Event: June 7th | San Francisco

The Best of Founders Network

In Real Life

Artifical Intelligence and the Startup Ecosystem

Member Registration

Guest Registration

#FNIRL2023

Happening Now!

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 how artificial intelligence is shaping the startup ecosystem.

Member Registration

Guest Registration

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."

ALL DAY EVENT

June 7th | 9am - 5pm

One Market Plaza, San Francisco

What to Expect

This year's event will explore the impact of AI on startups, the future of work, and the legal and ethical considerations surrounding AI development and deployment.

At fnIRL 2023, startup founders will have the opportunity to learn from leading tech innovators, startup founders, and investors who are at the forefront of this rapidly evolving field.

We’re also hosting curated networking sessions where participants will have the opportunity to meet 1-on-1 with tech startup founders and investors.

Member Registration

Guest Registration

fnIRL Agenda

9:00 AM - 9:30 AM

Registration and Continental Breakfast

9:30 AM - 10:00 AM

Opening Remarks and Icebreaker

10:10 AM - 11:00 AM

Keynote with Adam Cheyer - Founder of Siri

With Introduction by David Ordal, SF Chapter Director & Lifetime Member

11:10 AM - 12:10 PM

AI-Powered Entrepreneurship: Building the Future of Startups

With hundreds of startup founders building AI startups and even more using AI to rapidly scale their startups, it’s impossible to overstate the impact AI is currently having on the startup ecosystem. In a discussion with founders from AI-driven and AI-enabled startups, we’ll explore how AI is driving innovation and how to harness its potential.

Moderator: Sophie Alcorn,
Founder, Alcorn Immigration Law
Vaishnavi Srivathsan,
Founder, AI Tinkerer
Dave Renz,
Founder, Tanooki Labs
Rob Mallernee,
Founder, Eton Solutions
Ryan Buckley,
Founder, Shovels.ai

12:15 PM - 1:15 PM

Strolling Lunch Presented by Eton Solutions

1:15 PM - 2:15 PM

Investing in Innovation: State of the Investment Landscape

In a recent Pitchbook survey, investors identified AI as the area where they expect to see the most innovation in the next 12 months, followed closely by climate tech, biotech, and fintech.In this discussion with startup investors, we’ll explore the current investment landscape and how investors identify disruptive technologies, assess market potential, and support founders in driving innovation.

Moderator: Jim Jensen,
Member, Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati
Nuno Goncalves Pedro,
Founder & Managing Partner, Chamaeleon
Kendrick Kho,
Partner, Global Founders Capital
David Lambert,
Founder & Managing Director, Right Side Capital
Dave Anderson,
Founding Partner, Beat Ventures

2:15 PM - 4:30 PM

Investor-Curated Roundtables

These intimate sessions provide an opportunity for founders to engage in direct conversations with investors. Each roundtable will consist of a limited number of founders and investors, allowing for focused discussions and personalized interactions.

Practical AI: A Workshop with Aaron Ganek & Adrian Garcia

According to a recent report, 77% of businesses are using or exploring AI. Startups are leveraging the technology to automate tasks, personalize user experiences, analyze data for predictive analytics, improve customer service through chatbots, and explore image and speech recognition applications. This collaborative workshop will explore AI use cases, including AI-built apps, and opportunities in the AI tech stack.

Pop Up Financial Review with Eton Solutions

Gain valuable insights into the world of family offices and financial management with Eton Solutions.

4:30 PM - 4:45 PM

Closing Remarks

fnIRL Post-Event Social

After a day filled with inspiring talks and insightful sessions, join us at Salesforce Park Beer Garden where you’ll have the opportunity to unwind, network, and reflect on the conference.

2023 Speakers

Adam Cheyer

Co-Founder & VP Engineering

Viv & 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 Director

Right 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-Founder

Tanooki 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

Entrepreneur

Vaish 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 Partner

Chamaeleon

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 Lead

Global 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 Partner

Beat 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

CEO

ETON 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 & CEO

ExaVault

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 & CEO

Fathom

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.