TechCrunch returns to Boston, MA with TC Founder Summit (formerly TC Early Stage and TC All Stage), a full-day gathering where founders of every stage connect with top VCs and gain tactical, how-to knowledge for building and scaling companies.
Elevate your business at TechCrunch Founder Summit
Wondering how to nail that pitch meeting and raise VC funding? Or how to build a high-octane sales team? What about recruiting early team members who will fuel future growth? Managing the finances of a new company while also wondering about your own personal finances as a founder? Legal? Marketing? PR? Being a great leader?
TechCrunch Founder Summit will answer every one of these questions. Grab your ticket at the lowest rate.
What founders and VCs can expect
Breakout stages for straight Q&A
Hear from accomplished startup leaders in panel-led breakout sessions as they reveal the secrets to their success. These main-stage sessions offer unparalleled access to the journeys, insights, and tips that can help take your startup to the next level.
Deep-dive founder sessions
Participate in immersive sessions where startup pioneers and peers come together to discuss challenges, share stories, and build connections that drive success.
Build meaningful connections
Expand your network, connect with founders, share insights, and form valuable relationships that inspire growth through networking opportunities.
Past Speakers
Meet the leading voices in scaling who have taken the stage over the years, sharing candid insights with thousands of founders and VCs.
Daniel Acheampong
General PartnerVisible Hands VC
Rob Biederman
Founding & Managing PartnerAsymmetric Capital Partners
Daniel Acheampong is a Co-Founder and General Partner at Visible Hands, a venture capital firm that funds the overlooked, formidable founders who are transforming the future in finance, health, and climate.
He received a dual Masters in Business Administration from the Wharton School and Public Administration from Harvard Kennedy School. Prior to graduate school, Daniel was an associate at Summit Partners, a premier investment firm, where he managed the firm’s due diligence process to raise investment funds. Previously, he was a financial analyst at Goldman Sachs, where he supported senior management in supervising the New England Private Wealth Management business. He serves on the national board of The Posse Foundation, the board of directors of American Student Assistance (ASA), and was named a Boston Business Journal Power 50: Movement Maker.
Rob Biederman is the Managing Partner of Asymmetric Capital Partners.
Before founding Asymmetric, Rob co-founded and spent eight years as co-CEO of Catalant Technologies, the market leader in helping companies access and deploy talent—from employees to 70,000+ elite independent consultants and 1,000 boutique firms. He now serves as Chairman of Catalant and is the co-author of Reimagining Work, a book that outlines a new model for how global companies engage talent.
Rob began his career as a private equity investor at Goldman Sachs and Bain Capital, where he focused on healthcare and high-tech. He advised public and private companies on growth strategy, M&A, and capital allocation.
He is also an Executive Fellow at Harvard Business School, where he co-teaches the Scaling Technology Ventures course on growing disruptive internet companies.
Rob holds an A.B., cum laude, in Economics and Finance from Princeton University, where he served as Student Body President and played JV basketball. He earned his MBA from Harvard Business School as a Baker Scholar.
Ellen Chisa is a partner at boldstart ventures, where she invests in enterprise startups at inception. Prior to boldstart, she was the cofounder of darklang, and held product leadership roles at Lola Travel and Kickstarter. She holds a B.S. in Electrical & Computer Engineering from Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering and an MBA from Harvard Business School.
Jeff Chow is the Chief Product & Technology Officer at Miro. He has over 25 years of experience building high growth organizations focused on delivering customer-centric digital products. He is passionate about building a team culture where collaboration and quick problem solving contribute to transforming a good business to a great one. Prior to Miro, Jeff was the Chief Executive Officer and Chief Product Officer at InVision, and held leadership roles in Product and Product Design teams at Google and TripAdvisor. In addition, Jeff has founded, run, and exited several startups in mobile, consumer, and marketing industries. Jeff received his BS in Mechanical Engineering at MIT.
Kristen Craft brings deep startup roots to her work at Fidelity Private Shares. In this role, she’s building out Fidelity’s startup engagement platform, supporting founders and investors with equity management tools, fundraising strategy, and go-to-market best practices. Prior to Fidelity, Kristen was a founder herself, and then a longtime startup operator. She enjoyed working on strategic partnerships and digital marketing, predominantly in B2B SaaS companies. A Boston-area native, Kristen holds a B.A. from Brown University, an M.Ed. from Harvard University, and an MBA from MIT Sloan. She’s particularly passionate about building community, creating connections, and supporting diverse founders.
Cathy is a Partner at Sapphire Ventures and is on the boards of Culture Amp, EliseAI, Gem, involve.ai, Medable, Paradox, SafeGraph, Sword Health, and UJET. She has experience investing at multiple stages, ranging from buyout to venture capital and has also sat on the other side of the table as a business operator. For her work, she has been recognized by the Venture Capital Journal as a Rising Star and by Silicon Valley Business Journal as a Woman of Influence.
Prior to Sapphire, Cathy was an investor at AXA Venture Partners where she invested in enterprise software. She started her career at Blackstone and TA Associates and was an operator at Gusto, joining shortly after the Series B.
Chris Gardner is a partner at Underscore VC focusing on FinTech. Prior to joining the firm, he had spent the last 25 years as an operator in Product and Marketing roles resulting in 5 exits in a row. Most recently, he was the co-founder of Paydiant which was acquired by PayPal in 2015. He then led P2P, SMB, and retail payments teams at PayPal prior to joining Underscore in October 2020.
Samara is a General Partner at Hyperplane, an early-stage VC fund investing in B2B
industrial and enterprise automation. Before Hyperplane, Samara was the founder of The Faster Times and held product leadership roles at Finomial and Emerton. She holds a B.A. in Politics, Philosophy, and Economics from the University of Pennsylvania.
Rick Grinnell is Founder and Managing Partner of Glasswing Ventures, focused on AI-enabled security and enterprise infrastructure investments. Over his 24-year career in venture capital, Rick has built an exceptional track record of investing in transformative companies across security, storage, analytics, and SaaS applications.
Rick’s portfolio achievements include leading investments in multiple successful exits: Digital Guardian (acquired by HelpSystems), EqualLogic (acquired by Dell), Prelert (acquired by Elastic), Resilient Systems (acquired by IBM), TrackVia (acquired by Primus Capital), and VeloBit (acquired by Western Digital). He currently serves on boards of cutting-edge companies including Allure Security, Black Kite, Lambent, Nametag, Realm.Security, Trustle, and Narrative.
Beyond investing, Rick brings valuable operating experience from senior marketing and engineering roles at Adero (acquired by Inktomi), ClearOne Communications, and PictureTel (acquired by Polycom).
Rick’s influence extends throughout the innovation ecosystem. He serves on MIT’s Educational Council, advises at Harvard Business School’s Rock Center for Entrepreneurship, and mentors at MIT iHQ and Sandbox. He frequently judges at MassChallenge and sits on the Advanced Cyber Security Center board, leading New England’s public/private security collaboration.
Recognized as one of Boston’s most important VCs by Business Insider, Rick received the Community Leadership Award from New England Venture Network. His community involvement includes the Museum of Science Boston Board of Advisors and ongoing work with Big Brothers Big Sisters of Eastern Massachusetts.
Rick holds BS and MS degrees in Electrical Engineering from MIT and an MBA from Harvard Business School.
Charles Hudson is the Managing Partner and Founder of Precursor Ventures, an early stage venture capital firm focused on investing in the first institutional round of investment for the most promising software and hardware companies. He invests in people over product at the earliest stage of their entrepreneurial journey. Under his leadership, Precursor has raised four funds and has $250+ million under management. He has invested in 400+ companies and has supported 450+ founders, including the teams behind Bobbie Baby, Carrot, Incredible Health, Juniper Square, Modern Health, Pair Eyewear, Rad AI, and The Athletic (sold to the NY Times for $525 million in 2022).
Prior to founding Precursor, Charles was a Partner at Uncork Capital where he focused on identifying investment opportunities in mobile infrastructure, applications, and marketplaces and supported their portfolio companies on business and corporate development matters. He was also the Co-founder and CEO of Bionic Panda Games, an Android-focused mobile games startup.
Charles is an active member of the VC community. He was the 2023-2024 Chair of the NVCA Board of Directors, a board member at Venture Forward, on the investment committee for Screendoor, and is on the Path Ahead Ventures Advisory Board. He is also an advisor and mentor to a number of emerging managers.
Charles holds an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business and a B.A. in Economics and Spanish from Stanford. He maintains close connections with his alma mater and was awarded the 2021-22 Governors’ Award in honor of his volunteer service to the university as a board member and volunteer. Charles is also a co-instructor for the Entrepreneurship from Diverse Perspectives course in the Stanford Graduate School of Business.
Mo Jomaa is a partner at Alphabet’s independent growth fund, CapitalG, where he helps lead enterprise software investing with a focus on IT management software, data infrastructure & analytics, and AI infrastructure. He played a leadership role in the firm’s investments in Databricks, CrowdStrike, Grafana, NinjaOne, Verkada, Cribl, Armis, LangChain, Lovable, and Collibra, among others.
Prior to joining CapitalG in 2018, Mo helped lead enterprise software IPO and M&A transactions at Morgan Stanley. Mo graduated from UC Berkeley and holds a degree in Business Administration from the Haas School of Business.
Having grown up in Southern California, Mo is a loyal Los Angeles Lakers fan and religiously watches almost every single game. In his free time, Mo loves to play basketball, cook, golf, and cycle.
Kamila Khasanova is the founder and CEO of On Top Strategy, a NYC-based communications firm that works with high-growth startups from seed stage through exit, as well as VCs focused on seed to Series C. Her team helps founders and investors navigate critical moments of scale – developing PR, founder thought leadership, and positioning strategies that drive fundraising and market expansion.
With a background in government lobbying and public affairs, Kamila’s team has worked with companies across health tech, fintech, and other verticals whose founders have collectively raised over $500M.
Brandon Krieg is Co-CEO and Co-Founder of Stash, the pioneering fintech company that he and Ed Robinson founded in 2015 with the belief that all Americans deserve the advice, tools, and opportunity to invest in themselves, starting with just $5. Most recently, Brandon led the launch of StashWorks as well as Stash’s AI Money Coach. Brandon also serves as CEO of Stash Capital, the company’s broker-dealer. Prior to Stash he co-founded Edge Trade, one of the first and largest agency trade execution and software firms (later acquired by Knight Capital Group), and served as Head of Electronic Execution at Macquarie Securities Group.
Jon McNeill is the CEO and Co-Founder of DVx Ventures, a venture studio that has launched 12 companies tackling large-scale market opportunities. A visionary entrepreneur, investor, and operator, Jon has founded six companies, building and scaling businesses that created tens of thousands of jobs and delivered 9x returns to investors.
Jon’s operating career includes leadership at some of the world’s most transformative companies. As President of Tesla, he helped scale the company from $2B to $20B in revenue in just 18 months, overseeing global sales, delivery, and service. At Lyft, where he served as COO during a critical growth phase, Jon doubled revenue, expanded market share, and prepared the company for its IPO.
He currently serves on the boards of General Motors, Lululemon, Asurion, CrossFit, and Stash. At Lululemon, Jon played a key role in its turnaround, contributing to a 5x increase in stock value. He also sits on the Liquid AI Advisory Council. Earlier in his career, Jon was a consultant at Bain & Company and is a graduate of Northwestern University.
A frequent speaker and guest lecturer at Harvard Business School, MIT Sloan, and Stanford GSB, Jon is known for delivering practical, actionable insights on innovation, leadership, and scaling operations. His upcoming book, The Algorithm: The Hypergrowth Formula That Transformed Tesla, SpaceX, Lululemon, and General Motors, will be published by Penguin Random House in 2026.
Jennifer Neundorfer is an operator turned investor who has been investing in early stage startups for the last decade. She is currently the Managing Partner of January Ventures, a pre-seed focused venture capital firm investing in B2B startups leveraging software to transform legacy industries. She founded January Ventures to rewrite the networks in venture capital, and invest in the most ambitious founders regardless of pedigree, network, or access. Prior to January, Jennifer was co-founder of Flashstarts, a startup accelerator focused on software startups outside of Silicon Valley. As an operator, she launched and scaled media and advertising businesses at 21st Century Fox and YouTube. As a Cuban-American and one of the few Latina GPs in venture, Jennifer believes in demystifying venture for founders and future investors. She has a BA from Harvard University and an MBA from Stanford University. Jennifer is based in Boston.
Sharon Obuobi is the Founder and CEO of Alt/Finance, an alternative market intelligence and platform that powers insights on alternative assets. Alt/Finance was launched at the TechCrunch Disrupt stage in San Francisco in September 2023. In 2024, Alt/Finance was part of a 3 month fintech innovation initiative with Accenture’s Fintech Innovation Lab in New York. With a background in fine art, business and technology, Sharon drives innovation at the intersection of these fields. She was a founding member of the Modern & Contemporary African Art department at Sotheby’s in 2018. In 2022, she was featured as a highly commended top 10 female founder in the UK by the national newspaper Telegraph and Natwest Bank. She was also recognized by Apollo Magazine as a 2021 global list of 40 under 40 art tech innovator. She has been featured on CNN, the Financial Times and published by Duke University’s NKA Journal.
Nathan Poon spent 10 years building medical logistics products used by Amazon, Tesla, DHL, Delta, and 50+ hospitals and clinics in the US before starting Avol. He built 2 startups (1 exit), received his PhD in mechanical engineering from UC Berkeley, and holds 5 patents and publications.
Stephen W. Ranere is a partner at Latham & Watkins, where he represents technology and life sciences companies, as well as venture capital and private equity firms, across a diverse array of growth industries. His practice spans early-stage formation and strategy, venture and growth financings, mergers and acquisitions, IPOs, corporate governance, and public company representation. He assists clients in various sectors such as fintech, climate tech, digital health, and AI-enabled drug discovery, and leverages Latham’s global platform to deliver tailored, business-focused solutions at every stage of corporate development. A recognized leader within the firm, Stephen serves on the Digital Health Task Force and previously served on the Associates Committee. He is ranked by Chambers USA for Private Equity: Venture Capital Investment (Band 3) and Technology (Band 2) in Massachusetts, and recognized by The Legal 500 US for Venture Capital and Emerging Companies.
Jahanvi Sardana is an early-stage and growth investor at Index Ventures in New York, where she partners with founders building category-defining companies in AI, enterprise software, healthcare, and financial services. Since joining Index she has led investments across these categories and serves on the boards or works with companies including Sublime Security, Thatch, Crosby Legal, and others.
Her investment philosophy is simple: invest for strength, not for the absence of weakness. “In the end, I think amazing success can be achieved by highly imperfect people,” she says. “What matters is finding alignment in values and conviction in a founder’s spike, an area of extreme competence or insight that will give them unfair advantage. The rest we can work on together.”
Before Index, Jahanvi invested at Stripes, backing companies like Island, Axonius, Lithic, and Oyster. She holds a B.S. in Finance and Business Analytics from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.
Darrell West has over 40 years of combined experience working in accounting, finance, and private equity. As Co-Founder & CFO of DepositLink, Darrell oversees accounting, financial reporting, compliance and capital raising for the company.
Prior to co-founding DepositLink, Darrell was as an auditor for Coppers & Lybrand where he qualified as a CPA in New York State, worked on Wall Street for Goldman Sachs in their Municipal Finance Department, and lived in South Africa for 15 years working in private equity and making investments in companies throughout sub-Saharan Africa.
Darrell is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, Wharton School and received his MBA from Harvard Business School. He currently resides in Milton, Massachusetts with his wife and two children.
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Disrupt 2026: Meet the connections that change everything at half off
Join 10,000 founders, VCs, and operators on Oct 13-15 for high-signal networking, real deals, and tactical insights you can use immediately. Register before May 29 to save up to $410 on your pass, plus get a second pass at 50% off.
The next stop in the StrictlyVC series happens on May 27 in Athens. Europe’s top tech leaders take the stage to share what’s now and what’s next. Connect with the ones driving it forward. Limited capacity.
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