a Founder and CEO at Pilot.
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About Pilot: Pilot is a platform that offers bookkeeping, tax, and CFO services for growing businesses.
Jeff Arnold
COO & Founder of Pilot
Jeff Arnold is a Past Founder & CEO at Ksplice.
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About Pilot: Pilot is a platform that offers bookkeeping, tax, and CFO services for growing businesses.
Tammy Camp
Founder & CEO of Stronghold
Tammy is the CEO of Stronghold, an API platform that creates virtual payment networks that enable instant settlement and interoperability between legacy and new payment networks. Tammy served as the first Head of Growth at Stellar, helping the network grow to 4 million users in its first two months. A former partner at accelerator 500 Startups, she invested in portfolio companies and ran the growth and marketing curriculum for its flagship Silicon Valley location. She is a graduate of Singularity University’s GSP11 in Exponential Technologies at NASA Ames where she first learned about Bitcoin from legendary cryptographer Ralph Merkle.
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About Action Factory, Stronghold: Stronghold creates virtual payment networks that give developers access legacy and next-generation payment networks through a simple API.
Deepak Rao
Co-Founder and CEO of X1 Card
Deepak Rao is a Co-Founder and CEO at X1 Card. He was the Group Product Manager at Twitter before that.
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About ThriveCash, X1 Card: The smartest credit card ever made.
Siddharth Batra
Co-Founder of X1 Card
Siddharth Batra is a Co-Founder at X1 Card. He was Twitter’s Director of Engineering before that.
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About ThriveCash, X1 Card: The smartest credit card ever made.
Kenneth Lin
Founder and CEO of Credit Karma
Kenneth started Credit Karma in 2007 to offer free credit scores and bring transparency and simplicity to the credit industry – an industry that was built around and had long prioritized banks above consumers. He has guided the company from a small team of three to a team of several hundred employees who are disrupting consumer finance, serving millions of people. Kenneth spent his early career working with mission-driven businesses like Upromise and Eloan, and he was inspired to build Credit Karma – a platform where consumers can manage their full financial lives with more certainty, supported by a unique business model that creates genuine, organic value by reducing marketing inefficiency for banks and empowering consumers with information. Like LinkedIn has done for professional identity and Facebook for social lives, Kenneth’s vision is that one day Credit Karma can create a simple way for Americans to manage their financial identities. Kenneth also founded Multilytics Marketing in 2006 and has a B.A. in mathematics and economics from Boston University.
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About Credit Karma: Credit Karma offers a range of tools and personalized recommendations designed to help customers make the most of their money.
Prince Boakye Boampong
Founder of Dash
Prince Boakye Boampong is the Founder and CEO of Dash.
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About Dash: Dash builds an alternative payment app where users can send, spend, and receive money, pay for goods and services, save, and invest.
Asya Bradley
Founder & COO of First Boulevard
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About First Boulevard: First Boulevard is a fintech startup that aims to address the generational wealth gap for Black Americans.
Yves Sisteron
Managing Partner and Co-Founder of Upfront Ventures
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About Upfront Ventures: Upfront Ventures is the venture capital firm focusing on early-stage technology companies.
Jeffrey Byun
CEO, Co-Founder of BLADE
Jeffrey Byun is the CEO of BLADE – a new cryptocurrency derivatives exchange. Previously, he was the CEO of OrderAhead – a mobile ordering/payments startup that was acquired by Square. Prior to that, Jeffrey was a fixed income trader at Morgan Stanley and BofA Merrill Lynch. Jeffrey is a graduate of MIT and Penn.
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About BLADE: BLADE is a cryptocurrency derivatives exchange
Valery Vavilov
Founder & Chief Executive Officer of Bitfury Group
Seasoned entrepreneur with over 15 years of experience in information technology and business management. Original founding member of BitFury. Assumed the role of BitFury CEO in 2011. Prior to that, held numerous technology and business leadership positions. MS in Computer Science, Riga Transport & Telecommunication University.
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About Bitfury Group: Bitfury is the leading full service bitcoin and blockchain technology company.
Valery Nebesny
Founder and CTO of Bitfury Group
Founder and CTO of BitFury Group.
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About Bitfury Group: Bitfury is the leading full service bitcoin and blockchain technology company.
Jon Lerner
Co-Founder and CEO of CoinTracker
Co-Founder and CEO of CoinTracker.
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About CoinTracker: CoinTracker is a portfolio and tax manager for cryptocurrency that enables seamless cryptocurrency portfolio tracking and tax compliance.
Chandan Lodha
Co-Founder of CoinTracker
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About CoinTracker: CoinTracker is a portfolio and tax manager for cryptocurrency that enables seamless cryptocurrency portfolio tracking and tax compliance.
Roger Lee
Co-Founder of Human Interest
Roger Lee is the co-founder/CEO of Human Interest, a modern, paperless 401(k) provider with automated investment advice built in. Businesses of any size can set up a 401(k) plan entirely online in a matter of minutes, and ongoing administration is completely automated. Previously, Roger was the co-founder/president of Thunder, a startup that automates and scales online advertising across devices, formats, and volume. Thunder works with over 100 media companies and agencies and has been used to design over 100,000 ads to date. The company was named one of the Forbes’ 100 Most Promising Companies in America and was described as “An Ad Engine to Put Mad Men Out of Business” by the New York Times.
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About Human Interest: Human Interest helps employees of small and medium-sized businesses save for retirement.
Jeffrey S. Skoll
Founder of Capricorn Investment Group
Jeff Skoll is a philanthropist and social entrepreneur, working to bring life to his vision of a sustainable world of peace and prosperity. As the first full-time employee and President of eBay, Jeff developed the company’s inaugural business plan and helped lead its successful initial public offering and the creation of the eBay Foundation. Over the last 15 years, Jeff has created an innovative portfolio of philanthropic and commercial enterprises, each a distinctive social catalyst. Together, these organizations galvanize public will and mobilize critical resources to accelerate large-scale social impact. His approach is unique: driving social impact by investing in a range of efforts that integrate powerful stories and data with entrepreneurial approaches. The Jeff Skoll Group supports his organizations, which include the Skoll Foundation, the Capricorn Investment Group, Participant Media and the Skoll Global Threats Fund. Jeff created the Skoll Foundation in 1999 to pursue his vision of a more peaceful, prosperous and sustainable world. The Foundation drives large-scale change by investing in, connecting and celebrating social entrepreneurs and the innovators who help them solve the world’s most pressing problems. Capricorn Investment Group was created in 2000 to demonstrate that it is possible to invest profitably while driving sustainable, positive change. Capricorn manages the assets for Jeff Skoll, the Skoll Foundation and others who strive for extraordinary investment results by leveraging market forces to accelerate impact. Jeff founded Participant Media in 2004 with the belief that a story well told has the power to inspire and accelerate social change. Participant’s 50+ films to date have collectively received a total of 7 Academy Awards® and 35 nominations, and include The Help, Contagion, Good Night, and Good Luck, Syriana, An Inconvenient Truth, Waiting for “Superman”, and Food, Inc. In 2008, Participant launched its digital hub TakePart.com, a leading source of socially relevant news, opinion and entertainment. In August 2013, Participant expanded into television with its new network, Pivot, targeting the millennial audience, available to 45 million U.S. households. For each of its films and TV shows, Participant creates a unique social action campaign designed to give audiences specific actions they can take on the issue illuminated in the project. He founded the Skoll Global Threats Fund in 2009, whose initial focus is on five global issues that, if unchecked, could bring the world to its knees: climate change, water security, pandemics, nuclear proliferation and Middle East conflict. Jeff holds a Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Toronto and an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business. He was appointed an Officer of the Order of Canada in 2012. Jeff’s other recent honors include a career tribute at the Gotham Independent Film Awards (2012) and the John W. Gardner Leadership Award (2012).
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About Capricorn Investment Group, Jeff Skoll Group, Participant Media, Skoll Foundation: Capricorn Investment Group invests in the public equity, fixed income, private equity, and real assets markets.
Sam Strasser
Founder of Treasure Financial
Sam Strasser is the CEO and founder of Treasure Financial.
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About Treasure Financial: Using automation and machine learning to help companies identify, manage and monetize their idle cash
Bill Elmore
General Partner and Founder of Foundation Capital
With a combinationof venture and operating experience that cultivated a deep understanding about the challenges an organization faces on a daily basis, Bill founded Foundation Capital in 1995 with the purpose of helping entrepreneurs build strong organizations from the ground up. He has always operated on the belief that substantial, sustainable companies are the result of matching insight—whether about technology or market opportunity—with the right entrepreneurand management team. Prior to Foundation, Bill spent eight years as a General Partner at Inman & Bowman. Previous roles include president of Visual Engineering, as well as a variety of marketing management positions, at Hewlett-Packard. As former director and past presidentof the Western Association for Venture Capitalists, and past director of the National Venture Capital Association, Bill continues to be actively involved in defining, serving, and representing the interests of the venture capital and private equity industries. Equally passionate about his philanthropy work, Bill serves on the Advisory Council at Stanford Business School and is a board member of the Eastside College Preparatory School. Bill currently sits on the board ofdirectors of Biz360, CloudShield, Helpstream, Quartics, SpringCM, TeaLeaf Technology, Venafi, and XMOS Semiconductor, and was previously on the boards of Atheros Communications and WindRiver Systems. Bill holds a BSEEand MSEE from Purdue University and an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.
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About Foundation Capital: Foundation Capital is a venture capital firm made up of former entrepreneurs and helps companies and businesses grow.
David J. La Placa
Chief Executive Officer & Founder of Intellectus Partners, LLC
David J. La Placa is the Chief Executive Officer | Founder at Intellectus Partners, LLC.
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About Forbes San Francisco Business Council, HintBox.ai, Intellectus Partners, LLC, Orbital Insight: Intellectus is an exclusive, private MFO for Entrepreneurs offering Wealth Creation&Preservation,Investment Mgmt, Venture & startup Advisory
Jay Casey
President & Co-Founder of Intellectus Partners, LLC
Experienced investor and financial professional working in various roles; including Venture & Private Equity investing, Portfolio Management, Trading, and Client Relationship Management. Experienced investor in Fixed Income, Equities, Commodities, Hedge Funds, Private Equity, and Private companies. Previous experience with First Union, Manulife Financial, Lehman Brothers, Deutsche Bank Alex. Brown, and currently Intellectus Partners.
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About Intellectus Partners, LLC: Intellectus is an exclusive, private MFO for Entrepreneurs offering Wealth Creation&Preservation,Investment Mgmt, Venture & startup Advisory
June Ou
COO, Co-Founder of Figure
Founder and CEO of CCO Solutions, a firm that provided outsourced middle and back office solutions to the hedge fund industry. Co-founder, VP of Product Management and Engineering at Finaplex, a leader in wealth management solutions (sold to Broadridge NYSE: BR), responsible for both enterprise and cloud solutions. MS from UC Santa Cruz; MS from Stanford Graduate School of Business.
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About Figure, Provenance Blockchain: Figure is a financial services company leveraging blockchain technology.
Michael Cagney
Co-Founder & CEO of Figure
As the CEO, Chairman and co-founder of SoFi, Mike Cagney leads corporate strategy and development at SoFi—bringing decades of experience in the financial industry to his leadership of the company. He’s held a Senior Vice President role at Wells Fargo, where he was head trader for the proprietary trading and financial products group. Mike is also co-founder and a managing member of Cabezon Investment Group, a global macro hedge fund, in addition to serving as a non-executive Chairman of ReFlow. Before Cabezon, Mike founded, was CEO and then Vice Chairman and Chief Architect, of Finaplex, a leader in wealth management software that was sold to Broadridge (NYSE: BR). While overseeing SoFi’s overall direction, Mike makes a daily point to interact with SoFi’s member base, now more than 260,000 members. In addition to reading and responding to member feedback, he hosts SoFi member dinners at his San Francisco home to better know our customers and understand their financial goals. Mike holds an M.S., Management degree from the Stanford Graduate School of Business, where he was a Sloan Fellow. He also holds a MS in applied economics from UC Santa Cruz.
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About Figure, Provenance Blockchain: Figure is a financial services company leveraging blockchain technology.
Parul Gujral
Founder and CEO of Snowball Money
Parul Gujral is the founder and CEO of Snowball Money.
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About Snowball Money: Snowball Money operates as a crypto investment automation platform that provides access to professionally curated portfolios.
Soul Htite
Founder & Executive Chairman of Dianrong
Soul Htite is the founder and CEO of Dianrong. Prior to co-founding Dianrong in 2012, Soul co-founded Lending Club, the world’s largest and benchmarking financial technology company. He served as the Head of Technology until 2011. Soul led all the design and development efforts of Lending Club’s award winning online lending platform. Soul spent the earlier part of his career building enterprise software at Oracle Corporation. His focus was in real-time online services and system design for high availability and fault tolerance. Soul holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science from the Université de Montréal. Specialties: entrepreneurship, internet, software, product design, innovation, creativity, product development, startups, investment
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About Dianrong, Upgrade: Dianrong is an online marketplace lending company that uses technology to transform the way China is financed to help enrich people’s lives.
Martin Gedalin
Founder & Partner of Lumia Capital
Martin is Founder of Lumia Capital, an expansion-stage VC partnering with leading tech companies in under-invested emerging markets and forward-thinking US companies targeting these markets to accelerate growth. Previously, Martin was one of five investment professionals at Focus Ventures, a technology-focused venture capital firm in Palo Alto with ~$850M under management and ~110 expansion-stage investments across three funds. Prior to Focus, Martin was a Product Manager at Oracle Corp., where he was responsible for core components of Fusion CRM, Oracle’s next generation CRM strategy, and a $1B+ product line. Prior to these roles, Martin was a management consultant for both Siebel Systems (Customer Strategy Team) and, post acquisition, Oracle (Insight Group), where he provided strategic recommendations across people, process and technology domains to Oracle/Siebel’s top global customers. Martin began his career in Corporate Strategy at NCR Corporation. Personally, Martin is also an adviser to a number of private companies and funds.
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About Lumia Capital: Expansion-stage VC firm partnering with forward-thinking US and European innovators expanding internationally for breakout growth.
Vignan Velivela
Co-Founder & CEO of AtoB
Vignan Velivela is the Co-Founder & CEO at AtoB.
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About AtoB: AtoB is a technology company building payments infrastructure for the transportation industry.
Harshita Arora
Co-Founder of AtoB
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About AtoB, Shuttle: AtoB is a technology company building payments infrastructure for the transportation industry.
Brett Crosby
Co-Founder & COO of PeerStreet
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About PeerStreet: PeerStreet is a crowdfunding platform that gives investors easy access to high-yielding loans that are collateralized with real estate.
Alex Perelman
Co-Founder & CTO of PeerStreet
Alex Perelman is a Co-Founder and serves as the Chief Technology Officer at PeerStreet.
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About PeerStreet, Playhouse: PeerStreet is a crowdfunding platform that gives investors easy access to high-yielding loans that are collateralized with real estate.
Brew Johnson
Co-Founder & CEO of PeerStreet
Brew Johnson is the visionary leader behind PeerStreet. His experience in technology platforms, real estate and law culminated in the unique concept that is PeerStreet. Prior to PeerStreet, he worked as general counsel at VirtualTourist where he oversaw the company’s $85 million sale to Expedia/TripAdvisor. Before that, he was a real estate attorney at Allen Matkins Leck Gamble & Mallory and a technology attorney at Brobeck Phleger & Harrison. At Allen Matkins, Brew advised some of the largest real estate development and investment firms in the country on a wide variety of complex real estate transactions. He continues to advise startups and is an active real estate developer, investor and private lender. Brew graduated from USC with degrees in international relations and history and earned his JD from the UCLA School of Law.
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About PeerStreet: PeerStreet is a crowdfunding platform that gives investors easy access to high-yielding loans that are collateralized with real estate.
Ranveer Kunal
Co-Founder of Meemo
Ranveer Kunal is a co-founder at Meemo.
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About Meemo: Meemo is an AI-powered social finance app that lets users receive personal rewards based on recent activity and transfer money to friends.
Wisam Dakka
Co-Founder of Meemo
Wisam Dakka is a co-founder at Meemo.
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About Meemo: Meemo is an AI-powered social finance app that lets users receive personal rewards based on recent activity and transfer money to friends.
André Madeira
Co-Founder & CEO of Meemo
André Madeira is the Co-Founder & CEO at Meemo.
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About Meemo: Meemo is an AI-powered social finance app that lets users receive personal rewards based on recent activity and transfer money to friends.
Robson Araújo
Co-Founder of Meemo
Robson Araújo is a co-founder at Meemo.
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About Meemo: Meemo is an AI-powered social finance app that lets users receive personal rewards based on recent activity and transfer money to friends.
Amy Gips
Founder of Astia Angels
Founder at Astia Angels.
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About Astia Angels: Astia Angels is a global network of both female and male angel investors that invest in high-growth companies.
Mahmoud Abdelkader
CEO & Co-Founder of Very Good Security
Mahmoud and Marshall started Very Good Security to solve recurring data security and privacy challenges faced by organizations in regulated and/or compliant environments. Today’s modern organizations face ever-changing data security challenges in an evolving landscape and require an adaptive approach to cyber security to augment security infrastructure investments. Mahmoud co-founded and served as the CTO of a a YCominbator W2011 company, Balanced Payments, a leading-edge developer friendly payments processor acquired in 2015. He is also an active angel investor, serves as an advisor to numerous FinTech startups, and is an avid fan of cryptography. Mahmoud holds a BSc in Computer Engineering from University of Maryland: College Park. A fun fact is that actually learned to code by reverse engineering Age of Empires and Warcraft III.
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About Very Good Security: Very Good Security is a fintech & data security enablement platform helping to maximize the value of data without compliance & breach risk.
Marshall Jones
Co-Founder & CTO of Very Good Security
Marshall Jones is a co-founder and CTO of Very Good Security. He is a seasoned engineer who has built countless products in FinTech industry. Formerly VP Engineering at Balanced Payments, a payment system for the marketplaces, Marshall knows all ins and outs of setting up engineering processes from ground-up, building a scalable product infrastructure, and growing effective engineering teams. Originally from New Zealand, Marshall lived in Singapore and moved to the USA in 2012. He is an engineering focussed manager with extraordinary technical skills: Marshall codes, liaises between engineers and business and, most importantly, builds product architecture and infrastructure.
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About Very Good Security: Very Good Security is a fintech & data security enablement platform helping to maximize the value of data without compliance & breach risk.
Danae Ringelmann
Founder & Board Member of Indiegogo
Danae Ringelmann co-founded Indiegogo in 2007 with a mission to democratize fundraising and has since helped to propel the company into the world’s largest crowdfunding platform. Today, Danae leads Indiegogo’s industry development efforts, while steering the company’s employee culture and values initiatives. Danae was listed as a Young Global Leader in 2016 by the World Economic Forum, one of Fortune Magazine’s 40 under 40, as well as SF Business Times’ 40 under 40 in 2014. ELLE Magazine named Danae to its Woman in Tech Power List in 2014; while Fast Company included her in its Top 50 Women Innovators in Technology in 2011. Awards include Watermark’s “Woman Who’s Made Her Mark” in 2014, and AWNY’s No Apologies” Changemaker award in 2013. Danae frequently speaks at conferences around the world, including Web Summit, The Next Web, TEDx, SXSW and CeBIT. Danae also testified before the House Small Business Subcommittee on Investigations, Oversight and Regulations on “Financing America’s Small Businesses: Innovative Ideas for Raising Capital” in June 2013. Prior to Indiegogo, Danae was a Securities Analyst at Cowen & Co. where she covered entertainment companies including Pixar, Lions Gate, Disney, and Electronic Arts. Danae also focused on cable network, NFL, newspaper and hedge fund clientele while at JPMorgan’s Investment Bank and Private Bank. In the wake of 9/11, Danae co-produced a concert reading of Incident at Vichy, an Arthur Miller play addressing the politically charged topic of racial profiling. Danae is a CFA charterholder and holds an MBA from the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley. Danae graduated with a B.A. in Humanities from UNC-Chapel Hill, where she was a Morehead Scholar and varsity rower.
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About Indiegogo: Indiegogo is a crowdfunding platform empowering people around the world to fund projects that matter to them.
Daniel Petkevich
CEO and Founder of Virgil Insurance
Daniel Petkevich is the CEO and Founder of Virgil Insurance.
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About Fair Square Medicare, Virgil Insurance: Virgil Insurance is an insurance firm that offers various kinds of plans and experiences for seniors to shop for health insurance online.
David Fisher
Co-Founder & Managing Partner of 9Yards Capital
David focuses on investments in the enterprise and consumer segments. Previously, David worked at the private equity firm Leonard Green & Partners and the investment bank JP Morgan & Chase. He is an alum of Stanford GSB, and graduated summa cum laude from The University of Pennsylvania.
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About 9Yards Capital: 9YC is a global investment firm that invests in tech enabled consumer and enterprise fintech and logistics companies at the growth stage.
Theo Osborne
Co-Founder & Managing Partner of 9Yards Capital
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About 9Yards Capital: 9YC is a global investment firm that invests in tech enabled consumer and enterprise fintech and logistics companies at the growth stage.
Dave Leyrer
Co-Founder and Managing Partner of 3L Capital
Dave Leyrer is a Venture Partner at FirstMark. He’s also a co-founder at Boulevard Capital Management, a multi-asset class investment firm based in LA. Earlier in his career, Dave founded and managed Nexus Group, a management company based in SF and Menlo Park which managed technology-focused venture funds and a technology-oriented hedge fund. Before Nexus, Dave was a Director at DMG Technology Group and CSFB Technology Group. He is also the Chairman of Citymaps and Omaze, a mentor at AmplifyLA, a board member of The Nantucket Project, a board member at CoachART, a former Chairman of PS Arts and a board member of Adopt-a-Classroom. Dave is a graduate of Lafayette College and lives in Los Angeles with his wife and three children.
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About 3L Capital, The Safe + Fair Food Company: 3L is a multi-stage growth equity firm that invests across tech-enabled consumer and enterprise businesses.
Al Burgio
Founder & CEO of Zytara
As founder and CEO of Zytara, Al Burgio leads the development and strategic direction of the company. Al also founded Console Connect in 2011, the pioneer of software-defined interconnection. He has been a serial entrepreneur for over 20 years with diverse experience across various industries including the financial industry and multiple areas of technology. During his time with Console as CEO, he raised in excess of $60 Million in capital from leading Silicon Valley venture capital firms, secured multiple Fortune 500 companies as customers, expanded the company’s platform into over 20 countries and was a recognized innovator with patents granted in the areas of Internet Architecture and Routing. In 2017, Console was acquired by PCCW and the platform continues to win awards globally. Al re-entered the financial technology industry in 2017 by initially founding DigitalBits, an open-source blockchain project and protocol with a primary focus on supporting branded currencies, inclusive of the emerging category of branded stablecoins. Al has been an active public speaker on an array of topics including Internet architecture and financial technology, having also been interviewed by Larry King discussing the mass adoption of blockchain technology. Al is also a member of the board of directors of Innovate Niagara, a non-profit innovation center helping entrepreneurs with leading-edge ideas to start, grow and succeed.
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About DigitalBits Project, Zytara: Zytara is a financial technology company focused on supporting Millennial and Gen Z gamers and esports enthusiasts.
Samir Vasavada
Co-Founder & CEO of Vise
Samir Vasavada is the Co-Founder & CEO of Vise. Vise is a venture-backed startup using Artificial Intelligence to revolutionize Portfolio Construction and Management for RIAs and Family Offices. Vise allows investment advisors the ability to provide tailored financial advice to each of their clients powered by proprietary Portfolio Intelligence making them smarter and more efficient. Vise AI is backed by Peter Thiel’s Founder’s Fund, Bling Capital, Great Oaks Ventures, and the Wharton School of Business amongst other investors. In his respective position, Samir is responsible for Operations, Business Development and managing a team of Engineers and Ph.D. AI and Quantitative Finance Researchers. Prior to Vise AI, Samir founded NYX Group, a technologies firm specializing in Marketing and Software Development. He oversaw an international team of developers and projects. Samir sits on advisory boards for several SaaS startups as well as a fellow at Lightspeed Venture Partners. He is also a consultant with GLG and Coleman Research amongst his own personal portfolio. He has consulted with firms such as UBS, BCG, Mass Mutual, Deutsche Bank and others on Artificial Intelligence in Portfolio Management and Infrastructure in the AI space. Alongside consulting, Samir actively speaks on AI & Fintech at conferences around the globe such as Money20/20, InVest, Raymond James Institutional Investors, AI World and more.
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About Vise: Vise is an AI-driven portfolio management platform for financial advisors.
Alexey Kalinichenko
Co-Founder and CTO of Step
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About Step: Step is a financial services company that builds mobile-based banking for teenagers.
CJ MacDonald
Founder & CEO of Step
CJ is a serial entrepreneur and has over 15 years experience launching early stage startups across multiple industries. He has demonstrated an exceptional ability throughout his career to bring innovative products to market, attract large clients and deliver rapid sales expansion in emerging technology verticals. Currently CJ is the Founder and CEO Step, a next generation banking platform. Prior to Step, CJ was the co-founder of Gyft (Acquired by First Data), led Sales and Business Development initiatives at Luminate (Acquired by Yahoo) and was an early executive at Liveops. CJ is a graduate from Wesleyan University and lives in the Bay Area.
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About Step: Step is a financial services company that builds mobile-based banking for teenagers.
Colin Walsh
CEO and Co-Founder of Varo Money
Colin Walsh is the brainchild behind Varo and its mission to revolutionize banking. Colin and his team founded Varo to create a better way of banking that empowers consumers to be more in control of their financial lives. He believes too many people are not well served by the big banks, which have created a significant opportunity for innovators. Varo is building a seamless retail banking solution that addresses big pain points for the ~20 million millennial Americans (ages 22-36) who are creditworthy yet still manage their money on a month-to-month basis. These Americans are often one unexpected event away from running into financial trouble, which can prevent them from building savings and investing their money around longer-term goals. Varo has designed a product that allows its customers to see their full financial picture, understand how they’re spending, and access lending and savings products to smooth cash flow and build wealth over time. Varo’s frictionless, mobile-first banking solution does not charge overdraft fees or punitive interest rates, thereby eliminating the harmful fees traditional banks rely on to make money from this large segment of consumers. As proven in other industries, innovators who introduce products people love at lower cost often create massive disruption. We believe the time for such a change in retail banking has arrived. Understanding banking and how people manage their money is a vital part of developing such a new mobile banking platform. Walsh is perfectly positioned to do this with more than 25 years of retail financial services industry experience. His knowledge and expertise is guiding the Varo team to deliver a platform that allows users to effortlessly cover their expenses and build their wealth, so they can get on with their lives.
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About Varo Money: Varo is a digital bank that offers innovative, premium banking services wrapped in inclusive design.
Ekechi Nwokah
Co-Founder and CEO of Migo
Ekechi Nwokah has 20 years of experience building distributed systems and data center infrastructure. He was a visiting professor at Purdue University before leaving academia to join SGI and NASA, where he built large parallel Altix and Origin machines, and was tech lead on COLUMBIA, the fastest supercomputer in the world in 2004. He is also an expert in cloud infrastructure and security, having spent several years at Amazon AWS building cloud services. He received his Ph.D. in Computer Engineering from Purdue University.
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About Migo: Migo is a cloud-based platform that allows customers to use loans, make purchases, and withdraw cash without the need for plastic cards.
Daniel Ahn
Founder & Managing Partner of Clearvision Ventures
Dan enjoys working with early stage companies and entrepreneurs to create their business plans and Go To Market strategies to disrupt existing markets and create new ones. Dan focuses on enterprise software and infrastructure, around the convergence of SaaS, big data and cloud computing. He has extensive experience in venture capital investing, portfolio company management and technology entrepreneurship.He serves on the boards of AutoGrid, where he was the founding VC, ChargePoint, ClearCare, Vidder, Placecast and Wise.io for Voyager. Prior to Voyager, Dan was a partner and managing director at Woodside Fund, an early stage venture capital firm, for nine years. At Woodside, he led the firm’s investing in core technology and infrastructure companies, and led the creation, development and investment in numerous successful companies, including companies such as Analogix and Berkeley Design.Prior to Woodside Fund, he was an associate at the Foster Management Company, a venture capital firm that invested in and consolidated fragmented service companies. Prior to that time, Dan was the co-founder and president of a successful technology startup company, Endpoint Technologies, Inc., which developed and sold real-time manufacturing control systems for semiconductor device production. He was responsible for the company’s product management, business development, and finance functions. The company was acquired by Applied Materials.Prior to that activity, Dan was with the venture capital group at CS First Boston, where he worked with information technology companies. Outside of work, Dan enjoys spending time with his family and is a classical violinist.Dan has an MBA from Harvard Business School and an AB, magna cum laude, from Harvard College.
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About Clearvision Ventures, Envision Ventures: Clearvision Ventures is a a venture capital firm that helps entrepreneurs build category leading companies.
Jeremy Born
Founder & CEO of CoinGenius
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About CoinGenius, NFT Genius: CoinGenius is an advanced intelligence and analytics platform specifically intended for cryptocurrency traders.
Stefan Roever
CEO & Co-Founder of Aikon
Stefan has a broad entrepreneurial, technology, and finance background. He is Founder and CEO of Genia Technologies, a next generation DNA sequencing company based in Mountain View, CA. Genia Technologies was sold to Roche in 2014. He’s also Founder of OnCircle, an online content syndication and distribution platform. He is an active private equity investor and currently serves as Chairman of WRS Materials, a roll-up of wafer reclaim companies. He was Founder and CEO of Brokat Technologies, an encryption and banking software company. Brokat went public in 1998 on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange and on NASDAQ in 2000, where it reached a several billion dollar market cap. He is active worldwide in fostering m-commerce and is a popular speaker at business and technology conferences. Stefan was honored with the Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award in Germany. He is also a two time award holder of Technology Pioneer by the World Economic Forum.
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About Aikon, Gbox by OnCircle, Inc.: Aikon provides API-based Blockchain as a Service for top public blockchains including EOS, Ethereum and Libra
Betsabe Botaitis
Co-Founder and CFO of Aikon
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About Aikon, Kueski: Aikon provides API-based Blockchain as a Service for top public blockchains including EOS, Ethereum and Libra
Tray Lewin
Co-Founder, Chief Technology Officer of Aikon
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About Aikon: Aikon provides API-based Blockchain as a Service for top public blockchains including EOS, Ethereum and Libra
Jamie Hale
Co-Founder & CEO of Ladder
Jamie is Ladder’s CEO and chief evangelist. He believes life insurance is a fundamentally great product for families and communities and so built Ladder to be the smart, modern way to insure your life. Prior to cofounding Ladder, Jamie was Partner at Aldenwood Capital and at Oak Hill Investment Management, a premier family office with over $12 billion in assets. Jamie also worked at NextCard, pioneering instant credit and the first ‘internet enabled’ Visa card. Jamie is a graduate of Bowdoin College and Harvard Business School.
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About Ladder: Ladder is a digital life insurance company that offers flexible term coverage in minutes saving policyholders up to 40%.
Jeff Merkel
Co-Founder of Ladder
Jeff Merkel is a co-founder at Ladder, VC-backed startup that provides a smart, simple way to insure your life. He joined from Issuu, where he was CRO, responsible for managing sales and business development. Previously, he was director of global Android partnerships at Google. Jeff joined Google as part of the AdMob acquisition, where he was vice president and general manager of Asia Pacific. Earlier in his career, Jeff was director of media solutions for Motorola where he was responsible for sell in, commercialization, and marketing of media solutions and services. He also held the positions of marketing manager at Apple Computer, a business development manager for a wireless payment startup in Singapore and a management consultant for Price Waterhouse in the U.S. and Europe. Jeff holds bachelor’s degree from Taylor University and an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.
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About Ladder: Ladder is a digital life insurance company that offers flexible term coverage in minutes saving policyholders up to 40%.
Galia Benartzi
Co-Founder, Business Development of Bancor
Galia Benartzi is a serial technology entrepreneur and co-founder of the Bancor Protocol, a standard for the creation of Smart Tokens™, cryptocurrencies with built-in convertibility directly through their smart contracts. Smart Tokens™ interconnect to form automated token liquidity networks, allowing user-generated currencies to thrive. Galia has a BA in Comparative Literature from Dartmouth College and an MA in International Economics from SAIS Johns Hopkins. In 2005, Galia co-founded Mytopia, the first social gaming company for smartphones (acquired by 888), and in 2010, Particle Code, a cross-platform development technology for mobile applications (acquired by Appcelerator). In 2013, Galia moved from Silicon Valley to Tel Aviv to support and invest in Israeli technology as a Venture Partner at Founders Fund, where she also launched numerous local currency pilots to model, build and test software for community currencies. Galia is a founding member of Powder Mountain, permanent home of the Summit community in Eden, Utah, and creator of the Eden2Zion Reality trips by the Schusterman Foundation. She is passionate about decentralized technologies, women’s empowerment, consciousness, natural wellness and plants.
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About Bancor: Bancor is crypto company protocol for the creation of Smart Tokens that touts a decentralized exchange service.
