Who We Are
Steering Committee
Anke Huiskes
What I invest in: (Pre)Seed stage product-focused founders working on technologies, infra, dev tools, and creator platforms that are lowering barriers to entrepreneurship and support economic equality, and climate tech founders across EU and US.
How I can help: I was the first commercial employee at a few fast growing companies in the Bay Area and have been part of the 0 to 1 growth curve. My specialty is GTM, Marketing and Strategic Sales. I love making connections to help companies move faster.
Melissa Z. Moore
What I invest in: Future of Work, Future of Living, underrepresented founders, community-driven startups
How I can help: I have over a decade of experience as an entrepreneur and startup community builder in Silicon Valley. Helped scale the Lean Startup movement from a grassroots community to hundreds of thousands of practitioners globally. I can help with both strategic & tactical advice on marketing, business operations, and building distributed teams from Years 0-3.
Kirsti Chou
What I invest in: Climate tech companies from pre-seed through series A, in the US and Europe.
How I can help: Having worked at startups and corporations I bring operating experience in sales, GTM, growth, product strategy and supply chain management. I enjoy being an enabler and making connections. All about saving our planet and creating equal opportunities for all.
Founding Members
Aihui Ong
What I invest in: AI/ML, Fintech, Blockchain, Ecommerce-enablement, Consumer brands
How I can help: 2X founder with a successful exit. My all-rounded experience as a founder, operator, engineer and investor is my superpower. It helps me to understand and assist founders better because I've been in their shoes.
Amy Slawson
What I invest in: I invest in strong, diverse teams that are focused on bettering the world, especially in climate tech, edtech, and financial inclusion.
How I can help: I bring a background in engineering and product management where I launched several new products. I love to help startups navigate challenges, make connections, and amplify their achievements and mission.
Aye Moah
What I invest in: Either clean tech, SAAS or consumer tech. Products/services I would like to exist in the world is my primary criteria. pre-seed to seed+ round, some SPV for later stage.
How I can help: Love connecting people to the right folks. I know a lot of current and former founders. I can help founders with tactical and strategic advice on how to build sustainable businesses. I can advise companies on product strategy, product positioning, go-to-market strategy, data and security compliance concerns, building an inclusive culture that attracts a diverse team.
Bhavna Guglani
What I invest in: I like investing in SaaS and subscription businesses. My portfolio includes companies in the US and India.
How I can help: I have deep expertise in lending tech and credit-ed/ fin-ed, and will be happy to share my learnings. I know and can help with complex pricing/ revenue modeling, and building customer insights and analytics very well.
Cheshta Balwani
What I invest in: Mainly in companies in the climate tech space. Within climate tech, I get excited about companies in food, energy & mobility infrastructure, circular economy related tech and forest/ecosystem preservation.
How I can help: I am a subject matter expert in distributed infrastructure and I get excited about new & crazy ideas. Folks can use me as a sounding board for their ideas in the climate space or could also reach out for technical due diligence/feedback.
Cristina Apple Georgoulakis
What I invest in: Pre-seed to Seed, and Underrepresented founders. AgeTech, FemTech, FamTech, and companies using Design and Community as a differentiator.
How I can help: I focus on keeping the triple-bottom-line in balance - a company's mission, people, and business outcomes.
Eliska Mallickova
What I invest in: Fintech, ESG, circular economy, new categories, health and wealth. Product and clear commercial strategy persuade me to invest
How I can help: I'm always happy to connect and support hands on having experience from founding, scaling and VC
Erika Murdock Balbuena
What I invest in: Diverse founders, early stage, mission driven.
How I can help: Keeping mission, ESG, impact top of mind as a company scales. Been a part of two IPOs, Twilio and Robinhood. Connections to my network. Prioritizing founding team well-being.
Gail Mosse
What I invest in: Diverse, especially women, Founders; Founders I connect with; Legal tech; Insuretech; Australia and New Zealand start ups
How I can help: Connecting people; helping founders; navigating through risk toward innovation and growth; counseling traditional companies toward digital transformation
Hoda Mehr
What I invest in: I focus on high-performing products with early signs of traction (e.g., retention), and I'd like to get in early and add to my position as the company grows.
How I can help: I'm a founder too, so I understand what you are going through. We can discuss tactics to get early traction, steps to get to product-market fit. I want to support founders the way I need investors to support me.
Iryna Krutenko
What I invest in: Future of Work, EdTech, Climate Tech, underrepresented founders, companies in the US and Europe
How I can help: Product advising and feedback; scaling product across locales and countries; hiring
Jess Lynch
What I invest in: B2B SaaS, AI, Autotech, Health & Wellness, with preference for Underrepresented and CT-based founders!
How I can help: Love helping founders from my experience as a founder and investor. Love digging into customer discovery, market segmentation, messaging, user experience, fundraising and M&A!
Jess Toy
What I invest in: fintech, web3, mental health, alcohol alternatives, pets
How I can help: I have 10 years of experience in product at startups. I've worked closely with customer service and employee experience teams and can offer guidance in product, internal tools, employee programs, engineering programs, and recruiting.
Jessica Millstone
What I invest in: Women-led companies building truly future-focused products, ability to be helpful/make a difference as an early investor, bring attention to company by having women on the cap table
How I can help: Networking (esp in education space), fundraising strategy
Katelin Holloway
What I invest in: HRTech, FemTech, FamTech, ClimateTech, FrontierTech, and misc hospitality endeavors (gotta have some fun, too!)
How I can help: I am a very hands on angel investor. I love supporting early stage founders with all things People & Culture. I have over 10 years of executive HR leadership under my belt and I enjoy supporting founders particularly early in their culture building.
Linda Tatlow
What I invest in: Climate tech, under represented founders, companies that are helping lift all boats
How I can help: I love rolling up my sleeves and pitching in however possible - through helping strategize business model, pitch decks, financials and share resources and network as needed.
Lyndsey Boucherle
What I invest in: Pre-seed to Seed, Underrepresented founders. Mostly focused on companies with a clear environmental or societal impact (ie: climatetech, edtech, financial inclusion)
How I can help: Supporting founders from Pre-seed to Series A. Fundraising advice and connections.
Paulette Jencks
What I invest in: Famtech, Femtech, Edtech, Future of Work, Under represented founders
How I can help: Making connections, understanding your customer and early marketing tactics, giving honest feedback, being a sounding board for strategic decisions
Sandy Kreis Lacey
What I invest in: Fintech & Femtech, with some Climate too; I focus on exceptional founders with unique advantages in the space they are playing. I write small checks but bring on substantial follow-on investment.
How I can help: My superpower is team building and dynamics at the earliest of stages. I'm the hypewoman and believe strongly in learning the best ways to speak truth about tough things. I don't care about another B2B SaaS startup; I invest in people who are focused on solving problems that move the needle in bettering our world, all with the potential to return a massive return.
Santhi Analytis
What I invest in: I invest in female and minority founders, especially in the medical device / health space, climate tech, and sustainability.
How I can help: I'm a very hands-on hardware engineering leader and can offer advice and help on early stage hiring, fundraising, quality management, product safety / regulatory, and manufacturing strategies and decisions. My technical expertise covers robotics, sensors, medical imaging, medical devices, consumer electronics, IoT, injection molding, and HVAC/refrigeration.
Sarah Mennicken
What I invest in: Early-stage startups with diverse founding teams driven by a strong mission. CleanTech (especially innovation in construction and farming), innovation in generating insights (both qualitative and quantitative), technologies that support families.
How I can help: Understanding your customer and target market. Testing your value proposition efficiently. Giving honest and actionable feedback. Subject matter expert on the UX and prototyping of emerging technologies such as conversational/voice assistants, AR/VR, IoT and machine-learning-driven user interactions.
Sasha Basso
What I invest in: Diverse and underrepresented founders creating and inspiring in e-commerce, CPG, and making the world a better place.
How I can help: I love to roll up my sleeves and help in any way I can, but my real super power is in design and anything creative. I love to connect people and enjoy startup problem solving.
Susan Kimberlin
What I invest in: Very focused on diversity and inclusion impact. B2B / enterprise SaaS models, "unsexy" & infrastructure markets. AI, NLP, big data technologies (among many others - these are my specialities). Founders that I can get to know and work with at the very early stage. Companies and founders that I will learn something from.
How I can help: I like connecting with founders and acting as a sounding board and strategy partner. I'm an optimist and a systems thinker and love to look way down the road and find possibilities.
