Fireside Chat & Happy Hour: Evaluating AI-Native Companies
Hosted by Stifel Venture Bank, IAMBIC (Maeve Wang, Co-founder & CEO), and Resident Company Club.
Today’s AI conversations often start - and stall - at surface level. Investors are inundated with pitches citing LLM integrations, image generation, and thin use-case overlays on top of foundation models. But in a market where access to core models is increasingly commoditized, depth matters more than ever.
What separates an AI-native company from one merely using AI? And how should investors evaluate technical depth, product integration, and defensibility in a space moving at lightning speed?
On June 18th, IAMBIC, Stifel Bank, and Resident invite you to a private fireside chat that goes beyond the buzz. Join Maeve Wang, Co-founder and CEO of IAMBIC, Inc. Female Founder of the Year and TIME Best Invention of the Year - as she leads a candid conversation on what it means to build and back AI-native businesses in 2025. We'll unpack:
The difference between AI-enhanced and AI-native products
How to think about defensibility
The key questions investors should ask
This conversation is designed primarily for investors with founders invited. A happy hour will follow the discussion to continue the dialogue.
About Stifel
Stifel Financial (NYSE: SF) is a global investment bank, wealth management, and commercial banking institution with $400B+ in AUM. Stifel Bank offers venture and fund banking solutions, including 100% free banking for fund clients, fully insured liquid ICS accounts (up to $275MM FDIC coverage), capital call and management company lines of credit, and venture lending.
About IAMBIC: AI-Tailored, Precision-Fit Shoes
IAMBIC, recognized as a TIME Best Invention, is redefining footwear with AI-tailored, precision-fit shoes that deliver bespoke-level comfort at scale—solving fit for the 1 in 4 people failed by traditional sizing. IAMBIC’s patent-pending platform combines computer vision, data-driven manufacturing, and 5 years of NSF-funded R&D. The system is powered by a dataset of over 50,000 fully proprietary foot scans, achieving 98% fit accuracy while reducing the cost of personalized fit by 90%, making it accessible to the mainstream. With 12 patents pending and real-world traction—from sellout product launches to collaboration debuts at the Miami F1 Grand Prix—IAMBIC is setting a new standard for AI integration into physical products. The company is led by Maeve Wang (Harvard, Bain, Inc. Female Founder of the Year) and Dr. Raza Hassan (PhD AI/ML), with a team spanning AI, biomechanics, and global footwear expertise.
About Resident Company Club
Resident builds curated mini-communities for founders, CEOs, CFOs, operators, and investors in NYC. It’s a place for the brightest minds who are passionate about building generational businesses to share knowledge and challenge ideas. Guided by a give-first ethos, our members are committed to supporting and uplifting one another. We host unique events, workshops, Jeffersonian meals, and parties in NYC, facilitating meaningful debates on professional, cultural, and social issues.
Learn more at https://residentcompanyclub.com/