Venture with Grace

Peter Walker runs the Insights team at Carta, focused on discovering key data and narratives across the private capital ecosystem. In a former life, he was a marketing executive for a media analytics startup and led the data visualization team at the Covid Tracking Project.

Prasad Kawthekar is the CEO & Co-founder of Dashworks. Dashworks is the personalized, all-in-one, and secure AI solution for organizations. Dashworks learns from existing knowledge scattered across siloed cloud applications to help employees find instant answers to all their questions at work. The company has raised funds from investors including Y Combinator, Point72 Ventures, and OVO Fund. Prasad was also featured on Forbes' 30 under 30 Enterprise Technology sector in 2024.

Evan J. Zimmerman is an entrepreneur, investor, and writer. He is the co-founder and CEO of Edge, a patent assistant startup backed by Y Combinator, for which he was recognized in Forbes 30 Under 30 2023. He invests through Jovono, his personal venture capital firm, and was Chairman of the Clinton Health Access Initiative technology council, which advises the technology of global public health in dozens of partner countries. Evan was inducted as the youngest member of the MAK Museum in Vienna's Biennale Circle, which planned the 2017 Vienna Biennale on the “Future Of Work” and is a member of the strategy board for Broad Center for Regenerative Medicine at USC. He also speaks and writes on technology, with popular pieces and academic publications in places like Techcrunch, the Berkeley Technology Law Journal, and the South China Morning Post. He was previously a cofounder of Mighty Ventures, which licensed patents in consumer products that have sold millions of units in dozens of countries, including affiliate Mighty Mug. Evan has a law degree from Berkeley Law School, where he was a Dean’s Scholar with certificates in technology law and business law and won a Prosser award. He graduated from the University of Chicago, where he was a University Scholar, with general and departmental honors in economics and conducted his thesis work on the economics of embargoes as a visiting undergraduate at Harvard University.

Hyphen Capital was founded and led by Dave Lu. Dave is a Silicon Valley veteran and started his career in tech at Yahoo! in the late 90s. He sat around the corner from Jerry Yang, an entrepreneurial inspiration for many Asian Americans including himself. He went on to work at other iconic technology companies including Apple, eBay and Cisco before starting his first company Fanpop. After growing the company to 40 million users, he went on to start his second company Expo, backed by True Ventures, Uncork Capital and CRV.

Dave has always been passionate about Asian American issues. Most recently, he led the effort to take a stand against the rise in Asian hate crimes by publishing an open letter in the Wall Street Journal and rallying thousands of leaders to sign in support including President George Bush, Andre Iguodala, and CEOs of Google, LinkedIn, Foot Locker and hundreds of others. This movement led to founding Stand with Asian Americans, a non-profit focused on fighting discrimination for Asians in the workplace and communities. He also produced the Emmy-winning HBO documentary "38 at the Garden" and sits on the advisory board for the Smithsonian's Asian Pacific American Center.

Dave sensed a lack of community for founders of East and Southeast Asian descent and started Asian American Founders Circle in 2011. Inspired by his fellow founders, he wanted to do more for the next generation and pay it forward by investing in them. Thus Hyphen Capital was born.

Topics:

- Balancing Financial Returns with Social Impact

- Building a Diverse Investment Portfolio

- Building a Great Network

#VentureCapital #Investing #StartupSuccess #AsianAmericanFounders #Networking

Samit Kalra is a Partner at 1984 Ventures, a San Francisco-based seed fund that backs technical founders using software to solve pressing market needs. The fund is currently investing out of its $75M Fund II. Samit joined the team in 2021, following a two-and-a-half-year tenure at Bain Capital Ventures, a prominent multi-stage fund that has backed iconic companies such as Docusign and LinkedIn. Before his time at Bain, he worked at AngelList, a startup dedicated to building tools for other startups.

Magnus Grimeland is the Chief Executive Officer and Founder of Antler, a global early-stage VC enabling and investing in the world's most exceptional people. He leads a global team across 6 continents, 30+ locations with the mission to fundamentally improve the world by supporting founders, who are building the defining companies of tomorrow. Antler has invested in, and helped build 1100+ portfolio companies worldwide and established the world’s largest early-stage investment platform, with an unparalleled global network of entrepreneurial leaders and advisors.

Alex Freberg is the Founder & CEO of Analyst Builder and Alex Analytics LLC. He is also the creator of a highly popular YouTube channel, "Alex The Analyst," which has amassed over 780,000 subscribers. Alex's channel provides comprehensive content on everything you need to know to become a data analyst, making him a prominent figure in the data analytics community. Through his educational videos and expert insights, Alex has empowered countless individuals to pursue careers in data analytics, bridging the gap between knowledge and practical application.

Marshall Sandman is the Managing Partner of Animal Capital.

Renee Shah is a Partner at Amplify Partners. Amplify Partners is an early-stage venture capital fund. She is focused on security, infrastructure and dev tools. Prior to Amplify Partners, Renee worked at BCG (The Boston Consulting Group) focused on strategy for healthcare and private equity clients; Clinton Health Access Initiative, Inc. where she invested in new technology to improve healthcare in East Africa, and Emerging Products & Solutions / Waymo LiDAR team at Google. Renee holds an MBA from Stanford GSB and Harvard Bachelor degree.

Jesse Draper is a mother of 3 boys, founding partner of Halogen Ventures and focused on early stage investing in consumer technology companies led by female and co-ed teams. Draper is a Kauffman Fellow and 4th generation venture capitalist. She is a fierce advocate for investing in women and the opportunity for using technology and innovation to solve some of the biggest issues facing women and families today. Among her 70+ portfolio companies, are the Skimm, ThirdLove, HopSkipDrive, The Flex Company, Squad (acquired by Twitter), Eloquii (sold to Walmart) and This is L (sold to P&G). She and her team also created the ‘Halogen Fellowship in Venture Capital’ to increase diversity and inclusion in the venture industry.