Bill Evans is the founder and general partner of Rock Health Capital, a San Francisco fund backing pre-seed through Series A entrepreneurs at the intersection of healthcare and technology. A former Goldman Sachs analyst turned 1990s software engineer turned biotech operator, he led Rock Health as CEO and managing director before spinning out the venture vehicle in 2022.
Brent Fulfer is the Co-Founder and General Partner of TBV, an early-stage Web3 venture firm built around deal flow, advisory, and the now-infamous 'The Best Event' party series. He has helped raise over $110M for early-stage startups across deep tech and crypto, and previously ran investor relations at Asymmetry Ventures and the venture program at Blockchain Founders Fund.
Lenny Pruss is a General Partner at Amplify Partners, a Menlo Park-based early-stage venture firm focused on deeply technical founders building developer tools, data infrastructure, and enterprise software. A Soviet-born refugee who grew up in Silicon Valley during the 1990s tech boom, Pruss studied EECS at UC Berkeley and earned his MBA from Harvard Business School, where he co-founded Rock Venture Partners, a student-led seed fund. Before Amplify, he backed companies like Datadog at RRE Ventures and led HashiCorp's investment at Redpoint Ventures. His portfolio now spans more than a dozen infrastructure and developer-tools bets, including Cockroach Labs, dbt, Temporal, Dagster, Sourcegraph, Chainguard, and Antithesis, reflecting a conviction that the hard problems in software correctness, data movement, and security are still largely unsolved.
Sean Engel is General Partner and Chief Investment Officer at Top Tier Capital Partners (TTCP), a San Francisco-based venture capital firm with $8.1 billion in regulatory assets under management. A UC Berkeley alum and former varsity rower, Engel joined TTCP's predecessor Paul Capital in 2010 and has spent over 15 years building expertise in LP secondary transactions, direct co-investments, and fund of funds strategies. He co-led the firm's landmark $925M capital raise in 2022 - the Venture Velocity Fund 4 - which included a dedicated $421M climate tech separate account. Engel oversees a global investment team, serves on the Investment Committee, and is known for a data-driven, relationship-first approach to identifying high-growth venture-backed companies across pre-seed through Series B.
Stephan Eberle is the General Counsel and Head of Limited Partner Relations at Scale Venture Partners, a Foster City-based early-stage venture capital firm managing $2.8 billion in assets. A Berkeley- and UC Hastings-trained attorney, he spent 17 years at Silicon Valley Bank building its global legal infrastructure and founding its venture capital investing program before joining Scale VP in 2016. He now oversees fund and portfolio legal matters while serving as the primary liaison between the firm and its limited partners.
Jeff Wang is the CEO of Windsurf, an AI-powered coding assistant that was acquired by Cognition (makers of Devin) in July 2025. Previously Windsurf's Head of Business, Jeff stepped into the CEO role during a chaotic week in which the company's founders departed to Google and a $3B OpenAI acquisition fell through. Working through a single frantic weekend, he negotiated a new deal with Cognition that protected all 250 employees. A former engineer who detoured through Cisco and Salesforce before betting his career on early-stage AI startups, Jeff is also a General Partner at RNR Capital and co-founder of RocketFuel Education.
Margit Wennmachers is the Operating Partner who built Andreessen Horowitz's brand from the ground up, transforming a16z from a new fund into the most recognized name in venture capital. A German immigrant who co-founded OutCast Communications in 1997 and grew it into a powerhouse PR firm serving Facebook, Amazon, and Netflix, she joined a16z in 2010 and pioneered a direct-to-audience content strategy that gave the firm an outsized voice in tech. She was the force behind Marc Andreessen's seminal 'Software is Eating the World' op-ed and spent 15 years shaping how founders, investors, and the world think about a16z.
Samantha Lewis is the Head of Marketing at Right Side Capital Management (RSCM), a data-driven pre-seed venture firm in San Francisco that has backed 2,000+ startups since 2012. With 16+ years of content marketing and editorial experience spanning companies like Segment, PagerDuty, ebrary, and Springer Science+Business Media, she brings a rare blend of startup operator savvy and publishing depth to the VC world. Having participated in 30+ startups with 2 IPOs, Lewis shapes how RSCM tells the story of early-stage tech investing to founders, limited partners, and the broader startup ecosystem.
Jim Goetz is a legendary venture capitalist and former partner at Sequoia Capital who became one of Silicon Valley's most celebrated investors by backing WhatsApp — the only outside investor in the company — delivering a $3.5 billion return when Facebook acquired it for $19 billion in 2014. A five-time consecutive Forbes Midas List #1 (2013-2017) and TechCrunch VC of the Year (2015), Goetz also nurtured Palo Alto Networks from inception and led investments in HubSpot, GitHub, and AdMob. A Strongsville, Ohio native who described himself as a 'scattered and ill-prepared freshman' at the University of Cincinnati, he now runs Casimir Holdings (family office) and Mae Philanthropies, having donated $25 million to UC in honor of his transformative professor mentor.
Josh Kushner is the founder and managing partner of Thrive Capital, a New York-based venture firm he started at age 24 with $5 million and has since grown to $50+ billion in AUM across 10 funds. He made one of the most consequential single bets in VC history by providing the only term sheet OpenAI received in 2022 at a $29 billion valuation. Co-founder of Oscar Health and Cadre, minority owner of the Miami Heat and San Francisco Giants, and husband of supermodel and media entrepreneur Karlie Kloss, Kushner operates from the Puck Building in Manhattan where his apartment and office share the same address. Known for his low-key demeanor, obsessive work ethic, and a hiring process that famously takes eight months.
Roelof Frederik Botha is a South African-American venture capitalist and former Managing Partner of Sequoia Capital, one of the world's most storied VC firms. Grandson of South African foreign minister Pik Botha, he rose from PayPal CFO at age 28 - overseeing the company's IPO and $1.5B sale to eBay - to become one of Silicon Valley's most celebrated investors. He wrote the original investment memo for YouTube when the company had 3 employees and a valuation of $11.5M; Google bought it 14 months later for $1.65B. Over two decades at Sequoia, he backed YouTube, Instagram, Block (Square), MongoDB, Unity, Natera, and dozens more, generating over $50 billion in returns for limited partners. He stepped down as Sequoia's Senior Steward in November 2025.
Matt Cohler is one of Silicon Valley's most accomplished yet deliberately low-profile venture capitalists. A Yale music graduate turned McKinsey consultant, he joined LinkedIn as a founding member, became Facebook employee #5 and VP of Product under Zuckerberg, then joined Benchmark Capital in 2008 as its youngest-ever General Partner. His investment portfolio - including Instagram, Tinder, Dropbox, Asana, and Zendesk - places him among the most successful consumer internet investors of his era. Since stepping back from active fund management in 2018, he serves on the boards of KKR, the Yale Investments Office, and the Environmental Defense Fund, and sustains a lifelong devotion to classical music through 17+ years on the San Francisco Symphony board and patronage of the Berlin Philharmonic.
Mary Meeker is a venture capitalist and the founder of BOND Capital, where she manages over $5.75 billion across three funds with a portfolio spanning 176 investments and 51 unicorns. Known as the 'Queen of the Internet' since Barron's coined the title in 1998, she spent 19 years at Morgan Stanley advising on landmark IPOs including Netscape and Google, then a decade at Kleiner Perkins backing Airbnb, Slack, and Spotify. Her annual Internet Trends reports, published from 1995 to 2019 and revived with a 340-slide AI Trends report in May 2025, became required reading across Silicon Valley. A data-driven pattern-finder from small-town Portland, Indiana, Meeker has spent three decades spotting the shape of tomorrow before most people recognize today.
Rich Wong is a General Partner at Accel, one of the world's premier venture capital firms, where he has invested since 2006. A self-described 'accidental' venture capitalist with roots in mobile technology operations, he was the first outside investor and board member at Atlassian and led bets on UiPath, Rovio (Angry Birds), AdMob, and dozens of enterprise software companies globally. Known for his 'prepared mind' investment philosophy, his belief that the best companies can hide anywhere on earth, and his conviction that great VC is fundamentally a human business, Rich is one of Silicon Valley's most globally-minded and relationship-driven investors.
Sonali De Rycker is a General Partner at Accel's London office, one of the most influential venture capitalists in Europe. Originally from Mumbai, India, she joined Accel in 2008 after stints at Goldman Sachs and Atlas Venture, and has since backed some of the continent's most defining tech companies — Spotify, Monzo, BeReal, Synthesia, and Speak among them. Ranked No. 2 on Forbes Midas List Europe in 2019 and consistently in the top 15, she is known for her founder-first investment philosophy, her global deal-sourcing across 45+ cities, and a sharp conviction that Europe's next chapter will be written in AI.
Theresia Gouw is a Chinese-Indonesian immigrant who became America's first female billionaire venture capitalist. A Brown-trained engineer turned Stanford MBA, she rose to become the first female investing partner at Accel Partners, where she helped back Facebook at a $98 million valuation in 2005. She co-founded Aspect Ventures and then Acrew Capital, managing ~$1.7 billion with a firm where 85% of employees are women or BIPOC. Beyond VC, she holds minority ownership stakes in the Buffalo Bills, Bay FC, and Golden State Warriors, and is Lead Investor and Executive Chair of an incoming Major League Volleyball franchise in Northern California.
Joe Gebbia is the co-founder of Airbnb and a designer-turned-billionaire who helped reshape how humanity thinks about trust between strangers. He graduated from RISD with dual degrees in graphic and industrial design, then turned air mattresses and a breakfast cereal stunt into a $100 billion company. After stepping back from Airbnb in 2022, he founded Samara - a prefab housing company - and in 2025 became America's first Chief Design Officer under the Trump administration, tasked with redesigning the federal government's 27,000+ websites to feel as intuitive as the Apple Store.
Konstantine Buhler is a Partner at Sequoia Capital focused on seed and Series A investments in AI, enterprise software, and fintech. An AI engineer turned investor, he brings technical depth from his Stanford CS graduate work and a unique investment philosophy shaped by his grandparents' immigrant journeys. He's a leading voice on the emerging 'agent economy' - a trillion-dollar vision where autonomous AI agents don't just process information but transfer resources, make transactions, and operate their own economic systems. His portfolio includes CaptivateIQ, EDX, Ethos Life, Kumo, and XBOW, with investments guided by the principle of 'virtuous data cycles' where businesses become more valuable as they accumulate customers and data.
Wael Jabir is Chief of Staff at Hustle Fund, where he serves as right hand to co-founder Brian Nichols. With an engineering degree from University of Calgary, Wael betrayed his technical roots to build businesses instead of bridges. He broke into VC without inside connections, previously working as a Venture Partner at Altra Venture Partners and in roles at Deloitte, ICChange, and AI Education Project. As an AI Product Builder and Advisor, he posts daily insights on AI trends and developments. At Hustle Fund, Wael helped launch Angel Squad, a community of 1,500+ angel investors who've deployed over $23M across 65+ companies. He's known for running founder events across North America, his near-death sea adventure, and being the global runner-up for most confusing name pronunciation.
Yinon Costica is a co-founder and VP of Product at Wiz, the cloud security company acquired by Google for $32 billion in 2025 - the largest cybersecurity acquisition in history. A veteran of the Israeli Defense Forces' elite Talpiot program and Unit 8200, Costica previously co-founded Adallom (sold to Microsoft for $320M) and scaled Microsoft's Cloud Security Group to $1.5B in annual revenue before helping build Wiz into the fastest-growing software company ever, now serving over 50% of the Fortune 100.
Gili Raanan is an Israeli cybersecurity pioneer turned venture capitalist who invented CAPTCHA, co-created the world's first Web Application Firewall, and then built Cyberstarts — a seed-only VC that turned $54M into over $1B and backed Wiz, the $32B cloud-security juggernaut acquired by Google in 2025. A decade in IDF Unit 8200, two successful exits, nine years as a Sequoia Capital Israel GP, and $1.4B+ in capital raised makes him arguably the most influential figure in the Israeli cyber startup ecosystem.
Manan Mehta is the Founding Managing Partner of Unshackled Ventures, the only venture capital firm in the US built exclusively to back immigrant founders at the pre-seed stage - before product, before revenue, and often before incorporation. A first-generation American born to Indian immigrants in Sunnyvale, CA, Manan turned a personal experience of watching his H-1B co-founder get shackled by visa constraints into a $35M+ fund that has sponsored 200+ founders, completed 231+ immigration filings, and helped build a portfolio that has collectively raised $730M+ and created 1,200+ jobs. He sits on the Nasdaq board, once helped ink the $1.9B Skype acquisition as a banker, and brings to every pitch meeting the lens of someone who knows exactly what it costs to build from scratch.
Miriam Rivera is the Co-Founder, CEO, and Managing Director of Ulu Ventures, one of the largest Latina-led venture capital firms in the United States with ~$400M AUM. A first-generation college student born to Puerto Rican migrant farmworkers, she earned four degrees from Stanford, joined Google as its second attorney and helped scale the company from $85M to $10B in revenue, then co-founded Ulu Ventures in 2008 with husband Clint Korver. Ulu's data-driven, bias-reducing investment model has backed 10 unicorns including Palantir and Guild Education, with a portfolio where 80% of founders are women, immigrants, or from minority groups.
Immad Akhund is the co-founder and CEO of Mercury, the digital banking platform trusted by 1 in 3 U.S. startups with $650M+ in annualized revenue and a $3.5B valuation. A Cambridge-trained computer scientist who came up through Y Combinator twice, he has built and sold two prior startups (Clickpass, Heyzap), made 350+ angel investments in companies like Airtable, Substack, and Rippling, and in April 2026 secured conditional OCC approval to charter Mercury Bank, N.A.
Eric Tse is a startup researcher and writer associated with Contrary Research, the research arm of Contrary VC - one of the most respected independent research publications covering private tech companies. Focused on dissecting early-stage startups, market dynamics, and the forces shaping the next generation of technology companies, Tse works at the intersection of rigorous analysis and narrative storytelling to make private company research accessible and actionable.
Andrew Reed is a Partner on Sequoia Capital's growth team - possibly the youngest junior partner in Sequoia's history when he joined at 23 from Goldman Sachs in 2014. Over a decade, he's built one of the most impressive growth-stage portfolios in venture capital, with board seats at Figma, Klarna, Bolt, Vanta, Strava, Warp, and Harmonic, and investments in Robinhood, ElevenLabs, Zapier, Phantom, and Sourcegraph. A childhood stutter made him a listener first, which turned into his greatest edge in founder assessment.
Stephanie Palazzolo is an AI reporter at The Information and author of the AI Agenda newsletter, covering artificial intelligence startups, Big Tech, chips, cloud, and policy. A former Morgan Stanley investment banker who pivoted into journalism, she broke major stories on OpenAI, Anthropic, and the broader AI industry, and was part of a SABEW Best in Business award-winning team for coverage of the OpenAI CEO firing in 2023.
Nihal Mehta is a serial entrepreneur turned seed-stage venture capitalist and Co-Founder & General Partner at ENIAC Ventures, one of New York's leading seed funds. Known as the 'Human Rolodex,' Mehta has backed early investments in Uber, Airbnb, AdMob (acquired by Google), and SwiftKey (acquired by Microsoft) while building a reputation as a founder-first investor who connects people without keeping score. He founded Pitch & Run NYC, a community blending startup pitches with morning runs, and hosts the Human Unicorn Podcast. A UPenn dual-degree graduate who once filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy in his 20s, Mehta channels that hard-won empathy into backing the next generation of founders through ENIAC's $160M sixth fund.
Nikhil Basu Trivedi is a Co-Founder and General Partner at Footwork Ventures, a San Francisco-based early-stage VC firm with $400M+ under management across two funds. A Princeton molecular biology graduate turned venture capitalist, he previously spent eight years at Shasta Ventures where he backed Canva, ClassDojo, Frame.io, and The Farmer's Dog. He writes the 'Next Big Thing' newsletter on Substack with 18,000+ subscribers, publishes public investment theses before backing founders, and built his career on a 'traction-first' philosophy and obsessive focus on founder learning velocity. An Indian-American from a family with deep public service roots, he co-founded Artsy as a Princeton sophomore and has been a Forbes 30 Under 30 honoree.
On March 31, 2026, OpenAI closed the largest private funding round in history — $122 billion in committed capital at a post-money valuation of $852 billion. Anchored by Amazon ($50B), Nvidia ($30B), and SoftBank ($30B), with continued participation from Microsoft and a sweeping syndicate of global institutions, the round dwarfs every prior private tech raise and cements OpenAI as the world's most valuable startup by a wide margin. The company is generating $2 billion in monthly revenue, counting 900 million weekly ChatGPT users, and is widely expected to pursue an IPO.