Emerging Capital: The New Light Ventures Podcast

Marie-Christine Levet is the President and co-founder of Educapital, the first and largest Edtech impact fund in Europe. Based in Paris, Educapital invests in innovative startups from late seed to Series B, focusing on entrepreneurs who are transforming the future of education and work. The fund manages two portfolios and recently closed its second fund at $150M. Educapital has invested in 30 companies, including Labster, 360Learning, Preply, Fourthrev, and Engageli.

Before founding Educapital, Marie-Christine was a pioneering entrepreneur, having founded Lycos and served as CEO of T-Online France, both major French internet and media companies. After these successful ventures, she transitioned to venture capital, leveraging her experience to support emerging CEOs. She was instrumental in creating Jaina Capital, one of France's first entrepreneur-focused funds, which invested in early-stage startups.

Driven by a strong belief in the imminent transformation of the education sector through innovation, Marie-Christine co-founded Educapital in 2017 with her partner, Litzie Maarek. Marie-Christine Levet is a graduate of HEC Paris and holds an MBA from INSEAD.

Nick Moran is the Founder and General Partner of New Stack Ventures.

A former M&A and Product Management professional at Danaher, Nick began angel investing full-time in 2013. In 2014, he launched the first venture capital podcast, The Full Ratchet, growing it into one of the largest media brands in venture capital and the top 0.5% of most listened to podcasts globally. The networks and deal flow generated from the show led to the founding of New Stack Ventures, a firm that focuses on mission-driven founders based outside of the San Francisco Bay Area.

After delivering top-decile performance, New Stack has quickly become one of the leading seed funds between the coasts. They are currently investing from their second $42.6M fund and will launch their $150M third fund in Q3 of 2024.

Charles Hudson is the Managing Partner and Founder of Precursor Ventures, an early­ stage venture capital firm focused on investing in the first institutional round of investment for the most promising software and hardware companies. Under his leadership, Precursor Ventures has raised four funds and has over $200 million under management. He has invested in more than 400 companies and has supported more than 450 founders, including the teams behind Bobbie Baby, Carrot, Incredible Health, Juniper Square, Modern Health, Pair Eyewear,  Rad AI, and The Athletic (sold to the NY Times for $525 million in 2022).

Samara is the Founding Partner of an institutionally backed pre-seed stage fund, Chingona Ventures, focusing on investing in tech and tech-enabled companies across the U.S. The fund has $60MM in AUM and has made over 40 investments across technology sectors in Financial, Food, Future of Work and Learning, and Health/Wellness. Before this, she was an investor at MATH Venture Partners across two funds where she led new investment review, diligence, and execution. Samara started her career at Goldman Sachs, where she was continually ranked top 5 in selling financial products, providing market insights, advising on portfolio construction, and consulting business practices. Her career started in the Fixed Income, Currency, and Commodity (FICC) group where she led multiple tech-enhancing projects across global exchanges. She is on the advisory boards for Coolwater, an organization to support the emerging manager community; Angeles Investors, an organization investing in early-stage startups led by Latinx founders; and Venture Forward, a non-profit working to get more diversity in the venture capital ecosystem. 

Samara earned an Industrial and Operations Engineering degree from the University of Michigan and a master’s degree in Business Administration from Northwestern University. 

Shawn Merani is the Founder and Managing Partner of Parade Ventures, a pre-seed & seed stage-focused venture capital firm.

Previously, Shawn was a co-founder and partner at Flight Ventures, investing in early stage software, internet and mobile companies across a variety of sectors. Additionally, he has invested in select later stage companies. Shawn’s investments include Dollar Shave Club (acquired by Unilever), Sapho (acquired by Citrix), Moveworks, Trusted Health, Clubhouse, Side, Plastiq, Jumpcloud and others.

As an operator, Shawn was a founding partner of Liquidnet’s Private Shares marketplace, which enabled over 750 of the world’s leading asset managers to invest in high-growth, pre-IPO companies. He grew the marketplace to $150MM+ GMV in the first two years. Prior to Liquidnet, Shawn was Senior Director of Business Development at ReachLocal. Shawn has a BA in Economics and a BS in Business Administration from the University of California at Berkeley, as well as an MBA from UCLA Anderson School of Management. Shawn enjoys spending time with his family, riding his Peloton, winning at fantasy sports and supporting the Cal Bears.

Ali Jamal is a Venture Investor, Product Leader, Growth Expert, Data Scientist, and Corporate Strategist. He is the Founder of First Check Ventures, a venture capital firm that invests in early-stage startups worldwide. The syndicate has supported and invested in more than 130 startups from over 30 countries, including the US, Pakistan, India, Singapore, Venezuela, Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Nigeria, Turkey, Peru, and Colombia.

Before starting First Check Ventures, he was the Director of Growth and Performance Marketing at PayClip, Mexico's first FinTech Unicorn. Previously, Ali was the Head of Performance Marketing at Rappi, leading a team of over 80 people across 7 teams in 8 international offices and responsible for generating more than $1 billion in total transaction value per year globally. Prior to joining Rappi, he was the Head of Marketing Innovation at Agoda, where he led 3 teams across 3 international offices and was responsible for expansion into the China market. Ali also held Product and Analytical leadership roles at RockYou, Zynga, and Maxim Integrated Products. He began his career as an investment banker specializing in mergers and acquisitions in the software and internet sectors. Ali has a Bachelor's degree in Economics and a Master's degree in Statistics from Stanford University.

Matias is a General Partner at PsyMed Ventures, a venture capital fund that invests in cutting-edge brain and mental health technologies. Prior to this role, he led NVIDIA's accelerator program for AI startups in North America. Before his work at NVIDIA, Matias co-founded CookUnity, a venture-backed food technology company that has delivered over one million meals to date. In addition to his professional roles, Matias co-hosts Business Trip, a podcast that explores the world of mental health startups and their impact on the industry.

Ting Yan is the Managing Partner at TRIVE, an early-stage venture capital firm in Southeast Asia that focuses on investing in impactful, high-growth technology companies.

Ting Yan dedicates the majority of his time to working closely with TRIVE's portfolio founders to help structure their businesses for growth. 

Prior to joining TRIVE, Ting Yan began his career as an early employee at a startup. He then gained a deep understanding of early-stage startups while working in an incubator setting. Ting Yan earned a Double Degree in Finance and Economics from Singapore Management University, where he was a scholar under the Lee Kong Chian Scholars Program.

Gabriel Jarrosson is a seasoned investor and entrepreneur with over a decade of experience in the startup space and the General Partner of Lobster Capital. He has invested over $25M in Y Combinator startups.  Having sold three of his own startups, he shares his expertise in his books "My Investor Secrets" and "Investing in Startups: x100 or Nothing."