Venture Capital and Fundraising in 2021 - An MIT SBAA & CDC Joint Event
Fundraising can be difficult and daunting. COVID-19, travel restrictions, and an uncertain economy have made this past year a time of unprecedented challenges… and opportunities.
Tuesday, April 27 from 4:00 p.m. - 7:00 p.m.
4:00pm: Pre-event Networking on Brella - explore breakout rooms (fundraising 101, speed networking, co-founder connect, etc) and book 1 on 1 meetings
5:00pm: VC Panel
5:45pm: Audience Q&A
6:00pm: Post-event nNetworking
Join us as we welcome some of the US’s top VCs to share their highs and
lows of the past year, tips on fundraising remotely, trends in the
startup world, and outlook for 2021.
Online via Brella (link emailed upon registration) REGISTER HERE
Speaker Bios:
Nancy Fechnay has been a part of the investment and startup world for nearly 15 years. She co-founded three tech companies resulting in one acquisition
and one seed stage ‘future of work’ company (backed by Atomico Angels and
Outlier in Europe/UK). Nancy worked for Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers
before becoming a partner at Flight Ventures, the largest online group of
investors in the world. As a Partner at Flight Ventures, Nancy launched the
first AngelList syndicate in Europe in 2015. While living in the UK, Nancy also
mentored for the Vatican's positive impact accelerator (Laudato Si), Prince
Andrew's Pitch@Palace, and Lords at the House of Lords. Nancy is currently a
partner in two syndicates and a co-lead of the Towerview Fund, a part of AVG.
AVG has an unique model with 22 funds, which together deploy around $300M in
capital per year. Nancy recently launched a world positive syndicate.
Sarah Leary is a Venture Partner at Unusual Ventures, with a focus on building out Unusual’s consumer practice. She is specifically interested in investing in opportunities that tap into the power of community, marketplaces, and social networks. Prior to joining Unusual, Sarah co-founded Nextdoor, the free and private social network for neighborhoods, where she served as Vice President of Marketing and Operations. Sarah started her career at Microsoft and served as the Vice President of Product and Marketing at Epinions and Shopping.com before the company was sold to eBay. Sarah is a graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Business School.
David Magerman is
a co-founder and managing partner at Differential Ventures. Previously,
he spent the entirety of his career at Renaissance Technologies, widely
recognized as the best quantitative hedge fund management company in
the world. He helped found the equities trading group at Renaissance,
joining the group in its earliest days,playing a lead role in designing
and building the trading, simulation, and estimation software. On an
extended garden leave from quantitative finance, he is looking to use
his data science, software development, and statistical modeling
expertise to help Israeli startups succeed in the global marketplace.
David holds a PhD in Computer Science from Stanford University where his
thesis on Natural Language Parsing as Statistical Pattern Recognition
was an early and successful attempt to use large-scale data to produce
fully-automated syntactic analysis of text. David also earned a Bachelor
of Arts in Mathematics and a Bachelor of Science in Computer Sciences
and Information from the University of Pennsylvania.
Ian Sigalow is
a Co-Founder of Greycroft and a Partner in the firm’s New York office.
Since launching the firm in 2006, Ian led Greycroft’s investments in
Braintree (acquired by eBay), Buddy Media (acquired by Salesforce),
DataPlusMath (acquired by LiveRamp), Plated (acquired by Albertsons),
Shipt (acquired by Target), and Venmo (acquired by Braintree) among many
others. Prior to Greycroft, Ian founded StrongData, a pioneer in
payment encryption, and spent several years as a venture capitalist with
Boston Millennia Partners. Ian was born and raised in Akron, Ohio. He
has a Bachelors degree from MIT and an MBA from the Columbia University
Graduate School of Business.
Christina Qi is the CEO of Databento, a market data platform for asset managers and quants. Databento provides users with Level 3 order book data and streamlines the licensing process from months to minutes. She is also Founding Partner of Domeyard, a quant hedge fund that traded up to $7.1 billion USD per day. She is a visiting lecturer at MIT and teaches Domeyard’s case study at Harvard Business School. Christina is a Member of MIT Sloan Boston Alumni Association, MIT’s Board of Trustees, Co-Chair of the Board of Invest in Girls, Board Member of The Financial Executives Alliance (FEA) Hedge Fund Group, Forbes Listmaker, and Board Member of Forbes 30 Under 30. Christina holds a Bachelor of Science in Management Science from MIT and is a CAIA Charterholder. Christina is publishing a book in 2021, titled The Finance Snake: A Memoir About My Billion Dollar Hedge Fund.
Thank you to our sponsors: Veckta, Brex, T3 Advisors, and First Republic Bank. If interested in potential discounts with our sponsors, please contact the MIT Sloan Boston Alumni Association.
Hosts:
MIT Sloan Boston Alumni Association
MIT Corporation Development Committee
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