Shensi Ding is the co-founder and CEO of Merge, the unified API platform that lets B2B software companies offer hundreds of product integrations by integrating just once. A Columbia computer science graduate who detoured through investment banking at Credit Suisse and Silver Lake before becoming Chief of Staff at Expanse, she co-founded Merge in 2020 with college friend Gil Feig after they spent six months talking to 100+ companies about integration pain — without pitching a single solution. Merge has since raised $75M from Accel, NEA, and Addition, serves 7,000+ customers including Calendly, Gong, Ramp, and Brex, and has become critical infrastructure for the AI era as LLMs need real-time access to third-party data.
Finalis is a San Francisco-based fintech building the operating system for private capital markets. It pairs a registered broker-dealer with software that handles compliance, deal management, and a global network of bankers - letting independent dealmakers run M&A, capital raises, and private placements without standing up their own back office.
Ed Meyercord is President, CEO, and Director of Extreme Networks (NASDAQ: EXTR), a publicly traded enterprise networking company with 2,700 employees and over $1.1 billion in annual revenue. He took the helm in April 2015 after serving as Chairman of the board since 2011, steering Extreme from a hardware-centric also-ran into a cloud-managed, AI-native networking platform. Under his watch the company now powers the wireless networks at Old Trafford, the Burj Khalifa, Taylor Swift concert tours, and Samsung's global operations, while its SaaS ARR has grown dramatically. Before Extreme, Meyercord ran Talk America (a publicly traded telco), Cavalier Telephone, and Critical Alert Systems, after starting his career as an investment banking VP at Salomon Brothers. He is also known for bringing improv comedy principles into corporate leadership and for his advocacy for people with intellectual disabilities through SKIT Programs.
Michael F. Bigham is a veteran biopharmaceutical executive and investor who spent nearly a decade as Chairman and CEO of Paratek Pharmaceuticals, guiding the company through the FDA approval and commercial launch of NUZYRA (omadacycline) - a novel tetracycline-class antibiotic tackling drug-resistant bacterial infections. A Stanford MBA and CPA with roots in Gilead Sciences' early days, he has built, funded, and led companies across the full arc of drug development. He now operates as founder and managing director of Firebrand River Capital.
Chike Agbai is the CEO and Founder of Azumo, a San Francisco-based nearshore software development company he launched in 2016 after nearly two decades on Wall Street advising over $100 billion in enterprise software transactions for clients like Oracle, Salesforce, and Dell. A Stanford Economics graduate, he pivoted from investment banking to entrepreneurship on the conviction that exceptional technical talent exists everywhere - not just in traditional tech hubs. Under his leadership, Azumo has grown to 110+ employees across 20+ countries in Latin America, earned a 4.9-star rating on Clutch, served 100+ clients including Facebook, Twitter, and Discovery Channel, and been recognized among the '10 Smartest Companies of the Year 2025.' He credits his grandfather's migration from Louisiana to Los Angeles in the 1930s as the spark behind his own entrepreneurial ambition.
Ernest Addison is a Senior Associate at Boldstart Ventures, one of the premier enterprise-focused seed-stage VC firms, where he backs founders at the earliest inflection point. With a career that spans Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank, Bank of America's Global Industrials investment banking desk, and private equity at Audax Group, Ernest brings a rare mix of Wall Street rigor and startup-native intuition to enterprise infrastructure, security, developer tools, and SaaS. Originally from Washington, D.C. and a UVA McIntire alum, he joined Boldstart in 2021 and has since become a fixture in the firm's mission to be the first check into ambitious technical founders.
Gregg Spiridellis is an American media and technology entrepreneur who co-founded JibJab with his brother Evan in a Brooklyn garage in 1999, pioneering viral internet video before it was called that. He followed it up with StoryBots, the 11x Emmy Award-winning educational children's franchise acquired by Netflix in 2019. Now back with Spiridellis Bros. Studios, an AI-powered animation company backed by Ashton Kutcher, Tim Ferriss, and Google's AI Futures Fund, he is betting that generative AI is the biggest creative wave yet.
Rachel Soper Sanders is a Venture Partner at 2048 Ventures and the CEO and co-founder of Rootine, a precision nutrition company that personalizes cellular health through DNA analysis and biometric data. A Harvard Business School MBA and former healthcare investment banker at Raymond James who worked on $5B+ in M&A deals, she pivoted from Wall Street to wellness after personally battling burnout and fatigue. She co-founded Rootine in 2018 with Dr. Daniel Wallerstorfer, raised a $3M seed round and a $10M Series A, launched the Apex Optimizers NFT project bridging web3 and health optimization, and hosts the Smart Health with Rachel Sanders podcast. She brings over a decade of health-tech experience across investment banking, product strategy, and company building to her venture investing role.
Zarna is building the first cohort of AI associates for private capital - autonomous agents that plug directly into a firm's data and work like a deal team that never sleeps. Founded by four UC Berkeley alumni who were previously forward-deployed engineers at AEA Investors, Zarna automates the grunt work of private equity: tearing down CIMs, building LBO models, drafting IC memos, updating CRMs, and surfacing warm introductions. Backed by Y Combinator (F25), the platform recovers ~80 hours per week for 15-person deal teams and promises full ROI in under 90 days.