Dan Rosen, Founder/Partner Commerce Ventures, a venture firm focused on digital innovations in the FinTech, Payments and Commerce eco-systems. Commerce Ventures represents a broad, highly strategic set of investors and, thus far, the firm has invested in over forty portfolio companies since its launch, including Bill.com (SaaS Platform for B2B payments), Blooom (Digital Advice for Retirement Accounts), Covr (Insurance Distribution Platform for FIs and Advisors), Forter (Fraud Decisions-as-a-Service Platform), InAuth (Mobile Device Identification and Authentication), Marqeta (Next-generation Issuing Platform), MX (Saas Platform for Omnichannel Banking), Snapsheet (Auto Insurance Self-service Platform), Trizic (Enterprise Digital Wealth Platform for FIs and Advisors) and VestWell (Full Fiduciary Retirement Platform for SMBs). Prior to creating Commerce Ventures, Dan was a Principal at Highland Capital and invested primarily in mobile, payments and digital marketing companies. Dan received his BS in Economics (with Honors) from University of Pennsylvania (Wharton) and his MBA (with Distinction) from Harvard.
Venture Capital
Duncan Davidson, CoFounder/Managing Partner Bullpen Capital #smartcontracts
Duncan Davidson, CoFounder/Managing Partner Bullpen Capital, the pioneer of Post Seed investing, an early A round setting up a super-sized round. Previously he was at VantagePoint Venture Partners, a mega-fund and one of the leaders in CleanTech. Prior to joining the dark side, he started or was involved with four startups: Covad and InterTrust, both multi-billion dollar IPOs in the ‘90s; SkyPilot, an outdoor WiFi mesh, and Xumii, one of the earliest mobile social networks. At Bullpen he is focusing on future technologies like AI, drones, IOT; as well as startups digitizing analog businesses. He is on the board of Illumeo, Verbling, Filament, Sourceeasy, Lumoid, and DoubleDutch, and an active advisor to Wag Walking, Betable and Twenty20.
Michael Gilroy, Canaan Partners NYC #svversusnycfintechvc
Michael Gilroy, Principal Canaan Partners. Michael invests in entrepreneurs building enterprise software and fintech companies. He is interested in talking to founders building the next generation enterprise tools and fintechs solving the structural issues in finance. Deeply passionate about building the entrepreneurial community in fintech, Michael launched Canaan’s FinTech Central in 2015, a quarterly event series covering trends in fintech. Previously, Michael advised technology companies with GCA Savvian and Matrix Capital. He received a B.A. in Economics from the University of California, Berkeley.
Tess Hatch, Investor Bessemer Venture Partners #svversusnycfintechvc
Tess Hatch, Investor Bessemer Venture Partners Menlo Park office. She is focused on frontier tech, specifically commercial space, machine/deep/reinforcement learning, blockchain, and quantum computing. She currently serves as board observer for Rocket Lab, Spire, Auth0, Endgame, Distil Networks, Team8, Virtru, Claroty, CyberGRX, and Illusive Networks. She holds a bachelor’s degree in aerospace engineering from the University of Michigan (go blue!) and a master’s degree in aeronautics and astronautics engineering from Stanford (go trees!). She was a mission manager at SpaceX where she worked with the government on integrating their payloads with the Falcon9 rocket. She also worked at Fictiv, a startup using 3D printing and CNC machining to democratize access to manufacturing. Tess writes a space comic, Ada Ride, which you should check out for a good laugh. Don’t be surprised if Tess asks you to go on a hike or walk rather than a typical coffee meeting – being a SoCal native she loves the sun.