Events

 ($4M raised from General Catalyst and Bloomberg Beta).

Cipher is building the future of security training – it’s an awareness program that serves up bite-sized, engaging lessons (through puzzles + quizzes) and then offers employers w/ dashboards for insight, trends, and manager action items. Come find out how Harley’s team is leveraging the cutting-edge agility a startup provides to stand out from outdated enterprise tools that have a grip on the space – especially in the context of the growing complexity and sophistication of cyber attacks.

This Friday, we’ll cover the usual – Harley’s founder journey, perspectives, and lessons learned – but we’ll also dive into the challenges of enabling enterprises to train against human error and/or upskill. 

the fireside will start promptly at 8:45am.

 Be there on time or early! The event will end at 9:30am.

Founders Friday is an open invite! Forward this to someone you know who might be interested in hearing how great companies are being built.

Free Agency is a game-changer for top and emerging talent in tech, providing professionals with Hollywood-style representation for the first time ever. Put simply, they manage “the business end” of their clients' careers, helping them find, win, and succeed at top-of-market roles. 

Founders Friday (11/17): Harley Sugarman of Cipher

; $10M raised from investors Adobe, Samsung, Tribe, and Stage 2 Capital.

Marpipe is an automation platform to give brands the ability to use dynamic creative and run low-effort, high-impact A/B tests across their advertising campaigns. They use a combination of generative AI, a proprietary creative builder, and an ecosystem of integrations to make it happen.

Come learn about the complexities & challenges of building a platform with a massive scope that spans ad formats across all major ad platforms, how Dan and his team have landed clients like Twilio, MongoDB, Guitar Center, Quip, and Republic, and lots more about his founding journey.

The event will take place at Free Agency's office. Free Agency is a game-changer for top and emerging talent in tech, providing professionals with Hollywood-style representation for the first time ever. Put simply, they manage “the business end” of their clients' careers, helping them find, win, and succeed at top-of-market roles. (

Founders Friday (11/3): Dan Pantelo of Marpipe

Founders Friday this week will be interesting – 

. It’s a global community of golf enthusiasts reimagining the modern golf + leisure club – but in the context of web3. They raised more than $10M in 2022 through the sale of NFT memberships.

Its membership platform allows people to buy access to DAO governance, member-exclusive events, and discounts at partner orgs like Topgolf, Callaway, DraftKings, and more.

But Friday will be special because Jim will be in conversation with none other than our founder & CEO, Sherveen Mashayekhi, who is also known for being one of web3’s most skeptical skeptics.

They’ll cover the usual – Jim’s adventure in creating LinksDAO, the founder journey, fundraising, and some product material, but expect things to get spicy as the two engage on whether the modern golf club is better suited to the physical world than the digital.

Founders Friday (10/27): Jim Daily of LinksDAO

; $7M raised from investors like FirstMark and Mayfield. 

Highbeam offers banking services to ecommerce brands, including cash + expense management, credit products (incl. lines of credit), insights + accounting, corporate debit cards, and more. Their goal: build the banking and finance platform for 2M+ ecommerce businesses in the US that process over $300B in annual spend.

Come find out how Samir and his team are building a combo of SaaS, financial services, and a niche industry GTM. We’ll talk product, fintech trends, SVB, and the founding journey.

 - a week of events hosted by VCs and startups to bring together the tech ecosystem

Founders Friday (10/20): Samir Shergill of Highbeam ($7M raised, fintech/banking for ecommerce)

This Friday, join us as we sit down with 

; >$100M raised from a16z, Viking Global, & AlleyCorp. 

Pearl Health equips providers with a platform to help them (and their staff) manage their patients, offering features like patient health history summaries, ML-fueled insights, and admit/discharge & follow up workflows. The goal: help providers prioritize patients who are most likely to need urgent help, thus allowing them to provide value-based care & cut back on wasteful redundancies & avoidable re-missions. 

Pearl Health even goes as far as to provide quote credits to providers seeing Medicare patients, thus transforming their revenue models.

Come hear how Michael has handled the complexities of building a risk-bearing platform in the context of healthcare and the challenges of innovating in a particularly regulated corner of an already-regulated industry.

As always, Founders Friday events will start promptly at 8:45am.

Doors open at 8:30am and the event will end at 9:30am.

Founders Friday (10/13): Michael Kopko of Pearl Health (>$100M raised, physician enablement)

This Friday, join us as we sit down with 

 ($7M raised from Bessemer, Felicis, and execs at Looker, Fivetran, Dbt Labs, Firebolt, & Mode).

Preql is a low/no-code platform enabling companies and business users to manage their data infrastructure & reporting without a data team or complicated SQL.

They're building a design-forward, intuitive solution that attempts to predict the data model required for a business & delivers reporting-ready data-sets. Come learn about the founder journey, working in and around data, and the future of business intelligence & analytics.

 Free Agency HQ at 16 W 22nd St, Fl 8, New York, NY 10010

Founders Friday (9/29): Gabi Steele of Preql ($7M raised, no-code data mgmt)

Dreamy

 ($14M raised from Springdale Ventures, Maywic Select Investments, Group RMC, Agya Ventures & more).

Branch is a venture-backed workplace furniture startup that offers ergonomic office furniture through direct ecommerce, customized office build-outs, and all-in-one concierge installation.

Come learn about building in B2B ecommerce, how companies like Branch successfully arbitrage through manufacturer relationships, and the economics of building a concierge service on top of a physical product play – and all the founder + venture stories throughout.

​As always, doors open at 8:30am + Founders Friday events will start promptly at 8:45am. Be there on time or early!

Founders Friday with Gregory Hayes, CEO & Co-founder of Branch

 ($7M raised from Primary Venture Partners, SignalFire, and Susa Ventuers).

Plural provides a platform for deploying, maintaining, and scaling open-source applications on the cloud in minutes. With Plural, companies can build and maintain production-ready applications on Kubernetes with no management overhead.

This chat will be a great one for any founders looking for a cohesive way to build, maintain, and scale infrastructure on Kubernetes, as well as anyone interested in hearing the challenges of building a highly technical company.

As always, doors open at 8:30am + Founders Friday events will start promptly at 8:45am. Be there on time or early!

Founders Friday with Samuel Weaver, CEO & Co-founder of Plural

 ($10M raised from Peterson Partners [investors in Allbirds, Bonobos]).

Glowbar is a skincare startup that provides monthly, targeted facial treatments at a flat rate or as a membership. Rather than boiler-plate spa facials, Glowbar works with licensed estheticians to provide customized care.

This fireside chat will be a great one for any founders building (1) B2C, (2) on-site services, or (3) in partnership with licensed/qualified partners. Come hear from Rachel on her startup journey, tips to see around corners, and industry-specific-and-agnostic insights.

Glowbar has just recently opened a new location in Murray Hill and plans to open 2 others soon for a total of 10 locations across NYC. Rachel, former Director of Beauty Partnerships at Birchbox, has also been nominated for a 2023 Beacon Award: Entrepreneur & Service Maven. Glowbar has been featured in Forbes, CNN, Hypebae among others. 

Founders Friday with Rachel Liverman, CEO & Founder of Glowbar

Founders Friday is back this week! Join us for a sit down with 

 ($15M raised from Newlight Partners and Accanto Partners).

Constellation — which specializes in building technology for scalable ads in highly regulated industries like automative, pharmaceutical, and banking — was named Inc's 65th Fastest growing company, and 10th fastest growing women-led company in the US.

Constellation's platform provides advanced ad formats via a "modular assembler" that allows brands in regulated industries to produce omnichannel, personalized, & localized marketing at scale. It offers automated compliance & wields AI/ML for insights into target markets & to find relevant high-performing content. 

Lee is a two-time founder and was named EY Entrepreneur Of The Year® 2021 New York.

Founders Friday with Diana Lee, CEO & Founder of Constellation

The Futurists' Alliance is an initiative for cypherpunks, biohackers and techno-futurists

The important technological revolutions have already happened.

We could live longer, healthier lives, be 10x more wealthy, and use flying cars on-demand to get around. 

These aren’t technical challenges. It’s old-world institutions that are holding it back.

​The Futurists Alliance is a group of people challenging the status quo, and aiming to accelerate the pace of innovation in key areas that haven’t seen much progress: biotech & longevity, crypto-finance and the world of atoms.

The topics of the conversation are the emergence of startup cities & network states, legal autonomy for the advancement of medical technologies & the science behind radically extending healthy human lifespan.

​The Futurists' Alliance is a﻿ joint initiative by Infinita VC, Minicircle, Healthspan Capital, Prospera Builders' Network, VitaDAO and more

The event space is provided by Free Agency.

F﻿or background on the nexus between crypto, longevity biotech and startup cities, check out this 

interview with Sebastian A. Brunemeier from Healthspan Capital

Free Agency 16 W 22nd St 8th Floor New York, NY

The Futurists' Alliance NYC: Longevity Biotech, DeSci & Startup Cities

 ($2.8M raised by Newark Venture Partners, City Light Capital, and more).

Mira is an AI-powered health insurance alternative providing users with healthcare benefits at a low monthly cost. It acts as individual coverage for the uninsured, as well as a way for insured users to save on out-of-pocket costs. Mira is partnered with a network of healthcare providers (over 300 clinics + 60,000 pharmacies) and aims to help patients access affordable care + help physicians simplify billing and paperwork. Khang was previously a member of the board of advisors at Ekahi Health and is on the 2023 Forbes 30 Under 30 list.

Founders Friday with  Khang Vuong, Founder and CEO of Mira

 ($23M from Revo Capital, IFC Asset Management Company, & more).

Massive Bio is an AI-powered oncology platform, connecting patients to clinical trials and pharma companies through personalized analysis, patient chatbots, enterprise bio-pharma trial management, all fueled by expertise and advisement from their Scientific Advisory Board. In addition to being a founder, Selin holds a PhD in Mechanical Engineering and was a part of the founding team of EY's Private Equity Value Creation.

Founders Friday with Selin Kurnaz, Co-Founder and CEO of Massive Bio

 ($54M from EQT Ventures, Accel, Pear VC, & more).

Knoetic is a People Analytics platform aimed at Chief People Officers and CHROs, serving key HR, people, and org chart insights in a unified dashboard w/ reporting + visualization. Knoetic has also built a qualified CPO community of >2,000 sharing playbooks + resources through events and an online forum. Joseph is a two-time founder and was featured in Inc. Magazine's 30 Under 30 list.

Founders Friday with Joseph Quan, Founder & CEO of Knoetic

 ($21.7M raised from Andreessen Horowitz, Tiger Global, & more).

EngFlow is a SaaS company that is redefining how companies deliver software and ship polished products through a build + test platform made for startups and Fortune 500 companies alike. Before co-founding EngFlow and serving as its CEO, Helen worked as an Engineering Manager at Google, as the CTO at PeerIQ, and as an Exec. Dir./Head of Technology at JPMorgan Chase.

Founders Friday with Helen Altshuler, Co-Founder & CEO of EngFlow

 ($17.6M raised from Dragonfly, Afore, FJ Labs, & others). Andrena provides low-cost, high-speed residential internet fueled by a proprietary router and distributed platform approach.

Beyond co-founding Andrena and serving as both its CPO and COO, James is a Venture Partner at Hypothesis and previously invested in startups through roles at Beta Bridge Capital, Tigerlabs, and KohFounders. Come get insights from a founder-investor on the early stage moment and related fundraising!

Founders Friday with James Smits, Co-Founder & Chief Product Officer of Andrena

 ($22.9M raised from investors like General Catalyst, Homebrew, and Everywhere Ventures). Adonis is a revenue intelligence and automation platform built for healthcare.

Their revenue cycle management platform aims to support health providers + practices with tools to drive patient eligibility + logistics, billing + payments, and financial intelligence. Prior, Akash worked at companies like Enigma and Cedar, and was a co-founder at Nayya, an AI platform for insurance personalization.

As always, doors open at 8:30 am + Founders Friday events will start promptly at 8:45 am. Be there on time or early!

Founders Friday with Akash Magoon, Co-Founder & CEO of Adonis

 ($15.8M raised), the creator commerce and payouts platform enabling marketers to turn influencers into an efficient growth channel.

Lumanu is the ultimate platform for brands and influencers to collaborate and monetize their content. They streamline the influencer marketing process, making it easy to connect with the right influencers and manage campaigns. The platform also empowers influencers to earn revenue by licensing their content, while providing comprehensive analytics for data-driven decision-making. 

Founders Friday with Tony Tran, Co-Founder & CEO of Lumanu

Join us for this week’s Founders Friday with

 ($10M raised from IA Ventures, Tribe, Brewer Lane, & others).

January believes that traditional debt collection is flawed, and lenders and creditors are mired in old ways. The startup is building a tech-enabled approach to humanized debt collection, aiming to improve recovery rate and set all stakeholders up for success.

For creditors, beyond improved collection, January aims to reduce their risks across reputational, compliance, and operational complications. For borrowers, it’s a more compassionate way to get back on track financially.

Founders Friday with Founders Friday with Jake Cahan, Founder & CEO of January

Join us for this week’s Founders Friday with the co-founder & CEO of

​Hype (fka Pico) is a creator economy startup, providing an all-in-one marketing and payments platform for creators and small businesses to grow and monetize their online audience. With features like link-in-bio websites, CRM, email and phone number capture, analytics, third party platform integrations, and revenue solutions, Hype enables entrepreneurs to be more than just creators.

To date, Hype creators have earned over $30M in revenue and collected more than 4M contacts. They’re backed by King River Capital, Bloomberg Beta, Stripe, Bullpen Capital, and more.

Founders Friday with Nick Chen, Co-Founder & CEO @ Hype

Join us for this week’s Founders Friday with the founder of 

. Bonside has raised $4.35M from Floating Point, TMV, 81 Collection, + others to build a platform connecting small businesses with retail investors for revenue-based financing.

Bonside is working to change the fundraising landscape for small businesses and retail investors, particularly in the brick-and-mortar space, by providing an alternative to traditional forms of financing. They offer a win-win model where businesses can secure funding for growth without losing ownership, and investors can achieve above-market returns.

Neha was previously the co-founder & COO at Glowbar ($10M raised for personalized skincare) and worked at Bain & Glossier. Come hear her story and the story of 0 to 1 moment behind Bonside!

Founders Friday with Neha Govindraj, Founder @ Bonside

), a software that allows users to recall + search anything they’ve ever seen, said, or heard.

Rewind AI’s goal is to give humans perfect memory, and they are doing that by augmenting memory the same way we already do for vision with glasses + hearing with hearing aids. Using optical character recognition on your screen and automated speech recognition to record what comes in through your microphone, Rewind AI becomes the copilot for your mind.

Founders Friday with Brett Bejcek, Co-Founder @ Rewind AI

Join us this Friday for a sit down with Jessica Wolf, CEO & Co-Founder of 

 ($1.6M raised), a company that provides personalized coaching + community to enable their clients to reach their highest potential.

Skye has curated a community of certified coaches + expert advisors who have tenured experience as founders, investors, consultants, creative directors, and Olympians. Skye coaches lead their clients on a journey of self-discovery first and then help them navigate through designing their roadmap for change + goal setting.

They use their personalized Skye method to identify their clients’ coaching needs, define their goals, and find the perfect coach to guide them in their unique personal + professional journey.

Founders Friday with Jessica Wolf, Co-Founder and CEO @ Skye

Join us this Friday for a sit down with Erica Jain, Co-Founder and CEO of 

 ($17.9M raised), a platform designed for healthcare professionals and patients to manage health and wellness.

The platform provides a comprehensive solution for healthcare professionals + their patients to manage their health + wellness needs. Healthie's mission is to empower healthcare professionals to provide high-quality care which enables more people to live healthier lives + contributes to a better society.

Founders Friday with Erica Jain, Co-Founder and CEO @ Healthie 

​Join us this Friday for a sit down with Tiffany Kelly, the founder + CEO of 

 ($6.3M raised), a creator platform connecting brands with athletes, influencers, and actors.

The company helps creators make high-quality video content, such as interviews +  highlights, and connects them with fans, coaches, + recruiters using video production, storytelling, + unique platform features.

Founders Friday with Tiffany Kelly, Founder + CEO @ Curastory

Join us this Friday for a discussion with 

 (Thiel Fellow, ex-Dorm Room Fund), CEO + Co-Founder of 

. As always, the takes will be hot and the convos will be engaging, so come ready to listen + learn!

As always, Founders Friday events will start promptly at 8:45am. Be there on time or early!

Founders Friday with Will Manidis, CEO + Co-Founder @ ScienceIO

 is the CEO & Co-founder of Teamwork Healthcare. Teamwork is an autism therapy marketplace that employs its own therapists to deliver services and helps other Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) companies match providers and patients more efficiently with their matching platform. They have raised over $4mm in seed funding to date.

Founders Friday with Anirudh Sathya of Teamwork Healthcare

While the short-term crisis is over, the implications of Silicon Valley Bank's closure to the wider tech ecosystem are going to be large and long-lasting.

Join us for a fireside chat about all of the implications for 

, including on venture capital, funding + valuations, company structure, board dynamics, hiring, salaries, specific sub-industries, tech careers more broadly, and more.

, Managing Partner and Co-founder at The Fund (early-stage venture). She is an Adjunct Professor at Columbia University and was previously the Managing Director at Techstars NYC. She's a 2x entrepreneur and Kauffman Fellow, and has been the first check into more than 200 startups.

, co-founder and CEO at Free Agency. Free Agency is a game-changer for top and emerging talent in tech, providing professionals with Hollywood-style representation for the first time ever. They've raised >$15M from top VCs, including Maveron, Resolute Ventures, Bloomberg Beta, and celebrity investors like NBA Champion Kevin Durant and world-renowned DJ, Kygo.

The Aftermath of SVB: Implications for the Early Stage

Luka Ivicevic is a second time founder whose companies have raised over $85M in venture capital. His first company Penta Bank, is Germany’s largest online bank for businesses and was recently acquired. Luka’s now the CEO and founder of Index Health, a data-driven, and personalized medical company in the US.

Founders Friday with Luka Ivicevic, founder of Index Health

Founders Friday with Ronak Trivedi, Co-founder/CEO of Pietra

, co-founder and CEO of Free Agency, step in for an Ask-Me-Anything about early stage startups.

Topics ranging from: raising VC dollars, the unknowns of being a venture-backed founder, and anything early stage founders might be curious about — moderated by Mat Kaliski of Acronym Venture Capital.

All gloves are off for this one. For a taste, be sure to check out his 

Founders Friday & Startup Hot Takes with Sherveen, Co-founder/CEO @ Free Agency

Hey! So here’s what we know: every Friday @ 8:30am sharp we’re going to have an incredible founder who we chat with for ~20mins, followed by ~15mins of audience Q&A. We keep it tactical, honest, and interactive, so it feels a lot more like a conversation in a founder's living room than your typical gathering. Kept small by design.

​​​​​@Free Agency, 16 W 22nd St, Floor 8

​​​​​To see upcoming speakers + get on the secret invite list, go to 

Founders Friday with Christian Wylonis CEO & Co-Founder of The Org

​Hey! So here’s what we know: every Friday @ 8:30am sharp we’re going to have an incredible founder who we chat with for ~20mins, followed by ~15mins of audience Q&A. We keep it tactical, honest, and interactive, so it feels a lot more like a conversation in a founder's living room than your typical gathering. Kept small by design.

​​​​@Free Agency, 16 W 22nd St, Floor 8

​​​​To see upcoming speakers + get on the secret invite list, go to 

Founders Friday with Neil Batlivala Co-Founder & CEO of Pair Team

​​​@Free Agency, 16 W 22nd St, Floor 8

​​​To see upcoming speakers + get on the secret invite list, go to 

Founders Friday with Jonah Hanig Founder/CEO of NYC-based Rove

Founders Friday with Lucas Lappe from Doris Dev

Founders Friday with Mario Schlosser from Oscar Health

Founders Friday with Max Flannery from Adgile

Founders Friday with Dan Freed from Thesis

Founders Friday with Eric Chen from Injective Labs

Founders Friday with Elizabeth Green from Chalkbeat

. They're trusted by more than 30,000 companies for Cap Table management, and 5,000 funds, with over $100B of assets under administration.

we do these once in a while on Thursday nights, only when it's a founder we're especially excited to hear from...]

ps: ​​​To see upcoming speakers + get on the secret invite list, go to 

Founders [Almost] Friday with Henry Ward from Carta // Virtual 💻

Founders Friday with Tyler Strand from Air Labs

Founders Friday with Andrew Tsao ~ no code

Founders Friday with Dennis Thankachan from Lightyear

We've been kicking around the idea of doing a Founders 

 Friday for a while — virtually, on a Thursday (Friday mornings IRL can be hard!). But we had to make sure it'd be good.

So the first-ever is happening tomorrow night: a small-ish convo 

(an audio-only place for conversations...w/ no video allowed, nor an app to download). We're fans of it (and the talk itself is happening

Long-term, we're hoping to do bonus Founders 

 Fridays every once in a while, only when it's a founder we're especially excited about.

First-ever Founders *almost* Friday w/ co-founder of Venmo + smalltalk, Iqram Magdon-Ismail [virtual]

This Founders Friday, you're invited to a small fireside chat with 

Republic is a global financial firm at the frontier of democratizing access to the private markets. Republic operates a digital merchant bank servicing enterprises on tokenization and community activation solutions, alongside a first-in-class global marketplace on which both retail and high-net-worth investors can buy and trade private securities, directly and cross-bordered. Backed by Valor Equity Partners, Galaxy Interactive, Binance, Morgan Stanley and other leading institutions, Republic boasts a community of over 2.5M users across 100 countries, with offices in the US, the UK, Dubai, South Korea, and Singapore. 

Prior to founding Republic in 2016, Kendrick was General Counsel of AngelList, Interim CEO of CoinList, and Vice President and Chief Counsel of The Permal Group. He served as Fellow of Stanford Law School and the Center for Corporate Governance at Stanford University and is frequently consulted by the Staff of the US SEC, the US Congress, and the government of Vietnam on issues in the intersection of the private markets, blockchain, and retail participation.

So here’s what we know: every Friday @ 8:30am sharp we’re going to have an incredible founder who we chat with for ~20mins, followed by ~15mins of audience Q&A. We keep it tactical, honest, and interactive, so it feels a lot more like a conversation in a founder's living room than your typical gathering. Kept small by design.

 set to speak, but she needed to reschedule. 

Founders Friday with Kendrick Nguyen from Republic

, which lets you go from exam to eyewear in 30 minutes. Launched in 2020, they’ve grown to 25 employees, and are about to launch their latest store in Nomad. If you’ve been around Founders Friday a while, you might remember we used to be out of Spacious — where Jaclyn was COO until they were acquired by WeWork. Prior to that she was in the restaurant world, so she brings a unique hospitality lens to running startups.

Also…if you need a stellar intern, might be worth checking out the National University of Singapore’s (#1 University in Asia) intern-matching event next week. Can RSVP 

Founders Friday with Jaclyn Pascocello from Heywear // bringing hospitality into designing startup experiences

Founders Friday with Ankur Patel from Glean AI

​​Hey! So here’s what we know: every Friday @ 8:30am sharp we’re going to have an incredible founder who we chat with for ~20mins, followed by ~15mins of audience Q&A. We keep it tactical, honest, and interactive, so it feels a lot more like a conversation in a founder's living room than your typical gathering. Kept small by design.

​​@Free Agency, 16 W 22nd St, Floor 8

​​To see upcoming speakers + get on the secret invite list, go to 

Founders Friday with Matthew Hassett from Loftie

​To see upcoming speakers + get on the secret invite list, go to 

Founders Friday with Dan Rosenzweig from Kettle

Founders Friday with Alice Albrecht from re:collect | building tools for thought, founder psychology, AI, and consumer SaaS 

To see upcoming speakers + get on the secret invite list, go to 