On October 1, 2021, our Born Global event featured Carey Ransom, Founder and President of Operate, a venture studio that partners with startup founders to build and scale high-growth software companies in Southern California. This event was hosted by General Partner of Born Global Ventures, Dr. Sunny Zhang. Carey discussed how Venture Studios propel Startup Founders and the Venture Community. He also shared his extensive experience in venture building at Operate and gave a comprehensive explanation of the venture studio model.  

Carey is a serial entrepreneur and investor with extensive experience from startup to explosive growth to exit, having sold a private company to a public company while being CEO. At Operate, Carey and his team look for entrepreneurs with grit who are building innovative companies. In all of their portfolio companies, they invest capital and their team’s capabilities as senior executives to build amazing companies together. This unique approach delivers more predictable investment returns and creates more winners for their investment partners. Carey is also the host of Operate Podcast featuring SoCal innovators, entrepreneurs, and leaders.

We thank our event partners, StudioHUB Startup Studio Community and Z LAB Global for their kind support. 

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Being a founder comes with lots of challenges; whether you’re at the “idea on a napkin” stage or ready to exit, there are so many decisions to make! On September 17, 2021, Born Global startup evangelist Amanda Moya hosted a safe and intimate session on, “Circle Time: Share and Ask” AKA “This is NOT a Pitch Competition” for founders and funders to share what they’re focused on and ask for the support they needed to make the next big step. Our inclusive community is committed to connecting innovators from ALL backgrounds so that we can help each other solve our biggest problems.

Amanda is the Member Experience Manager at The Cannon Community, who ensures members are able to connect with the people and resources they need in order for their companies to thrive. Prior to joining the Cannon, Amanda was the Program Manager of Wolff Center for Entrepreneurship (WCE) at the University of Houston, the No. 1 undergraduate entrepreneurship program in the United States. She has helped numerous aspiring entrepreneurs pursue their dreams through this distinguished program by creating a quality experiential learning atmosphere. Amanda is also a successful entrepreneur herself, running her family tutoring business Aspire Advancement Center.

We thank our event partners, Fort Bend Chamber of Commerce, Global Energy Mentors (GEM), Stanford Angels & Entrepreneurs, The Cannon Community, Women in AI USA and Z LAB Global for their continued support.

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On September 3, 2021, Founder and CEO of AngelSpan and The Legacy Funds, Joe Milam and  Managing Director of Silicon Valley Data Capital, Lara Druyan joined us for our Born Global event to talk through the realistic situation of what is wrong with venture capital. The event was hosted by the General Partner of Born Global Ventures, Dr. Sunny Zhang. Some of the topics covered in the event were:

• Why hasn’t the industry that prides itself on funding innovation not innovated itself
• The misaligned incentives between GPs and LPs and their implications
• Looking to public markets and applying its best governance practices to the private industry
• Why do we need to think of VC as an “asset class” vs an “access class”

With a background in financial analysis, portfolio design and management, financial markets, and angel investing, Joe is now applying his 29 years of working as a securities analyst/money manager/philanthropy consultant to address the inefficiencies in the entrepreneurial funding ecosystem. Joe is addressing the chronic ‘information gap’ typical of early-stage companies by delivering the best-in-class Investor Relations and delivering the first institutionally rigorous solution for allocating capital to the venture asset class – regardless of the investment thesis.

Before joining her current position, Lara was the Head of Innovation for Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) where she built a team to drive and accelerate bank-wide digital transformation.  Previously, Lara also served as a Venture Partner or Advisor to several funds and as a Venture Advisor to SRI International where she helped them conceive of, launch, and incubate new ventures. In addition to her stellar leadership experience, Lara also has an exemplary record of nonprofit service focused on closing gender gaps and lowering barriers to career advancement. 

We would like to thank our event partners, The Cannon Community, First Bight Ventures, Fort Bend Chamber of Commerce,  Global Energy Mentors (GEM),  Stanford Angels & Entrepreneurs, Women in AI USA, and Z LAB Global for their kind support. 

Watch the replay here.

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On August 20, 2021, two remarkable Born Global VCs, Irving Kau and Eunse Lee joined our General Partner of Born Global Ventures, Dr. Sunny Zhang for a virtual event. Irving and Eunse shared their stories about getting into venture investing and talked through the current changes in the financial landscape, the pros and cons of emerging ecosystems, the opportunities in those emerging ecosystems, and some advice for early-stage founders and emerging fund managers. 

Irving Kau has extensive work experience working in both public and private equity including venture capital. He has worked on the buy-side, sell-side, and company side. Having built up a sizable network across all growth sectors, Irving serves as the Managing Partner of both Elementz Ventures and KW Capital Partners, as he has successfully completed over $100M in companies across geographies, sectors, and stages, and taken 12+ companies public to a Nasdaq listing. Irving prides himself on quantitative approaches including economic, financial, and market penetration modelling (Bass Diffusion), and as a detail-oriented global leader focuses himself on follow-through, execution, and task completion. He deeply values character and ‘doing the right thing’ in each circumstance despite any potential short-term effects. He also served as the head of Asia at GHS (now known as Seaport Global Holdings LLC) which possessed seasoned leadership from Jeffries and DLJ. He was named Top 40 under 40 finance professionals (2012, M&A Media).  

Eunse Lee is a founder-turned early-stage investor and the founder and Managing Partner at a current stealth mode VC to globally empower early-stage high-tech startups with Asian founders. Prior to this position, Eunse was the Managing Director at Techstars Korea – Techstars’ first-ever program for Korea, where he built the full cycle of investment and operations of the accelerator, and invested in high-growth companies from Korea, US, Singapore, Australia, Canada and Japan. He also co-founded two LA-based VC firms and was involved in raising two funds totaling $250mn. He started his career in strategy at a firm he founded in Korea and served Tier-1 companies in both Korea and overseas as a strategy and management consultant. He also served as an advisor to the Korean Government and many of its agencies in formulating and implementing strategies for the Creative Economy.

Special thanks to our event partners, Women in AI USA,  The Cannon Community and Z LAB Global for their kind support.

Please join our Slack space and sign up for our Newsletter to learn more about Born Global events and connect with amazing members of our community!