She-VC by Gayatri Sarkar

Kate Shillo Beardsley is a Founding Partner at Hannah Grey, an early-stage venture capital firm investing at the intersection of human behavior and technology.

Kate built Upslope Ventures (FKA Galvanize Ventures); as a Partner at Upslope, Kate led investments in Billie (acquired by P&G), Gridcraft (acquired by Workday), Notion (acquired by Comcast), Parcel (acquired by Walmart), PureWow (acquired by Gallery Media Group), Vida (acquired by Compress USA), Slash (acquired by Giphy), Wisebanyan (acquired by Axos), and many others.

Prior to Upslope, Kate was the first founding member of Lerer Hippeau in NYC where she worked with founders scaling their businesses and became a trusted ally of the inner circle of early NYC entrepreneurs. She helped raise 3 funds and invested in 200+ startups, including sourcing now-iconic brands Paperless Post and Venmo (acquired by Braintree), and participated in investments including Warby Parker, Glossier, Casper, Everlane, Food52 (acquired by Cherin Group), Makerbot, Barkbox, and BaubleBar. Today Lerer Hippeau is one of the largest and most active funds in NYC.

Kate is Board Co-Chair of the Rocky Mountain Venture Capital Association and on the board of the Rockies Venture Club. She has appeared on CNBC and Fox Business and has been featured on CNN, the Denver Business Journal as well as leading technology podcasts Twenty Minute VC, She-VC, and Upside.fm.

More about Arlan: 

Arlan Hamilton built a venture capital fund from the ground up, while homeless. She is the Founder and Managing Partner of Backstage Capital, a fund that is dedicated to minimizing funding disparities in tech by investing in high-potential founders who are people of color, women, and/or LGBT. Started from scratch in 2015, Backstage has now raised more than $15 million and invested in more than 170 startup companies led by underestimated founders. In 2018 Arlan co-founded Backstage Studio which launched four accelerator programs for underestimated founders in Detroit, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, and London.

More about Sahil: 

Sahil is the founder and CEO of Gumroad. He is the founder of solo GP fund on Angel list rolling fund.

More about Samir: 

Podcast (Venture Unlocked)and Blog: Ventureunlocked.substack.com

More about Nihal: 

Nihal is the human Rolodex, thanks to the thousands of connections he has made with some of the world’s top companies and brands. He developed many of these connections over the past 20+ years while founding five different tech startups. Prior to founding Eniac, Nihal was the founding CEO of LocalResponse, where he grew revenues 2153% in three years and landed them on Inc. 5000’s Fastest Growing Companies. Nihal also was the founding CEO for buzzd, the first real-time mobile cityguide, and ipsh!, one of the first full-service mobile marketing agencies in 2001, which was acquired by Omnicom (NYSE: OMC) in 2005.

Early in his career, Nihal honed his ability to spot top entrepreneurial talent by investing in Admob (acquired by Google), Swiftkey (acquired by Microsoft), Tapad (acquired by Telenor),  Tala, and Uber to name a few. Because of his experience both building and funding top technologies, he frequently guest lectures at business schools around the country on entrepreneurship and mobile marketing and is published in over 15 books and white papers on the subject.

Outside of the office Nihal loves to spend time with his wife Reshma and is a big supporter of her non-profit Girls Who Code. Around town, you will usually see him with his sons Shaan and Sai and beagle-bulldog Stanley. Nihal is the life of the party, which is why he always spearheads Eniac events.

Nihal graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a BA in Philosophy and a BSE in Computer Science.

More about Bahiya: 

Bahiyah Yasmeen Robinson is a recognized innovator of new avenues for VC and Impact investment. Her expertise in leading technology, investment and social impact initiatives culminated in creating VC Include (VCI) in 2018. VCI was created because she didn't see any platforms specifically cultivating the type of undervalued, outperforming product led by diverse managers that would drive alpha and innovation in Private Equity and Alternative Investments over the next 30 years.

More about Ashimee: 

Ashmeet is the Chief Engineer of Engineering Capital (www.engineeringcapital.com). His experience includes managing venture capital funds, serving on multiple Boards of Directors, and helping build the industry leading products VMware ESX Server and Silicon Graphics WebFORCE. Before this last decade as a venture capitalist Ashmeet was an operating executive with hands-on operating experience as a CEO and Entrepreneur.

More about Ita: 

Ita's mission is to engage, educate, and elevate the next generation of successful women business leaders and investors. As the Founder & CEO of Tigress Ventures, an advisory and consulting firm she started in 2014, Ita tapped her considerable network to bring together visionary entrepreneurs with seasoned pro’s to help women scale their businesses and hone their leadership skills. Tigress Ventures hosted a monthly speakers series featuring thought leaders and industry experts, and provided private consultations with individual clients.

Ita also served as Venture Partner at Plum Alley Investments, where she oversaw investment opportunities and pipeline for high-growth female-founded and gender-diverse startups.

Previously, Ita held product management roles at TravelClick and American Express. She began her career at Goldman Sachs as an analyst in Credit Capital Markets and then as an institutional trader of preferred stock.

Ita holds an MBA in Marketing and Entrepreneurial Management from The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania; and earned a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology, with a certificate in Finance, from Princeton University.

More about Iris: 

Iris is the Head of Capital Formation and Investment Solutions at Castleforge Partners. Prior to that Iris was a Managing Director at GCM Grosvenor based in New York, where she headed its global growth and venture as well as Asian private equity verticals. Prior to joining GCM Grosvenor, Iris was a Partner in the Customized Fund Investment Group of Credit Suisse Group AG, which specialized in providing customized PE solutions to institutional investors. Iris started in CFIG’s New York office, led the establishment of the CFIG’s Hong Kong office and is a founding member of its London office. Iris currently serves on the Executive Committee of Private Equity Women Investor Network (PEWIN) as well as on the board of PEWIN Foundation.

About Hailey Barna: 

Prior to joining First Round, I was Co-CEO at Birchbox, growing it from launch to over a million monthly subscribers, and raising $70M in venture capital in the process. As we took the business global, I managed marketing, operations, strategy and technology. So, let’s just say I’ve been there and I get it.

So how did I get here? Good question, especially considering that I spent the six months before joining First Round telling everyone who asked that I didn’t want to be a VC. And I’m not here because I changed my mind. I’m here because I so valued being a part of the First Round community that I wanted to remain a part of it and give back to it. I’m here because I believe that the way we do venture at First Round is unique. For us, it’s a team sport and a community endeavor, all done in service to the entrepreneur.

I knew from the moment I had my first conversation with Phin that I wanted First Round to lead Birchbox’s seed round. He explained the founders-first philosophy — that even if they disagree, they’ll let you know why of course, but support you in doing what you think is best. That they’d rather connect you to someone else who actually knows (including the many entrepreneurs they work with) than claim to know something they don’t. This could have been a lot of talk, but it bore out, and Phin was often my first call whenever times got tough.

As a recent entrepreneur, I know how critical having trust in your investors is. Now, I feel like I have a foot in both worlds. My founder experience is still fresh, but I can offer perspective from covered territory. When I joined First Round, I gave a lot of thought to the type of VC I want to be, and I decided to be one that wouldn’t hedge talking about mistakes and lessons hard won. I want to roll up my sleeves and leverage the skills that made me a good founder in the first place: I’m extremely data-driven, I believe all problems are solvable. I think creativity, teamwork and iteration can break through walls. Have a gnarly issue? Let’s hang out with a whiteboard for few hours and let’s jam.

I think that’s why I’m so interested in startups taking on problems we’ve all assumed were unsolvable, or things we didn’t realize were a problem until someone with a unique vision pointed it out to us and showed us it could be better. These unexpected, yet awesome companies are run by founders who know the world can be improved, and they won’t stop until it happens. Even if they don’t know yet exactly how they’re going to make that dent in the universe (and freely admit it), they know that dent’s gotta get made.

As an angel investor before joining First Round, I often asked people what impact they hoped their business will have had in five years. Some would say something quantifiable like, “We’ll have hit $XM in revenue and hired X people.” Others will respond with something much more lofty and mission-driven about what will have fundamentally changed for their industry or their customers. In my experience, the best companies are a blend of the two. Something big and ambitious and good that they can break into clear steps and measure success along the way.

Before Birchbox, I worked at Bain & Company and went to Harvard Business School (thus the focus on measurement and execution as well as deep experience with theme parties). But my proudest moment as an entrepreneur doesn’t have so much to do with returns or revenue. It’s that I was able to build a culture at Birchbox strong enough to thrive beyond my direct oversight. If I can help even a few founders feel this way, then I’ll consider my work here a success.