Today we are thrilled to announce the 3rd Cohort of Venture Scouts for Grishin Robotics!
We started with the idea of helping the next generation of angel investors learn about investing and become part of our community. Three cohorts later, we are certain that young investors want to make educated investment decisions and support founders beyond the capital. Our experience and proximity with large consumer markets such as consumer social apps, online entertainment, gaming, food, education, team productivity, and collaboration provide a strong foundation for our graduates, allowing them the opportunity to fast-track their success. We aim to create the most relevant and comprehensive curriculum for those who want to build their brand and strong network within the investing community.
We learn a lot by bringing together this group of people who generously share their knowledge with us and each other. These folks have helped us lay the foundation to build a strong community, and we hope to keep expanding the program in the future.
If you are interested in joining the program, please apply here.
Say hello to the graduates of the 3rd Cohort of Venture Scouts:
Laura Florescu - AI researcher at MosaicML, an early-stage startup focusing on making AI training more efficient. Before that, she spent a few years at a couple of well-funded AI hardware startups. She was an early employee at Groq, founded by Google TPU engineers, and a Principal Engineer at Sambanova Systems, working on training ML models on novel architectures.
Felix A. Navarro Jr. - Product Manager at Facebook Reality Labs. He is also the founder of Facebook’s Afro-Latinx group and is a co-founder of “Level Up by Facebook,” (now known as Elevate) which is a program at Facebook dedicated to growing minority-owned small businesses through training and 1:1 mentorship.
Ramesh Chander - Program Management at Google with experience in Telecom, SmartHome & AdTech; Mentor at Alchemist Accelerator & Google for Startups and Angel investor with investments across B2C, IoT, and health tech.
Kaitlyn Yong - Product Lead at Credit Karma where Kaitlyn manages the credit card marketplace. Previously she worked at LinkedIn, Yelp, Shopify, and Clearbanc. Specializes in fintech investments and an advisor to multiple not-for-profit organizations.
Sophia Wang - Senior Software Engineer at LinkedIn and an active Angel Investor. Previously she was an early employee at Spoke, a modern internal ticketing system startup.
Anant Akash - Early member of the Engineering team at Secureframe. Growing up in India, Singapore, and the US, Anant has a deep admiration for multiculturalism, and the ability of widespread technological adoption to drastically alter societies.
Ina Herlihy - Driver Experience Product Management lead for Walmart's Last Mile team. Previously she led product for Online Grocery Delivery Pre-Fulfillment and Tipping, and in 2019 she launched Walmart's new baby registry — which was highlighted by Marc Lore at the Walmart Annual Shareholders Meeting.
Rahul Thathoo - Engineering Director at Square working on Point of Sale systems. He has been investing in startups over the last few years, helping entrepreneurs with introductions to his network, and giving feedback on products, and being a reference for larger investors.
Shilpa Kumar - Shilpa leads product marketing for QuickBooks Money, reimagining banking and fintech for small businesses. She holds an MBA from Wharton and serves on the founding board for Wharton Alumnae Founders and Funders Association, where she advises women founders on their startups and connects them with investors.
Kavya Gundavaram - Product Manager at DoorDash, leading the core merchant experience to help merchants grow their businesses on the platform. Prior to DoorDash, Kavya was a product manager on the mobile app team at Groupon. She holds a B.S. in Computer Science Honors from UIUC, and is passionate about empowering women in technology and product.
Vlad Gasan - Principal Product Manager at OfferUp where he focuses on experimentation and business intelligence products. Previously worked at eBay. Founder of Product Management Mastermind community with over 4000 active members worldwide. Vlad specializes in e-commerce, marketplaces, and online communities.
Shan Reddy - Product team at Cometeer, an undergrad at Stanford. Previously founded Simple Ventures, a pre-seed VC fund.
If you are interested in joining the program and becoming part of the next generation of entrepreneurs and angel investors, please apply here.
