Events

Tune in to hear from fellow Kapor Capital Portfolio Companies and their recent fundraising journey. Join us for a conversation led by Batul Joffrey, Kapor Capital Associate, with Michael Lombardo, Founder & CEO of BookNook who raised a Series B and Kerry Wang, Founder & CEO of Searchlight who raised her Series A. They will be sharing the strategies they used to be successful. 

. Growing up as a twin with her co-founder Anna taught her firsthand how easily people get judged by appearances. At Searchlight, she helps companies build the best teams by hiring the people beyond their resumes. Kerry graduated from Stanford with a B.S. with distinction in Human Biology — Innovation, Entrepreneurship, and Human Behavior and a M.S. in Computer Science — Human Computer Interaction. Prior to Searchlight, she worked as a Product Sales Lead at Google, a management consultant at McKinsey, and a JavaScript instructor at Code for Cape Town in South Africa.

, an award-winning social enterprise that uses artificial intelligence and other adaptive technologies to support reading skill growth at school, at home, and in the community. Previously, he served as CEO of Reading Partners, building it into one of the largest children’s literacy nonprofits in America and publishing seminal research on volunteer-based reading programs that was accepted into the What Works Clearinghouse at the US Department of Education.

A frequent author on subjects of education policy, social entrepreneurship, and nonprofit governance, Michael also serves as a Social Entrepreneur in Residence at Stanford University and is a founding Advisory Council member of the My Brother’s Keeper Alliance, President Obama’s signature initiative focused on supporting boys and young men of color.

Batul Joffrey joined Kapor Capital after completing the 2019 Summer Associate Program. She focuses on managing mission critical projects and strategic initiatives, as well as, evaluating investments and assisting on due diligence.

A SoCal native, she studied economics and statistics at UCLA, worked on the complex data and management team as a consultant at Navigant, and prior to joining KCAP, moved to the Bay Area to get acquainted with the startup ecosystem – working as Chief of Staff for a social impact startup. She is also a member of Global Shapers, an initiative of the World Economic Forum, working with a network of individuals dedicated to address local, regional, and global challenges.

Outside of work, you can find her pouring over the pages of a book, traveling and exploring different cities, and trading Pakistani chai for good conversation.

A Founder’s Perspective: The Fundraising Process  


Join us for a session with Sara Sperling, Partner at Oxegen Consulting, who specializes in Executive Coaching, Learning & Development, and Diversity & Culture. This workshop will be focused on understanding the psychology of feedback and its impact on both the giver & receiver to better facilitate difficult conversations with peers, employees & executives. In the workshop you will have the opportunity to practice and apply these principles to real-life scenarios that leaders commonly face. Come to the session with a conversation you had recently that didn't go well or one that you have been putting off. 

At the end of this session you will be able to:

Sara Sperling is known for her ingenuity, quick wit, and passion for inclusivity. She has helped industry leaders hone their strategies, inspire their teams to achieve greater results, and have way too much fun along the way. When people walk away from a conversation with Sara, they’re ready to take on the world.

Sara has led people functions for several high-growth start-ups, including Snapchat. She has designed and managed Learning & Development, Employee Relations, Compensation & Benefits, Immigration, Diversity & Employee Culture, and Onboarding & Off boarding functions. 

The founder of Facebook’s Diversity & Inclusion function, Sara developed the company’s employee resource community and laid the foundation for their strategy of encouraging people to be their authentic selves at work. The original face of Facebook’s industry-famous new-hire experience, Sara launched the company’s first ever Engineering Leadership & Coaching program and the Mentoring & Coaching programs.

Sara is the proud momma of an amazing daughter who keeps her laughing and singing on a daily basis.

How to Have Tough Conversations 

​Join us for a session with Fernanda Baker, Manager of VC & Startup Partnerships at Zendesk. Whether you’re focused on getting to market and landing your first customers or you just closed your seed round and you’re ready to scale, Fernanda will share with you why CX matters and the improved results founders can see when customer experience is emphasized on Day 1. 

Fernanda Baker focuses on Strategic Partnerships for the US and LATAM at Zendesk for Startups. Previously with Samsung NEXT Ventures, she has been supporting startups to grow and scale their businesses globally for the past 15+ years by leveraging her strong ties with the entrepreneurial and venture capital ecosystems in Silicon Valley, Europe, and Latin America. In her free time, she loves to travel the world, dive, and encounter exotic wildlife.

Customer Experience: Best Practices and Metrics for Startups

Have you received a "bug bounty" request from an "ethical hacker"? Are you wondering about security risks you may have in your company? Join us for a session on how to manage cyber security risks in your company with Joe Fahs, IT Director at Kapor Center, with over 20 years in the industry. In this session he will cover: 

Joe Fahs is the IT Director at The Kapor Center. He joined after 10 years with The Linde Group, consulting with startups, non-profits and educational institutions to improve all aspects of their IT operations.

Originally from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Joe grew up in Central NY and graduated from Dartmouth College with a degree in Anthropology. He lives in El Cerrito, CA with his wife and two daughters.

Cyber Security: Risk Management For your Company

August 3 is Black Women Equal Pay Day 2021. This is not a celebration! 

On average, Black women make $0.63 for every dollar earned by white men. At this current rate, Black women will have to wait until the year 2119 to earn equal pay with white men. It's time to level up Black women's earning potential!

Join us for some REAL talk about pay equity, self advocacy, support networks, and tactics for thriving in the tech workplace and beyond. 

, Strategic Business Leader, Author, Public Speaker, Certified Professional Coach & MBTI Practitioner

, Founder of OutNSocial and Diversity Forward 

SR. Director of Tech Workplace Initiatives @ the Kapor Center

, a year long speaker and workshop series by and for women thriving in tech. Black Women Equal Pay Day is presented in collaboration with 

Be sure to also RSVP for our upcoming Equal Pay Day workshop, 

In this tactical workshop, we will de-mystify compensation and the systems and structures that shape them. 

- Monique began her career as a Technical Escalation Engineer at Microsoft in the early ’90s.  During her 30-year technology profession, she has left her footprint at fortune 500 companies, creating and launching products, implementing new marketing strategies, and developing new lines of business. She is a pioneer in the long-fought battle to eliminate the disparity in equity Black people and women face in the technology industry. She actively focuses on creating and implementing programs to pave the way for equity and inclusion. Passionately, Monique believes in “paying-it-forward” and helps equip others for success by sharing her knowledge and experiences through mentoring and coaching Women and the BIPOC community.  

-  Tonie Guajardo (Snell) is an Inclusion Strategist with 20 years of experience working with Startups to Fortune 500 companies. As Managing Principal/Founder of Diversity Forward Consulting, Founder of OutNSocial™, and a person with intersecting identities, Tonie has a deep understanding of systemic inequity and proven experience establishing not only diverse workforces but inclusive workplaces of belonging. 

Through the facilitation of workplace culture assessments, program management, and talent acquisition strategy, Tonie supports building intentionally inclusive best practices as organizations scale.

- Arnelle Ansong is CTO & Co-Founder of Edlyft, a startup that is helping create the next million computer science college graduates. She received an undergraduate degree from Stanford in Symbolic Systems, where she studied decision making and rationality through the lenses of CS, philosophy, psych, and economics. After this she worked as a consultant for Bain & Co. on cases in retail, tech, and healthcare. She's passionate about education, and is excitedly building Edlyft to help more students get in-demand skills.

- Amaka Uchegbu is Chief Product Officer at BrightUp, an ethical lending startup dedicated to helping workers grow their net-worth, while reinforcing their self-worth. She cares deeply about social mobility and democratizing access to the American Dream. Prior to BrightUp, she was a consultant at McKinsey & Company, where she co-authored a critical publication on the impact of automation on the African American workforce. She graduated from Yale University with a BA in Ethics, Politics & Economics and her Senior Thesis, which examined the re-articulation of the 1960s Biafra secessionist movement in contemporary social media discourse, won the University’s John Adison Porter Prize. She is Igbo-born, UK-raised, and normally resides in New York.

Black Women Equal Pay Day: A Speaker Panel

Companies love extolling their mission, highlighting the impact you will make, and highlighting all the benefits and perks that come with your role. That's great and all but what about your compensation package? Rarely do you begin interview processes armed with all the details of your comp package. We think that is a problem and we are here to de-mystify compensation.  

In this interactive workshop, Emily Kramer, will break down the systems of compensation- salary bands, job leveling, benchmarking & market rates- and provide you with tools for navigating compensation conversations. 

This workshop centers the experiences of women and was created for all womxn identifying folx. It's for you if you are job seeking, in the final interview stages with a company, prepping for a compensation conversation with your manager, or just wanting additional tools for thriving in your professional careers. Allies are welcome to attend to learn. 

, a year long speaker and workshop series by and for women thriving in tech. 

 is an experienced startup marketing executive and advocate for fair compensation. She currently advises SaaS companies on marketing strategy as co-founder of MKT1 and angel invests with a focus on diverse founding teams. Emily also offers free compensation reviews through Help Wanted Project and is on the board of Empower Work, a non-profit text line for employees facing challenges at work. Previously, she built and led marketing teams from the ground up at Carta, Asana, Astro (acquired by Slack), and Ticketfly (acquired by Eventbrite).

How to Get Compensated Fairly: A Workshop to Close the Pay Gap

Caring for your mental health remains front and center. Our speakers will be returning to share more raw, hot truths and practices for your bodies, hearts, and spirits.

In this webinar, our expert panel will reflect on Juneteenth:

Co-produced by Elevate Labs, Ginger, and Kapor Capital

This is a space by and for Black & African American identifying folx. This event centers the Black experience. Allies are welcome to attend and listen. 

 No worries, we will be recording the session and will be sharing it after the event. 

Kachi is a Bay Area native who runs the talent and people ops consultancy, Recruiting Like a Boss. She practices career as vocation, calling upon her belief that livelihood is a human right that must be elevated and protected. As someone who has navigated multiple behavioral health diagnoses while building a career in Silicon Valley, she is thrilled to share the space with our panel as she moderates this crucial discussion on Black Minds. 

 is a Holistic Counselor and Transformational Coach. She has worked in wellness since 2005 counseling women, leading support groups for survivors of sexual assault, and creating empowerment workshops. She holds a Master's in Somatic Psychology from John F. Kennedy University, several certifications in the specialization of trauma resolution, and is a certified life coach, and yoga teacher all of which she has combined to create a multi-tiered approach to healing that honors the mind, body, and spirit.

 is an Executive Coach, Communications Specialist, and a DEI Strategic Advisor. He's also the founder and CEO of Merging Path Coaching where he's coached hundreds of managers and trained thousands of employees on Managing Unconscious Bias, Feedback - How To Give and Receive, Values Discovery and Alignment, and Conversations of Race and Allyship in the Workplace.

 is a coach at Balance, a highly personalized, highly rated meditation and sleep app. He has been meditating for more than 20 years, teaching families, children, and adults for the last 15. Pulling from his experience as a father of four, electronic music and hip-hop artist, and children's book author (You Are Enough), he infuses humor and compassion into his coaching. He also believes that meditation isn’t just about sitting still; rather, it’s a living practice that can be done anytime, anywhere to help us better understand ourselves and our world.

 is a speaker, trainer, coach, consultant, and author and is currently utilizing her talents at Ginger as a Coaching Operations Associate. In her work as a mental health coach - she specializes in teaching people how to create blissful and purposeful lives while maneuvering challenging situations. She is also the author of three books: “Anger Intelligence (TM): Changing the Way You Think About Anger” Workbook, ”Temper Taming Tips: The College Student’s Guide to Anger Intelligence”, and “Triggers: What Sets Us Off at Work and What to Do About It” eBook.

Black Minds Matter 3.0: Juneteenth Edition

What does it mean to be Asian or AAPI right now?

Right now AAPI folx are living through a particularly challenging time. 

Kapor Capital is partnering with AARISE to offer 

AAPIs in the Workplace: Navigating Identity & Belonging.

a space for Asian, Asian American, and Pacific Islander identifying professionals

 across the Kapor Capital ecosystem to learn, share, process, and be resourced with tools to navigate these times. The term AAPI encompasses the entire diaspora of the Asian continent. For all Western (known by its colonial reference as the Middle East), Central Asian, South Asian, South East Asian, East Asian, and Pacific Islander identifying professionals- this space and session is for you. 

AARISE facilitators will create a container to support participants in navigating the complexities of our rich AAPI history and process our identities, roles, and actions to take both at the micro and the macro.

. We recognize that not all of you are able to stay for the full hour + a half. This workshop has been set up to provide a full experience to attendees with 60 min available. Participants with 90 minutes will just have 1 additional experience :) 

Asian American Racialized Identity and Social Empowerment (AARISE)

is a program and community focused on justice and liberation for all centering Asian American activist history, AAPI experiences, emotional processing, and somatic healing. 

This event is by and for the AAPI community. We will be specifically centering the experiences and needs of AAPI identifying folx. While we appreciate our allies’ interest, there will be other workshops specifically for allies in the future. Thank you for understanding!

AAPIs in the Workplace: Identity & Belonging

Given our incredible first event, the Black Minds Matter organizing team is thrilled to be turning our webinar into a series! Our speakers will be returning to share more raw, hot truths and practices for your bodies, hearts, and spirits.

Black Minds Matter 2.0: Tactics for Thriving

In this webinar, our expert panel will center:

 Join us on Clubhouse for Deep Dives with Ofosu Jones- Quartey and special guests. Check out our line up and RSVP 

 has the great fortune of being a mental health advocate every day of the week. During the weekdays he's a Technical Recruiter at Ginger, a mental health provider. On weekends he runs his plant business, Planterday, which is a sponsor of the non-profit Crisis Support Services of Alameda County.

Black Minds Matter 2.0: 
Tactics for Thriving

Excited about the upcoming Black Minds Matter event!

We are too! And to make this event more accessible, we’ve switched back to a live Zoom hosted event so that everyone will be able to see and hear from our entire Black Minds Matter squad and partake in all the live practices. 

(same time, same date, just a new link for joining) 

Intentional Belonging w/ Ofosu Jones- Quartey & 

Black Minds Matter: Deep Dive

A Candid Conversation Between Female Founders

Join us for a Her Tech Stories a panel highlighting the successes of womxn in leadership. We’ll discuss having the head seat at the table, raising capital, intentional org design, and growing a company from the ground up.

Cat Perez is the Co-Founder and Chief Product Officer at HealthSherpa, the #1 private enrollment platform behind HealthCare.gov. Since joining HealthSherpa, Cat has helped the company expand its team by 800% and enroll over 5 million people in health coverage under the Affordable Care Act. Cat is a Queer Korican and a well-respected thought leader in the diversity, equity, and inclusion space, who has pioneered many DEI initiatives at HealthSherpa. She has shared her frameworks for success on a variety of stages, including LTX Fest, Tech Ladies, Founder Gym, Kapor Capital, YCombinator, Tech Inclusion, Techqueria, SOCAP, Comcast Millennial Tech & Change Summit, and more. Cat is a serial entrepreneur who previously won the $1 Million Salesforce Hackathon for building a better HealthCare.gov. Cat lives in Sacramento, CA with her partner and her two pups, Mitzy and Lola.

Kai Frazier is an educator turned EdTech entrepreneur passionate about using tech to provide inclusive and accessible opportunities for underestimated communities. She is the founder & CEO of Kai XR, the most inclusive and accessible, educational VR platform where kids can explore, dream, & create. Her work has been featured in Forbes, NBC, the Steve Harvey Show & more.

Felicia Curcuru is the Co-Founder and CEO of Binti. Felicia was first introduced to the world of Child Welfare many years ago when her sister adopted two children. Years later, Felicia began volunteering as a Court Appointed Special Advocate (CASA) for foster youth in San Francisco. Under Felicia’s leadership, Binti has grown to work with over 140 agencies across 22 states, covering over 21% of children in care nation-wide. Binti’s tangible results have made a significantly positive impact for agencies and families; in fact, Binti has helped agencies increase the number of new foster families licensed by an average of 80% in the first year alone, and save social workers 20-40% less time. In 2019, Felicia was named one of the Top 100 Innovative Female Founders by Inc Magazine.

Dr. Sheena Menezes is the Co-founder and CEO of Simple HealthKit, a consumer centric company whose mission is to build innovative diagnostics that are instant, accurate, affordable and accessible to people from all walks of life. Sheena is a computer scientist and obtained her PhD in Biochemistry from the University of California, Santa Barbara where she discovered a novel tRNA methylation enzyme. Sheena founded Simple HealthKit with a mission to serve the vulnerable populations and to bridge gaps in the community. They are currently tackling the world's challenging problems and launched a rapid PCR test for COVID-19. Today, they work with consumers, employers, schools, health centers and government entities.

Her Tech Stories: A Candid Conversation Between Female Founders

Apologies all! We've shifted the schedule a bit and will be hosting a Native & Indigenous Women Equal Pay panel today. 

September 8 is Native & Indigenous Women Equal Pay Day. This is not a celebration! 

work 8 extra months into the following year

 to make what White, non-Hispanic men make in a single year.

It's time to level up Indigenous women's earning potential and close the pay gap.

This virtual talking circle is for Native & Indigenous women and femmes in (or aspiring to be in) tech. Allies are also welcome to attend to learn and listen. 

Founder of Native American Women in Computing and STEM

Ione Band of Miwok Indians of the Northern Sierra Foothills of California

. She worked in Education for nearly 20 years before making the decision to change careers and pursue a degree and career in Tech. Her first tech focused project focused on language preservation for her native language, the dialect of the Northern Sierra Miwok. Her greatest passion since entering the tech industry has been creating equitable spaces and providing platforms for all Native and Indigenous peoples in Tech. She previously worked as the Senior Program Manager at 

 and managed all virtual community platforms, communications, programs, and initiatives in addition to all the Community events and sessions for the annual Grace Hopper Celebration.

Andrea is actively involved in her community and serves as the Chair of the Election Committee for the Ione Band of Miwok Indians, a member of the AISES Board of Directors, Chair of the AISES Professional Development Committee, Co-Chair of the AISES Education Committee, and Chair of the Birds of a Feather Committee for the Center for Minorities and People with Disabilities in IT (CMD-IT). 

citizen of the Navajo Nation, Blackfeet and Shoshone-Bannock

She is also a freelance web developer, data scientist and all-around tech nerd

. She specializes in web development, AI content development and data analytics with a social justice lens. Chamisa is currently a fellow with Correlation One’s Data Science 4 All program, an alum of CNM's Deep Dive Coding Bootcamp, and a tribal college graduate.

is a member of the Quechan Tribe of Fort Yuma of the Coyote Clan. Raised by a resilient mother and determined father, Hannah was able to watch her parents grow from having very little to living comfortably. Both of Hannah’s parents grew up with scarce access to food and vital resources, so they had little to lose when taking a business risk. As a result, Hannah was raised in an innovative, entrepreneurial household. She watched her parents build multiple businesses from the ground up from a young age.  

Her parents instilled in her the importance of education and supporting the needs of the community by any means possible. While in school, Hannah worked full time for the National LGBT Chamber of Commerce (NGLCC) connecting LGBT-owned businesses to federal and corporate procurement opportunities. Currently, Hannah serves as the Associate Executive Director at the American Indigenous Business Leaders (AIBL). At AIBL, she helps Fortune 50 companies improve their diversity & inclusion initiatives by creating a direct pipeline to top Indigenous talent. She has the distinct privilege to work with many blossoming Indigenous entrepreneurs that will one day help lead our collective future.  

Kai Two Feathers Orton is computational scientist, learning technologist, strategic fundraiser, and innovation enthusiast.  She is an unyielding advocate for inclusion and equity at the intersections of STEM, social justice, digital societies, and policy. Dr. Two Feathers Orton brings a deep understanding of the complex interface between philanthropy, non-profits, and society- including collaborative partnerships, research development, impact assessment, capacity building, and workforce development.  She was previously the Senior Associate Director of Corporate and Foundation Relationsa First Nations (Innuinait, Cree, Nez Perce, Tlicho)  at Dartmouth College.  There her portfolio focused on developing  multi-dimensional engagement strategies with foundations and industry enterprises in partnership with faculty across the basic and biomedical sciences, physical sciences, computer science and tech to advance research development and innovation initiatives. Dr. Two Feathers Orton’s research expertise is in Big Data, culturally informed and culturally inclusive learning technologies and in assessments for formal and informal learning environments.

Dr. Two Feathers Orton was also a Research Assistant Professor at Northwestern University in the School of Education and Social Policy and Faculty Liaison for the Office of STEM Education Partnerships. Her research interests are in AI, Machine Learning, Data Sovereignty, Digital Inclusion, CS Education and Broadening Participation in Computing.  She founded the Computational Thinking for Girls Clubs (CT4G) to empower girls of color through experiences in computing, technology, and STEM. In addition to her research, Dr. Two Feathers Orton is a Google Next-Gen Tech Policy Fellow and an active professional member of the American Indian Science and Engineering Society (AISES).  She currently serves on numerous research, professional, and non-profit advisory boards including the Women of Color in Computing Collaborative-Expanding CS for Native Girls for AISES and the Indigenous Cultural Heritage-Advancing Pathways for Long-Term Collaboration for the Dartmouth College Hood Museum and Library.  She holds a doctorate in Computational Biochemistry, Molecular Biology, and Cellular Biology from Northwestern University.

Native & Indigenous Women Equal Pay Day 2021

Given the current amplification of violence and anti-Asian sentiment in the Bay Area and the rest of the country, it's challenging right now. And we know that income and opportunity inequalities are intricately tied to racism, discrimination, mental health, and violence. So we are hoping to create a space that holds us all in the current climate we find ourselves in while also addressing the systemic issues at the root of the pay gap.

This year, an Asian American / Pacific Islander woman is paid 

paid white, non-Hispanic men, losing hundreds of thousands of dollars over a 40-year career.

But, that's only part of the #AAPIEqualPay story. For certain communities, the wage gap is far greater. Vietnamese women earn $0.67, Hmong women earn $0.61, and Burmese women earn only $0.52, making them some of the lowest paid people in the nation.

This virtual talking circle is for AAPI womxn in (or aspiring to be in) tech and their allies. Learn from and with our AAPI pay equity squad as they drop knowledge, share learnings, and stories on:

It's time to #LevelUpOurAAPIWomen and close the pay gap.

If you cannot attend, please RSVP anyways to receive a copy of the recording post session.

Amie is a racial equity strategist, coach, L&D designer, facilitator, and former teacher with experience spanning tech, design and education industries. She is currently the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Program Manager at Clever, the most widely used single sign on platform for K-12 education. Amie is the daughter of Vietnamese refugees.

 is a leadership and negotiation coach, speaker and facilitator. She is the founder of Nadia De Ala Coaching, co-founder of Let’s Get Hella Rich and co-host of the Hella Rich podcast. Nadia helps badass, creative and ambitious women and femmes of color in technology and business embrace the transformational possibilities of self-advocating, negotiating and leading as their realest selves, so they can create the empowered lives they really want. Through her group coaching program Real You Leadership, Nadia has supported her clients in making 20-55% more bank by teaching them negotiation mindset and strategy.

is the Head of Inclusive Strategy and Design at interviewIA. As a child of immigrants, Nina has always been passionate about social justice and improving the lives of marginalized people. She began her career in the non-profit world working to empower underrepresented communities, then went on to get an MBA before she decided to teach herself front-end web development and user experience design. In 2017, she and her team became finalists at the Go Code Colorado hackathon, and co-founded <div>ersity, a women founded startup focused on creating an equitable and inclusive tech industry. She’s a TEDx speaker and a sought after thought leader in the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion space. With nearly twenty years of experience in non-profit and for-profit organizations, she is a serial entrepreneur combining her community organizing, business, leadership and app development skills.

is the CEO of Apto Payments. She is passionate about creating a payments ecosystem that is more fair and equitable, allowing the most aspirational companies to enter the market quickly and responsibly. She loves working with those who are equally as enthusiastic about creating user-first experiences in the financial services sector. In 2014, Meg co-founded Apto with her long-time colleague and friend, Greg Kidd, to help companies build and launch innovative and bespoke card programs specifically designed for their users. Since its Y-Combinator days, when Apto was known as Shift Payments, Apto now supports several of the fastest growing fintech companies in the U.S. and expanded its business to Europe as of 2019.

Not Your Model Minority: An AAPI Women Equal Pay Day Event

Thank you to everyone who attended Black Minds Matter.

Yes, there will be a recording as well as resources. We'll be sharing them out soon.

~The Black Minds Matter panelists & organizers

In the midst of the pandemic and civil unrest targeting the Black community, caring for your mental health is more important than ever.

 is a space for Black wellness. In this webinar, our expert panel will speak about:

Co-hosted by Elevate Labs, Ginger, and Kapor Capital

Can't attend? No worries, we will be recording the session and will be sharing it after the event.

Marion

Events