EVCA Newsletter | July Edition - the latest VC news, jobs, and events
It’s the middle of the work week, though today is a national holiday—specifically the holiday for celebrating the founding of this nation—so it’s understandable that your thoughts are more focused on barbecued meats and fireworks over your usual day-to-day concerns. Or maybe, in the midst of downing that third or fourth beer later this evening over the smell of burning charcoal, you hope to forget that disaster of the presidential debates because you know this country deserves an injection of youth into the echelons of its overseers. You are probably itching for some good news, which we seem to be short on nowadays. At the very least, despite all the hubbub over the state of the economy and the future of the nation as of late, the venture capital industry is showing signs of resilience. In Q2, U.S. venture capital funding hit $55.6B, which is the highest it has been in the last two years. This figure represents a 47% increase from the $37.8B in venture funding in the first quarter. So on this Fourth of July, let’s toast our best hopes for the future of this country and appreciate the silver linings while we can, at least until the November elections…
And with that bit of introductory fanfare, welcome back to this month’s EVCA newsletter!
Meet Ally Warson, Partner at Up.Partners
We had the chance to interview Ally Warson, who is a Partner at Up.Partners, a venture capital firm that invests in companies helping transform the moving world. Ally shares her story—from working in consulting and startups, landing a job at Google, and investing in early-stage startups at Up.Partners.
Featured Investor
This month we highlight Phoebe Zhang of DivcoWest Ventures as our featured investor of the EVCA community.
Phoebe Zhang is a Director at DivcoWest Ventures, an early and growth-stage fund that invests in technologies shaping the future of real estate and the urban environment. DivcoWest Ventures is part of DivcoWest, a vertically integrated real estate investment firm. Previously, Phoebe was a Senior Consultant at IBM’s Strategy and Corporate Development team where she helped the company in identifying new growth opportunities and potential acquisitions in the data and AI sector. Before that, she was an Investment Banking Associate at Bank of America Merrill Lynch in Hong Kong, offering advice to technology firms on equity financing. Phoebe holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and a Bachelor of Commerce from University of British Columbia. In her free time, she enjoys dancing, doing yoga, playing golf, and reading books.
EVCA Leaders: Board Member and SF Bay Area Vertical Co-lead, Riley Rodgers of Valia Ventures
This EVCA Leadership Series is intended to help the broader community get to know what's going on behind the scenes at the EVCA and highlight the contributions of the over 50 leads across the venture capital industry who make the EVCA possible.
Riley Rodgers is currently a Principal at Valia Ventures and has been an early-stage investor for the last 11 years. He splits his time between searching for new investment opportunities at the pre-seed and seed stage and supporting an ever-growing portfolio. Before joining Valia Ventures, Riley spent 3.5 years at Arctaris Capital Partners in Boston and started his career as an entrepreneur building Crash Alert – a mobility focused startup that aimed to detect and respond to car accidents.
What We’re Reading
Here we share our favorite content produced from EVCA members across the world:
Simplifying AI Deployment for Defense - Maggie Gray of Shield Capital and Max Dauber of Primer AI, provide a guide to navigating ATOs, classified data, hardware constraints, security testing, classified networks, and more
What will be the personal GenAI device? - Kenn So of Smartsheet, researches the potential of personal AI devices and the opportunity for GenAI on smartphones
Estimating the Market Potential for a New Category - Isaac Batashvili of Melio’s, shares 10 valuable dos and don’ts for determining the market potential in untapped markets
Investing in the Age of Generative AI - Kevin Zhang of Stealth, explores the current AI investment landscape and presents a framework that a typical early-stage fund might want to adopt
How to Level Up Your VC Network - Elisheva Marcus of Earlybird Venture Capital, shares 5 Tips for further experimentation to level up your VC network from 3 pros in the industry
Events
VB Transform 2024 Women in AI Breakfast | July 9-11 | San Francisco, CA
MOMENTUM AI: AI Summit & Global Broadcast | July 16-17 | San Jose, CA
➡️ For all EVCA events, which are private to EVCA members, please check the Slack community or your inbox for our monthly Member’s Digest.
Jobs
Connect with us: EVCA, Sam, Adam, Isaac
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