Venture House: Edition #12

Venture House Squad,

Welcome to the twelfth edition of our weekly newsletter where we dive into the latest events, jobs, resources, and more across the venture landscape. We took a two-week break as we onboarded two new team members and wrapped up developing some awesome new features for our website.

Regardless, we have a record number of new VC roles added to our list as well as a fresh batch of investors and founder events.

If you’re new, my name is Gyan Kandhari and I’m the Head of Community at Venture House. I connect investors and founders, lead events and partnerships, and create content for rising VCs.

Without further ado, here are this week’s updates:

Investor & Founder Events

The number of Halloween-focused VC events is both staggering and spooky. While I am a fan of the holiday, I’ve tried to keep the list as focused on value-creation (vs candy origination) as possible.

Check out our fully updated list as of today, October 18th.

👉 You can find the full list here 👈

Here are a few of my favorite events in the next week below…

🎤 -1 to Keith Rabois (view)
Hosted by: Keith Rabois, Dylan Itzikowitz
When: Wednesday, October 23rd
Where: NYC
My take: Keith is a powerhouse in the venture world, currently working as an MD at Khosla Ventures and co-founder/CEO of OpenStore. He’s led early investments in heavyweights like DoorDash, Affirm, and Stripe. His Midas touch has earned him top spots on the Forbes Midas list—think #4 in the U.S. So when Dylan booked Keith for a panel discussion, I knew I had to add it to our list. 10/10 event in my books.

🥂 Fintech Founders & Funders Soirée (view)
Hosted by: Nico Stainfeld, Andrew Tokar
When: Monday, October 21st
Where: NYC
My take: Nico and the team at Foundation Capital are some of the most active players in the fintech, crypto, and enterprise scene (I suggest giving their theses a read). It’s a perfect setup to meet with the team if you’re an investor or founder operating in these sectors, (although this one is geared towards Fintech).

⛰️ Seed Stage Summit 2024 (view)
Hosted by: Andrew Yeung
When: Friday, October 25th
Where: NYC
My take: Andrew is hosting 100 seed-stage founders and investors for a day of fireside chats, discussions, and networking with CEOs from companies like Foursquare, Venmo, and DocSend. The invite says investor registration is closed but if you’re interested, shoot me an email.

👩‍💻 All Day: Demo & Feedback Day (view)
Hosted by: Kaila Lim
When: Thursday, October 24th
Where: NYC
My take: Antler and Fractal are hosting a day-long session for founders to present their companies and receive feedback. While the event is geared towards current Antler founders and Fractal students (you must be one in order to present), I find this to be a top-notch opportunity to learn how to pitch and understand what investors are looking for. If you’re a seed-stage investor, you’ll get a front-row seat to some of the best emerging NYC founders.

Btw: Antler and 615.vc are co-hosting a get-together later in the day for space + deeptech founders.

🦾 AI Investors & Networking (view)
Hosted by: ​Domenic Giovanzana, Murray Newlands
When: Monday, October 21st
Where: SF
My take: SF and AI go together like PB&J. Domenic (Pathfinder, Hewlett Packard Ventures) and Murray (Open Future) are hosting a networking session geared toward AI applications at Joe & the Juice. Clock in after work to meet some new friends while getting your daily vitamins.

☕ Boston Founders Candid Coffee (view)
Hosted by: Alyssa Krejmas
When: Wednesday, October 23rd
Where: Boston
My take: Alyssa and the team at Innocrew host events and workshops for the Boston founder community. They’re kicking off next Wednesday with an early-morning coffee mixer. Perfect opportunity to grow your early-stage founder network.

VC Job Openings

Guess this phrase “C___f o_ S__ff

If you guessed Chief of Staff, you get 100 venture house points.

We’ve got four new Chief of Staff roles and tons more investor openings on the docket. Cancel your Halloween plans and grab a keyboard because this weekend you’re sending in apps.

Here’s an updated list of VC roles as of today, October 18th.

👉 You can find the full list here 👈

I’ve handpicked a few of my favorite openings below…

⚡ Chief of Staff, Foundation Capital (view)
🌉 Location: SF
My take: Foundation Capital (yup, we mentioned them earlier in this edition) is hiring a COS to manage the day-to-day operations of the firm. This includes reviewing new investment opportunities, special projects, partner branding/marketing, portfolio engagement, and more. The fact that it's a COS role with investment work PLUS it’s at a top-tier VC makes this one a top pick.

⚡ Associate, RSE Ventures (view)
🗽 Location: NYC
My take: Traditional Associate role (prev. IB, investing work required) on a lean team investing in early-stage consumer tech companies. It’s a two-year program that will prime you for a leap to another VC, growth equity, or dare I say…business school. You don’t see a lot of consumer-focused VCs out there anymore so this is a rare opportunity in my book.

⚡ Associate, Sidekick Ventures (view)
🗽 Location: NYC
My take: Sidekick is hiring an Associate and Chief of Staff (separate roles) to join their team in NYC. Laser-focus on being strategic, value-add investors means more hands-on work and operational exposure. This is also a two-year program and therefore a top opportunity for anyone looking to break into venture.

⚡ Director of Network and Investments, MBX Capital (view)
🏙️ Location: Flexible (SF, NYC, LA, Chicago, etc.)
My take: MBX is a leading seed-stage firm in life sciences and biotech with $100mm AUM. You’ll engage in sourcing and investment-centric work while also serving as the go-to person for portco founders. If you have a background in health, bio, or other related field - this is it.

⚡ Associate, Hamilton Lane (view)
🦅 Location: Philadelphia
My take: Want to work with later-stage companies while still gaining exposure to traditional sourcing and diligence work? Hamilton Lane is adding an Associate to their Venture and Growth Equity Team to do just that.

Learn & Earn with Shaan Arora, CEO of Alia

This week we’re highlighting Shaan Arora, CEO of Alia, a popup alternative on Shopify that converts site visitors and collects shopper data through rewarding customer education.

With Alia, brands can educate their customers on their mission, story, new products, and updates. In return for completing each quiz, customers gain access to discounts. In many ways, it reminds me of the learn-to-earn model employed by Coinbase back in 2021…

In <1 year, Shaan has signed 350 clients including Mezcla, Geologie, Obvi, and even Firebelly Tea (run by the President of Shopify).

You can read more about his story here

Fortune Cookie 🥠

I feel like we skipped the time between Labor Day and Halloween. Life moves fast when you’re working and moving forward. To cap off this Friday, here’s a fortune cookie to snack on…

If I could go back in time, I’d tell the younger me ‘You’re going to do some pretty great things, but you do not need to be great. All you have to do is be yourself. That will always be enough.’ - Chris Bumstead

Thanks for reading,

G