The Sure Shot Entrepreneur

Hans Morris is the founder and managing partner at NYCA Partners, a fintech focused venture capital firm in New York and Silicon Valley. As one of the early fintech leaders, Hans had a successful 27-year career leading at different financial services companies including at Visa as President, General Atlantic, CitiGroup, and Salomon Smith Barney. He shares deep insights about venture capital in fintech.

Arjan Schutte is the founder and managing partner at Core Innovation Capital, a venture capital firm that helps entrepreneurs build disruptive, high-growth FinTech businesses. Arjan shares insights on solving public sector problems using marketplace solutions. He is keen on ideas that can create social impact alongside providing competitive financial returns.

Kate Beardsley is a founding partner at Hannah Grey, a Denver-based venture capital firm that focuses on the intersection of technology and human behavior. She narrates her in-depth experience on the operation side of venture funds before becoming an investor. Kate also exemplifies why founders should prepare to meet and engage the investor meaningfully at the start of the funding process.

Ashley Paston is a Principal at New York-based Bain Capital Ventures and focuses on FinTech. She looks for founders who can zoom in and out of a pain point, offer a unique solution, and explain how to build a successful company out of the idea. She gives insightful perspectives on FinTech trends and opportunities.

Jocelyn Goldfein is a managing director at Zetta Venture Partners, a Silicon Valley-based venture capital firm that invests in AI-first startups. Jocelyn led engineering teams while at Facebook and VMware during their high-growth years before becoming a venture capital investor. In founders, she looks for real empathy for customers. Jocelyn has backed over 20 startups focused on enterprise infrastructure and artificial intelligence.

Aashay Sanghvi is an investor at Haystack, a Silicon Valley-based venture capital firm that focuses on pre-seed and seed software and technology investments. Aashay got into venture capital very early, which is against the general advice: “don’t get into investing too early”. He’s keen to find founders who are creating solutions that build the technological infrastructure for the future.

Ali Tamaseb is a partner at Data Collective Venture Capital (DCVC), a Silicon Valley-based venture capital firm that backs entrepreneurs using deep tech. He shares insightful findings of his 4-year long research on billion-dollar startups and their founders (documented in his new book: Super Founders). Ali gives data points that deconstruct myths about the startup ecosystem in the U.S., and show what is/isn’t significant as success factors for founders and venture capital investors.

Jason Best is the co-founder and Managing Partner of Vectr Fintech Partners (VFP), a globally-focused early stage fintech venture capital firm. He shares profound real-life experiences showing how networking makes it easier for entrepreneurs to turn ideas into impact. He also gives an insightful story of how he contributed to the enactment of the 2012 Jobs Act that improved access to equity crowdfunding.

Julian Teicke is the founder and CEO of Berlin-based Wefox, the first 100% digital European insurance company. He shares insightful experiences about starting early as an e-commerce entrepreneur in Switzerland, starting the fastest-growing insurtech company in Germany, and an unexpected Salesforce-led seed funding round. As an angel investor, Julian frames his investment philosophy around big dreams, ultimate resilience, and developing a vision together.

Andrew Gluck is a General Partner at irrvrntVC, a New York-based venture capital firm focused on direct-to-customer, AdTech, and NextGen Commerce. Andrew strongly believes in founder-market fit and is excited to invest in startups targeting fast growing markets. He shares insightful stories of founders transforming ideas into market-defining businesses.