Unleashed Founders Retreat 2025
We can't wait to have you join us at this year's Unleashed Founders Retreat from Sept 11-12, 2025 in Saratoga Springs at The Gideon Putnam.
There are two registration options -
1) Local Attendee (if you're in the area and don't need overnight accommodation)
2) Standard Attendee (including overnight stay for out of town guests)
Agenda:
Thursday, September 11
1:00 pm: Welcome & Saratoga Walking Tour led by Peter Dean, CEO & Cofounder of RenderTribe
Please wear comfortable walking shoes
3:00 pm: Sip and Swing (weather permitting)
Following the walking tour, we'll enjoy some light refreshments and putting in Peter's yard
4:00 pm: Room Check-in & Break
Enjoy the property amenities and freshen up before dinner
5:00 pm: Cocktail Hour
Meet other guests ahead of our awards dinner
6:00 pm: Dinner & Awards Banquet
Community Catalyst Award
Deal of the Year Award, presented by EY
Fireside chat with Stephen Gilfus, serial entrepreneur (Blackboard), investor, and board director
9:00 pm: Drinks and Networking
Enjoy a nightcap with fellow attendees
Friday, September 12
7:30 am: Morning Hike led by Jeff Olson, Cofounder of re:Charge-e
9:00 am: Breakfast (option 1), Family Office Insights, led by Cale Van Buren, Rockefeller Capital Management
9:00 am: Breakfast (option 2) Fundraising Tips for 2025 with Cooley
10:00 am: Check out
10:30 am: Level Up: The Future of Gaming in the Capital Region
Guha Bala, Co-founder, Velan Studios
Brian Corrigan, Founder, Rocket Science
moderated by Nasir Ali, CEO of UpVentures
11:15 - 11:30 am: Break
11:30 am: What's Next for AI in Automotive
Mike Quigley, Co-founder, Impel
Andy Guelcher, President of Mohawk Chevrolet
moderated by Chuck Stormon, General Partner at StartFast Ventures
12:30 pm: Lunch
Building Leadership in Volatile Times with Mary Malone McCarthy Founder and CEO of M3 Placement and Partnership
2:00 pm: Optional Tours and Museums
Speaker Bios
Stephen Gilfus launched a distinguished career as a founder, principal designer and business architect of one of the world’s leading e-learning platforms (Blackboard Inc.) His work in eLearning and Education and Workforce has helped shape the development of online learning capacity for tens of thousands of organizations across the globe. He is recognized by many organizations as a key driver behind the growth of the eLearning industry and has presented at hundreds of academic institutions, eLearning organizations and industry conferences.
Guha Bala is the President of innovation investment firm, Velan Ventures, and the Cofounder of independent gaming studio, Velan Studios, in Troy, NY. Prior to these ventures, Guha started gaming studio Vicarious Visions in 1991 with his brother Karthik Gala. Vicarious Visions grew to more than 150 employees, and worked on more than 100 games, including big console releases like Guitar Hero, Skylanders Swap Force, and Skylanders Superchargers. The company’s games sold as many as 40-50 million units, and generated billions in sales. The Bala brothers started the company when they were teenagers in high school out of their parents’ basement. Vicarious Visions was sold to Activision Publishing in 2005. Guha graduated from Harvard University with an AB in Chemistry. He received an MBA from the MIT School of Management.
Brian Corrigan is the Founder of Rocket Science, specializing in the type of planet-scale problems publishers and studios face deploying games into an increasingly complex global marketplace. Most recently, Brian was the Head of Americas at PUBG Corporation where he leads regional publishing efforts. Prior to PUBG, he was the CEO of MadGlory (acquired by PUBG in 2018) where we worked with companies like Riot Games, SuperEvil Megacorp, Bethesda, Psyonix, Bosskey, Epic Games, Warner Brothers, Kabam and more. He has over 10 years of niche expertise in the video game space launching feature-rich, planet-scale services to hundreds of millions of players. Brian is also an active mentor and advisor for PowerSpike, Velan Studios, and Electronic Gaming Federation and he’s an investor in the Konvoy Venturs and Angel Round Capital Fund. He’s passionate about turning the Capital Region and into a worldwide video gaming hub.
Nasir Ali is the Co-founder of Upstate Venture Connect and the CEO of UpVentures. He has been actively building the high growth entrepreneurial ecosystem across Upstate New York since 2004. Ali launched The Syracuse Technology Garden incubator in 2004, which subsequently became the epicenter of startup community activity in Central NY. Through Upstate Venture Connect, Ali has built an online communications platform that reaches more than 15,000 startup community members; created the UNY50 Entrepreneur Leaders group; and established the Upstate Unleashed Conference and Venture Ecosystem Awards. Ali is an active angel investor and fund manager. He was the founder and Executive Director of UNY’s first angel fund in 2007 and helped start similar angel funds in Buffalo, Rochester, Albany and the Hudson Valley. In 2011, he launched StartFast Venture Accelerator, a private capital-backed startup accelerator program invested in 48 pre-seed startups from 2012-2020. StartFast Fund II is a Seed/A stage venture capital fund targeting B2B SaaS companies outside the traditional coastal VC hubs. He is also a board member and advisor to numerous entities including the NYS Innovation Venture Capital Fund, Next Gen Venture Partners, Fitzgate Ventures and multiple StartFast portfolio companies. Ali received his undergraduate degree in Physics from Princeton University. He also holds an MBA from Yale University.
Mike Quigley is a Managing Partner of StartFast Ventures Fund II, where he focuses on fund raising, investment selection, and portfolio company development. Prior to joining the fund as a partner, Michael was an active mentor in the StartFast Accelerator, which was also an investor in his company Impel. Michael is also the co-founder of Impel, a SaaS company whose automotive merchandising platform is used by nearly every carmaker and thousands of dealerships across 34 countries. At SpinCar, Michael serves as President and Chief Strategy Officer, and has led product, finance, customer success, and M&A. He is a member of Impel’s Board of Directors, and SpinCar’s audit and compensation committees. Michael is an active angel investor in the B2B SaaS sector, and mentor at Cornell Tech. He holds a B.A. in Economics from New York University, and resides in Lower Manhattan and Syracuse, NY.
Andy Guelcher is president of Mohawk Chevrolet, where he has been fortunate to turn his lifelong passion for competition and leadership into an exciting career in the auto industry. His journey began on the baseball diamond, where he played college baseball with aspirations of making it to the Major Leagues. He reached out to Major League teams to join the tryout circuit while balancing a demanding training schedule with a job in automotive sales. Although he eventually chose to step away from his baseball ambitions, he discovered a new passion and talent in the automotive industry. Driven by his competitive spirit, Andy set his sights on a new goal: making a mark in the automotive world. He identified an opportunity in New York's Capital Region and moved his family from Pennsylvania to Upstate New York. Starting as a sales director at an established dealership, Andy quickly proved his leadership and business acumen. Within a few years, he proposed a partnership to the dealership owner, leading to the acquisition of a Chevrolet dealership in a growing market. Today, Andy has built Mohawk Chevrolet into a record-setting business, renowned for its consistent rise in regional and national sales and customer service rankings. His leadership philosophy is rooted in setting clear goals, rewarding achievement, and fostering a culture that attracts and retains top talent. This approach has not only driven the dealership's success but also earned it a stellar reputation among customers and competitors alike. Andy is deeply committed to giving back to the community. He is a major supporter for the Make-A-Wish Foundation of Northeast New York and serves on the Board of the Special Olympics. Additionally, Andy mentors’ small business entrepreneurs in the region, further extending his impact on the community.
Chuck Stormon is a 7X serial entrepreneur and prominent figure in the fields of artificial intelligence and venture capital. Stormon left his PhD studies to found Coherent Research which commercialized chip architecture for neural networks, which was acquired by Cypress Semiconductor. Stormon then co-founded Coherent Networks which combined neural networks and expert (rule-based) systems with human-in-the-loop processing at scale in one of the first commercially successful hybrid AI solutions, SmartMaps, which transformed the electric utility industry. Coherent Networks was acquired by Osmose Corp. Stormon’s next venture was Steleus, which was acquired by Tekelec (NASDAQ: TKLC), and was subsequently acquired by Oracle. After these successes, Stormon pivoted into Venture Capital, while continuing to be an entrepreneur/operator in a series of businesses. Stormon earned his Bachelor's and Master’s degrees in Computer Engineering from Syracuse University.
Mary Malone McCarthy is the founder and CEO of M3 Placement & Partnership, a full-service talent acquisition firm including executive search, outsourced recruitment, and strategic HR. With a holistic and client centered approach, she and her team partner with companies nationwide, to lead executive searches, talent recruitment efforts, employee retention programs, and strategic HR projects. Over the past 10 years, Mary Malone has led M3 to significant growth by becoming a dedicated partner and one stop solution for companies committed to transforming how they recruit and retain top talent.