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22/07/2025

Tanay Jaipuria is a partner at Wing VC where he focuses on investments in AI-powered applications and data and AI infrastructure. He is passionate about supporting highly technical teams in the earliest stages building delightful experiences to tackle challenging problems. Prior to Wing, Tanay was a product manager at Meta, where he led teams building products to improve newsfeed ranking and ad experiences on Facebook and to help creators make a living on Instagram. Before that, he was a consultant at McKinsey & Company, where he served clients across the financial services, media, and technology industries. Tanay brings a wealth of experiential knowledge to Wing, and shares his thoughts on startups, technology, and business in his popular weekly newsletter. Tanay holds a BS in computer science from Columbia University and an MBA from Harvard Business School, where he graduated as a Baker Scholar.

Topics:

- AI Apps and Infrastructure Investment Thesis
- Red flags versus green flags in AI startup pitches
- The make-vs-buy decision process for AI companies choosing partners

21/07/2025

Nancy Wang is a Venture Partner at Felicis, where she backs early-stage founders building in infrastructure, cybersecurity, and AI. As a product and engineering executive, Nancy brings a builder’s mindset to investing: helping startups refine their product-market fit, land their first enterprise customers, and scale production-grade systems. She complements this investor perspective with her operational role as VP and Head of Engineering at 1Password, leading all product engineering teams and spearheading the company’s next-generation initiatives in generative AI security and identity access management, architecting systems for an agent-first future.

Prior to 1Password, Nancy served as Director of Product & Engineering and General Manager at Amazon Web Services, where she owned P&L and led product, engineering, and design for AWS’s $1.5B+ data protection and data security portfolio. Earlier in her career, she built cloud SaaS products at Rubrik, network infrastructure products at Google, and helped launch HealthData.gov for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Nancy extends her cybersecurity expertise by serving on the Cyber-Resilience Advisory Council for Commvault (NASDAQ: CVLT), advising the C-suite on enterprise security trends and product strategy, and bridging early traction with durable growth for both Fortune 10 companies and startups.

Passionate about expanding access to technical leadership, Nancy founded and serves as board chair of Advancing Women in Tech (AWIT), a global 501(c)(3) nonprofit that has educated over 45,000 learners on Coursera. She holds a Bachelor of Applied Science in Engineering from the University of Pennsylvania, where she also serves on the Board of Technology, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship (BoTIE).

Topics:
- What it takes to land your first enterprise customer
- What founders get wrong about enterprise sales
- How to lead technical orgs through hypergrowth







16/07/2025

Cody Coleman is the co-founder and CEO of Coactive AI. He is also a co-creator of DAWNBench and MLPerf, a founding member of MLCommons, and his work spans developing standards and benchmarks for high-performance deep learning to data-centric AI. He holds a PhD in Computer Science from Stanford and MEng and BS degrees in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from MIT.

Topics:
- AI-Powered Search & Analysis
- Enterprise-Grade Visual Data Solutions
- Strategic AI Infrastructure

16/07/2025

Jesse Marble is the Founder and General Partner of Wildwood Ventures.

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This episode is brought to you by Verivend. If you’re a GP or LP looking to simplify the capital raising and deployment process, Verivend is here to help. Trusted by over 800 funds and managing more than $2 billion in transactions, Verivend offers a secure, streamlined payments platform designed specifically for private capital markets. Say goodbye to manual reconciliation and repeated follow-ups - raise and deploy capital faster and with greater transparency. Ready to make your fund operations smoother? Visit https://bit.ly/3GrB4Qj and see how easy it can be.
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Wildwood Ventures is an early-stage venture firm and studio investing in startups at the intersection of wellness, the outdoors, and healthy living. After bootstrapping and exiting his growth marketing agency, Magneti, Marble transitioned from operator to investor in 2023, launching Wildwood in partnership with VF Corporation (parent of Vans, The North Face, and Timberland). Wildwood combines hands-on company building with venture capital, backing companies like Out&Back, Kinsa Active, and Roots.

Topics:
- Consumer tech investing in the wellness and outdoor economy
- How to build a wellness or outdoor startup that actually scales
- Partnering with VF Corp: What It Means to Have a Strategic LP

15/07/2025

Ryan Breslow is the founder and CEO of Bolt, a one-click checkout company he launched to make fast, secure online purchasing accessible to retailers beyond Amazon. After leaving Stanford to pursue entrepreneurship full-time, he scaled Bolt to an $11B valuation and helped popularize “Conscious Culture,” a workplace philosophy that blends high performance with mindfulness and transparency. He’s also the founder of Love.com, Eco, Prism, The Family Accelerator, and The Movement—ventures that reflect his broad interest in wellness, fintech, and purpose-driven innovation. Known for his ambitious vision and direct communication style, Ryan continues to push boundaries as one of tech’s most unconventional young founders.

Topics:
- How to Build Mission-Driven Companies That Scale Fast
- Resetting Startup Culture: What Needs to Change
- Creating Companies That Balance Speed and Values

15/07/2025

Lorraine K. Lee is a keynote speaker, best-selling author, and founder specializing in professional presence and personal branding. With over 324,000 followers on LinkedIn, she is recognized globally as a LinkedIn Top Voice and a go-to expert on virtual communication and executive presence. Previously a founding editor at LinkedIn and the first managing editor at Prezi, Lorraine has helped shape how professionals show up and stand out in the modern workplace. Her book Unforgettable Presence distills a decade of experience into actionable frameworks used by leaders at Zoom, Cisco, Amazon, and McKinsey. Today, she teaches at Stanford Continuing Studies and LinkedIn Learning, empowering individuals and teams to be seen, heard, and remembered for all the right reasons.

Topics:
- How to Build a Magnetic Personal Brand Without Being Cringe
- Why Great Work Isn’t Enough—You Need to Be Seen, Too
- Strategic Presence: How Founders Win in Pitches and Hiring

14/07/2025

Steven Lee is the Founder and General Partner of Seven Stars.

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This episode is brought to you by Verivend. If you’re a GP or LP looking to simplify the capital raising and deployment process, Verivend is here to help. Trusted by over 800 funds and managing more than $2 billion in transactions, Verivend offers a secure, streamlined payments platform designed specifically for private capital markets. Say goodbye to manual reconciliation and repeated follow-ups - raise and deploy capital faster and with greater transparency. Ready to make your fund operations smoother? Visit https://bit.ly/3GrB4Qj and see how easy it can be.
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This episode is in partnership with Notion. Notion is the AI workspace that works for you. Startups move fast - and Notion helps you move faster. From idea to exit, build docs, manage projects, and run your team and startup in one connected workspace powered by Notion AI. And because you’re part of the show’s community, Notion’s giving you up to 6 months of the Business plan with Notion AI—worth up to $12K—free. Apply here: https://ntn.so/gracegong
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Seven Stars is a $40 million seed and pre-seed venture fund backing AI applications across consumer and enterprise sectors. A former partner at SV Angel, Lee helped lead investments in over 35 AI startups including ElevenLabs, Captions, Mercor, Reflection AI, and Skild AI, and personally invested in OpenAI. Inspired by his immigrant parents who ran a clothing shop called Seven Star Fashion in L.A.'s Koreatown, Lee named his firm in their honor and brings a deeply founder-first approach to investing. With a focus on hands-on fundraising support, talent access, and advisory networks from top tech companies, Lee aims to empower the next generation of visionary AI founders and ensure AI benefits not just the first billion users, but the next eight billion.

Topics:
- Which AI application areas are still underexplored or overhyped
- Common fundraising mistakes AI founders make and how to avoid them
- Thesis on AI reaching "the next eight billion users"





Week 76 Recap – Venture with Grace 🎙️Here’s what we covered this week across AI agents, corporate VC, AI security, and e...
13/07/2025

Week 76 Recap – Venture with Grace 🎙️

Here’s what we covered this week across AI agents, corporate VC, AI security, and early-stage healthtech:

📅 July 7 – Krish Ramineni, CEO of Fireflies.ai
We talked about his journey building one of the most widely-used AI meeting assistants, how AI agents are transforming enterprise workflows, and the GTM strategies behind Fireflies.

📅 July 8 – Marc Silberman, Partner at Comcast Ventures
Marc shared his perspective on investing in AI through a corporate VC lens, how strategic and financial priorities intersect, and what founders should know when partnering with a corporate investor.

📅 July 8 – Sid Trivedi, Partner at Foundation Capital
We explored AI security investing—how Sid approaches emerging threats, what trends he's tracking in AI-powered cybersecurity, and his frameworks for supporting early-stage founders in the space.

📅 July 10 – Andrew Brackin, Partner at Gradient Ventures
From co-founding Vial and Newfront to investing in healthtech and AI, Andrew shared what makes a standout founder, how Gradient supports early teams, and what’s next at the intersection of AI and healthcare. (He’s also a Thiel Fellow—so he’s been building since day one.)

🎧 Catch all episodes on YouTube, Spotify, or iTunes — just search Venture with Grace.

10/07/2025

Andrew Brackin is a Partner at Gradient.

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This episode is brought to you by Verivend. If you’re a GP or LP looking to simplify the capital raising and deployment process, Verivend is here to help. Trusted by over 800 funds and managing more than $2 billion in transactions, Verivend offers a secure, streamlined payments platform designed specifically for private capital markets. Say goodbye to manual reconciliation and repeated follow-ups - raise and deploy capital faster and with greater transparency. Ready to make your fund operations smoother? Visit https://bit.ly/3GrB4Qj and see how easy it can be.

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Prior to Gradient, Andrew co-founded Vial, a tech-enabled clinical trial platform that raised over $100M in venture capital from top-tier firms. Prior to Vial, he was part of the founding team and the Head of Growth at Newfront (YC W18), an AI-powered commercial insurance brokerage valued at $2.2BN, insuring numerous Fortune 500 companies. His career began at Jobr, a mobile job search business that Monster.com acquired in 2016. Andrew was a 2013 recipient of the Thiel Fellowship. Outside of work, he loves reading about global affairs, working out at Barry’s Bootcamp, and enjoying live music.

Topics:

- Lessons from raising $100M+ and building in a complex, regulated industry

- Sectors that are overhyped vs. undervalued in today's market

- Predictions for the next wave of healthcare innovation

10/07/2025

Andrew Brackin is a Partner at Gradient Ventures.

~~~~~
This episode is brought to you by Verivend. If you’re a GP or LP looking to simplify the capital raising and deployment process, Verivend is here to help. Trusted by over 800 funds and managing more than $2 billion in transactions, Verivend offers a secure, streamlined payments platform designed specifically for private capital markets. Say goodbye to manual reconciliation and repeated follow-ups - raise and deploy capital faster and with greater transparency. Ready to make your fund operations smoother? Visit https://bit.ly/3GrB4Qj and see how easy it can be.
~~~~~

Prior to Gradient, Andrew co-founded Vial, a tech-enabled clinical trial platform that raised over $100M in venture capital from top-tier firms. Prior to Vial, he was part of the founding team and the Head of Growth at Newfront (YC W18), an AI-powered commercial insurance brokerage valued at $2.2BN, insuring numerous Fortune 500 companies. His career began at Jobr, a mobile job search business that Monster.com acquired in 2016. Andrew was a 2013 recipient of the Thiel Fellowship. Outside of work, he loves reading about global affairs, working out at Barry’s Bootcamp, and enjoying live music.

Topics:
- Lessons from raising $100M+ and building in a complex, regulated industry
- Sectors that are overhyped vs. undervalued in today's market
- Predictions for the next wave of healthcare innovation

08/07/2025

Sid Trivedi is a Partner at Foundation Capital, where he leads early-stage investments in enterprise software and cybersecurity. With experience spanning Wall Street (Barclays Capital), private equity (Symphony Technology Group), and venture capital (Omidyar Technology Ventures), Sid brings a unique perspective to building category-defining companies. At Foundation Capital, he has backed market leaders including DevZero, Stacklet, Neurelo, AirMDR, Prime Security, Levo, Permiso, Anvilogic, and Fortanix, with notable exits including CloudKnox (acquired by Microsoft), Respond Software (acquired by FireEye), and MistNet (acquired by LogRhythm). Beyond investing, Sid curates Foundation's IT + Security Dinner Series for Fortune 2,000 executives, co-founded and co-hosts the Inside the Network podcast, and serves on advisory boards for Entrepreneurship at Cornell and the California Israel Chamber of Commerce. A Cornell University graduate (magna cm laude, Phi Beta Kappa) with a Bachelor's in Economics and Biological Sciences, Sid's global perspective was shaped by growing up across Asia during the mobile revolution, where his father's work at Nokia provided early exposure to transformative technology innovation.

Topics:
- Why cybersecurity is the next trillion-dollar market
- The intersection of AI and cybersecurity
- What Fortune 2000 CIOs actually want from security startups

07/07/2025

Krish Ramineni is the Co-founder and CEO of Fireflies.ai, an AI voice assistant that automates meeting notes, action items, and workflows for millions of professionals worldwide. A Forbes 30 Under 30 honoree, Krish started Fireflies after working at Microsoft, where he focused on product and growth. Under his leadership, Fireflies scaled to support users across 100,000+ organizations, including teams at Uber, Nike, and Netflix, and pioneered the use of AI meeting agents to transform productivity. With a background in product design, go-to-market strategy, and AI, Krish is a leading voice on the future of work, human-AI collaboration, and conversational intelligence.

Topics:
- The Future of Work: Building AI Agents That Actually Do the Work
- Bootstrapping to Millions of Users: Lessons in Product-Led Growth
- Reinventing Meetings: Turning Conversation into Ex*****on with AI

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