Event: May 8th | Location: TBA
The Best of Founders Network
In Real Life
Fundraising in a Shifting Landscape
#FNIRL2025
Convening tech startup founders and investors in the heart of San Francisco, fnIRL highlights the best of FN's online mentorship platform, in real life.
This one-day event will explore fundraising in a shifting landscape.
An Event “Like no other...”
Not a member? Request an invitation to join FN for exclusive pricing!
"Fantastic program with relevant and high quality content, all in a casual, friendly atmosphere. The VCs were all approachable and supportive."
"fnIRL is a startup conference like no other. Where else is the ratio of entrepreneurs to investors almost 1:1? Where else does everyone actually spend the time to really connect and help?"
"I’ve attended other networking and startup events. This was by far the most open, non-pretentious, and supportive experience I have attended."
Our Sponsors
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Featured Speakers and Investors
Adam Cheyer
Co-Founder & VP EngineeringViv & Siri
Adam Cheyer is an inventor, entrepreneur, and engineering executive who explores how computers can augment individual and collective intelligence. He is currently co-founder and VP Engineering of Viv Labs, a startup whose goal is to simplify the world by providing an intelligent interface to everything. Previously, Adam was co-founder and VP Engineering at Siri, Inc. Adam is also a Founding Member and Advisor to Change.org (180M people taking action, victories every day), and a co-founder of Sentient.ai (solving the world’s hardest problems through massively-scaled machine learning). As a researcher, Adam has authored 60 publications and 25 issued patents.
Dave Lambert
Co-Founder & Managing DirectorRight Side Capital
Dave Lambert is Managing Director and co-founder of Right Side Capital. His firm is one of the most active pre-VC stage investors in the US. Right Side Capital primarily invests in companies raising sub-$500k rounds at sub-$4M valuations that already have a live product generating revenue. They use a quantitative investment selection process to make very quick YES / NO decisions and have invested into 1,300+ portfolio companies since 2012. Prior to founding Right Side Capital, Dave was CEO and co-founder of two different technology startups; one hardware, and one software.
Dave Renz
Co-FounderTanooki Labs
Dave is an entrepreneur with a diverse background and process driven approach to solving technology and business challenges. He has a degree in Computer Science, worked in enterprise IT, venture capital, corporate innovation and many startups. Today, he is the co-founder of Tanooki Labs, a software design and development firm that focuses on helping founders bring their products and services to market and supporting growth.
Vaishnavi Srivathsan
EntrepreneurVaish is a tech entrepreneur, building in Generative AI and is focused on where it can generate 100x returns. Prior to this, she helped companies like Box and Samsara scale in an efficient manner through their growth phases. At heart, she is a generalist and a first principles problem solver who's worked across strategy, product and GTM teams. She is passionate about applying technology in creative ways to improve human lives.
Nuno Goncalves Pedro
Founder & Managing PartnerChamaeleon
Nuno Goncalves Pedro is a Managing Partner and Founder at Chamaeleon and Strive Capital. He is also a Co-founder and Host at Tech Deciphered and was a Venture Partner at Grishin Robotics. He attended Instituto Superior Técnico.
Kendrick Kho
Global Enterprise/Software LeadGlobal Founders Capital
Kendrick is now the global enterprise / software lead at Global Founders Capital. Focus areas also include fintech, real estate tech, and deeptech. Kendrick was a Senior Associate at Hone Capital, leading the development and use of Hone’s quantitative tools. Prior to joining Hone Capital, he worked in renewable energy, virtual reality,consumer electronics, and management consulting. Kendrick holds three degrees from Stanford University: an MS in Management Science and Engineering, a BS in Science, Technology, and Society, and a BS in Earth Systems.
Dave Anderson
Founding PartnerBeat Ventures
Dave is the founding partner of Beat Ventures, a pre-seed/seed venture fund that invests up to $500K in applied AI companies that augment and enhance human performance rather than fully replacing it. Early checks into Ziva Dynamics (acq. by Unity), Bipi (acq. by RBI), AEYE (NASDAQ: LIDR), Common Sense Machines, Drishti, Operant AI, Volur, Stack AI, Oxen, Central Casting AI, Middleware, Hireguide, Treehouse, Fishtail, Clockwork, Safe, Mentorcam, Dropverse, UH, Carbice, Nauto, Metawave, Realtime Robotics, May Mobility, Skip, Clubhouse, Firefly, SoftDrive, and 2 stealth companies. Featured in Crain’s Detroit Business 20 in their 20s, Huffington Post, Blac Magazine, and ABC’s 20/20.
Robert Mallernee
CEOETON Solutions
As CEO of ETON Solutions Rob is leading a third-generation wealth management technology firm in developing and offering the most comprehensive, integrated platform for the family office, multi-family office and wealth manager market. The ETON Solutions platform is based upon Rob’s deep domain expertise in wealth management, supplemented by strong systems development and client service teams.
David Ordal
Founder & CEOExaVault
David is passionate about building technology companies. He was the Founder and CEO at ExaVault, which was acquired by Files.com in late 2021. He maintains a bliki (blog+wiki) at www.startupcto.com, which contains a brain dump of the practical, hands-on lessons that he’s learned while developing tech startups.
Richard White
Founder & CEOFathom
Richard White has been a founder and deeply entrenched in the Silicon Valley startup scene for the last two decades. He was Product Design lead at Kiko.com, the startup that Justin Kan and Emmett (subsequent founders of Twitch.tv) sold on ebay for $258K. He went on to found UserVoice where he is still chairman of the board. He founded Fathom Video in 2020 and was in YC Class of Winter 2021.
#FNIRL2025
The best of FN's Online Mentorship Platform, in real life
Not a member? Request an invitation to join FN for exclusive pricing!
