Category: Events

Penn Wharton Entrepreneurship is expanding and rebranding as Venture Lab! Join us to learn about the resources available to alums.

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Presentation

About this Event

Penn Wharton Entrepreneurship is re-branding as Venture Lab! Hear an update from the leaders of this program on campus. They’ll discuss the vision for supporting entrepreneurship on campus, including the plans for Tangen Hall, the brand new center for entrepreneurship at 40th and Samsome.

Learn about the big moves on campus for founders and the support and resources available to alumni.

About the speakers

Trang Pham, WG’18, is the Executive Director of Venture Lab at the University of Pennsylvania and leads entrepreneurship and innovation programs. Prior to Wharton, Trang launched several companies, helped clients create new technology products as a management consultant, and ran an incubator that built companies around breakthrough innovations in the government defense and aerospace industries.

Taylor Durham is the Associate Director of Communications at Venture Lab, a Contributing Writer at Wharton Magazine Blog, and Ambassador at Venture Café Philadelphia. A multimedia specialist with 8+ years in client-driven website development, Taylor is responsible for designing digital audio and visual media, graphic design, and authoring files to enable interactivity and navigation through product content.

About WAFFA

The Wharton Alumnae Founders & Funders Association (WAFFA) is a 501c3 non-profit organization. Our mission is to accelerate the success of Penn Wharton female founders and investors. Today, 13% of Penn founders are women but they raise just 6% of venture capital. WAFFA harnesses the power of the Penn Wharton network to educate, support, and foster connections for female founders and funders.

Join us for a conversation with Lo Toney, Founding Managing Partner at Plexo Capital, where we’ll discuss his recent medium post, “I am a VC But Still a Black Man in America”.

After the death of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and countless others, there have been protests across the US and the world, calling for equal justice under the law and speaking out against racism in our institutions and interactions. Gross inequities exist across many realms, including in professional and personal settings. Lo shares his view on how individuals can use their platforms and voices to make a stand against racism.

Lo will also discuss how Plexo Capital, a $42.5M fund, has built an investment thesis around diverse founders and GPs—a strategy led by the ability to use alpha to generate above market returns. 

Date/time: Wednesday, June 24, 12-1pm PT
Location: online (zoom link will be emailed to all registrants)
Cost: free

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During the session, Lo invited participants interested in accessing Plexo Capital’s took kit for GPs to request it by completing the form at https://plexocap.com/#contact-us. 

 

About Lo Toney

Lo is the Founding Managing Partner of Plexo Capital, which he incubated and spun out from GV (Google Ventures), based on a strategy to increase access to early-stage deal flow. Plexo Capital invests in emerging seed-stage VCs and invests directly into companies sourced from the portfolios of VCs where Plexo Capital has an investment. Investors in Plexo Capital include Alphabet (holding company of Google), Intel Capital, Cisco Investment, the Royal Bank of Canada, Kapor Capital, the Hampton University Endowment (Cambridge Associates client), the Ford Foundation, family offices, and technology executives.

Prior to founding Plexo Capital, Lo was a Partner on the investing team at GV, where he focused on marketplaces, mobile, and consumer products. Before GV, Lo was a Partner with Comcast Ventures, leading the Catalyst Fund and worked with the main fund focusing on mobile messaging marketplaces.

He also worked with Zynga as the GM of Zynga Poker with full P+L responsibility For Zynga’s largest franchise at the time. During his leadership, web bookings increased by over 150% with margin expansion. Lo has also held executive roles with Nike + eBay as a startup funded by top tier investors.

Lo received his M.B.A from the Haas School of Business (University of California at Berkeley), where he completed the Management of Technology program, a joint curriculum program with the College of Engineering. Lo received his B.S from Hampton University in Virginia.

About WAFFA

The Wharton Alumnae Founders & Funders Association (WAFFA) is a 501c3 non-profit organization. Our mission is to accelerate the success of Penn Wharton female founders and investors. Today, 13% of Penn founders are women but they raise just 6% of venture capital. WAFFA harnesses the power of the Penn Wharton network to educate, support, and foster connections for female founders and funders.

Angela Lee, founder of 37 Angels, joins WAFFA for a discussion on the Art of Angel Investing.

About this Event

Angela Lee, founder of 37 Angels, joins WAFFA for a primer on the Art of Angel Investing. She will be covering how investors diligence early stage companies and questions to ask yourself before investing in startups.

This session is for you if:

-You’re a founder looking to raise an angel round now or in the future.

-An individual looking to invest in companies or learn more about the process

Featured Speaker: Angela Lee

Angela Lee is an educator and entrepreneur. She serves as Professor of Practice and Chief Innovation Officer at Columbia Business school where she teaches top-rated courses in venture capital and leadership. Angela started her career in product management and then was a strategy consultant at McKinsey. She has started 4 startups and is also the founder of 37 Angels, an investing network that has evaluated 15000+ startups, invested in 65, and activates new investors through a startup investment bootcamp. Angela has spoken at the White House and is regularly invited to advise decision-makers at the highest levels, including Prime Minister Trudeau. She is a sought-after expert on CNBC, Bloomberg TV, MSNBC and Fox Business. She was recognized by Inc. as one of 17 Inspiring Women to Watch in 2017, by Entrepreneur Magazine as one of 6 Innovative Women to Watch in 2015, and by Craine’s as a Notable Women in Tech in 2019. She serves on the boards of Fresco Education Fund and Cariclub.

About WAFFA

The Wharton Alumnae Founders & Funders Association (WAFFA) is a 501c3 non-profit organization. Our mission is to accelerate the success of Penn Wharton female founders and investors. Today, 13% of Penn founders are women but they raise just 6% of venture capital. WAFFA harnesses the power of the Penn Wharton network to educate, support, and foster connections for female founders and funders.

Join WAFFA for a conversation with Ha Nguyen, Partner at Spero, Board VP of Women In Product, former PM, and Wharton grad. We will discuss what frameworks founders should learn from product management and ask Ha to share what she sees as the difference between a CEO and PM at an early startup. We will also tackle the questions when is the right time to hire your startup’s first PM and how to do it. 

Date: Jun 11th, 2020
Time: 12PM PST / 3PM EST
Cost: FREE
Location: Online

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About Ha Nguyen

Ha Nguyen is a Founding Partner at Spero Ventures. Spero is an early-stage venture capital firm that invests in the things that make life worth living, specifically: well-being, work & purpose and human connection. In addition to investing, Ha leads the firm’s marketing/network efforts and is a thought partner to founding teams, helping them incorporate design-thinking and user empathy into product development and corporate strategy. A former refugee from Vietnam, Ha is passionate about supporting underrepresented founders and building vibrant, diverse communities, including leadership roles at AllRaise, Product Leader Summit and Women in Product. Before joining Spero, Ha led product and growth at multiple startups, including Stella & Dot, Betfair, Keaton Row and Oodle. She was one of the early product managers during eBay’s hypergrowth years. Ha holds an MBA from Harvard and a BS in Economics & Business from The Wharton School.

About Spero Ventures

Spero Ventures is an early-stage venture capital firm investing in founders building the things that make life worth living. We partner with entrepreneurs solving problems in three areas: well-being, work & purpose and human connection. We invest in technology companies that are driven to deliver value to both shareholders and society, including: Core, Droneseed, Gencove, Roam Robotics and Skillshare. We are high-conviction investors and we help companies scale to billions of customers. Our LP and partners are founders and early execs at eBay and Tesla.

About WAFFA

The Wharton Alumnae Founders & Funders Association (WAFFA) is a 501c3 non-profit organization. Our mission is to accelerate the success of Penn Wharton female founders and investors. Today, 13% of Penn founders are women but they raise just 6% of venture capital. WAFFA harnesses the power of the Penn Wharton network to educate, support, and foster connections for female founders and funders.

COVID is having a profound impact on the fundraising landscape. Join Carol Curley for a conversation on the future of early-stage investing!

COVID-19 is having a profound impact on the fundraising landscape for startup founders. Fundraising is a daunting proposition without an economy-altering pandemic; now it’s even more challenging. Carol Curley joins WAFFA to demystify the current state of the fundraising landscape. There will be ample time for Q&A!

Date: June 17, 2020 
Time: 5 – 6 pm ET / 2– 3 pm PT
Location: Online
Cost: FREE

About Carol Curley

Chief Investment Officer, Charian Ventures

Carol A. Curley, CFA is the Chief Investment Officer of Charian Ventures, a Managing Director at Golden Seeds, and a member of New York Angels. Carol has been investing in and advising early-stage companies for over 20 years. She is a frequent judge and panelist and serves on the Advisory Board of Penn Wharton Entrepreneurship. Carol has held senior positions in both Investment Banking and Asset Management firms. In addition, she has served as an Adjunct Professor of Finance in the Graduate Programs of both The University of Dallas and Pace University. Carol holds a BA in Economics from Wellesley College, an MBA in Finance from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and is a Chartered Financial Analyst. Carol writes about topics impacting Angel Investing in her Blog: https://womeninvest.nyc https://womeninvest.nyc

Moderator: Laura Colagrande 

Co-Founder, Chippin Snacks

About WAFFA 

The Wharton Alumnae Founders & Funders Association (WAFFA) is a 501c3 non-profit organization. Our mission is to accelerate the success of Penn Wharton female founders and investors. Today, 13% of Penn founders are women but they raise just 6% of venture capital. WAFFA harnesses the power of the Penn Wharton network to educate, support, and foster connections for female founders and funders.

Join WAFFA for this incredible parent/kid event with the New York Times best-selling author Kobi Yamada. Kobi is the author of many inspirational books such as What to do with an idea? and What to do with a chance?.

The event will start with Kobi reading one of his books followed by a lot of Q&A from big and small.

Date: Saturday June 6th, 2020
Time: 9:30AM PST
Location: Online
Cost: FREE

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About Kobi Yamada

Kobi Yamada is a New York Times best-selling author and the CEO of Compendium, a company of amazing people doing amazing things. Kobi lives happily with the love of his life and their two super fun kids in the land of flying salmon, where he gets to see unbelievable possibilities unfold every day. He wonders if maybe life is even more beautiful than he imagined.

About WAFFA

The Wharton Alumnae Founders & Funders Association (WAFFA) is a 501c3 non-profit organization. Our mission is to accelerate the success of Penn Wharton female founders and investors. Today, 13% of Penn founders are women but they raise just 6% of venture capital. WAFFA harnesses the power of the Penn Wharton network to educate, support, and foster connections for female founders and funders.

Join WAFFA on May 20th @5pm PT/ 8pm ET to discuss how the Future Of Work would look like, in a post COVID world.

Topics covered:

+ How COVID-19 is impacting (executive) placement

+ How tech companies are planning “back to work”

+ How digital services are changing the way we work

+ New Definition of “Career Success”

Panelist:

Lauren Rawlings – Founder @ Precita Placements: an executive search firm placing untapped talent in corporate leadership roles

Madison Kempf – Director @SPMB: executive search and placement for startups & public tech companies

Nicky Kamra – Seed investor in data & applied AI @Streamlined Ventures

Vivian Chen – Founder @Joinrise.co: promoting flexible working for leading women

Moderator:

Alice Zhang – Co-Founder @Hellowaffa.org; Founder @incubate-me.com

Date: May 20th, 2020
Time: 5:00 PM – 6:30 PM PDT
Location: Online
Cost: FREE

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About WAFFA

The Wharton Alumnae Founders & Funders Association (WAFFA) is a 501c3 non-profit organization. Our mission is to accelerate the success of Penn Wharton female founders and investors. Today, 13% of Penn founders are women but they raise just 6% of venture capital. WAFFA harnesses the power of the Penn Wharton network to educate, support, and foster connections for female founders and funders.

COVID-19 is having a profound impact on all types of DTC businesses – from affecting multiple parts of the supply chain to changing consumer behavior.

Join us for a panel moderated by Jason Stoffer (WG’05), Partner at Maveron to hear how these outstanding founders are navigating this new climate. Featuring:

• Rachel Cohen (WG’12), co-founder and co-CEO of Snowe
• Jenna Kerner (WG’17), co-founder and co-CEO of Harper Wilder
• Kabeer Chopra (WG’17), co-founder and CPO of Burrow

Date: May 13, 2020
Time: 3 – 4 pm ET / 12 – 1 pm PT
Location: Online
Cost: FREE

About WAFFA

The Wharton Alumnae Founders & Funders Association (WAFFA) is a 501c3 non-profit organization. Our mission is to accelerate the success of Penn Wharton female founders and investors. Today, 13% of Penn founders are women but they raise just 6% of venture capital. WAFFA harnesses the power of the Penn Wharton network to educate, support, and foster connections for female founders and funders.