Season 11: We're Bringing the Heat

Jillian Manus is Managing Partner of an early-stage Silicon Valley venture fund, Structure Capital. Branded “Architects of the Zero Waste Economy," they invest in underutilized assets and excess capacity. She was named one of the top 25 early-stage Female Investors by Business Insider in 2021. Jillian serves on numerous corporate and non-profit boards, these include: Stanford University School of Medicine Board of Fellows, NASDAQ Entrepreneurial Center Board of Directors, Fuqua School of Business at Duke University.

Charles Hudson is the Managing Partner and Founder of Precursor Ventures, an early-stage venture capital firm focused on investing in the first institutional round of investment for the most promising software and hardware companies. Prior to founding Precursor Ventures, Charles was a Partner at SoftTech VC. In this role, he focused on identifying investment opportunities in mobile infrastructure.

Elizabeth Yin is the Co-Founder and General Partner at Hustle Fund, a pre-seed fund for software startups. Before founding Hustle Fund, Elizabeth was a partner at 500 Startups, where she invested in seed stage companies and ran the Mountain View accelerator. She’s also an entrepreneur who co-founded the ad-tech company LaunchBit, which was acquired in 2014. Her book is called Democratizing Knowledge: How to Build a Startup, Raise Money, Run a VC Firm, and Everything in Between.

McKeever "Mac" Conwell II is managing partner at RareBreed Ventures. Mac is a former software engineer and was a former DOD contractor with top-secret clearance. He was a two-time founder with an exit and a failure. Next Mac moved on to venture capital via the Maryland Technology Development Corporation as part of their seed investment team. Mac went on to found RareBreed Ventures, a pre-seed to seed venture fund that invests in exceptional founders outside of large tech ecosystems.

Beck is the founder of BAM, a PR agency for venture backed technology startups. In 2023, Beck sold the agency to focus on Bad Ideas Group, her VC fund that aims to help people and the planet live better and last longer. Beyond business, she is a licensed pilot, Krav Maga practitioner, chess aficionado, and global traveler. Holding a recent PhD in Organizational Change and Global Leadership, Beck also volunteers on the San Diego Police Department's Crisis Interventionist team.

Paige Finn Doherty is a founding partner at Behind Genius Ventures and the author of Seed to Harvest, an illustrated book about venture.

Cyan is addicted to early stage angel investing. She spends a lot of her time dreaming about what the future could look like and invests in people who do the same but are creating it.

Before Long Journey, she was at Founders Fund, a top tier fund in SF. Most of Cyan’s successful investments have a common theme around job creation and flexibility, but she has invested in everything from rocket ships to sandwich delivery. Cyan loves leaving space for adventure in her day and will make decisions with a roll of dice!

Pascal is a Managing Partner and Founder of focal ventures where he focuses his investing on leading pre-seed rounds in software startups and runs a community of 175+ of the best startup revenue leaders that function as an extension of the firm. Where others say "too early" is where focal thrives.