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Innovatemap is a digital product agency with offices in Indianapolis and New York City. The team are experts in digital product management, research, branding, marketing, and design. We can help you dream, design, and deliver award-winning digital products to market.

Panelists:

1. Tim Young - Founding General Partner at Eniac Ventures

Tim Young is a Founding General Partner at Eniac Ventures with two exits as an entrepreneur and over 20 years of experience advising and investing in 100+ early stage startups. Tim has been fascinated by technology since his mother taught him to code in Fortran at the age of 10. He went on to study engineering and become a patent attorney and tech entrepreneur.

Prior to founding Eniac in 2009, Tim founded Bridge, an enterprise software company focusing on corporate training in Beijing, China, which he led to an 8-figure exit. Prior to Bridge, Tim led product at Quoteship, a B2B marketplace for logistics, which exited to Logistics.com (NASD: ICGE). Tim also spent time coding at ExxonMobil, managing product at BAE Systems, and advising startups on Patent and other IP issues at MoFo.

2. Alexa Binns - Jesse Draper's team at Halogen Ventures

Alexa Binns is an early stage investor with a talent for spotting the latest consumer trends and technology. She is on Jesse Draper's team at Halogen Ventures where they invest in the top female founders. Previously Alexa was at Maven Ventures, another seed stage venture fund focused on consumer tech. A marketer by training, she has launched many new brands in partnership with Target, Walgreens, MTV, Univision, the NBA, and Planned Parenthood to name a few. Alexa’s specialty is deploying the latest marketing techniques: she wrote her master’s thesis on how to build a brand on YouTube, helped sell the Twitch influencer marketing platform NoScope, and was nominated for a Mashable Award for social media marketing with Foursquare back when that was cool. Alexa graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Stanford with a degree in public health and has her MBA from UCLA Anderson.

3. Daniel Merja - Managing Partner at FC Ventures

Daniel Merja is currently the managing partner at FC Ventures (Founders Committee), an NYC-based Syndicate VC. He immigrated to the United States from Albania, where he received an advanced high-school degree in electronic engineering. After earning his B.S in Finance, he co-founded data analytics FinTech company, FDC, and acted as the COO and leader of the product development team. In Daniel's 5 years as a startup founder, he grew to love the demanding task of scaling a new company and wanted to help others to do the same. This inspired Daniel to put together a team of 16 great minds who now invest in teams and ideas that will make a difference in the world.

4. Laleh Masnavi - Operating Partner at Candou Ventures

Laleh joined Candou Ventures in 2020 as an Operating Partner. She is a technology veteran and entrepreneur committed to driving business growth at scale through improved operating performance and disciplined strategy. She has proven success at driving collaboration and influencing at all levels of the organization.

At Candou Ventures, she is focused on sourcing new investment opportunities, providing support to portfolio companies, cultivating strategic partnerships, and extending Candou’s strategy and operating model.

Prior to her time with Candou, she worked at BootUP Ventures for over 3 years as the Head of Operations, and VP of Business Development and Global Strategic Alliances in the U.S., Europe, Asia, Latin America and Africa. She sourced unicorns such as Luminar Technologies and Robinhood, and facilitated the expansion of companies such as ByteDance at BootUP’s venture studio.

5. Yasmine Morrison - VC at Antler

6. Renee Niemi - Partner at Mighty Capital

Renee Niemi is currently a partner at Mighty Capital and a Chair for CEO Peer Advisory Board at Vistage. She has spent most of her career creating high-impact products and businesses that make a difference in consumers’ lives. Currently, Renee is the Chairman of the Board for Scientific Adventure for Girls. She has also held a number of product and executive leadership roles at Logitech, Google and Plantronics. Renee holds a BS in Electrical Engineering from Santa Clara University.