​Silicon Valley Inner Circle — Founder & VC Access

​Not a tour of a private Napa Valley vineyard. Not a program. An entry point into Silicon Valley.

​April 28 – May 2, 2026

​Most people visit Silicon Valley.

​A few get into the rooms where deals happen.

​This is built for the latter.

​What This Really Is

​This is not a 5-day itinerary.

​This is a curated entry into Silicon Valley’s founder + investor network.

​Over 5 days, you will:

• ​Sit in rooms with founders, VCs, and professors

• ​Join private dinners where real conversations happen

• ​Build relationships that typically take years to access

​Program Breakdown

​April 28–29 | Startup Grind Conference + VIP Access

• ​Attend one of the highest-signal conferences in Silicon Valley

• ​5,000+ founders, 400+ VCs

• ​Curated exposure to AI, venture, and emerging tech

​What to Expect This Year

​This year’s scale is significant:

• ​5,000+ attendees

• ​400+ VC funds

• ​150+ exhibitors

• ​175 sessions

​Speakers include partners and leaders from:

• ​Sequoia Capital

• ​Andreessen Horowitz (a16z)

• ​Greylock Partners

• ​Kleiner Perkins

• ​Benchmark

• ​Menlo Ventures

• ​New Enterprise Associates (NEA)

​Stephanie Zhan – Partner Sequoia Capital

​Anish Acharya – General Partner Andreessen Horowitz

​Corinne Marie Riley – Partner Greylock Partners

​Mamoon Hamid – Partner Kleiner Perkins

​Chetan Puttagunta – General Partner Benchmark

​Ashton Kutcher – General Partner at Sound Ventures

​Sangeen Zeb – General Partner GV (Google Ventures)

​Christine Tsai – CEO & Founding Partner 500 Global

​Steve Jang – Managing Partner & Founder Kindred Ventures

​Tomasz Tunguz – Founder Theory Ventures

​Navin Chaddha – Managing Partner Mayfield

​Mike Duboe – General Partner Greylock Partners

​Tiffany Luck – Partner New Enterprise Associates (NEA)

​Matt Kraning – Partner Menlo Ventures

​Ann Bordetsky – Early Stage Investor New Enterprise Associates (NEA)

​Matt Stephenson – Head of Tech Talent Bain Capital Ventures (BCV)

​Gabe Pereyra – President & Co-Founder of Harvey

​Lin Qiao – CEO and cofounder of Fireworks AI

​Amjad Masad – CEO Replit

​Grant Lee – CEO & Co-founder Gamma

​April 29 | Palo Alto — Inner Circle Begins

​7:00 PM – 9:00 PM

​Private SG 26 Afterparty (curated by BFC + Summit House)
→ Small, invitation-only group
→ High-signal founders, investors, and operators

​April 30 | Private Napa Valley Vineyard — Where Relationships Are Built

​10:00 AM – 12:00 PM
Private Vineyard Experience
→ Estate tour
→ Wine history session

​12:00 PM – 1:00 PM
Private Lunch (Hosted)

​1:00 PM – 5:00 PM
Keynote: David Hefter
AI Investment Strategist at BlackRock

Dr. Paul Fang & David Hefter​ at BFC Palo Alto

Founder Sessions
→ Insights from leading Stanford founders

​Evening
Private Dinner

​👉 This is where real relationships are formed.

​May 1 | Berkeley — From Founders to Nobel Minds

​Morning
Keynote Session

​Lunch (Hosted)

​Afternoon | Summit House, Berkeley
Founder Discussions
→ Berkeley founders sharing

​Private Conversation
→ Session with a Berkeley Nobel Laureate

​Evening
Private Dinner

​May 2 | Stanford — At the Source

​Keynote: Miko Matsumura
Managing Partner at gCC Venture Capital, Stanford Guest Lecturer

Dr. Paul Fang & Miko Matsumura ​

Roundtable Discussions with Top Founders
→ AI systems
→ Frontier technologies
→ Operator-level insights

​→ Small-group, high-signal environment

​Who This Is For

​This is not for everyone.

​We are selecting:

• ​Founders building in AI / deep tech

• ​Investors allocating into early-stage / frontier tech

• ​Operators scaling serious companies

​If you are looking for information → not a fit
If you are looking for access → this is it

​What You Actually Get

• ​Access → rooms you normally cannot enter

• ​Network → founders, VCs, professors

• ​Positioning → part of a high-signal circle

• ​Opportunity → deals, partnerships, capital

​Important

• ​Limited to 15 people

• ​Application / referral required

• ​We optimize for who is in the room, not volume

​Final Thought

​In Silicon Valley,

​your trajectory is often determined by who you have access to.

​Not knowledge. Not content.

​Access.

How to Register

🎟 Exclusive for the BFC Community

💸 $300 OFF Any Ticket Type

Use code: BFC300

🔗 Direct registration link (code pre-applied):

https://luma.com/rwihs0qm?coupon=BFC300

​SG 26 Speakers

Stephanie Zhan – Partner Sequoia Capital

Anish Acharya – General Partner Andreessen Horowitz

Corinne Marie Riley – Partner Greylock Partners

Mamoon Hamid – Partner Kleiner Perkins

Chetan Puttagunta – General Partner Benchmark

Sangeen Zeb – General Partner GV (Google Ventures)

Hans Tung – Managing Partner Notable Capital

Christine Tsai – CEO & Founding Partner 500 Global

Jon Callaghan – Managing Partner & Co-founder True Ventures

Rajeev Dham – Partner Sapphire Ventures

Steve Jang – Managing Partner & Founder Kindred Ventures

Tomasz Tunguz – Founder Theory Ventures

Navin Chaddha – Managing Partner Mayfield

Kobie Fuller – General Partner Upfront Ventures

Sundeep Peechu – Managing Partner Felicis

Kanyi Maqubela – Managing Partner Kindred Ventures

Frederique Dame – General Partner GV (Google Ventures)

Fabiola Quinzaños – Partner MONASHEES

Mike Duboe – General Partner Greylock Partners

Tiffany Luck – Partner New Enterprise Associates (NEA)

Matt Kraning – Partner Menlo Ventures

Brian Rothenberg – Partner defy.vc

Joseph Dormani – Partner Thomson Reuters Ventures

Ann Bordetsky – Early Stage Investor New Enterprise Associates (NEA)

Matt Stephenson – Head of Tech Talent Bain Capital Ventures (BCV)

Gabe Pereyra – President & Co-Founder of Harvey

Lin Qiao – CEO and cofounder of Fireworks AI

Ashton Kutcher – General Partner at Sound Ventures

Dave Ferguson – Co-CEO at Nuro

Tamar Yehoshua – Chief Product at Atlassian

Tuhin Srivastava – CEO & Co-founder Baseten

Harrison Chase – CEO & Co-founder LangChain

Mitesh Agrawal – CEO Positron AI

Stefano Ermon – CEO & Co-founder Inception

Ivan Poupyrev, Dr. – CEO & Founder Archetype AI

Maithra Raghu – CEO & Founder Samaya AI

Soyoung Lee – Head of GTM & Co-founder TwelveLabs

Robert Brooks IV – VP of Revenue & Founding Team Lambda

Travis Addair – Sr Engineering Director, AI at Rubrik

Amjad Masad – CEO Replit

Rahul Vohra – Founder & Head of Superhuman Mail

Michel Tricot – CEO & Co-founder Airbyte

Grant Lee – CEO & Co-founder Gamma

Karri Saarinen – CEO & Co-founder Linear

Abhinav Asthana – CEO Postman

Avlok K. – CEO AngelList

Immad Akhund – CEO & Co-founder Mercury

Tanay Kothari – CEO & Co-founder Wispr Flow

Matt Hammel – COO & Co-founder AirOps

Nurasyl Serik – CEO & Co-founder RemoFirst

Rachel Wolan – Chief Product Officer Webflow

Philip W. Braddock – Head of Atlassian

Wen Sang – COO & Co-founder Genspark

Sara Ramos – Head of Marketing Base10 Partners

Cecilia Stallsmith – Head of Marketing Lovable

Lindsay Amos – Founder Amos Communications

Joan DeGennaro – Founder Scale Venture Partners

Lindsay Selvitelle – Founder The Platform Team

Maria LaMagna Morales – Founder The Platform Team

About the Bay Area Founders Club’s President

Connect with Dr. Paul Fang

About Bay Area Founders Club

Bay Area Founders Club (BFC), founded by Dr. Paul Fang in Silicon Valley in 2022 and managed by a dedicated group of Stanford alumni and students, is a thriving community of over 100,000 members, including more than 5,000 startups and over 1000 venture capital firms. With most startups in our network raising $1-10 million, and some exceeding $20 million, our mission is to empower creators who aspire to make a global impact. We provide the essential resources, support, and connections needed to transform visionary ideas into reality.

Subscribe to our LinkedIn, YouTube, Substack, Website, Luma, and ​Twitter to stay updated!

Hi BFC Fam ~

This week is SF Climate Week 2026 — one of the most important moments of the year for builders, investors, and operators thinking about the future.

Climate is no longer a “side” conversation. It’s deeply tied to AI, infrastructure, supply chains, and how we design products at scale. This week brings together people working on everything from resilience and carbon removal to climate + AI, energy systems, and sustainable cities.

If you’ve been even slightly curious about climate, this is the week to lean in. Show up, ask questions, meet people building in the space — and see where you might fit into shaping what’s next. 🌍

🌳 This Week in the Bay Area: 72 Curated Events

🌿 Key Themes For SF Climate Week

1️⃣ AI’s growth is making climate constraints unavoidable

This week highlights a hard truth: the rise of AI is directly increasing the importance of climate sustainability.

From events like AI for Nature Mini-Summit to Beyond the Hype: A Critical Climate Lens on AI:
• Compute demand is surging → energy usage is following
• Data centers are becoming climate-critical infrastructure
• AI development now carries real carbon costs

→ Insight: The faster AI scales, the more climate becomes a limiting factor—not a side consideration.

2️⃣ Builders are moving from offsets → operational impact

Earlier climate conversations centered on offsets and awareness. This week shows a shift toward embedded sustainability:

From events like:
• Circular Construction
• Carbon Removal Happy Hour
• From Farm to Table to Planet

→ Founders are now asking:
• How do we reduce emissions within systems?
• How do we design products that are climate-positive by default?

→ The insight: climate is moving upstream into product and system design—not downstream into compensation mechanisms.

3️⃣ The real opportunity: AI-native climate systems

What stands out isn’t just AI applied to climate—but entirely new systems being built because of it.

Seen in areas like:
• Energy + grid intelligence
• Climate data + monitoring platforms
• Resilience systems (wildfires, agriculture, supply chains)

→ Insight: AI is turning climate into a systems design challenge—where the biggest opportunities are in infrastructure, not just applications.

Featured Event

🎟 How to Raise Venture Capital — 4-Part Masterclass with Legendary Silicon Valley Investor Miko Matsumura

Fundraising isn’t about the pitch deck — it’s about understanding how venture capital actually works.

In this 4-week intensive, Silicon Valley investor Miko Matsumura shares how founders get funded through pattern recognition, market timing, and investor psychology.

Based on 25+ years as a founder, operator, and VC, this course breaks down the full fundraising process — from positioning and storytelling to investor meetings and closing the deal.

Join us next Friday, April 24 at 7PM PDT on Zoom — open to anyone worldwide!

Register HERE!

🌱 Monday, April 20

1. OutRun CO2 Club @ SF Climate Week! 👟

Presented by: Planeteer Capital
Hosted by: Sophie Purdom, Maggie Mullooly, SF Climate Week
📍 San Francisco, California
⏰ 7:45 AM - 9:00 AM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/2lytd9rx

2. Wildfire Resilience Workshop: Explore Resilience Investment Through Game-Based Learning

Presented by: Optivide
Hosted by: Optivide, SF Climate Week
📍 San Francisco, California
⏰ 9:00 AM - 11:30 AM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/ro47chet

3. John Doerr and Ryan Panchadsaram: Speed & Scale’s Reality Check | SFCW LIVE at Climate One

Hosted by: Climate One, SF Climate Week, Commonwealth Club World Affairs
📍 San Francisco, California
⏰ 9:30 AM - 11:30 AM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/58f6lnt3

4. Designing Cities for People & Planet

Hosted by: Presidio Center for Sustainable Solutions, SF Climate Week
📍 San Anselmo, California
⏰ 11:00 AM - 3:00 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/72dlnt64

5. -1 to Palo Alto Networks with Nikesh Arora

Presented by: South Park Commons
Hosted by: South Park Commons
📍 San Francisco, California
⏰ 2:30 PM - 4:00 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/nikesh-arora-spc

6. From Lab to Market in the AI Era

Presented by: Sparknify
Hosted by: Sparknify
📍 Sunnyvale, California
⏰ 3:00 PM - 5:30 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/zsccaba7

7. Climate on the Klamath | Innovators Journey with PG&E

Hosted by: Rigel Robinson, SF Climate Week
📍 San Francisco, California
⏰ 4:00 PM - 5:00 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/2d1bwz7e

8. Chamath @ Stanford AI Club

Hosted by: Tanvir Bhathal, Jason Zhang, Sahand Sojoodi
📍 Stanford, California
⏰ 5:00 PM - 6:00 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/cccdyj4k

9. Low Latency Club Voice AI Meetup

Presented by: Telnyx
Hosted by: Telnyx Events, Sonam Gupta, Deepgram
📍 San Francisco, California
⏰ 5:30 PM - 8:30 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/jcp5bbxy

10. 2026 Goldman Environmental Prize Ceremony & Reception

Hosted by: Liz Maw, SF Climate Week
📍 San Francisco, California
⏰ 5:30 PM - 8:30 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/nwpr1pxl

11. OpenSearch & Valkey User Group Meetup

Hosted by: Manvika Tuteja (Mani), Roberto Luna Rojas, AWS Builder Loft
📍 San Francisco, California
⏰ 5:30 PM - 8:00 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/2qy3j597

12. SF Climate Week 2026: Founders, Investors & LP Happy Hour

Hosted by: Vectors Capital, SF Climate Week, Connie Koh
📍 San Francisco, California
⏰ 6:00 PM - 9:00 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/73nmv1rh

13. 2.0 Cocktails & Carbon Removal: An Enhanced Rock Weathering Happy Hour

Hosted by: Said Sakas, SF Climate Week, Hannes M. Steinle -ZeroEx, Tony Oehm
📍 San Francisco, California
⏰ 7:00 PM - 9:00 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/7y7y3yb2

🌱 Tuesday, April 21

14. SF Climate Week Breakfast Ride with Union Peak VC, G2 Venture Partners, and Congruent Ventures

Hosted by: Annie Le, SF Climate Week, Nate Williams, Brook Porter, Joshua Posamentier
📍 San Francisco, California
⏰ 7:30 AM - 10:30 AM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/hx20c1jd

15. Stabilize Earth

Presented by: Devonian Systems
Hosted by: Caitlin Moore, Alan Ransil, SF Climate Week, Paul Gambill, Ben Lachman
📍 San Francisco, California
⏰ 9:00 AM - 5:00 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/i7lny40i

16. Sandwich Party

Presented by: Project E
Hosted by: Jennifer Fang, Lin Ye, Anand-Arnaud Pajaniradjane, Founders Cafe
📍 San Francisco, California
⏰ 12:00 PM - 3:00 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/0os1ipnm

17. AI for Nature Mini-Summit: Ancestral Intelligence & AI Foundation Models

Presented by: AINI - AI for Nature’s Intelligence
Hosted by: scott broomfield, SF Climate Week
📍 San Francisco, California
⏰ 1:00 PM - 5:30 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/xm0nve4v

18. Links & Leadership – Engineering Leaders Golf Gathering

Presented by: Tech Leaders Community
Hosted by: Murray, Kevin Mei, TheAgentic, Paulina Xu
📍 Burlingame, California
⏰ 3:00 PM - 5:00 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/49oq4omf

19. Taiwan’s Role in the Global AI Landscape

Hosted by: Stanford US-Asia Technology Management Center, Sahar Mor
📍 Stanford, California
⏰ 4:30 PM - 5:50 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/j2pcgb4c

20. SF Women in Tech Meetup: Design & Dine

Presented by: Toast Monthly Events
Hosted by: Toast🥂, Nicole Lee, Caroline Ciaramitaro
📍 San Francisco, California
⏰ 5:00 PM - 7:00 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/6nfwwfew

21. O1Assist Summit

Hosted by: Karishma Mandal, Founders Cafe, Startup Valley, Kevin Mei, TheAgentic
📍 San Francisco, California
⏰ 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/1f20h21s

22. Vibecoding Hackathon | Vector & Codeology

Hosted by: Fisher Zhang, Victoria Ruan, Dani Coze, Sahar Mor
⏰ 6:00 PM - April 23, 8:00 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/665js7hs

23. Live at Colosseum: Frontier Tech Demo Night & Mixer

Hosted by: Michael Rinko, mattytay, Clay, Vesper, Michael Luong
📍 San Francisco, California
⏰ 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/szp9vsg4

24. Hidden Currencies: Public Opening Reception

Presented by: Hidden Currencies - Water Justice in the Age of AI
Hosted by: Consulate General of Switzerland in San Francisco, SF Climate Week
📍 San Francisco, California
⏰ 6:00 PM - 9:00 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/trt5zjlk

25. Beyond the Hype: A Critical Climate Lens On AI

Presented by: Climate Action Club
Hosted by: Climate Action Club SF, Trellis Coworking & Events, SF Climate Week
📍 San Francisco, California
⏰ 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/jmfw42fo

26. Off the Record, by Beacons AI

Hosted by: Rachael, haelin
📍 San Francisco, California
⏰ 6:00 PM - 9:00 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/8alxz0e9

🌱 Wednesday, April 22

27. UNLOCK 2026 - AI Science: Cutting Through the Hype

Presented by: UNLOCK 2026
Hosted by: Medra
📍 San Francisco, California
⏰ 9:00 AM - 6:00 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/unlock2026

28. Climate Debate: The Road to Wisdom

Presented by: Optivide
Hosted by: Optivide, SF Climate Week
📍 San Francisco, California
⏰ 9:00 AM - 11:30 AM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/ak286ka4

29. Live From the Future! A Deep Tech Investor Expo

Presented by: Activate Ecosystem Events
Hosted by: Activate Global, Jolene Gurevich, Bakar Labs, SF Climate Week
📍 San Francisco, California
⏰ 10:00 AM - 1:00 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/2rrxqv4e

30. Silicon Valley Healthtech Summit

Presented by: Angel Launch
Hosted by: Zahava Stroud
📍 Palo Alto, California
⏰ 1:00 PM - 6:00 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/angellaunchapril22

31. AI for Climate Adaptation and Disaster Response

Presented by: Climate Change AI
Hosted by: SPUR Events, SF Climate Week
📍 San Francisco, California
⏰ 1:30 PM - 3:00 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/ql5giqf6

32. The AI Frontier: Building Production-Ready AI Faster

Presented by: Silicon Valley AI Hub
Hosted by: Silicon Valley AI Hub
📍 Menlo Park, California
⏰ 4:00 PM - 7:00 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/07x60y0c

33. Design Chat with Rasmus Andersson

Presented by: South Park Commons
Hosted by: South Park Commons, Soleio
📍 San Francisco, California
⏰ 4:30 PM - 6:00 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/rasmus-spc

34. Break My AI

Presented by: Novita AI
Hosted by: Johnny Chin
📍 San Francisco, California
⏰ 5:00 PM - 8:00 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/2lplib7a

35. CEO Private Dinner

Presented by: eChai SF Events
Hosted by: Khyati Brahmbhatt, Murray
📍 Palo Alto, California
⏰ 5:30 PM - 8:30 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/1jbx8ojb

36. CEO PRIVATE DINNER

Presented by: The CEO Community
Hosted by: Murray, Khyati Brahmbhatt
📍 Palo Alto, California
⏰ 5:30 PM - 8:30 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/ljdthbut

37. Built Here. Built for What’s Next: Pitch Night & Panel

Presented by: The AI Collective
Hosted by: The AI Collective, Jessie Chen, Saurabh Yergattikar
📍 Dublin, California
⏰ 5:30 PM - 8:30 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/aic-tr-4-22

38. Bay Area Frontier Research Club

Presented by: Frontier Syndicate
Hosted by: Kristopher Floyd, Kunal Bhatia, Matthew Musson
📍 Stanford, California
⏰ 5:30 PM - 8:30 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/14qkd97c

39. Build After Dark 4/22

Presented by: Build after dark
Hosted by: Laura Clugston, Ana Pischl
📍 San Francisco, California
⏰ 6:00 PM - 9:00 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/am3uqq68

40. 🧠 The Thought Experiment Lab

Presented by: The Commons
Hosted by: Mendel Liu, The SF Commons
📍 San Francisco, California
⏰ 6:30 PM - 8:00 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/thoughtexperiments

41. Founder Dinner

Presented by: Brderless
Hosted by: Amy Quan, Brderless
📍 San Francisco, California
⏰ 6:30 PM - 8:30 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/l66pv3c6

🌱 Thursday, April 23

42. Agent Builders Breakfast - Founders & Builders in SOMA, SF

Hosted by: Michael Ducker
📍 San Francisco, California
⏰ 8:00 AM - 9:30 AM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/fqlctvxg

43. Rebuilding Infrastructure: Circular Construction

Hosted by: Mind the Bridge, SF Climate Week
📍 San Francisco, California
⏰ 8:30 AM - 12:00 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/7us6b34e

44. Year of the Woman Farmer

Presented by: HARVEST California
Hosted by: HARVEST California, SF Climate Week
📍 San Francisco, California
⏰ 8:30 AM - 10:30 AM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/2e7ygd3j

45. Climate Cafe: Environmental Psychology and Climate Anxiety#5

Presented by: Optivide
Hosted by: Optivide, SF Climate Week
📍 San Francisco, California
⏰ 9:00 AM - 11:30 AM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/k9r49go4

46. Female founders and funders Breakfast

Presented by: Sisters Female Founders
Hosted by: Sisters Female Founders Initiative
📍 San Francisco, California
⏰ 9:00 AM - 11:30 AM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/ctabpawt

47. Heatmap House: California Dreamin’

Presented by: Heatmap News
Hosted by: Heatmap News, SF Climate Week
📍 San Francisco, California
⏰ 12:00 PM - 2:30 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/iee92qjj

48. Links & Leadership - CTO and Tech Golf Gathering

Presented by: Tech Leaders Community
Hosted by: Murray, Kevin Mei
📍 Burlingame, California
⏰ 2:00 PM - 4:00 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/zb73t3bj

49. From Farm to Table to Planet

Hosted by: Project Drawdown, SF Climate Week
📍 San Francisco, California
⏰ 2:00 PM - 3:00 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/5hezp7n2

50. Minerals on the Rocks

Hosted by: Mind the Bridge, SF Climate Week
📍 San Francisco, California
⏰ 3:00 PM - 6:30 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/mmwppfgy

51. The Art of Repair

Presented by: fix w/ frogs
Hosted by: Sarah Pinner
📍 San Francisco, California
⏰ 4:00 PM - 6:00 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/hb7ydlxs

52. Surreal Dinner Series

Presented by: Surreal
Hosted by: Mercedes Bent
📍 San Francisco, California
⏰ 5:00 PM - 8:00 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/61mpr1os

53. Beyond Evals: Post-Training Agents

Presented by: Silicon Valley AI Hub
Hosted by: Silicon Valley AI Hub
📍 Menlo Park, California
⏰ 5:00 PM - 8:00 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/qhx8qzeh

54. AI Snack Club Member Meetup

Presented by: AI Snack Club
Hosted by: Monica Abrams
📍 San Francisco, California
⏰ 5:00 PM - 7:00 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/hv7fbqsg

55. Physical AI Industry Night

Presented by: Actuate
Hosted by: Sunny Sahota
📍 San Francisco, California
⏰ 5:30 PM - 8:30 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/2xbmo7a9

56. Operators Happy Hour by Chore

Presented by: Chore
Hosted by: Chore, Adam Spector
📍 San Francisco, California
⏰ 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/y5vbfdmw

57. Foundry Robotics HQ: Office Warming 🎉

Hosted by: Javier Correa
📍 San Francisco, California
⏰ 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/2hnatz85

58. Productboard x Lago

Presented by: Productboard
Hosted by: Productboard
📍 San Francisco, California
⏰ 6:00 PM - 8:30 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/zeg1ipsh

59. AI Philosophy Nights: What the Body Knows

Presented by: SuperHuman Society
Hosted by: Banu Kellner
📍 San Francisco, California
⏰ 6:30 PM - 9:30 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/4bu64315

60. SF Marketing & GTM Leaders Dinner

Presented by: Conversion
Hosted by: Ishaan Maheshwari
📍 San Francisco, California
⏰ 6:30 PM - 9:00 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/kgxisn6i

🌱 Friday, April 24

61. Sunrise Cold Plunge for Ocean Health

Hosted by: Alicia Hernandez Arriaga
📍 San Francisco, California
⏰ 7:00 AM - 9:00 AM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/chwwq2kh

62. Powerhouse Presents: Watt It Takes with Alex Honnold

Hosted by: Powerhouse
📍 San Francisco, California
⏰ 9:00 AM - 11:00 AM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/6ll5hfxc

63. Ship to Prod - Agentic Engineering Hackathon

Presented by: tokens&
Hosted by: tokens&, AWS Builder Loft
📍 San Francisco, California
⏰ 9:30 AM - 7:30 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/shiptoprod

64. Global Climate Solutions Summit 2026

Hosted by: SF Climate Week
📍 San Francisco, California
⏰ 11:00 AM - 5:00 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/jvl9bxpe

65. Swing for CFO’s - Golf Gathering

Presented by: The CFO Community
Hosted by: Murray, Bonnie Tomei
📍 Burlingame, California
⏰ 3:00 PM - 5:30 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/sa0siib9

66. Phonely Meet & Greet: Hiring Night

Presented by: Phonely AI
Hosted by: Aidan Hallett
📍 San Francisco, California
⏰ 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/4reavtow

🌱 Saturday, April 25

67. Climate Stakeholder Gathering: Morning Run

Presented by: Optivide
Hosted by: Optivide, SF Climate Week
📍 San Francisco, California
⏰ 7:00 AM - 9:00 AM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/f15bhr83

68. Small Business Innovation Sprint Hackathon

Presented by: Plug and Play Foundation
Hosted by: Yeyang Zhang
📍 Sunnyvale, California
⏰ 9:00 AM - 9:00 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/d6pgy5gp

69. Eco Afro Futures Summit

Hosted by: Critical Ecology Lab
📍 Oakland, California
⏰ 10:30 AM - 3:30 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/bpc3j1hq

70. Self-improving skills for remote Agents

Presented by: cognee
Hosted by: cognee
📍 San Francisco, California
⏰ 12:00 PM - 6:00 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/oicsi326

71. Validate Your Startup Idea Live with Manus

Presented by: Manus AI Events
Hosted by: Holly Tang
📍 San Francisco, California
⏰ 4:00 PM - 8:30 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/m9k337jx

🌱 Sunday, April 26

72. Climate Stakeholder Gathering: Networking Mixer

Presented by: Optivide
Hosted by: Optivide, SF Climate Week
📍 San Francisco, California
⏰ 5:30 PM - 9:00 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/lacl6jdy

About the Bay Area Founders Club’s President

Connect with Dr. Paul Fang

About Bay Area Founders Club

Bay Area Founders Club (BFC), founded by Dr. Paul Fang in Silicon Valley in 2022 and managed by a dedicated group of Stanford alumni and students, is a thriving community of over 100,000 members, including more than 5,000 startups and over 1000 venture capital firms. With most startups in our network raising $1-10 million, and some exceeding $20 million, our mission is to empower creators who aspire to make a global impact. We provide the essential resources, support, and connections needed to transform visionary ideas into reality.

Subscribe to our LinkedIn, YouTube, Substack, Website, Luma, and ​Twitter to stay updated!

Most communities stop at networking.

We’re building something very different.

Today, I’m excited to share:
BFC Global Expansion is officially live — with 12 core regions launched worldwide.

This is not just expansion.
This is infrastructure.

What We Just Built

Over the past few months, we’ve quietly rolled out:

→ 12 global BFC chapters
→ Each with its own local Luma Calendar
→ A system to connect offline events + online distribution

The goal is simple:

Turn fragmented founder ecosystems into a coordinated global network.

From now on, the best events, founders, and investors
won’t live in silos.

They will be indexed, curated, and connected — globally.

Explore the Global Chapters

Here’s where the system begins:

United States
• Palo Alto → https://luma.com/bayareafoundersclub
• Boston → https://luma.com/BFCBoston
• Los Angeles → https://luma.com/BFCLA
• New York → https://luma.com/BFCNYC

Americas
• Canada → https://luma.com/BFCCanada
• South America → https://luma.com/BFCSouthAmerica

Europe & Africa
• Europe → https://luma.com/BFCEU
• Africa → https://luma.com/BFCAfrica

Asia-Pacific
• Sydney → https://luma.com/BFCSydney
• India → https://luma.com/BFCIndia
• Hong Kong → https://luma.com/BFCHongKong
• Singapore → https://luma.com/BFCSingapore

Why This Matters

Right now, the founder ecosystem is broken:

• Great events are scattered
• High-signal people don’t meet each other
• Opportunities die in local silos

We’re fixing that.

Every city becomes a node.
Every event becomes data.
Every founder becomes part of a global graph.

This is how you scale serendipity.

📣 If You’re Hosting Events — Read This

If you’re organizing events in your city:

👉 You can now submit directly to your local BFC Luma Calendar

No gatekeeping.
No fragmentation.

Just one goal:
Build the strongest local ecosystem — connected globally.

The BFC Global Ambassador Program

We are recruiting Global Ambassadors around the world.

Each ambassador is responsible for:

• Running the local Luma Calendar
• Connecting founders and investors
• Expanding BFC’s presence on the ground

They are not “organizers.”
They are ecosystem builders.

Reply to this email if you are interested.

BFC Is Not a Community

Let’s be clear.

BFC is not a Slack group.
Not a meetup series.
Not a course.

We are building:

The global operating system for founders in the AI era.

Access → Network → Execution → Capital

That’s the stack.

Explore more here:

https://www.bayareafoundersclub.com

Want In?

If you want to:

• Launch events in your city
• Become a regional leader
• Plug into a global founder network
• Or go deeper with BFC

DM me.

We’re not building a community.

We’re building
a globally coordinated system for founders who want to win. 🌐

About the Bay Area Founders Club’s President

Connect with Dr. Paul Fang

About Bay Area Founders Club

Bay Area Founders Club (BFC), founded by Dr. Paul Fang in Silicon Valley in 2022 and managed by a dedicated group of Stanford alumni and students, is a thriving community of over 100,000 members, including more than 5,000 startups and over 1000 venture capital firms. With most startups in our network raising $1-10 million, and some exceeding $20 million, our mission is to empower creators who aspire to make a global impact. We provide the essential resources, support, and connections needed to transform visionary ideas into reality.

Subscribe to our LinkedIn, YouTube, Substack, Website, Luma, and ​Twitter to stay updated!

We’re just getting started. As BFC goes global, I’ll be doing more livestreams to bring real, on-the-ground Silicon Valley insights to founders everywhere.
BFC is now reaching founders across 173 countries 🌍

Huge congrats to this batch from AI Demo Night — seriously strong lineup:

🏆 13 Highly Selective Startups

1. Atmee.ai — Real-time AI avatars cloning identity & presence (Harvard AI PhDs)

2. Bizly — IRL experiences in the AI era (already used by 5% of Fortune 500)

3. Gaspar AI — AI agents for government workflows ($600K raised, $8M pipeline)

4. YARD — Regenerative urban AI data centers (infra × clean energy)

5. Agentplace.io — Drag-and-drop AI-native apps & websites

6. Xuman.AI — OS for solopreneurs in human services

7. GlamAI — $500K → $6M MRR, 2M+ users (AI content engine)

8. HeyNoah — Autonomous executive assistant (Calendar → Slack → WhatsApp)

9. rtrvr.ai — AI web agents for scraping + automation (25K users, ex-Google team)

10. Aigo.ai — Cognitive AI (self-learning, no LLMs, no hallucinations)

11. Sigtrip — AI-native hotel booking layer inside AI environments

12. Ito — Behavioral testing layer for AI PR (built by MIT engineers)

13. SoulLink — AI companions with emotional continuity (3.5h avg daily usage)

A lot of founders asked about pitching. Here’s the no-BS version from Miko Matsumura:

• Every VC has a “deal is happening” switch. Your job is to trigger it.

• The longer you pitch, the less power you have. Keep it under 10 minutes.

• Use SAFEs strategically to create pressure on lead investors.

• Don’t lead with your team — that signals you don’t have a sharp wedge.

• Pitching gets attention. Process gets term sheets.

• Ask VCs about their decision process — that’s how deals actually close.

If you want to go deeper, join this Friday HERE:

Story Architecture & Materials
📅 April 17 | 7–9 PM

This is where you actually build:
Narrative structure, slide-by-slide breakdown, financials that survive diligence — plus live hot-seat deck reviews.

See you there.

Today at 3 PM PT, I’ll be going live at BFC Palo Alto with legendary Silicon Valley investor Miko Matsumura.

This isn’t just another livestream.
We’re broadcasting across 7 platforms simultaneously—bringing you real, unfiltered Silicon Valley insights as they happen.

AI is moving fast. Fundraising is evolving even faster.
We’ll break down what’s actually working right now—
from AI trends and capital strategy to where founders win (and where they quietly lose).

Key Topics:

1. Fundraising as a System

2. VC Psychology

3. The First Meeting → Partner Meeting Gap

4. Fund Dynamics & Power Law

5. Mistakes Founders Don’t Realize They’re Making

No theory. No recycled content.
Just high-signal, operator-level insight from the frontlines.

👉 Scan to register and join us live.

BFC Palo Alto | Global Livestream Across 7 Platforms 🌍

* Substack：https://open.substack.com/live-stream/159336?utm_source=live-stream-scheduled-upsell

* LinkedIn：https://www.linkedin.com/in/paul-fang-phd/

* Twitter：x.com/PaulFangBayArea

* Tiktok：https://www.tiktok.com/@paulfangbfc

* Instagram：https://www.instagram.com/bayareafoundersclub/

About the Bay Area Founders Club’s President

Connect with Dr. Paul Fang

About Bay Area Founders Club

Bay Area Founders Club (BFC), founded by Dr. Paul Fang in Silicon Valley in 2022 and managed by a dedicated group of Stanford alumni and students, is a thriving community of over 100,000 members, including more than 5,000 startups and over 1000 venture capital firms. With most startups in our network raising $1-10 million, and some exceeding $20 million, our mission is to empower creators who aspire to make a global impact. We provide the essential resources, support, and connections needed to transform visionary ideas into reality.

Subscribe to our LinkedIn, YouTube, Substack, Website, Luma, and ​Twitter to stay updated!

Many thanks to everyone who joined our AMA on getting into a16z Speedrun last Friday — 500+ founders signed up.

We went deep on what actually matters:

• How do you build a story that makes investors stop?

• What are the questions every investor is silently asking — but no one tells you?

• When does raising money hurt you more than it helps?

This wasn’t surface-level advice.
This was how Silicon Valley actually works.

And honestly —
this conversation was too good to die inside a Zoom recording nobody opens.

So we turned the full session into an audio recap on SUN.

If you’re thinking about fundraising, this is worth your time:

👉 https://sunapp.ai/course/sun-presents-a16z-speedrun-ama-2

This Wednesday, something even more exciting is happening.

Together with Startup Grind Silicon Valley, and with Bay Area Founders Club as community partner — we’re bringing founders, operators, and investors back in person, rotating across top SF tech HQs.

🏆 13 Highly Selective Featured Startups
🎭 Atmee.ai — Real-time AI video avatars cloning identity & presence (Harvard AI PhDs) Yi-Hsuan Tsai
🤝 Bizly — IRL experiences in the AI era (already used by 5% of Fortune 500) Ron Shah
🏛️ Gaspar AI — AI agents for government workflows ($600K closed, $8M pipeline) Christos Karafeizis
🏙️ YARD — Regenerative urban AI data centers (infra meets clean energy) OSSOXXII Artist
🛠️ Agentplace.io — Build AI-native apps & websites with drag-and-drop Vlad Yanch
📱 Xuman.AI— OS for solopreneurs in human services Vishal Chamaria
💄 GlamAI — $500K → $6M MRR, 2M+ users (AI content engine) Paul Shaburov
📅 HeyNoah — Autonomous executive assistant (calendar → Slack → WhatsApp) Ashish Toshniwal
🕷️ rtrvr.ai— AI web agents for scraping + automation (25K users, ex-Google) Arjun Chintapalli
🧠 Aigo.ai - Pioneering Cognitive AI— Self-learning AI (no LLMs, no hallucinations) Srini Pagidyala
🏨 Sigtrip — AI-native hotel booking layer inside AI environments Philip Vazquez
✅ Ito — Behavioral testing layer for AI PR (built by MIT engineers) Barron Caster
👾 SoulLink — AI companions with emotional continuity (3.5h avg usage/day) Michael Shang

13 demos. One night.
No slides.
No hiding.
Things might break — that’s the point.
📍 San Francisco — Wednesday evening (Small, curated room)
Special thanks to our friends at Sprinto & Carta
30+ investors in the room
Huge thanks to James Gee for consistently putting together one of the largest pitch event in Silicon Valley.

If you’re building, investing, or just want real signal from the frontier —
See you there.

Dr. Paul Fang

More details can be found here: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/paul-fang-phd_ai-demo-night-april-15-san-francisco-activity-7449547568851681280-g0Nt?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop&rcm=ACoAABs3cfcBPZ4pWLLkXRS9J9KrGS8GtGHCDLU

👉Use BFC50 for 50% OFF:

https://luma.com/l25rob03?coupon=BFC

About the Bay Area Founders Club’s President

Connect with Dr. Paul Fang

About Bay Area Founders Club

Bay Area Founders Club (BFC), founded by Dr. Paul Fang in Silicon Valley in 2022 and managed by a dedicated group of Stanford alumni and students, is a thriving community of over 100,000 members, including more than 5,000 startups and over 1000 venture capital firms. With most startups in our network raising $1-10 million, and some exceeding $20 million, our mission is to empower creators who aspire to make a global impact. We provide the essential resources, support, and connections needed to transform visionary ideas into reality.

Subscribe to our LinkedIn, YouTube, Substack, Website, Luma, and ​Twitter to stay updated!

From Zero to $10M — Round 2 (Back by Demand)

Our first From Zero to $10M: The Silicon Valley AI Growth Bootcamp at BFC Palo Alto was a huge success.

Real founders.
Real operators.
Real traction.

👉 Testimonials + photos below.

Now we’re bringing it back.

This Saturday, we’re hosting the second Go-To-Market Workshop with Chang Chen.

And for those who join this session:

👉 You’ll receive $500 off Chang’s marketing services

One of the biggest questions founders ask in Silicon Valley is simple:

How do you go from:
Product → Users → $10M in revenue?

Because the reality is:

Most startups don’t fail because of product.
They fail because of distribution.

Great companies are not built on technology alone.
They are built on distribution, growth systems, and execution.

About Chang Chen

Chang Chen has advised some of the fastest-growing AI companies, including:

HeyGen, Otter.ai, Gamma, Bardeen, Cartesia, and more — helping them go from 0 → millions of usersand 0 → 8-figure ARR.

How She Scaled an AI App to 3M Visitors/Mo Using AI SEO ft Chang Chen

What You’ll Learn

In this workshop, we’ll break down the actual GTM playbooks used by successful AI startups in Silicon Valley.

I. Overview of Overseas Growth Channels

​15+ Channels and Their Adapted Products and Teams

​This section introduces multiple overseas growth channels, including social media, search engines, content marketing, and more. It analyzes which product types are best suited for each channel and the required team structures to ensure effective resource allocation and maximum market coverage.

​Key Focus: The critical importance of product-channel fit for success. By promoting the right products through the correct channels, you can increase customer acquisition efficiency and market responsiveness, driving overall business growth.

​Reference: https://www.hockeystick.io/product-channel-fit

​II. In-Depth Analysis of Key Channels

​Real Cases, Data Analysis, and Cost-Benefit Assessment

​Product-Led Growth (PLG)

• ​Discusses how to attract users through the product itself and reduce acquisition costs

• ​Analyzes successful PLG case studies, showcasing user growth and retention data

​Influencer Marketing

• ​Explains strategies for collaborating with industry influencers and leveraging their audiences to boost brand exposure

• ​Provides real-world cases and analyzes the relationship between investment and returns

​SEO and GEO

• ​Introduces the fundamental principles of search engine optimization and geographic optimization to improve website rankings in search results

• ​Showcases successful SEO and GEO case studies, analyzing traffic growth and conversion rates

​Founder IP Marketing

• ​Explores how to leverage a founder’s personal brand for market promotion, increasing trust and brand awareness

• ​Shares relevant cases and evaluates their contribution to brand influence and sales​

What Makes This Workshop Different

Most startup advice online focuses on fundraising.

But the truth is:

Investors follow traction.

This workshop focuses on what matters most for founders:

• Getting your first customers
• Building a growth engine
• Scaling your product distribution

Because traction changes everything — from fundraising to hiring to product development.

Who Should Attend

This workshop is designed for:

• AI startup founders
• early-stage startup teams
• builders launching new products
• founders preparing to raise venture capital
• product leaders responsible for growth

If you’re building a startup and thinking about how to scale users and revenue, this session will be highly relevant.

How to Register

From Zero to $10M: The Silicon Valley AI Growth Bootcamp

Location: This workshop will be hosted both in person and via Zoom.

Whether you’re in Seattle, Tokyo, Munich, Sydney, or Beijing — you can join us live from anywhere in the world. 🌍

Date: 1PM - 6PM PDT, April 18

🎟 Exclusive BFC Offer
Use code BFC15 to receive 15% off your registration.

And for those who join this session:

👉 You’ll receive $500 off Chang’s marketing services

We keep this workshop small by design — to ensure deep feedback, real interaction, and no one gets overlooked. Seats are limited and fill quickly.

👉 Secure your seat here: Register Now

Why This Matters Right Now

The AI wave is creating thousands of new startups.

But only a small percentage will figure out how to go from product → traction → scale.

Understanding go-to-market strategy is becoming one of the most valuable skills a founder can develop.

That’s exactly what we’ll focus on in this workshop.

Hope to see you there this Saturday!

Let’s grow together.

Dr. Paul Fang
Founder, Bay Area Founders Club

About the Bay Area Founders Club’s President

Connect with Dr. Paul Fang

About Bay Area Founders Club

Bay Area Founders Club (BFC), founded by Dr. Paul Fang in Silicon Valley in 2022 and managed by a dedicated group of Stanford alumni and students, is a thriving community of over 100,000 members, including more than 5,000 startups and over 1000 venture capital firms. With most startups in our network raising $1-10 million, and some exceeding $20 million, our mission is to empower creators who aspire to make a global impact. We provide the essential resources, support, and connections needed to transform visionary ideas into reality.

Subscribe to our LinkedIn, YouTube, Substack, Website, Luma, and ​Twitter to stay updated!

Hi BFC Fam ~

This week feels like momentum.

Not just more events, but more clarity on where things are going.

Across agents, infrastructure, and applied AI, the conversations are centered on opportunities. What problems are worth solving, where value is being created, and how people are turning ideas into products.

The energy is still there, but it is more focused.

Be intentional about where you spend your time.

The right room can open the right door.

📅 This Week in the Bay Area: 48 Curated Events

Featured Event

🎟 From Zero to $10M: The Silicon Valley AI Growth Bootcamp (Series II) (Back by Demand)

Testimonials

🎟 Exclusive for the BFC Community
BFC members receive 15% off registration

Register HERE!

🗓️ Monday, April 13

1. Brew & Backprop

Presented by: Google DeepMind
Hosted by: Ivan Leo
📍 San Francisco, California
⏰ 11:00 AM – 2:00 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/iqv9vakw

2. Hire or Get Hired - AI Matching Your Next Role

Presented by: Leverage
Hosted by: Nir Naamani, Joie Candelario, Isaac Saul Kassab
📍 San Francisco, California
⏰ 6:00 PM – 8:00 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/hire-or-get-hired

🗓️ Tuesday, April 14

3. FC SF • Founders Run & Coffee!

Presented by: Founders Common
Hosted by: Founders Common, Nikki Heyder, Chris Ashley
📍 San Francisco, California
⏰ 7:00 AM – 9:00 AM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/2opylbqn

4. Agentic Retrieval SF Meetup

Presented by: HORNET.dev
Hosted by: Skip Everling, Lester Solbakken, Till Doehmen, Bryan Bischof
📍 San Francisco, California
⏰ 5:00 PM – 8:30 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/i2bjdpwx

5. Raising Children in the Age of AI

Presented by: Imbue Events
Hosted by: Lauren Dash
📍 San Francisco, California
⏰ 5:00 PM – 8:00 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/hye3d69n

6. Ships & Sips: SF Engineering Happy Hour

Presented by: Temporal Community
Hosted by: Temporal Team, Melissa Herrera
📍 San Francisco, California
⏰ 6:00 PM – 9:00 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/sf-eng-happy-hour

7. ⚡ The 60-Second Showdown | $50K+ Pitch Competition in services

Presented by: Founder Social Club
Hosted by: Colton Kaplan, Rocket Mixer®
📍 San Francisco, California
⏰ 8:00 PM – 11:30 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/34npcyr8

8. [SF] European AI Founders Dinner

Presented by: Clera Events
Hosted by: Sebastian, Sahar Mor
📍 San Francisco, California
⏰ 8:30 PM – 10:30 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/97hg91mp

🗓️ Wednesday, April 15

9. -1 to Longshot Space with Nato Saichek

Presented by: South Park Commons
Hosted by: South Park Commons
📍 San Francisco, California
⏰ 4:30 PM – 6:00 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/nato-saichek-spc

10. Building Security: Where AI Investment Meets Real-World Risk【SPIN#25】

Presented by: Elev X! Event Calendar
Hosted by: Elev X! by NEC X
📍 Palo Alto, California
⏰ 5:00 PM – 7:00 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/btrvfgdh

11. Agents and Money SF w/ Chargebee + Mastra

Presented by: Chargebee
Hosted by: Chargebee, Sriram Thiagarajan, Akash Sharma, Alex at Mastra
📍 San Francisco, California
⏰ 5:00 PM – 8:00 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/5nqllmul

12. “Quantum Computing Development” + Investor Keynote + Startup Pitches

Presented by: WeShine
Hosted by: WeShine, Bernie K
📍 Palo Alto, California
⏰ 5:30 PM – 8:30 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/k5evgsb6

13. The AI Demo Series: April Edition

Presented by: Startup Grind
Hosted by: Startup Grind, James Gee, Dr. Paul Fang, Brooke LeBlanc, natasha
📍 San Francisco, California
⏰ 5:30 PM – 8:00 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/l25rob03

14. Dark Matter and Black Holes

Presented by: Big Brain Lectures - SF
Hosted by: Big Brain SF
📍 San Francisco, California
⏰ 6:00 PM – 8:00 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/ja0d1nw0

15. Mercury x Dwarkesh Patel: Blood on the Clocktower

Presented by: Mercury
Hosted by: Mercury
📍 San Francisco, California
⏰ 6:00 PM – 9:00 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/mercury-blood-on-the-clocktower

16. Evals & Pizza w/ Elevenlabs, Uber, Basalt

Presented by: Bond AI - San Francisco and Bay Area
Hosted by: Francois de Fitte, Basalt, Guillaume @Basalt, Sahar Mor
📍 San Francisco, California
⏰ 6:00 PM – 8:00 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/1ynqtqms

17. Build After Dark 4/15

Presented by: Build after dark
Hosted by: Laura Clugston, Ana Pischl, Hallie, Aishwarya Goel
📍 San Francisco, California
⏰ 6:00 PM – 9:00 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/eui112as

18. AI Builders Social Night: From 0→1 in the Age of AI

Presented by: —
Hosted by: Cookiy AI, Joven Lee, Davin YC Dong, Sahar Mor, Jiaying Yang
📍 San Francisco, California
⏰ 6:00 PM – 8:00 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/bwdrwick

19. Y2k Craft and Oracle Night

Presented by: —
Hosted by: Naomi Fierro Peña
📍 Oakland, California
⏰ 6:30 PM – 8:30 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/m1u4p0r9

20. 📚 Short Story Symposium

Presented by: The Commons
Hosted by: Mendel Liu, The SF Commons
📍 San Francisco, California
⏰ 6:30 PM – 7:30 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/shortstories

🗓️ Thursday, April 16

21. Agent Builders Breakfast - Founders & Builders in SOMA, SF

Presented by: —
Hosted by: Michael Ducker
📍 San Francisco, California
⏰ 8:00 AM – 9:30 AM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/xmv1m6qt

22. ClawCamp: Get Started & Up-level Your OpenClaw Personal Agent Superpowers

Presented by: ClawCamp.us
Hosted by: ClawCamp Community
📍 Oakland, California
⏰ 9:00 AM – 6:00 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/egopgzac

23. AI Breakfast: Build your AI workspace in one morning

Presented by: PromptQL Events
Hosted by: Rajoshi Ghosh, Sahar Mor, Rob Dominguez, Anushrut Gupta
📍 San Francisco, California
⏰ 9:00 AM – 11:00 AM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/aibreakfast2

24. AVs & the City: DRIVE AI Demo Day

Presented by: —
Hosted by: Justin Wiley, Amanda Cairo, Mali Williams
📍 Richmond, California
⏰ 12:00 PM – 4:30 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/901dhzn3

25. The Agentic Enterprise Platform — ThinkingAI Launch with MiniMax

Presented by: The AI Collective
Hosted by: Brandon Nader, Chris Han, Dasha Shunina
📍 Mountain View, California
⏰ 12:00 PM – 2:00 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/ip1wjj8i

26. $100K AI Startup Pitch-Off @ Chargebee Beelieve ‘26

Presented by: The Founder Initiative
Hosted by: Chargebee, Adam O’Donnell, Eli Rabek, Alana Tees
📍 San Francisco, California
⏰ 5:00 PM – 8:00 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/beelieve

27. Platform Engineering & AI

Presented by: Intuit Open Source Meetup
Hosted by: Christy Bergman, Justin Chau, Monica Miyasato
📍 Mountain View, California
⏰ 5:00 PM – 8:00 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/intuitossmtvapr2026

28. Slides Down: AI Founders Party by DigitalOcean & Zendesk

Presented by: DigitalOcean Community Events
Hosted by: DigitalOcean Startups, Catalyst Bay, Zendesk for Startups, Anna Shchehula, Nazar Gulyk, Juliana C, Jakub Lukaszczyk, Camila Brito, Yurii Filipchuk
📍 San Francisco, California
⏰ 5:00 PM – 9:00 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/jzopt9nv

29. Voice AI Meetup: Medical Mode

Presented by: AssemblyAI
Hosted by: AssemblyAI, Ryan Seams, Sahar Mor
📍 San Francisco, California
⏰ 5:30 PM – 8:30 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/609tv1po

30. Bricks and Sips Happy Hour

Presented by: —
Hosted by: Jared Teiger, Vizcom
📍 San Francisco, California
⏰ 5:30 PM – 8:30 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/b4rjuhcv

31. Voice AI builders night

Presented by: Modal
Hosted by: Rime Labs, Rahul Bathija, Modal, Braintrust
📍 San Francisco, California
⏰ 6:00 PM – 9:00 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/voice_builders

32. The Alliance for American Leadership Summit: AI & Global Policy — Beyond the Hype

Presented by: Alliance for American Leadership (A4AL)
Hosted by: Asher Moss, Vincent Mao
📍 San Francisco, California
⏰ 6:00 PM – 8:30 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/60701z26

33. Claws Out🦞 GMI ClawHub Demo Night

Presented by: GMI Cloud
Hosted by: Nicole Gong, GMI Cloud, Yuqi Hou, Chenglin Wei, Jiaqi Chen
📍 San Francisco, California
⏰ 6:00 PM – 9:00 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/tklag2kv

34. Founder Real Talk @ EF - How to Find Product-Market Fit

Presented by: Founder Real Talk
Hosted by: Wisdom Partners, Josh Broward, Alex Caveny, Dev Chandra, Sway
📍 San Francisco, California
⏰ 6:00 PM – 9:00 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/frt-apr2026

35. ML Talks on Tap

Presented by: Reducto Community Calendar
Hosted by: Adel Wu, Christian Reetz, Evan
📍 San Francisco, California
⏰ 6:30 PM – 10:00 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/yqh9u09m

🗓️ Friday, April 17

36. Production Grade Agents: April 2026

Presented by: Open Source for AI
Hosted by: Yujian Tang
📍 Menlo Park, California
⏰ 12:00 PM – 6:00 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/nazvfv80

37. Multimodal AI x Agents: Founders & Builders Night

Presented by: SEAMATE
Hosted by: xiang, SEAMATE, BytePlus
📍 Mountain View, California
⏰ 4:30 PM – 8:00 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/72sd6k37

38. The ArtTech Playground: From Idea to Impact

Presented by: NSBE Greater Bay Area
Hosted by: NSBE Bay Area Professionals, AWS Builder Loft, ArtTechPG, Phive
📍 San Francisco, California
⏰ 5:00 PM – 9:00 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/9yp4sv0o

🗓️ Saturday, April 18

39. AI Lab: Seed Agents Challenge with Beta Fund: $70K Cash Prizes

Presented by: Beta University Events
Hosted by: Daniel Niu, Beta Fund, Beta University
📍 Online
⏰ 12:30 AM – April 19, 12:00 AM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/mk467xte

40. MultiModel Hackathon with Beta Fund

Presented by: Beta University Events
Hosted by: Daniel Niu, Beta Fund, Julie Chen, Beta University, Gary
📍 Sunnyvale, California
⏰ 9:00 AM – 6:00 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/eipveunj

41. Marketing Agents Hackathon: Build Your Own GTM Agents

Presented by: Velox
Hosted by: Sean Chiu, Sahar Mor
📍 San Francisco, California
⏰ 9:00 AM – 6:00 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/dqvdp45m

42. SF Climate Week 2026 Official Welcome Day: Green Business Expo & Yerba Buena Gardens Conservancy Earth Day Festival

Presented by: —
Hosted by: San Francisco Green Business Program, Bunny McFadden, SF Climate Week
📍 San Francisco, California
⏰ 12:00 PM – 3:00 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/9d11aca8

43. 2026 CASPA Job Fair & Career Forum - Explore Next Career Chapter in Semiconductor & AI Infrastructure

Presented by: —
Hosted by: Kathy Tian, Wenchao Song, Gary Wang
📍 San Jose, California
⏰ 1:00 PM – 5:00 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/i2hjv5e7

44. From Zero to $10M: The Silicon Valley AI Growth Bootcamp

Presented by: Bay Area Founders Club
Hosted by: Dr. Paul Fang, Chang Chen
📍 Palo Alto, California
⏰ 1:00 PM – 6:00 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/1dpdirng

45. 跨, A-CROSS: a zine launch and artist talk with Isabel 玥 Li

Presented by: Now place 此间 events
Hosted by: Now place 此間, isabel
📍 San Francisco, California
⏰ 2:00 PM – 4:00 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/tslspwyh

46. Hooked on Claude: Show off your setup!

Presented by: Failproof AI
Hosted by: Nikita Agarwal, Sahar Mor
📍 San Francisco, California
⏰ 4:00 PM – 6:30 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/bie35x28

47. BEEPLE: / INFINITE_LOOP

Presented by: NODE
Hosted by: NODE
📍 Palo Alto, California
⏰ 7:00 PM – April 19, 12:00 AM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/infinite-loop

🗓️ Sunday, April 19

48. Climate Stakeholder Gathering: Morning Run

Presented by: Optivide
Hosted by: Optivide, SF Climate Week
📍 San Francisco, California
⏰ 7:00 AM – 9:00 AM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/38m8iwjt

About the Bay Area Founders Club’s President

Connect with Dr. Paul Fang

About Bay Area Founders Club

Bay Area Founders Club (BFC), founded by Dr. Paul Fang in Silicon Valley in 2022 and managed by a dedicated group of Stanford alumni and students, is a thriving community of over 100,000 members, including more than 5,000 startups and over 1000 venture capital firms. With most startups in our network raising $1-10 million, and some exceeding $20 million, our mission is to empower creators who aspire to make a global impact. We provide the essential resources, support, and connections needed to transform visionary ideas into reality.

Subscribe to our LinkedIn, YouTube, Substack, Website, Luma, and ​Twitter to stay updated!

We’re grateful for every founder, investor, and operator who’s been part of this journey.

But this milestone also marks something bigger.

BFC started as a community.

Today, it’s evolving into something more.

A system.

A system designed to support people who want to:
→ access real opportunities
→ build meaningful relationships
→ move faster with better execution
→ deploy or raise capital

Whether you’re a founder, investor, or operator,
this is what we’re building for.

Over the past few years, we’ve learned something important:

Content is everywhere.
Networking is easy.

But turning connections into outcomes is still hard.

Free communities feel good.
But they rarely change your trajectory.

Because:

• no filtering

• no incentives

• no accountability

So we rebuilt BFC with that in mind.

We upgraded the entire website —
clearer, faster, and more aligned with how people actually build today.

👉 Check out the brand new BFC website HERE!

More importantly, we’ve structured BFC into 3 core products:

BFC Builder

For those getting started or exploring new directions in the AI era.

Designed to give you the right signal,
the right people, and a strong starting point.

Starting from $200/year

BFC Operator

For those actively building, scaling, or raising.

Focused on execution, growth, and real progress.

BFC Inner Circle

For a curated group of founders and investors
looking for deeper access, stronger alignment, and meaningful opportunities.

By application only. Limited seats.

One important note:

BFC will always have a free layer.

But for those looking to go further,
we’ve built something more structured underneath.

Because at a certain stage,
it’s not just about being in more rooms —
it’s about being in the right rooms,
with the right people, at the right time.

If this resonates,
we invite you to explore what we’re building.

👉

https://www.bayareafoundersclub.com

The future accelerator is not a program — it’s an operating system.
BFC is the global operating system for founders, investors, and operators.

About the Bay Area Founders Club’s President

Connect with Dr. Paul Fang

About Bay Area Founders Club

Bay Area Founders Club (BFC), founded by Dr. Paul Fang in Silicon Valley in 2022 and managed by a dedicated group of Stanford alumni and students, is a thriving community of over 100,000 members, including more than 5,000 startups and over 1000 venture capital firms. With most startups in our network raising $1-10 million, and some exceeding $20 million, our mission is to empower creators who aspire to make a global impact. We provide the essential resources, support, and connections needed to transform visionary ideas into reality.

Subscribe to our LinkedIn, YouTube, Substack, Website, Luma, and ​Twitter to stay updated!

The full 2-hour recording is now unlocked for paid subscribers.
How to Raise Venture Capital — with Miko Matsumura.

Fundraising is not storytelling. It’s a system.

Upgrade now to access.

The obvious a16z Speedrun application advice is everywhere. What actually gets you in — isn't.

We're hosting a small session on what evaluators really notice, what founders keep overestimating, and what makes a team feel like a bet worth paying attention to.

Founded by three Stanford alumni, SUN is currently building within a16z Speedrun. Small room. Open discussion. Real answers.

Want context before you show up? We made a short audio walkthrough: https://sunapp.ai/course/a16z-speedrun

Hosted by SUN × Bay Area Founders Club | April 10th

Register Here: https://luma.com/3of91xmh

About the Bay Area Founders Club’s President

Connect with Dr. Paul Fang

About Bay Area Founders Club

Bay Area Founders Club (BFC), founded by Dr. Paul Fang in Silicon Valley in 2022 and managed by a dedicated group of Stanford alumni and students, is a thriving community of over 100,000 members, including more than 5,000 startups and over 1000 venture capital firms. With most startups in our network raising $1-10 million, and some exceeding $20 million, our mission is to empower creators who aspire to make a global impact. We provide the essential resources, support, and connections needed to transform visionary ideas into reality.

Subscribe to our LinkedIn, YouTube, Substack, Website, Luma, and ​Twitter to stay updated!

Fundraising is not storytelling. It’s a system.

A huge thank you to everyone who joined our recent fundraising workshop with Silicon Valley legendary investor Miko Matsumura.

The energy in the room was different.
The questions were sharp.
The conversations went deep.
And the feedback? Overwhelmingly positive.

From one of our previous attendees (Becky Ann Hughes - Founder & CEO at Quadrant4 AI):
"Thank you so much for leading the VC pitching workshop today. This was the most valuable two hours I’ve ever spent learning about pitching. I literally took 10 pages of notes :) Really appreciate your time."

More testimonials can be found HERE.

But more importantly — it confirmed something:
Most founders are still approaching fundraising the wrong way.

Miko and I are doubling down on a bigger idea:
AI education × entrepreneurship.
Not content. Not theory.
But systems that help founders actually win.

So we built something deeper:
A 4-week Fundraising Masterclass —
a system-level breakdown of how venture capital really works behind the scenes.
If you're serious about fundraising, you should be in this room.

💰 How to Raise Venture Capital — 4-Part Masterclass with Legendary Silicon Valley Investor Miko Matsumura

What You’ll Learn
Week 1 — Think like a GP
Fund economics, LP dynamics, power law math, investor targeting, and warm intro strategy.
Week 2 — Build your narrative
Slide-by-slide breakdown, financial modeling, and live deck reviews.
Week 3 — Survive the meetings
First meetings, data rooms, objection handling, partner meeting simulations.
Week 4 — Close the deal
Term sheets, cap tables, board dynamics — and full-stack simulation.

What You Walk Away With
This is not theory.
→ 30+ tools, templates, and frameworks
→ A fundraising system you can actually run
→ The ability to control the process — not react to it

Most founders pitch.
The best founders run a system.

If you’re raising Pre-Seed → Series A, don’t miss this.
⏳ Limited seats. Starting soon.

Whether you’re in Seattle, Tokyo, Munich, Sydney, or Beijing — you can join us live from anywhere in the world. 🌍

Register HERE!

Super Investor Interview

🎙 Miko Matsumura (Managing Partner at gCC Venture Capital)
Why VCs Behave the Way They Do

Miko has spent 25+ years in Silicon Valley as a founder, operator, and investor.
He has:
• Raised $50M+ in venture capital as a founder
• Invested in companies like OpenSea
• Led investments through gumi Cryptos Capital
• Previously served as Chief Developer Evangelist at Sun Microsystems

“So entrepreneurs are often wondering why VCs behave as they do. And you know, having seen both sides, I do see that there’s a really deep and fundamental cultural gap. And I think that there’s huge misunderstandings between these two groups. So I’m very interested in and passionate in kind of trying to explain why VCs behave the way they do because there are reasons.”

▶ Watch the full interview here:

About the Bay Area Founders Club’s President

Connect with Dr. Paul Fang

About Bay Area Founders Club

Bay Area Founders Club (BFC), founded by Dr. Paul Fang in Silicon Valley in 2022 and managed by a dedicated group of Stanford alumni and students, is a thriving community of over 100,000 members, including more than 5,000 startups and over 1000 venture capital firms. With most startups in our network raising $1-10 million, and some exceeding $20 million, our mission is to empower creators who aspire to make a global impact. We provide the essential resources, support, and connections needed to transform visionary ideas into reality.

Subscribe to our LinkedIn, YouTube, Substack, Website, Luma, and ​Twitter to stay updated!

If you only attend one event in April — make it this.

Most people visit Silicon Valley.
A few get into the rooms where deals happen.
This is built for the latter.

The Startup Grind Conference is Silicon Valley’s flagship annual gathering —
bringing together founders, VCs, operators, and builders shaping what’s next.

This is not just another conference.
It’s a high-signal network — where real conversations happen and real opportunities emerge.

I’ll be moderating a core session:
👉 Applied AI & Vertical AI

If you’re joining this session, come say hi — would love to meet you.

For two full days, we’re bringing together:

• Early-stage founders
• Leading venture capitalists
• Product builders
• AI pioneers
• Growth operators

All in the same rooms.

No theory.
No hype.
Just the real work behind building enduring companies.

The Legacy

Previous Startup Grind Conferences have featured some of the most influential minds in tech:

• Sam Altman

• Marc Andreessen

• Garry Tan

• Eric Schmidt

• Fei-Fei Li

• Andrew Ng

• Eric S. Yuan

This is the level of signal the room attracts.

What to Expect This Year

This year’s scale is significant:

• 5,000+ attendees

• 400+ VC funds

• 150+ exhibitors

• 175 sessions

Speakers include partners and leaders from:

• Sequoia Capital

• Andreessen Horowitz (a16z)

• Greylock Partners

• Kleiner Perkins

• Benchmark

• Menlo Ventures

• New Enterprise Associates (NEA)

Alongside top founders such as:

• Lin Qiao (Fireworks AI)

• Amjad Masad (Replit)

• Harrison Chase (LangChain)

• Grant Lee (Gamma)

This is not just another conference. It’s where capital, code, and conviction intersect.

How to Register

🎟 Exclusive for the BFC Community

💸 $100 OFF Any Ticket Type

Use code: BFCSGC26

🔗 Direct registration link (code pre-applied):
https://luma.com/lvcq9epq?coupon=BFCSGC26

Take a look at the full speaker lineup.

Stephanie Zhan – Partner Sequoia Capital

Anish Acharya – General Partner Andreessen Horowitz

Corinne Marie Riley – Partner Greylock Partners

Mamoon Hamid – Partner Kleiner Perkins

Chetan Puttagunta – General Partner Benchmark

Sangeen Zeb – General Partner GV (Google Ventures)

Hans Tung – Managing Partner Notable Capital

Christine Tsai – CEO & Founding Partner 500 Global

Jon Callaghan – Managing Partner & Co-founder True Ventures

Rajeev Dham – Partner Sapphire Ventures

Steve Jang – Managing Partner & Founder Kindred Ventures

Tomasz Tunguz – Founder Theory Ventures

Navin Chaddha – Managing Partner Mayfield

Kobie Fuller – General Partner Upfront Ventures

Sundeep Peechu – Managing Partner Felicis

Kanyi Maqubela – Managing Partner Kindred Ventures

Frederique Dame – General Partner GV (Google Ventures)

Fabiola Quinzaños – Partner MONASHEES

Mike Duboe – General Partner Greylock Partners

Tiffany Luck – Partner New Enterprise Associates (NEA)

Matt Kraning – Partner Menlo Ventures

Brian Rothenberg – Partner defy.vc

Joseph Dormani – Partner Thomson Reuters Ventures

Ann Bordetsky – Early Stage Investor New Enterprise Associates (NEA)

Matt Stephenson – Head of Tech Talent Bain Capital Ventures (BCV)

Gabe Pereyra – President & Co-Founder of Harvey

Lin Qiao – CEO and cofounder of Fireworks AI

Ashton Kutcher – General Partner at Sound Ventures

Dave Ferguson – Co-CEO at Nuro

Tamar Yehoshua – Chief Product at Atlassian

Tuhin Srivastava – CEO & Co-founder Baseten

Harrison Chase – CEO & Co-founder LangChain

Mitesh Agrawal – CEO Positron AI

Stefano Ermon – CEO & Co-founder Inception

Ivan Poupyrev, Dr. – CEO & Founder Archetype AI

Maithra Raghu – CEO & Founder Samaya AI

Soyoung Lee – Head of GTM & Co-founder TwelveLabs

Robert Brooks IV – VP of Revenue & Founding Team Lambda

Travis Addair – Sr Engineering Director, AI at Rubrik

Amjad Masad – CEO Replit

Rahul Vohra – Founder & Head of Superhuman Mail

Michel Tricot – CEO & Co-founder Airbyte

Grant Lee – CEO & Co-founder Gamma

Karri Saarinen – CEO & Co-founder Linear

Abhinav Asthana – CEO Postman

Avlok K. – CEO AngelList

Immad Akhund – CEO & Co-founder Mercury

Tanay Kothari – CEO & Co-founder Wispr Flow

Matt Hammel – COO & Co-founder AirOps

Nurasyl Serik – CEO & Co-founder RemoFirst

Rachel Wolan – Chief Product Officer Webflow

Philip W. Braddock – Head of Atlassian

Wen Sang – COO & Co-founder Genspark

Sara Ramos – Head of Marketing Base10 Partners

Cecilia Stallsmith – Head of Marketing Lovable

Lindsay Amos – Founder Amos Communications

Joan DeGennaro – Founder Scale Venture Partners

Lindsay Selvitelle – Founder The Platform Team

Maria LaMagna Morales – Founder The Platform Team

VIP Access for BFC Investors — Limited Tickets

If you’re an accredited investor in the BFC ecosystem, I’ve reserved a limited number of VIP tickets for you.

If you’d like to meet any of the speakers, just reply to this email or connect with me on LinkedIn.

See you there this April!

About the Bay Area Founders Club’s President

Connect with Dr. Paul Fang

About Bay Area Founders Club

Bay Area Founders Club (BFC), founded by Dr. Paul Fang in Silicon Valley in 2022 and managed by a dedicated group of Stanford alumni and students, is a thriving community of over 100,000 members, including more than 5,000 startups and over 1000 venture capital firms. With most startups in our network raising $1-10 million, and some exceeding $20 million, our mission is to empower creators who aspire to make a global impact. We provide the essential resources, support, and connections needed to transform visionary ideas into reality.

Subscribe to our LinkedIn, YouTube, Substack, Website, Luma, and ​Twitter to stay updated!

Hi BFC Fam ~

This week is a reminder:

The Bay isn’t just hype.
It’s density.

Dozens of events.
Thousands of builders.
One shared obsession: AI, agents, and what’s next.

From small founder dinners to packed demo nights —
every room is high-signal.
People aren’t just talking. They’re building. Shipping. Helping each other level up.

Don’t just attend.
Participate.

Ask better questions.
Share what you’re building.
Support someone who’s one step behind you.

That’s how this community grows.

📅 This Week in the Bay Area: 57 Curated Events

Featured Event

🎟 How to Raise Venture Capital — 4-Part Masterclass with Legendary Silicon Valley Investor Miko Matsumura

Fundraising isn’t about the pitch deck — it’s about understanding how venture capital actually works.

In this 4-week intensive, legendary Silicon Valley investor Miko Matsumura shares how founders get funded through pattern recognition, market timing, and investor psychology.

Based on 25+ years as a founder, operator, and VC, this course breaks down the full fundraising process — from positioning and storytelling to investor meetings and closing the deal.

4-Week VC Fundraising Intensive (8 Hours)

Week 1 — VC Mind & Market Mechanics
📅 April 10, 7–9PM
Think like a GP. Fund economics, investor targeting, warm intros.

Week 2 — Story & Materials
📅 April 17, 7–9PM
Narrative, deck breakdown, financials that survive DD.

Week 3 — The Meeting Gauntlet
📅 April 24, 7–9PM
First meetings, data room, objection handling, simulations.

Week 4 — Deal & Close
📅 May 1, 7–9PM
Term sheets, cap table, negotiation, final simulation.

🎟 Exclusive for the BFC Community
BFC members receive 15% off registration

Register HERE!

🗓️ Monday, April 6

1. Easter Coworking - Build Anything

Presented by: Build Club
Hosted by: Annie Liao, Grace Ling, aleena, natasha, Brooke LeBlanc
📍 San Francisco, California
⏰ 10:30 AM – 12:30 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/t5tct5jo

2. Generative UI Night—by WorkOS x CopilotKit

Presented by: WorkOS Events
Hosted by: WorkOS, Uli Barkai, Sofía Sánchez-Zárate
📍 San Francisco, California
⏰ 5:30 PM – 8:00 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/vqjs0pft

3. Vercel + DX: Agents After Dark

Presented by: Vercel Events
Hosted by: Joe Reitz, Marc Baiza, Hailey Huish
📍 San Francisco, California
⏰ 5:30 PM – 9:00 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/wm4dilsv

4. AI Meets HumanX Social w/ Rootly, MongoDB, Runpod & More

Presented by: Rootly
Hosted by: Rootly, MongoDB, Jellyfish, groundcover, Vanta, CloudZero
📍 San Francisco, California
⏰ 6:00 PM – 9:00 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/n22qf90w

5. The AI Stack | Evening Reception at HumanX

Hosted by: Jack Skywalker, Craig Gieringer, Reese Osborn, Michelle Gee, Japheth Franco, Charlie Leeming, Ash Bao, Gia Zhai
📍 San Francisco, California
⏰ 9:00 PM – 12:00 AM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/taz4015a

6. HumanX Data + AI Social

Presented by: Tech Power Network
Hosted by: David Yakobovitch
📍 San Francisco, California
⏰ 6:00 PM – 8:30 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/sfdata

7. AI + Engineering Leaders Dinner

Presented by: Bond AI - San Francisco and Bay Area
Hosted by: Cleric .ai
📍 San Francisco, California
⏰ 6:00 PM – 9:00 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/jaqesf2p

8. Pebblebed’s Builders Late Night Café

Presented by: Pebblebed Events
Hosted by: Nicole Levin
📍 San Francisco, California
⏰ 7:30 PM – 12:00 AM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/nuc32ojy

🗓️ Tuesday, April 7

9. FC SF • Founders Run & Coffee!

Presented by: Founders Common
Hosted by: Founders Common, Nikki Heyder, Chris Ashley
📍 San Francisco, California
⏰ 7:00 AM – 9:00 AM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/2opylbqn

10. AI Founder Breakfast

Presented by: Brderless
Hosted by: Amy Quan, Brderless, Anoushka B., Varnika Menghnani
📍 San Francisco, California
⏰ 9:00 AM – 11:00 AM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/txfyhc65

11. Surreal Snack: Building with Replit

Presented by: Surreal
Hosted by: Mercedes Bent, Cofounder Premise
📍 Stanford, California
⏰ 12:00 PM – 1:00 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/rgrwc40e

12. Give your AI Agents Eyes and Ears

Presented by: VideoDB
Hosted by: Ashutosh Trivedi, Tara Tan
📍 San Francisco, California
⏰ 5:30 PM – 8:30 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/x1ts2h71

13. The Future of AI Scientist

Hosted by: Quebec Government Office in Los Angeles, Alexandre Genest, Emil Aliev, Robert Farias, Charline Kempter
📍 Menlo Park, California
⏰ 5:30 PM – 8:30 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/3lhkmt18

14. HumanX 2026 After Hours: Open-Source AI Stack

Presented by: Qwen
Hosted by: Qwen, MuleRun, Novita AI, Doubleword AI, LMSYS Org, Modal, Junyu Huang, Johnny Chin
📍 San Francisco, California
⏰ 6:00 PM – 9:00 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/j0fpyhpe

15. AI Happy Hour @ SPIN SF

Presented by: Render
Hosted by: Ojus Save, Rahul Bathija, Chris Perpignani
📍 San Francisco, California
⏰ 6:00 PM – 8:00 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/ym0od90s

16. Human[X] x Scale: After Hours

Hosted by: Scale Events
📍 San Francisco, California
⏰ 6:00 PM – 9:00 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/humanx-scale-after-hours

17. AI After Dark with Metronome, Together AI & NVIDIA

Presented by: Metronome
Hosted by: Metronome Events, Together AI
📍 San Francisco, California
⏰ 6:00 PM – 9:00 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/humanx-ai-after-dark

18. Clay Club in SF: GTM Engineering + Game Night

Presented by: Clay Clubs
Hosted by: Siya Verma, Sarah Xu, Yash Tekriwal, Natalie Sportelli
📍 San Francisco, California
⏰ 9:00 PM – 12:00 AM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/pel7r2k3

19. Physical AI Developer Workshop & Meetup

Hosted by: Dr. Rin Yunis, diana zhu, Rosie Chen, Agora
📍 San Francisco, California
⏰ 7:00 PM – 9:00 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/l9tjozjq

20. Slow Pour, Fast Ideas: A Night with LTX

Presented by: Lightricks
Hosted by: Alaysia Brown
📍 San Francisco, California
⏰ 7:00 PM – 10:00 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/fwg50ob7

🗓️ Wednesday, April 8

21. HumanX Coffee + Networking @Tesla

Presented by: Leverage
Hosted by: Nir Naamani
📍 San Francisco, California
⏰ 9:30 AM – 11:30 AM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/Vouch-HumanX

22. GGW Pitch Bootcamp #17

Presented by: Go Global World Community
Hosted by: Go Global World
📍 Zoom
⏰ 10:00 AM – 11:30 AM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/401c6ml2

23. The Agentic Shift

Hosted by: Joy
📍 San Francisco, California
⏰ 12:30 PM – 4:30 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/y07o6vuo

24. AI After Hours - Let’s keep HumanX going

Presented by: Browserbase
Hosted by: Browserbase, Modal, Braintrust, WorkOS, Peri from Mintlify, Stainless, MongoDB, Resolve AI
📍 San Francisco, California
⏰ 4:00 PM – 7:00 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/humanxafterhours

25. Scrappy AI Founders Go Karting

Presented by: 12 Scrappy Founders
Hosted by: Denis Belyavsky
📍 South San Francisco, California
⏰ 5:00 PM – 8:30 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/93wlfq6j

26. Finding the Perfect Prompt | Vibe Code Night

Presented by: AI Snack Club
Hosted by: Monica Abrams, aleena, natasha, Brooke LeBlanc
📍 San Francisco, California
⏰ 5:30 PM – 8:00 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/7dqxc9aj

27. Junto Founder Dinner (Series A+)

Presented by: Andrew’s Yeung’s Tech Events
Hosted by: Andrew Yeung, Max Marchione
📍 San Francisco, California
⏰ 6:00 PM – 8:30 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/juntodinnerapr8

28. How MCP Bridges LLMs and Data Streams

Presented by: SF AI & Java Users
Hosted by: Benjamin Nothdurft, Sasha Pochaev, Emily, Workato, Leila Rishniw, Workato
📍 San Francisco, California
⏰ 6:00 PM – 8:00 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/syopp7c2

29. Arena Demo Day & Workshop

Presented by: Open AGI
Hosted by: Sentient Foundation
📍 San Francisco, California
⏰ 6:00 PM – 9:00 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/ttdmywn1

30. The Rise of Vibe Design

Presented by: Women in AI
Hosted by: Women in AI Club, Bidisa Mukherjee, Sharon Niu, Claire Xie, Lovart
📍 San Francisco, California
⏰ 6:00 PM – 8:00 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/dmll5wzi

31. Fireside Chat with Dr. Jennifer Hamilton

Hosted by: Juhi Mathur
📍 Berkeley, California
⏰ 6:00 PM – 7:00 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/gq7z32nk

32. Founder Skybar Social @HumanX

Presented by: Intercom
Hosted by: Chen-Chen from Intercom, Jonathan Chang, Anshul Shah, Stephen Cisarik, Alexandra Settlemyer, Ojus Save
📍 San Francisco, California
⏰ 6:00 PM – 8:00 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/skybarsocialhumanx

33. The Frontier of High GDP Agents

Presented by: Handshake AI
📍 San Francisco, California
⏰ 6:00 PM – 8:30 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/h2qilx0k

34. The Thought Experiment Lab

Presented by: The Commons
Hosted by: Mendel Liu, The SF Commons
📍 San Francisco, California
⏰ 6:30 PM – 8:00 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/thoughtexperiments

35. Iceberg on the Rocks: Happy Hour

Presented by: Artie
Hosted by: Shangbing Jiang, Yuval Yogev, Eden Elfassy, Kate Shao
📍 San Francisco, California
⏰ 6:30 PM – 9:30 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/a6xq8l6c

36. CTOs Poker Night

Presented by: Tanagram Community Events
Hosted by: Paulina Laba, Kaia, Conor Brennan-Burke, Feifan Zhou, Alex DeNuzzo, Jerry Zhang
📍 San Francisco, California
⏰ 6:30 PM – 10:00 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/7kxhnjw8

🗓️ Thursday, April 9

37. Agent Builders Breakfast

Hosted by: Michael Ducker
📍 San Francisco, California
⏰ 8:00 AM – 9:30 AM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/8gyddvm6

38. TypeScript AI Demo Day

Presented by: Mastra
Hosted by: Neha Varshneya
📍 San Francisco, California
⏰ 9:30 AM – 6:30 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/tsai

39. SSG Spring Demo Day

Hosted by: SSG Accelerator
📍 San Francisco, California
⏰ 2:00 PM – 6:00 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/cebth6ma

40. Scrappy Founders Play Pickleball

Presented by: 12 Scrappy Founders
Hosted by: Denis Belyavsky
📍 San Francisco, California
⏰ 4:00 PM – 7:00 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/jw5twio5

41. Nike X The Hut SCU Pop-Up Run Club

Hosted by: Nike Bay Area
📍 Santa Clara, California
⏰ 5:00 PM – 8:00 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/4xhxpx9p

42. The Infrastructure Strikes Back

Presented by: Efficient Frontier Labs
Hosted by: Andrew Smith, Ryan George, Ted Dessert, Sahar Mor, Brian Sparkes
📍 Oakland, California
⏰ 5:00 PM – 9:00 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/ifuw88zt

43. Agent Opus Video Hackathon

Presented by: The AI Collective
Hosted by: AJ Green and team
📍 San Francisco, California
⏰ 5:00 PM – 9:00 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/ztu9na6l

44. Agentic + AI Observability Meetup SF

Presented by: Agentic + AI Observability
Hosted by: Lizzie S, Denny Lee, Jules Damji
📍 San Francisco, California
⏰ 5:00 PM – 8:00 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/AgenticAIObservability_SF

45. Death by Deployment

Presented by: Baseten Events
Hosted by: Baseten, Resolve AI
📍 San Francisco, California
⏰ 5:30 PM – 8:00 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/lg5o0vvh

46. AI Demo Night

Presented by: ClickHouse Events
Hosted by: Zoe Steinkamp, Lotte Verheyden, Docker DevRel
📍 San Francisco, California
⏰ 5:30 PM – 8:30 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/jyzlu78v

47. ON-SITE INSIGHTS

Presented by: 3RD ST CREATIVE ARTERY
Hosted by: Sarah Stangle
📍 San Francisco, California
⏰ 6:00 PM – 9:00 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/b1qak8a6

48. Productboard x Lago

Presented by: Productboard
Hosted by: Productboard
📍 San Francisco, California
⏰ 6:00 PM – 8:30 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/zeg1ipsh

49. SPC Demo Night

Presented by: South Park Commons
Hosted by: South Park Commons, Gopal Raman
📍 San Francisco, California
⏰ 6:30 PM – 9:00 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/spcdemonightapril

🗓️ Friday, April 10

50. Proof of Human Salon Series

Hosted by: World, Michelle O’Connor, The House by Edge & Node
📍 San Francisco, California
⏰ 1:00 PM – 5:30 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/jwziweok

51. How to Raise Venture Capital — Masterclass

Presented by: Bay Area Founders Club
Hosted by: Dr. Paul Fang, Miko Matsumura
📍 Zoom
⏰ 7:00 PM – 9:00 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/at8olpbm

🗓️ Saturday, April 11

52. Scrappy AI Founders Go Hiking

Presented by: 12 Scrappy Founders
Hosted by: Denis Belyavsky, Alena Beliauskaya
📍 Portola Valley, California
⏰ 8:30 AM – 4:00 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/1kkjdsad

53. Voice AI x Healthcare Hackathon

Presented by: Synthio Labs
Hosted by: Jarvis Nguyen and team
📍 Palo Alto, California
⏰ 10:00 AM – 4:00 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/ikdl7h84

54. Claude@Stanford Buildathon

Hosted by: Arinze Obiezue, William Liu, Diego Sanchez, StartX Team
📍 Palo Alto, California
⏰ 10:00 AM – 4:00 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/j9pxtjw3

🗓️ Sunday, April 12

55. Scrappy AI Founders Go Kayaking

Presented by: 12 Scrappy Founders
Hosted by: Denis Belyavsky
📍 Santa Cruz, California
⏰ 10:00 AM – 2:00 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/m2ijta10

56. ElevenLabs x Lovable Workshop + Hackathon

Presented by: Leverage
Hosted by: Nir Naamani
📍 San Francisco, California
⏰ 12:00 PM – 4:30 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/ElevenLabsHackathon

57. The Oakland Join-Up Activity Fair

Presented by: JOINERS
Hosted by: Jared Joiner
📍 Oakland, California
⏰ 1:00 PM – 4:00 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/guntbzt0

About the Bay Area Founders Club’s President

Connect with Dr. Paul Fang

About Bay Area Founders Club

Bay Area Founders Club (BFC), founded by Dr. Paul Fang in Silicon Valley in 2022 and managed by a dedicated group of Stanford alumni and students, is a thriving community of over 100,000 members, including more than 5,000 startups and over 1000 venture capital firms. With most startups in our network raising $1-10 million, and some exceeding $20 million, our mission is to empower creators who aspire to make a global impact. We provide the essential resources, support, and connections needed to transform visionary ideas into reality.

Subscribe to our LinkedIn, YouTube, Substack, Website, Luma, and ​Twitter to stay updated!

Fundraising is not storytelling. It’s a system.

Most founders misunderstand the purpose of a pitch.

Last Saturday, we hosted a virtual fundraising workshop with Silicon Valley legendary investor Miko Matsumura.

30+ founders joined from across the ecosystem.
For the first time, female founders outnumbered male founders —
a strong signal of where the next wave of innovation is coming from.

Here’s the reality:
Most founders still think fundraising is about:
→ Pitch decks
→ Vision
→ “Telling a great story”
That’s outdated.
What Miko broke down is much closer to how Silicon Valley actually works:
Fundraising is a structured process.
Not luck. Not vibes. Not just storytelling.

It’s about:
• Positioning yourself so VCs chase you — not the other way around
• Running a tight process with real momentum
• Controlling the narrative with data, not opinions
• Understanding how VCs actually make decisions internally

What surprised me most is this:
The goal of pitching is not to ask VCs for money —
it’s to intrigue them enough to start due diligence.

Silicon Valley doesn’t reward the loudest founders.
It rewards the ones who understand the game.

Huge thanks to everyone who joined and made this such a high-signal room:
Becky Ann Hughes; Jaina Wang; Patryk Brozek; Cecelia Turnbeau; Bin He Maywah; Xiaoran Wang; Wenqing Lu; Qiongwen Liu;Alex Solomatnikov; Joel Archer; Senthil G.; Minh Barrow; Fengzhou Li; Qiong liu; Sarah K.; Vibhu Narwekar; Bryan Smith; Johannes L.; Gina Milani; Joel Forman; Maipeng Zhang; Carl Gold; Tim Hazlehurst; Eileen S.; Christina Mai; Tung Vu; Shiqin Sun; Raja Rajavel; Elena Ikonomovska, PhD

More details can be found HERE.

Calling for BFC Workshop Advisors

BFC Workshop Milestone🎉

​Over the past year, the BFC Workshops have now trained 400+ founders, investors, and senior executives across the global innovation ecosystem.

​Our participants include:

• ​Partners from leading venture capital firms, including Pear VC

• ​PhDs and postdoctoral researchers from Stanford University

• ​Senior executives from major technology companies, such as Google, Meta, and SAP

• ​Academic leaders, including department chairs from San Francisco State University (SFSU)

​These workshops bring together top builders, investors, and operators to learn from one another, exchange cutting-edge insights, and accelerate innovation within the BFC community.

We’re expanding the BFC Workshop platform — and bringing in more top-tier operators.

Current BFC Workshop Advisors include:

• Miko Matsumura — Managing Partner, gCC Venture Capital
• Alex Dang — Former Amazon Executive & McKinsey Partner · Bestselling Author of The Venture Mindset
• Chinat Yu — Stanford LDT · AI Educator · MLH Top 50
• Chang Chen — Founder, Hockey Stick · 3× Founder (Exits) · Growth advisor to HeyGen, Otter, Gamma, and more (scaled teams from 0 → millions of users and to 8-figure ARR)

We’re looking for advisors with real, hands-on experience in:

AI · GTM · Fundraising · Sales · Growth, etc.

If you’ve built, scaled, or advised at a high level —
we’d love to collaborate.

Interested in becoming a BFC Workshop Advisor?
Just reply to this email.

Let’s build something that actually helps founders win.

If you missed last week’s OpenClaw workshop, here’s your chance to catch up. Join us tomorrow at 7 PM on Zoom!

🎟 Connecting AI Agents to Real Communication Channels with a Stanford Mentor - Let AI Work for You 24/7

Join Chinat Yu (Stanford LDT | AI Educator | MLH Top 50) to build your first OpenClaw AI agent—and let AI work for you 24/7.

Whether you’re in Seattle, Tokyo, Munich, Sydney, or Beijing — you can join us live from anywhere in the world. 🌍

Over 4 sessions, we’ll go from concept → working agent → real automation systems.
📅 Session 1 — Foundations of AI Agents
📅 Session 2 — Launch Your First OpenClaw Agent
📅 Session 3 — Connect Agents to Messaging Platforms
📅 Session 4 — Skills, Automations & Multi-Agent Systems

Class materials for session 2 can be found here:

https://www.daydreamers-academy.com/openclaw/session-2.html

Pw: launch

💡 By the end of the series you’ll know how to:
• launch your own OpenClaw AI agent
• connect agents across real platforms
• build AI automation workflows
• design your own AI productivity system

No heavy engineering required — this is designed for founders, builders, and curious professionals.

Coupon: BFC15, 15% Off

Register HERE!

About the Bay Area Founders Club’s President

Connect with Dr. Paul Fang

About Bay Area Founders Club

Bay Area Founders Club (BFC), founded by Dr. Paul Fang in Silicon Valley in 2022 and managed by a dedicated group of Stanford alumni and students, is a thriving community of over 100,000 members, including more than 5,000 startups and over 1000 venture capital firms. With most startups in our network raising $1-10 million, and some exceeding $20 million, our mission is to empower creators who aspire to make a global impact. We provide the essential resources, support, and connections needed to transform visionary ideas into reality.

Subscribe to our LinkedIn, YouTube, Substack, Website, Luma, and ​Twitter to stay updated!

Hi BFC Fam~

Welcome to another strong week of events in the Bay. ☀️

This week is heavily focused on AI agents, infra, and founder-facing pitch and workshop sessions with less theory, more building and real systems.

If you’ve been sitting on ideas or looking for motivation, this is the kind of week where you’ll find it. There are people who want to hear what you’re working on, who are thinking about similar problems, and who can push your thinking further than you’d expect.

If you’re hesitating on whether to go, take that as your signal.

Go to one event you normally wouldn’t. Stay a little longer than planned. Start one more conversation than feels comfortable.

📅 This Week in the Bay Area: 35 Curated Events

💡 Key Themes Emerging This Week

1️⃣ AI is moving from chat → autonomous systems
Across multiple sessions (OpenClaw workshops, agent talks, infra meetups) — the focus is clear: AI is no longer just a prompt-response tool. It’s becoming a system that operates continuously.

• Persistent agents that run without user input

• Cross-platform workflows (Telegram, Slack, and beyond)

• Memory and long-running task execution

→ The shift: from using AI → deploying AI that works for you in the background

2️⃣ AI is getting embedded into real-world verticals
Not just generic AI anymore — events show deep vertical integration happening fast, with domain experts and AI builders finding each other.

• Bio/chemical design (Serna Bio)

• Finance (hackathon focus)

• Enterprise + operations (founder mixers, infra talks)

→ The opportunity is shifting from “AI tools” → “AI-native industries”

3️⃣ Infrastructure is the new battleground
Events aren’t centered on cool demos anymore — they’re about what makes AI actually usable at scale. The hard problems are moving downstream.

• Orchestration layers

• Multi-model systems

• Observability + debugging (Dev Setup demos, systems talks)

• Search, consensus, and backend reliability

→ Builders are realizing: the hard part isn’t intelligence—it’s making systems stable, composable, and production-ready

👇 Curious About Your Week
Which events are you planning to check out?

Drop them below—would love to see how you’re navigating this one 👇

Featured Event

🎟 Connecting AI Agents to Real Communication Channels with a Stanford Mentor - Let AI Work for You 24/7

Join Chinat Yu (Stanford LDT | AI Educator | MLH Top 50) to build your first OpenClaw AI agent—and let AI work for you 24/7.

Join us next Thursday, April 2 at 7PM PDT on Zoom — open to anyone worldwide 🌍

We’re halfway through the series. In the first two sessions, we covered the foundations of AI agents and launched your first OpenClaw agent.

In our upcoming sessions, we’ll dive into how to connect AI agents to real communication channels like Telegram and explore how they evolve into full automation systems.

Don’t miss it — we’re getting into the most practical and powerful part of the series.

Upcoming sessions:

• Apr 2 — Connect Agents to Messaging Platforms

• Apr 9 — Skills, Automations & Multi-Agent Systems

All sessions 7–9PM PDT

🎟 Exclusive for the BFC Community
BFC members receive 15% off registration

Register HERE!

🗓️ Monday, March 30

1. HackwithBay 2.0

Presented by: Devnovate
Hosted by: Aviral, Roan Weigert, AWS Builder Loft, Sahar Mor
📍 San Francisco
⏰ 9:00 AM – 5:00 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/2n8vk5s3

2. AI Startup Pitch Night with Qlay, Startup Intros, and Wan

Presented by: Qlay
Hosted by: Toku Yamashita, Dev Chandra, Tom Nakata, Cynthia Luo
📍 San Francisco
⏰ 5:00 PM – 8:00 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/urwrbbd9

🗓️ Tuesday, March 31

3. FC SF • Founders Run & Coffee!

Presented by: Founders Common
Hosted by: Founders Common, Nikki Heyder, Chris Ashley
📍 San Francisco
⏰ 7:00 AM – 9:00 AM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/2opylbqn

4. Spring 2026 AI Forum: Talks + AI Agent Workshops

Presented by: TechEquity AI
Hosted by: TechEquity AI, Sheena Tu, Mahan Soltanzadeh, Dave Nielsen, Silicon Valley AI Hub
📍 Menlo Park
⏰ 9:30 AM – 4:30 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/march-ai-forum

5. -1 to Replit with Amjad & Haya

Presented by: South Park Commons
Hosted by: South Park Commons
📍 San Francisco
⏰ 3:30 PM – 5:00 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/minusonereplit

6. SF GrabChai: Remake the Web 🌐✨

Presented by: GrabChai
Hosted by: The Product Folks, Rakshanda Bijjam, Mahaq Tromboo, Caroline Ciaramitaro
📍 San Francisco
⏰ 5:00 PM – 7:00 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/7p48ytch

7. A Case for the Boring AI Company

Presented by: TheAgentic
Hosted by: TheAgentic, Akash, Kevin Mei, Emily, Workato, Sahar Mor
📍 San Francisco
⏰ 5:00 PM – 8:00 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/m1cphtal

8. afore portfolio spring showcase

Presented by: Afore Capital
Hosted by: Jack McClelland, Kayla Kavanaugh, Yulia
📍 San Francisco
⏰ 5:00 PM – 9:00 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/chbjbitq

9. Real World Applications of AI for Chemical Design

Presented by: Serna Bio
Hosted by: Maurinne Bonnet, Rabia, Aaron Lazarus, MBC BioLabs
📍 San Carlos
⏰ 5:00 PM – 7:00 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/3kexa0cw

10. Dev Setup Demos - Show your agents.md!

Presented by: All Things Web
Hosted by: Andre Landgraf, Erik Thorelli, Michael Grinich
📍 San Francisco
⏰ 5:30 PM – 8:30 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/l83mbtna

11. The AI Collective Tri-Valley

Presented by: The AI Collective
Hosted by: Jessie Chen, Meagan Callahan, Cara Houck, Gretchen Codus
📍 Dublin
⏰ 5:30 PM – 8:30 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/aic-tr-3-31

12. The AI Hustle: Happy Hour for Startup Founders & VCs

Hosted by: Louisa Lu, Paul Sullivan
📍 San Francisco
⏰ 6:00 PM – 8:00 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/key11fqr

13. South Bay Systems: Consensus & Full Text Search

Presented by: South Bay Systems
Hosted by: Alex Miller, Benjamin Owad, Qian Li
📍 Menlo Park
⏰ 6:00 PM – 8:00 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/2g3exvjw

14. Arena Jeopardy [AI Developers & Founders Trivia Night]

Presented by: Open AGI
Hosted by: Sentient Foundation
📍 San Francisco
⏰ 6:00 PM – 8:00 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/ttdmywn1

15. The Future of Engineering Leadership in the AI Era

Presented by: Revelo
Hosted by: Andrew Lodwig, Sahar Mor
📍 San Francisco
⏰ 6:00 PM – 9:00 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/revelo-t3l-sf-0331

16. Southeast Asia Tech and Investor Mixer Fireside Chat

Hosted by: Vincent Song, Adriel Yong, Ara Kyi
📍 San Francisco
⏰ 6:00 PM – 8:00 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/9zlbf0m2

17. OpenClaw Workshop II

Hosted by: MoltPod Admin, Aditya Pashupati Advani, Dominic Damoah
📍 Palo Alto
⏰ 6:00 PM – 9:00 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/ba8xqsxq

18. CTO Dinner - An Evening for Engineering Leaders

Hosted by: Sidhdharth, Baargav Duggirala, Sahar Mor
📍 San Francisco
⏰ 6:30 PM – 8:30 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/0x2t11du

🗓️ Wednesday, April 1

19. SF Coffee Club | Early Stage B2B Tech Founders & Funders

Presented by: Forum Events
Hosted by: Babina Kamalanathan, Alexis, Sruthi Sivanandan
📍 San Francisco
⏰ 10:00 AM – 11:00 AM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/3mmskgot

20. Links & Leadership - CTO and Tech Golf Gathering

Presented by: Murray - Open Future Forum
Hosted by: Murray, Adam Fauvre, Paulina Xu
📍 Burlingame
⏰ 3:00 PM – 5:00 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/6kcsv7nm

21. AI Pitch Night @SVAI Hub

Presented by: TheAgentic
Hosted by: TheAgentic, Kevin Mei, Silicon Valley AI Hub, Sahar Mor
📍 Menlo Park
⏰ 5:00 PM – 8:00 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/5xhl8kzr

22. Voice AI Agents Decoded

Hosted by: Plivo
📍 San Francisco
⏰ 5:30 PM – 8:30 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/dihiwe4q

23. Agents for Bug Prevention

Hosted by: Eugenio Scafati, Nicolas Marcantonio
📍 San Francisco
⏰ 5:30 PM – 8:30 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/dpslo70s

24. Building at the Intersection of AI and Regulation

Presented by: Sphere
📍 San Francisco
⏰ 6:00 PM – 9:00 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/n00m7p4q

25. Short Story Symposium [public]

Presented by: The Commons
Hosted by: Mendel Liu, The SF Commons
📍 San Francisco
⏰ 6:30 PM – 7:30 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/shortstories

🗓️ Thursday, April 2

26. Founder Breakfast

Presented by: Brderless
Hosted by: Amy Quan, Brderless, Baargav Duggirala
📍 San Francisco
⏰ 9:00 AM – 11:00 AM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/4u4pu2ro

27. Inference Engineering Ice Cream Social 🍦

Presented by: Baseten
Hosted by: Baseten, Philip Kiely
📍 San Francisco
⏰ 2:00 PM – 4:00 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/khxc93ju

28. Immigrant Founders + Investors Mixer

Presented by: Startup Grind
Hosted by: Startup Grind, James Gee, Danil Kislinskiy, Dr. Paul Fang
📍 Menlo Park
⏰ 4:00 PM – 7:00 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/i8wglqle

29. Startup Party Up for First Thursday

Presented by: LlamaIndex Community
Hosted by: Rachel Eastwood
📍 San Francisco
⏰ 4:00 PM – 6:00 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/mkh44c7w

30. Founder Bowling

Presented by: Brderless
Hosted by: Amy Quan, Brderless, Sarina, Jose Esquer-Romero, Tina Tran
📍 San Francisco
⏰ 5:30 PM – 7:30 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/d3ik0bfr

31. Open Build Night: OpenClaw in 20 Lines of Code

Presented by: Worldwide Studios
Hosted by: Michael Raspuzzi, Will Sentance
📍 San Francisco
⏰ 6:30 PM – 9:30 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/0ow9dek5

🗓️ Friday, April 3

32. Vibe-coding Hackathon | Building AI for Finance

Presented by: Hanwha AI Center
Hosted by: Heesoo Yoon, Victor Su-Ortiz, Win Yee
📍 San Francisco
⏰ 10:00 AM – 5:00 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/oeacjgyz

33. Demo Day & Rave [AI Residency Showcase]

Presented by: Open AGI
Hosted by: Sentient Foundation
📍 San Francisco
⏰ 7:00 PM – 11:30 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/uazihx6a

🗓️ Saturday, April 4

34. Scrappy AI Founders Go Hard Hiking (+ overnight stay)

Presented by: 12 Scrappy Founders
Hosted by: Denis Belyavsky, Alena Beliauskaya
📍 San Francisco
⏰ 8:30 AM – April 05, 11:00 AM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/27fq3ner

35. Memory Genesis Competition 2026: Demo Day

Hosted by: EverMind.AI
📍 Mountain View
⏰ 12:00 PM – 6:00 PM PDT
🔗 https://lu.ma/v5rfi2zu

About the Bay Area Founders Club’s President

Connect with Dr. Paul Fang

About Bay Area Founders Club

Bay Area Founders Club (BFC), founded by Dr. Paul Fang in Silicon Valley in 2022 and managed by a dedicated group of Stanford alumni and students, is a thriving community of over 100,000 members, including more than 5,000 startups and over 1000 venture capital firms. With most startups in our network raising $1-10 million, and some exceeding $20 million, our mission is to empower creators who aspire to make a global impact. We provide the essential resources, support, and connections needed to transform visionary ideas into reality.

Subscribe to our LinkedIn, YouTube, Substack, Website, Luma, and ​Twitter to stay updated!

Raising venture capital is one of the most important — and misunderstood — skills for founders.

Most founders think fundraising is about a great pitch deck.

In reality, it’s about investor psychology, market timing, and venture-scale storytelling.

On March 28th (this Saturday) at Bay Area Founders Club, we’re hosting a virtual workshop with Miko Matsumura on:

💰 How Founders Actually Raise Money from VCs

This workshop is happening this Saturday — don’t miss it!

Miko has spent 25+ years in Silicon Valley as a founder, operator, and investor.
He has:
• Raised $50M+ in venture capital as a founder
• Invested in companies like OpenSea
• Led investments through gumi Cryptos Capital
• Previously served as Chief Developer Evangelist at Sun Microsystems

In this session, he’ll share:
• What makes a startup venture-backable
• How VCs evaluate founders and markets
• How to build relationships with investors before you raise
• The biggest mistakes founders make when pitching VCs
• What actually happens inside a VC partnership meeting

If you’re a founder planning to raise Pre-Seed, Seed, or Series A, this session will save you months of trial and error.

Seats are limited because we want to keep the discussion interactive.

Looking forward to seeing more founders level up their fundraising game.

Whether you’re in Seattle, Tokyo, Munich, Sydney, or Beijing — you can join us live from anywhere in the world. 🌍

Register HERE!

Super Investor Interview

🎙 Miko Matsumura (Managing Partner at gCC Venture Capital)
Why VCs Behave the Way They Do

“So entrepreneurs are often wondering why VCs behave as they do. And you know, having seen both sides, I do see that there’s a really deep and fundamental cultural gap. And I think that there’s huge misunderstandings between these two groups. So I’m very interested in and passionate in kind of trying to explain why VCs behave the way they do because there are reasons.”

▶ Watch the full interview here:

About the Bay Area Founders Club’s President

Connect with Dr. Paul Fang

About Bay Area Founders Club

Bay Area Founders Club (BFC), founded by Dr. Paul Fang in Silicon Valley in 2022 and managed by a dedicated group of Stanford alumni and students, is a thriving community of over 100,000 members, including more than 5,000 startups and over 1000 venture capital firms. With most startups in our network raising $1-10 million, and some exceeding $20 million, our mission is to empower creators who aspire to make a global impact. We provide the essential resources, support, and connections needed to transform visionary ideas into reality.

Subscribe to our LinkedIn, YouTube, Substack, Website, Luma, and ​Twitter to stay updated!

🚀 Just asked NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang question live at the Alibaba Cloud GTC Event

Honored to represent the Bay Area Founders Club on stage and raise a critical question:
👉 How will OpenClaw tackle data privacy challenges at scale?

Check out how he responded HERE.

This is one of the most important questions as AI moves from demo → real-world deployment.

Incredibly insightful discussion. Definitely something every AI founder should be thinking about.

Jensen made one thing very clear:
OpenClaw may be one of the most important skills to learn this year.

🚀 Quick reminder:
BFC OpenClaw Workshop is happening tonight.
If you’re serious about building in AI—this is the moment.

🎟 Launch Your First OpenClaw AI Agent with a Stanford Mentor — Let AI Work for You 24/7

Join Chinat Yu (Stanford LDT | AI Educator | MLH Top 50) to build your first OpenClaw AI agent—and let AI work for you 24/7.

Whether you’re in Seattle, Tokyo, Munich, Sydney, or Beijing — you can join us live from anywhere in the world. 🌍

Over 4 sessions, we’ll go from concept → working agent → real automation systems.
📅 Session 1 — Foundations of AI Agents
March 19 | 7–9PM PDT
📅 Session 2 — Launch Your First OpenClaw Agent
March 26 | 7–9PM PDT
📅 Session 3 — Connect Agents to Messaging Platforms
April 2 | 7–9PM PDT
📅 Session 4 — Skills, Automations & Multi-Agent Systems
April 9 | 7–9PM PDT

💡 By the end of the series you’ll know how to:
• launch your own OpenClaw AI agent
• connect agents across real platforms
• build AI automation workflows
• design your own AI productivity system

No heavy engineering required — this is designed for founders, builders, and curious professionals.

Coupon: BFC15, 15% Off

Register HERE!

Meet Our Instructor

​​Chinat brings elite credentials and practical experience:

• ​​​Stanford Learning, Design & Technology graduate with expertise in educational innovation

• ​​​MLH Top 50 honoree recognized for excellence in hackathon organization

• ​​​Partnerships with Johns Hopkins and Hong Kong PolyU

• ​​​Creator of innovative approaches, making technology accessible to all students and professionals

• Check out his previous winning Hackathon projects here

• ​​Award-winning projects: https://devpost.com/cyu60
  MLH Top 50 profile: https://top.mlh.io/2023/profiles/chinat-yu

​​SPACES ARE FILLING FAST! This hands-on workshop is HIGHLY SELECTIVE with limited enrollment to ensure personalized attention.

​Who This Workshop Is For

​This workshop is designed for people who want to move beyond using AI as a simple chat tool and begin building real AI workflows.

​It is especially useful for:

​Founders and entrepreneurs

​who want to automate research, communication, operations, or internal workflows without relying on a single AI vendor.

​Creators and knowledge workers

​who want an AI assistant that works across tools instead of living inside one chat window.

​Developers and technical builders

​who are interested in open agent frameworks, modular skills, multi-model orchestration, and persistent AI systems.

​Curious professionals and non-technical builders

​who want a hands-on introduction to AI agents without needing to build everything from scratch.

​Researchers and AI enthusiasts

​who want to understand where AI systems are heading, especially around interoperability, memory, and multi-agent networks.

​If you feel limited by using ChatGPT or Claude in isolation, this workshop will show you how AI can evolve into a connected system rather than a single tool.

​What You Will Learn

​During this workshop series, you will learn how modern AI agent systems work and how OpenClaw enables new workflows that traditional chat interfaces cannot support.

​You will learn:

​How agent systems differ from traditional AI tools

​You will understand the difference between an AI model and an AI agent, and why orchestration layers like OpenClaw are becoming important.

​How to launch and configure an OpenClaw agent

​You will walk through the process of creating an OpenClaw environment, connecting a model provider, and interacting with a working agent.

​How to connect AI agents across platforms

​You will see how OpenClaw agents can operate through messaging channels like Telegram and communicate beyond the browser.

​How AI agents enable automation and productivity systems

​You will explore real use cases including research assistants, reminders, summaries, recurring reports, and automated workflows.

​How modular skills and workflows work

​You will learn how agent capabilities can be structured through modular skills and flexible instruction files such as skill.md.

​How memory and observability improve agent systems

​You will understand how persistent context and cross-platform logging allow agents to maintain coherent long-term interactions.

​Where multi-agent systems are heading

​You will explore emerging ideas such as agent-to-agent collaboration, digital twins, and networked AI systems.

​Workshop Series Structure

​Session 1

​Foundations of AI Agents

​Date: March 19, 2026

​Time: 7PM-9PM PDT

​Most people think of AI as a chatbot. This session explains why that model is rapidly evolving.

​You will learn:

• ​why chat-based AI tools have structural limitations

• ​the difference between AI models and AI agents

• ​how OpenClaw acts as an orchestration layer

• ​how agents maintain memory and context across sessions

• ​how multiple models can operate inside one agent system

​By the end of this session, you will understand the core architecture behind modern AI agent systems.

​Session 2

​Launch Your First OpenClaw Agent

​Date: March 26, 2026

​Time: 7PM-9PM PDT

​This session focuses on turning theory into a working system.

​You will learn how to:

• ​create an OpenClaw environment

• ​configure model providers

• ​launch an agent session

• ​manage prompts and system instructions

• ​observe how the agent operates internally

​By the end of this session, you will know how to launch and interact with your own OpenClaw agent.

​Session 3

​Connecting AI Agents to Real Communication Channels

​Date: April 2, 2026

​Time: 7PM-9PM PDT

​AI agents become far more powerful when they live outside a browser tab.

​In this session, you will explore how OpenClaw agents operate across messaging platforms.

​You will learn:

• ​how OpenClaw connects to platforms like Telegram

• ​how conversations synchronize across interfaces

• ​how agents maintain state across conversations

• ​what security considerations matter when testing agent systems

​By the end of this session, you will understand how AI agents can operate across real communication environments.

​Session 4

​Skills, Automations, and the Future of Agent Systems

​Date: April 9, 2026

​Time: 7PM-9PM PDT

​The final session explores how AI agents evolve from assistants into automation systems.

​You will learn:

• ​how skills enable modular capabilities

• ​how agents execute automation workflows

• ​how persistent memory improves productivity systems

• ​how personal AI assistants can manage recurring tasks

• ​how multi-agent ecosystems may shape the next generation of AI infrastructure

​By the end of this session, you will understand how to design AI-powered workflows and begin building your own automation systems.

​What You Will Gain From This Series

​By the end of the workshop series, you will:

• ​understand how modern AI agent systems are structured

• ​know how to launch and configure an OpenClaw agent

• ​understand how AI agents connect across platforms

• ​learn how skills and workflows extend agent capabilities

• ​gain a framework for building your own AI productivity system

​WHO ARE ATTENDING

​The BFC Workshops have now trained 300+ founders, investors, and senior executives across the global innovation ecosystem.

​Our participants include:

• ​Partners from leading venture capital firms, including Pear VC

• ​PhDs and postdoctoral researchers from Stanford University

• ​Senior executives from major technology companies, such as Google, Meta, and SAP

• ​Academic leaders, including department chairs from San Francisco State University (SFSU)

​These workshops bring together top builders, investors, and operators to learn from one another, exchange cutting-edge insights, and accelerate innovation within the BFC community.

​A partial list of our previous participants can be found HERE.

About the Bay Area Founders Club’s President

Connect with Dr. Paul Fang

About Bay Area Founders Club

Bay Area Founders Club (BFC), founded by Dr. Paul Fang in Silicon Valley in 2022 and managed by a dedicated group of Stanford alumni and students, is a thriving community of over 100,000 members, including more than 5,000 startups and over 1000 venture capital firms. With most startups in our network raising $1-10 million, and some exceeding $20 million, our mission is to empower creators who aspire to make a global impact. We provide the essential resources, support, and connections needed to transform visionary ideas into reality.

Subscribe to our LinkedIn, YouTube, Substack, Website, Luma, and ​Twitter to stay updated!

I Asked Jensen Huang a Question Live — Here’s Why It Matters for Every AI Founder

Last week, I had the opportunity to ask NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang a question live at the Alibaba Cloud GTC Event.

Honored to represent the Bay Area Founders Club on stage, I raised a critical question:

👉 How will OpenClaw tackle data privacy challenges at scale?

Because this is where we are right now.

AI is no longer about demos.
It’s moving into real-world deployment.

And when that happens—
data privacy stops being a feature. It becomes the foundation.

The discussion was incredibly insightful.
But more importantly, it reinforced something I’ve been seeing across Silicon Valley:

👉 The winners won’t just build powerful models.
👉 They’ll build trustworthy systems.

To be honest—this moment felt surreal.

I remember following Jensen’s journey during my PhD years.
And now, standing there, asking a question in person…

It reminded me of something simple, but powerful:

👉 The future doesn’t belong to spectators.
👉 It belongs to those who step forward.

When I started Bay Area Founders Club, the vision was simple but ambitious:

👉 Serve founders globally.
👉 Build 200 chapters around the world.

Today, we have members from 171 countries.

And this is just the beginning.

To everyone in the BFC community:

👉 Dream bigger.
👉 Move faster.
👉 Build things that matter.

Next Stop: Europe 🇫🇷

We’re honored to be a community partner for GenAI Summit Paris 2026.

📅 April 10, 2026
📍 Station F, Paris

For one day, the center of gravity of AI shifts to Europe.

This is where:

• C-suite leaders from Microsoft, L’Oréal, IBM converge

• Global capital from BlackRock, Breega, 20VC, NewAlpha, Velocity Capital gathers

• Industry giants like Thales, Stellantis, Alstom, Alibaba, Publicis Groupe, Crédit Agricole show up

👉 Where capital meets frontier innovation
👉 Where the next generation of AI unicorns is born

✨ Global Scale, Intimate Value

We are bringing together 1,500+ attendees, including 300+ investors, 500+ companies, founders, and global AI stakeholders from over 40 countries—while maintaining a highly curated, high-quality environment.

You’ll be in the room with senior industry leaders as well as ecosystem players from the same networks backing breakout companies such as Hugging Face (AI), Alan, Yuka, and Greenly. This is where global capital meets frontier innovation—and where tomorrow’s unicorns first take the stage.

📊 A High-Quality Audience

· 70% Senior Executives & Decision-Makers: You aren’t just networking; you’re in the room with the leaders who approve the budgets.

· 83% Enterprise Representation: A unique cross-section of tech and traditional industries (Alstom, Stellantis, Publicis, Crédit Agricole, and more).

🎙️ Speakers in GenAI Summit Paris 2026:

l ​Carol S. Scott – Global AI Growth Leader @ Microsoft | Award-Winning AI Speaker Global AI and cloud transformation leader at Microsoft, driving a $7B+ enterprise portfolio and helping the world’s most influential companies turn AI—from Copilot to Azure OpenAI—into real business impact.

l ​Philippe Limantour – Chief Technology and CyberSecurity Officer, ExCom Member @ Microsoft, Ph.D 30-year technology executive and AI transformation advisor, helping global organizations deploy large-scale digital innovation, data, and trusted AI strategies.

l ​Thalie Farinaud – CMO & CDO | Digital, AI & eCommerce Leader @ L’ORÉAL French-American C-level executive specializing in eCommerce, digital transformation, and data-driven customer growth across global brands.

l ​Alexia SCOTT – Global Head of Tax - Senior VP @ L’Oréal Alexia Scott is SVP and Global Head of Tax at L’Oréal, driving global fiscal strategy and advocating responsible, sustainable tax practices at scale.

l ​Chehrazad Laurent – Digital & E-commerce Global Tax Director @ L’ORÉAL, also in charge of AI & Transformation. Champion driving innovation within the company’s global tax function. With more than two decades of experience across L’Oréal, LVMH, Schneider Electric, and PwC, she specializes in digital economy taxation, transfer pricing, and the evolving regulatory landscape of global e-commerce.

l ​Qihua Wang – Executive Vice President Strategy & AI @ Lagardère Travel Retail Leading AI and strategy initiatives to transform organizations, combining hands-on execution with strong business impact.

l ​Vahan Garabedian – Partner of IBM Driving AI and GenAI value creation for enterprises and private equity, supporting C-level leaders in large-scale business transformation and digital innovation.

l ​Emmanuel R. Goffi – Responsable du domaine Ethique of ISEP Leading expert in AI ethics, shaping responsible AI governance by integrating cultural diversity and societal impact into technology development.

l ​François Paulus – Co-Founder & Executive Chairman @ Breega Managing (~$700M-$750M) and investing in early-stage (Pre-seed to Series B) European and African tech startups.

l ​Hamilton Mann – Global Digital Transformation Expert & Author of Artificial Integrity @ Thinkers50; MIT Mentor and INSEAD/HEC Paris Lecturer; Thinkers50 Digital Thinking Award Winner; Global digital transformation expert and author of Artificial Integrity, MIT Alumni; Bestselling Author of Artificial Integrity; Contributor to Forbes, Stanford Social Innovation Review, California Management.

l ​Marcus Magarian – AI-Native Corporate Development Lead @ Chatsworth Securities Advising companies on AI adoption, data governance and modern analytics to reshape their corporate strategy, prepare for M&A, Capital Strategy, and Data-Centric Transformation. Structuring $200M+ in technology opportunities.

l ​Sophie Ren – Founder & CEO of AeoBox.AI &ChatSlide.AI Forbes 30U30 learning scientist and Stanford Entrepreneur Board member, Founder of Chatslide.AI.

l ​Michelle Lau – Managing Director France @ Alibaba International business leader with 20+ years of experience helping European companies scale globally through digital trade, globalization strategy, and B2B e-commerce.

l ​Jie-thomas YANG – Founder & CEO of ARGOS LABS Jie-Thomas Yang is the Founder of Argos Labs and Venture Partner, an AI, fintech, and blockchain innovator building ventures backed by the HEC Incubator and Binance France at Station F.

l ​Anis Ben Mahmoud – CNRS & Sorbonne, Chair of CNRS Ethics Committee,Professor at Sorbonne and CNRS, pioneering AI philosopher and ethics leader in France.

l ​Barbara Grabiwoda – CSO of Publicis Groupe Barbara helps leading FMCG and CPG brands achieve sustainable growth through integrated, data-driven marketing strategies and AI-enabled transformation at Publicis Groupe.

l ​Sebastien Murer – Senior Investment Manager of AM Investment Management Sébastien is an Investment Strategist based in Luxembourg, specializing in public and private markets, combining expertise in portfolio management, private debt deal structuring, and regulatory governance with AI-driven approaches to optimize cross-asset investment strategies and risk analysis.

l ​Marc Mironneau – Directeur of Axys Consultants Data & Digital transformation leader at Axys Consultants, helping organizations leverage AI, data strategy, and advanced analytics for business performance.

l ​Jiamiao LI – Strategy Leader for AI-Enhanced Engineering of STELLANTIS AI implementation, regulatory compliance, and software-defined vehicles and V2X, and is an Executive MBA candidate at HEC Paris.

l ​Harmonie Reybaud – Entrepreneur & Director, Data & AI | Startup Mentor Data & AI innovation leader and entrepreneur, supporting organizations and startups in building impactful AI-driven solutions.

l ​Anis Ben Mahmoud – EMEA Hospitality & Retail Business Development Director of United Robotics Group Driving the adoption of robotics and intelligent technologies across retail and hospitality through strong go-to-market and business growth expertise.

l ​Pei Li – Cofounder of ParisDao, President of HEC Alumni Blockchain Pei Li is the Co-founder of ParisDAO, President of HEC Alumni Blockchain, and Rotary Paris District Alumni Chair, recognized as an AI and Web3 innovator driving blockchain and technology initiatives in the global ecosystem.

l ​Wenkun LI – Founder of NEBULAS Pre-A WenKun is specialised in AI, Data scientist & Big Data

l ​Frank Desvignes – Founding Partner of True Global Ventures Frank Desvignes is a veteran tech and financial services leader and Founding Partner at True Global Ventures, investing in AI and blockchain startups and serving on the boards of companies such as Coinhouse and Jus Mundi, after pioneering internet banking at BNP Paribas and leading digital transformation initiatives at AXA.

l ​Sylvain Makaya – Managing Partner of NewAlpha Asset NewAlpha Asset Established in 2004 and headquartered in Paris, NewAlpha manages and advises on $4 billion for insurance companies, pensions, corporates and family offices Management.

Co-host: Argos Lab, AICF, GenAI summit, LOOMUS.AI Community

🏙️ Vertical AI Focus & Immersive Experiences

The summit is moving beyond general discussion to focus on the deep verticals being reshaped by AI:

· Deep Dives: From Healthcare, Fintech, Education, LegalTech, and Climate AI to Creative & Generative Intelligence—each will be explored through dedicated stage content and exhibitions.

· Immersive Atmosphere: Experience startup pitch battles, thought-leadership keynotes, interactive panels, AI-generated art shows, and curated investor-founder matchmaking zones.

🗓️ Agenda: A Day of Vision and Action

🌅 Morning Session: Frontiers of Intelligence Explore the cutting edge of GenAI, from foundation models to the path toward AGI.

· Highlights: Keynotes by Microsoft’s Carol S. Scott and L’Oréal’s Thalie Farinaud, plus insights from the France China Committee (CFC) of MEDEF.

🌇 Afternoon Session: AI in Action The afternoon turns to real-world deployment across Healthcare, Luxury, Mobility, and Fintech.

· Panels: Deep dives into AI, Robotics, and the Future of Mobility and Asia-Europe Strategic Collaborationfeaturing Breega, Alibaba, and NewAlpha Asset Management.

🚀 Calling All Founders: The Startup Pitch Battle

The startup pitch application is open. Step onto the biggest stage in Paris and showcase your innovation to hundreds of active investors and leading family offices.

👉 [Apply for the Startup Pitch Pass Here]

🎟️ Secure Your Pass (Luma Tiers)

• General Admission (€169): Full-day access to all keynote sessions and panels.

• Student Pass (€29): Full access for students with a valid .edu email.

• GENAI Paris VIP Pass (€1,299): Premium access including the exclusive VIP Room, rare opportunities for direct conversation with headline speakers, and gourmet refreshments.

• GenAI Paris VVIP Pass (€1,899): Includes all VIP perks plus an exclusive private dinner (April 11) with speakers, top VCs, and family offices.

• Speakers & Investors Dinner (€1,099): Invitation-only evening for direct access to global decision-makers.

🎁BFC Community Exclusive:

Use Promo Code [BFC15] at checkout to secure your pass at our exclusive community rate.

👉 [Register for GenAI Summit Paris 2026 Here]

Don’t just watch the future happen. Architect it.

See you at Station F

About the Bay Area Founders Club’s President

Connect with Dr. Paul Fang

About Bay Area Founders Club

Bay Area Founders Club (BFC), founded by Dr. Paul Fang in Silicon Valley in 2022 and managed by a dedicated group of Stanford alumni and students, is a thriving community of over 100,000 members, including more than 5,000 startups and over 1000 venture capital firms. With most startups in our network raising $1-10 million, and some exceeding $20 million, our mission is to empower creators who aspire to make a global impact. We provide the essential resources, support, and connections needed to transform visionary ideas into reality.

Subscribe to our LinkedIn, YouTube, Substack, Website, Luma, and ​Twitter to stay updated!