StrictlyVC events deliver exclusive insider VC content while creating meaningful connections with leading investors & entrepreneurs. Join us for an evening of intimate interviews with industry heavy hitters and impactful conversation.
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Mix and Mingle – Cocktail parties with killer content.
StrictlyVC events deliver exclusive insider content from Silicon Valley and the global venture scene. If you’re an investor looking to mingle with your peers and watch some killer content, this event is for you. Get the inside scoop directly from sources you can trust. Previous events included interviews with Sam Altman (OpenAI), Marc Andreessen (Andreessen Horowitz), Katie Haun (Haun Ventures), Hans Tung (GGV Capital) and many more!
Featured speakers
More speakers to be added to the lineup. Check back in for more updates.
Chi-Hua Chien
Co-founder & Managing PartnerGoodwater Capital
Mina Fahmi
Co-founder and CEOSandbar
Pat Gelsinger
General Partner / Former CEOPlayground Global / Intel
Chi-Hua Chien is Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Goodwater Capital, the largest consumer-tech focused VC firm in the world. Over a two decade career as a venture capitalist, Chi-Hua and his partners have invested in and helped founding teams build 17 iconic global consumer tech platform companies including Facebook, Fever, Monzo, musically / TikTok, Spotify, Square, Twitter, Toss, Weee! and Zepto. Chi-Hua’s passion is supporting entrepreneurs who are building digital utilities that promote human flourishing and seek to change the world for good. These software products provide better global access to high quality housing, healthcare, food, financial services, transportation, education, and entertainment.
Prior to launching Goodwater, Chi-Hua was a General Partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and an Associate at Accel Partners. Chi-Hua was an early employee or co-founder of four startups including Coremetrics, where he led the marketing and inside sales teams, served as interim CFO, and was appointed to the Office of the President. Chi-Hua fell in love with startups at Stanford University where he earned a BS in Industrial Engineering, a BA in Economics, an MS in Industrial Engineering, and an MBA. At Stanford he was named a Mayfield Fellow, President’s Scholar, and Arjay Miller Scholar. He enjoys staying close to the Stanford community and served as a co-instructor of the undergraduate Technology Entrepreneurship course at the Engineering School. Chi-Hua also serves on the board of charity: water, a non-profit organization bringing clean, safe drinking water to people in developing nations.
Goodwater Capital’s Chi-Hua Chien and Scribble Ventures’ Elizabeth Weil break down where the next wave of breakout consumer products will come from — and how shifting behavior, new AI-native interfaces, and changing distribution are reshaping what it takes to build a winning company today.
Mina Fahmi is the co-founder and CEO of Sandbar, a New York-based interface company with a mission to help individuals better navigate the world around and inside themselves. Sandbar’s first product is Stream, a self extension for building ideas in the moment and Stream Ring, the ‘mouse for voice’. With Stream, Mina and co-founder Kirak Hong have created a conversational interface designed to be an extension of your own thinking, helping you talk through ideas and capture notes in the moment.
Beyond the Interface: Building Technology That Extends Human Thought
True Ventures partner Toni Schneider joins Sandbar co-founder and CEO Mina Fahmi to discuss the next evolution of human–computer interaction. Fahmi’s company is behind Stream, a conversational interface that acts as an extension of your thinking, and Stream Ring, a “mouse for voice.” Together they’ll explore how founders can design technology that enhances focus, creativity, and cognition — not just productivity.
Pat Gelsinger
General Partner / Former CEO, Playground Global / Intel
Pat Gelsinger is a visionary engineer and values-driven leader with over 45 years of experience shaping Silicon Valley as a CEO, CTO, and technologist. He has played a pivotal role in developing foundational technologies in semiconductors, microprocessors, and industry standards during his time at Intel, EMC, and VMware. Today, Pat is a General Partner at Playground Global, a deep tech venture capital firm managing $1.2 billion in assets. He also serves as Executive Chair of xLight, a Playground portfolio company advancing free electron lasers, and sits on the board of Gloo, a platform supporting the faith and flourishing ecosystem. In addition, he contributes to several faith-based philanthropies. Pat is also a speaker, author, inventor, and investor—as well as a husband, father of four, and grandfather of eight.
Former Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger joins xLight co-founder and CEO Nicholas Kelez to unpack the race to reinvent the machines behind the world’s most advanced chips. ASML currently dominates this critical technology, but xLight is developing a next-generation laser — built in America — using free-electron systems Kelez spent his career building at Berkeley Lab and SLAC. Together, Gelsinger and Kelez will explore the breakthroughs, bottlenecks, and geopolitical stakes that will shape the future of compute and AI.
Max Hodak is the Co-founder and CEO of Science Corporation, which he founded in 2021. Science’s mission is to restore quality of life to those with debilitating conditions for which there are no treatment options, creating technology and devices aimed at restoring vision, cognition, and mobility.
Prior to founding Science, Max was president of Neuralink, which he co-founded in 2016. He previously co-founded Transcriptic, a robotic cloud laboratory for the life sciences, where he was CEO.
Max began his life-long passion for BCI as a young child and started programming at the age of six. As a freshman at Duke University’s Pratt School of Engineering, studying biomedical engineering, he worked his way into the renowned Nicolelis Lab – one of the best neural engineering labs in the country, typically open only to graduate students – and spent his undergraduate years immersed in BCI research. Since graduating from Duke, his primary research and professional focus has been on neural engineering and the brain.
Max Hodak, founder and CEO of Science Corp and co-founder of Neuralink joins StrictlyVC to discuss how neurotech, biology, and engineering are converging faster than ever. He’ll break down what Science Corp is building, where human–machine interfaces are headed, and what breakthroughs (and risks) are coming next in a world where biology is becoming programmable.
Nicholas serves as Chief Executive Officer and Chief Technology Officer of xLight. Before assuming his roles, Nicholas led the development effort to build the world’s first useful quantum computer at PsiQuantum.
Nicholas spent 20 years in the Department of Energy National Lab system building and operating large scale, x-ray science facilities and instrumentation. Starting at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, he developed novel instrumentation and upgrades for the Advanced Light Source (ALS) and Berkeley Lab Laser Accelerator (BELLA) user facilities. He then moved to SLAC National Lab at Stanford where he was the Chief Engineer for the Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS), a 3-mile-long x-ray free electron facility for ultrafast science.
Nicholas is a native of California and attended the University of California, Berkeley.
Former Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger joins xLight co-founder and CEO Nicholas Kelez to unpack the race to reinvent the machines behind the world’s most advanced chips. ASML currently dominates this critical technology, but xLight is developing a next-generation laser — built in America — using free-electron systems Kelez spent his career building at Berkeley Lab and SLAC. Together, Gelsinger and Kelez will explore the breakthroughs, bottlenecks, and geopolitical stakes that will shape the future of compute and AI.
Loizos has been reporting on Silicon Valley since the late ’90s, when she joined the original Red Herring magazine. Previously the Silicon Valley Editor of TechCrunch, she was named Editor in Chief and General Manager of TechCrunch in September 2023. She’s also the founder of StrictlyVC, a daily e-newsletter and lecture series acquired by Yahoo in August 2023 and now operated as a sub brand of TechCrunch.
Former Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger joins xLight co-founder and CEO Nicholas Kelez to unpack the race to reinvent the machines behind the world’s most advanced chips. ASML currently dominates this critical technology, but xLight is developing a next-generation laser — built in America — using free-electron systems Kelez spent his career building at Berkeley Lab and SLAC. Together, Gelsinger and Kelez will explore the breakthroughs, bottlenecks, and geopolitical stakes that will shape the future of compute and AI.
Rewiring the Human Future
Max Hodak, founder and CEO of Science Corp and co-founder of Neuralink joins StrictlyVC to discuss how neurotech, biology, and engineering are converging faster than ever. He’ll break down what Science Corp is building, where human–machine interfaces are headed, and what breakthroughs (and risks) are coming next in a world where biology is becoming programmable.
Toni Schneider is a Partner at True Ventures, an early-stage venture firm founded in 2005 that has partnered with over 1,050 founders across 500+ companies. Toni invests across software, connected devices, and climate tech, backing passionate, customer-obsessed entrepreneurs.
A former engineer, Toni built 3D audio systems for NASA and led technology at Aureal Semiconductor. He co-founded Uplister and served as CEO of Oddpost, acquired by Yahoo, where he created the Yahoo Developer Network. Later, as CEO of Automattic, he helped scale WordPress.com to nearly a billion monthly visitors. His career bridges building, scaling, and investing in visionary companies.
Beyond the Interface: Building Technology That Extends Human Thought
True Ventures partner Toni Schneider joins Sandbar co-founder and CEO Mina Fahmi to discuss the next evolution of human–computer interaction. Fahmi’s company is behind Stream, a conversational interface that acts as an extension of your thinking, and Stream Ring, a “mouse for voice.” Together they’ll explore how founders can design technology that enhances focus, creativity, and cognition — not just productivity.
Marina Temkin is a venture capital and startups reporter at TechCrunch. Prior to joining TechCrunch, she wrote about VC for PitchBook and Venture Capital Journal. Earlier in her career, Marina was a financial analyst and earned a CFA charterholder designation.
You can contact or verify outreach from Marina by emailing marina.temkin@techcrunch.com or via encrypted message at +1 347-683-3909 on Signal.
Beyond the Interface: Building Technology That Extends Human Thought
True Ventures partner Toni Schneider joins Sandbar co-founder and CEO Mina Fahmi to discuss the next evolution of human–computer interaction. Fahmi’s company is behind Stream, a conversational interface that acts as an extension of your thinking, and Stream Ring, a “mouse for voice.” Together they’ll explore how founders can design technology that enhances focus, creativity, and cognition — not just productivity.
The Consumer Reset
Goodwater Capital’s Chi-Hua Chien and Scribble Ventures’ Elizabeth Weil break down where the next wave of breakout consumer products will come from — and how shifting behavior, new AI-native interfaces, and changing distribution are reshaping what it takes to build a winning company today.
Elizabeth Weil
Founder & Partner, Scribble Ventures
I hold a National Science Olympiad championship for my Rube Goldberg device, a machine designed to solve a simple problem with a series of complex cause-effect mechanics. I’m fascinated by how things work.
An early twitter executive with more than two decades in venture capital and technology companies, Elizabeth is an investor, advisor, and entrepreneur. At Scribble, she works closely with Whatnot, Certn, Titan, Luminai, and Checkmate, among many others. Her unmatched network gives her portfolio companies access to tech’s most sought-after operators, executives, and investors. In addition, she partners with Scribble founders on hiring, fundraising construction, GTM, product, and company culture.
Elizabeth believes that passion and pushing boundaries drive success, whether investing in founders with world-changing ideas, transforming a startup into a Fortune 500 company, or running ultramarathons. She is a super-connector, and her infectious enthusiasm leaves everyone more energetic and inspired.
Prior to founding Scribble Ventures, Elizabeth spent four years as a Managing Director at 137 Ventures focused on late-stage secondary opportunities. She was a Partner at Andreessen Horowitz as the firm was scaling, and had the fortune of being at Twitter as it grew from 50 to 3,000 people. She has also worked as an investor at IVP, Menlo Ventures, and Radar Partners. Through this time she’s made over 100 angel investments across all stages, including Slack, SpaceX, Figma, Coinbase, Superplastic, Gusto, Tipalti, Envoy, Daily.co, Carta and more.
Elizabeth graduated from Stanford University with a BA in Economics and a Masters in Engineering. In the years since, she has taught classes at Stanford in the engineering department, Graduate School of Business, and the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design.
She is the founder of Paperwheel, a design and letterpress company. There are no cars in her garage; just a 5,000 lb 1923 Chandler & Price letterpress! Staying true to her philosophy of living a life full of passion and pushing limits, Elizabeth is also a competitive ultra-marathon runner, and has run more than 60 marathons. She’s a mom to three LEGO-obsessed kids, and is happily married to Kevin Weil who is Chief Product Officer at OpenAI.
Goodwater Capital’s Chi-Hua Chien and Scribble Ventures’ Elizabeth Weil break down where the next wave of breakout consumer products will come from — and how shifting behavior, new AI-native interfaces, and changing distribution are reshaping what it takes to build a winning company today.
Register
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Agenda
More to come on the agenda! Check back in for the latest updates.
Former Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger joins xLight co-founder and CEO Nicholas Kelez to unpack the race to reinvent the machines behind the world’s most advanced chips. ASML currently dominates this critical technology, but xLight is developing a next-generation laser — built in America — using free-electron systems Kelez spent his career building at Berkeley Lab and SLAC. Together, Gelsinger and Kelez will explore the breakthroughs, bottlenecks, and geopolitical stakes that will shape the future of compute and AI.
6:30PM – 6:55PM
Beyond the Interface: Building Technology That Extends Human Thought
True Ventures partner Toni Schneider joins Sandbar co-founder and CEO Mina Fahmi to discuss the next evolution of human–computer interaction. Fahmi’s company is behind Stream, a conversational interface that acts as an extension of your thinking, and Stream Ring, a “mouse for voice.” Together they’ll explore how founders can design technology that enhances focus, creativity, and cognition — not just productivity.
Goodwater Capital’s Chi-Hua Chien and Scribble Ventures’ Elizabeth Weil break down where the next wave of breakout consumer products will come from — and how shifting behavior, new AI-native interfaces, and changing distribution are reshaping what it takes to build a winning company today.
Max Hodak, founder and CEO of Science Corp and co-founder of Neuralink joins StrictlyVC to discuss how neurotech, biology, and engineering are converging faster than ever. He’ll break down what Science Corp is building, where human–machine interfaces are headed, and what breakthroughs (and risks) are coming next in a world where biology is becoming programmable.
7:50PM – 9:00PM
More Hors d'Oeuvres/More drinks/More networking!
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