Female Founders and Funders at Berkeley Summit

Please contact us by email haas-fffb@berkeley.edu if you need any financial assistance to attend this event.

FFFB summit is dedicated to empowering, connecting, and celebrating women in the entrepreneurship and investing ecosystems across Berkeley and beyond.

Female Founders and Funders Summit at Berkeley is a flagship event of Female Founders and Funders of Berkeley Club.

Funding is still inequitable in the VC ecosystem and only 1.8% of all VC funding went to all female-founded companies in 2023.

The persistent funding gap for female entrepreneurs drastically undermines the startup ecosystem's disruptiveness and poses a significant barrier to realizing the Sustainable Development Goals, threatening our collective future.

Why FFFB

Despite the plethora of female-focused startup/VC events out there, we realized that at Berkeley and beyond:

(a) we hadn’t encountered any that were actively teaching female founders and funders actionable skills that they could use to overcome the biases and narrow the gender gap and

(b) there was no community that catered to both female founders and funders, even though both of these ecosystems are two sides of the same coin.

We decided to fill that gap and bring them together through the Female Founders and Funders at Berkeley Club.

The comprehensive agenda for the day at the FFFB Summit encompasses keynote speeches, panel discussions with leaders in the venture capital sector known for their support of women, presentations by female startup founders, and targeted workshops designed to explore funding avenues for companies founded by women. Additionally, the program aims to bolster the success of women as both entrepreneurs and investors. The Summit also presents unique networking opportunities, enabling participants to connect with like-minded professionals, mentors, and potential collaborators in the field.

Learn more and join the movement at the main event of women in business of Berkeley ecosystem: Female Founders & Funders Summit at Berkeley website

Agenda:

9:30 AM - Morning refreshment & networking

10:00 AM - Opening of the Summit

• Julia Daviy Berezovska | Co-Chair Female Founders and Funders of Berkeley
• Shilpa Beesabathuni, PhD | Co-Chair Female Founders and Funders of Berkeley

Foreword:

• Rhonda Schrader | Executive Director of the Berkeley Haas Entrepreneurship Program and the Bay Area Node for NSF I-Corps

10:15 AM - Keynote Speech

Speaker: Mariam Amin JantzSell | Attorney, Founding Partner, Start It Law

10:50 AM - Workshop "Pitch better: Fundraising in a biased environment"

Speaker: Lily Yuen Xu | Underrepresented founder startups @ AWS

This workshop is adapted based on the research of Dr. Laura Huang, a professor at HBS who spent five years studying gender parity in the startup world. She found that women founders were often asked preventative questions when pitching to investors, while their male counterparts were asked promotional questions. This workshop will help female founders recognize biased questions\ them with tactical ways to respond.

11:40 AM - Coffee Break

11:50 AM - Founders' Panel

Navigating the Venture Capital Landscape for Female Founders: Strategies for overcoming barriers and securing funding in a male-dominated industry.

Speakers:

• Hanadie Yousef | Co-Founder and CEO, Juvena Therapeutics, Inc.
• Caroline Ingeborn | Co-Founder & CEO Leap, Serial Entrepreneur
• Jacqueline Cheong | Co-Founder & CEO, Artie (YC S23)

12:35 PM - Lunch

1:25 PM - Workshop: Growth Marketing from a VC lens

Speaker: Sandy Diao | Investor, IOVC

2:15 PM - Coffee Break

2:25 PM - Fireside Chat

Speaker: Lalitha Rajagopalan | CEO & Co-founder of Oro Labs

Learn about Lalitha's entrepreneurial journey and her perspective on gender parity in the entrepreneurial ecosystem.

3:10 PM - Funders' Panel

The Future of Female Leadership in VC: Trends, opportunities, and predictions for women in venture capital.

Speakers:

• Yvonne Lutsch | Investment Principal, Bosch Venture Capital
• Vivien Qu | VC SOSV, Berkeley Alumnus, Founder of funded startups
• Meera Oak | Senior Principal, Alumni Ventures
• Yulia Lalutska | Vice President, Adam Street Partners

3:55 PM - Startup Pitches: Presentations of Selected Female-Founded Startups

Speakers:

• Ashley Keyes | Co-founder and CEO of Rely
• Amber Janda, PhD | Co-founder and CTO of Tau Carbon, 2019 Alum of BEV's Stanford Climate Ventures
• Yasemin Oğuz | Co-founder/CEO Kaizen lntelligence & Pusula.ai

4:10 PM - Closing Remarks

Co-Chairs of FFFB

4:20 PM - 5:30 - Reception

Venue: Spieker Forum