Hi Friends,

This week I’m prepping for Burning Man (going with Titanic’s End), hosting and speaking at a few STEP SF events, and focusing on closing our SPV into Vantage Robotics:

BECOME A FOUNDERS BAY MEMBER AND ACCESS OUR EVENTS FOR FREE

🚀 Closing Soon: Founders Bay x ACTAI Ventures SPV into Vantage Robotics

Vantage Robotics built nano drones already deployed by the FBI, multiple U.S. military branches, and allied governments. Over the past 5 years, they’ve secured $22M in DoD R&D contracts and built a $75M sales pipeline.

The company is preparing for a Series B so we’re getting in on a great entry point.

📌 Quick links
💬 Memo
📝 Commit

💬 SPV Q&A tomorrow at 2pm: Join here

If we’re not already connected, I’d love to hear from you—please follow me on LinkedIn and Instagram. Let’s connect!

Want us to sponsor an event or partner together? Contact us here

Sept 12–14, 2025

I’m so excited to invite you to Developer Camp 2025, officially supported by Founders Bay— where we're helping shape the future of AI with purpose.

Join our very own Kristopher Floyd as he judges alongside legendary VC Bill Tai (early investor in Canva and Zoom), Dave Andre (Google X science chief), Amanda Terry (ACTAI/Web3 trailblazer) and more tech leaders. 

In just 48 hours, you'll design impactful AI solutions, collaborate with top builders, and pitch your ideas to investors. I’ll see you there!

​We’ve teamed up with ACTAI Ventures — co-founded by Bill Tai (first investor in Zoom; early Canva, Dapper Labs, and 23 public companies) and Amanda Terry (ex-Twitter, 5 startup exits) — to co-invest in Vantage Robotics .

​Why Vantage Robotics Has Our Attention

​📌 See our memo here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1VhlRg1DwO5wJdP-Ssh2HgDteUvYzuL6JYlVFLNHlFUM/edit?tab=t.0#heading=h.knwo9oi84bp3

Wednesday, August 20 - 5:00 PM - 8:00 PM

​Founders Bay: Women Pitch Practice is a friendly and supportive space for women founders to practice their startup pitches, receive helpful feedback, and grow their confidence —hosted by Mariane Bekker from Founders Bay, Jeni Chang from Founder Institute and Natalie Pan from Funding Breakthrough Lab (accepting Aug cohort applications). Whether you're getting ready for a pitch competition, investor meeting, or just want to improve how you talk about your business — this session is for you.

Wednesday, August 20 - 5:00 PM - 10:00 PM

​We're kicking off the Step San Francisco with a fun and relaxed opening party hosted by Founders Bay. Join fellow founders, investors, and tech leaders for an evening of good conversation, music, and energy as we celebrate the start of an exciting week. 🎶💬

August 20 until August 21 - 9:00 AM - 5:00 PM

Join us for cutting-edge talks, networking, and exclusive savings.

We’re excited to announce our partnership with Step San Francisco 2025 - where the world’s most ambitious founders, investors, and tech leaders come together in the heart of Silicon Valley.

This is your invitation to join us on 20-21 August for a two-day high-energy tech festival spotlighting the latest in AI, deep tech, GenAI, and global scaling. Expect inspiring talks, hands-on sessions, and unbeatable networking opportunities.

We’re thrilled to offer you an exclusive 20% discount on tickets! Just use the code FOUNDERSBAY at checkout.

✨ Big one coming up! ✨

With our sister company SFVibe, we booked the DJs for STEP at The Midway — and we’re bringing the Titanic’s End DJ Crew to light up the night. 🎶🔥

This one’s special — David Carvalho, Chris DN, and I pulled together the live music plan, and we can’t wait to share this evening with you.

If you’re looking to bring world-class DJs and unforgettable vibes to your event — hit us up by emailing [email protected]. We’ve got you →

👉 SF Awesome AI Dev Tools - August (5PM-8:30PM)
📍 Menlo Park
💬 You probably already know that AI is changing the world. Come learn about some of the awesome AI dev tools being worked on.

👉 AI Talks at Qlay with Experts from Apple, Amazon Prime Video, and Narada AI (5:30PM-8PM)
📍 San Francisco
💬 Join us for an exciting gathering in San Francisco that connects enterprise leaders with leading startup founders! The "AI Talks at Qlay" series is a monthly event where industry experts within Qlay's community share about their insights on the latest trends in AI.

👉 Beyond the Code: Agentic AI for Software Engineering (5:30PM-8:30PM)
📍 San Francisco
💬 Working with production systems has become the biggest blocker to engineering velocity, predictability, and developer quality of life, and it's where today's most interesting unsolved problems live.

Join us for an evening of deep dives, live demos, and lightning talks with software engineers, managers, and AI leaders who will share their approach (and their terminals) to coding, debugging, and catapulting their teams forward with agentic AI for production systems, including former DeepMind and OTel builders.

👉 Unleashing Scale for GenAI Workloads & SaaS Data Infrastructure (10AM-3PM)
📍 San Francisco
💬 Ready to take your SaaS applications to the next level? Join our workshop where Kathryn Sizemore and Ayan Ray will dive deep into how TiDB and AWS work better together to supercharge your SaaS and GenAI solutions! TiDB is the only distributed SQL provider certified on the AWS GenAI software competency and in this session, we’ll explore how TiDB’s GenAI features and integration with Amazon Bedrock can transform your workflows. Plus, you’ll learn how TiDB’s scalability and multi-tenancy controls are perfect for tackling even the most demanding workloads.

👉 Reimagining Health Care: AI Meets Value-Based Care (11AM-12PM)
📍 Online
💬 Join leaders from Oliver Wyman and Kaiser Permanente for a powerful conversation on how value-based care and emerging technologies like AI are helping address rising health care costs, support workforce health, and improve how care is delivered and experienced.

👉 AI Design Summit: Shaping the Future (5PM-8PM)
📍 San Francisco
💬 Join us for an exciting gathering in San Francisco that connects enterprise leaders with leading startup founders!

👉 Innovate & Collaborate: A Hands-On Miro AI Experience (5PM-7PM)
📍 San Francisco
💬 Join us for Innovate & Collaborate: A Hands-On Miro AI Experience, an exclusive event for startups and makers in San Francisco.

Don't miss this opportunity to connect, learn, and elevate your capacity to innovate!

👉 AI's Next Frontier (5PM-8:30PM)
📍 San Francisco
💬 They’re both software — just in different form factors.
AI, algorithms, and automation are no longer confined to screens — they’re embedded in biology, shaping life itself, and steering robots across factory floors.

👉 🧠 The AI Collective Tri-Valley | AI Builders & Backers: Demos + Funding Tactics (5PM-8PM)
📍 San Ramon
💬 Join us for an evening of real conversations in San Ramon (near BR city center) with the people shaping the future of AI—from the next generation of talent to seasoned investors. Whether you’re launching something new, scaling a product, or backing bold ideas, this event is for you.

👉 localhost SFO: Platform Engineering Meetup w/ ngrok (5PM-7:30PM)
📍 San Francisco
💬 We’ll talk self-hosting the whole stack, wrangling API gateways, and keeping control when “platform engineering” starts to feel like assembling IKEA furniture blindfolded.

Come, have a chat with your friends at ngrok and talk about all things backend, DevOps and beyond.

Spots are limited as this is a highly curated event. We won't be able to accommodate walk-in registrations so please register ahead!

👉 Where's My Server? MCP Discovery Hack Night (5PM-9PM)
📍 San Francisco
💬 Join us for a Hack Night at Elastic!

In a world where every software product is accessible through an MCP server, agents must choose wisely. But how will they discover the right server at the right time?

At this hack night, we're diving into the future of agent-to-server discovery. Powered by mcp-use and Elasticsearch, your challenge is to build a better discovery layer: an index, a search interface, a ranking system, something an agent could actually use to choose which server or tool to invoke.

👉 AI Design Summit: Shaping the Future (5PM-8PM)
📍 San Francisco
💬 Join us for an exciting gathering in San Francisco that connects enterprise leaders with leading startup founders!
This hybrid summit brings together design leaders, AI practitioners, and tech founders to reframe AI not just as a tool, but as a reflection of our collective values, creativity, and conscience
This event is hosted by Qlay and** Digital Garage US**.

👉 Agent Infra Demo Night: Hosted by Essence VC, Georgian & Datadog (5:30PM-9PM)
📍 San Francisco
💬 We're hosting a demo night in San Francisco for technical founders and builders working on agent infrastructure and infra tools. No pitches, no panels—just demos, food, and good conversations!
Come hang out with other engineers building real things. We’ll kick things off with pizza and drinks, then move into short, focused demos. After that, it’s open time to connect, ask questions, and share what you’re working on.

👉 SF AI/ML Meetup - Agents of Intelligence: Engineering the Next Generation of AI Systems (5:30PM-9PM)
📍 San Francisco
💬 Join us for an engaging AI/ML Meetup focused on the evolving landscape of AI technologies. In Agents of Intelligence: Engineering the Next Generation of AI Systems, we'll explore how autonomous agents and cutting-edge ML architectures are shaping the future of AI development.

👉 FoundHer Demo Day (5:30PM-8PM)
📍 San Francisco
💬 We’ve spent the summer building from the world’s only all-female hacker house.
Now we are excited to share on August 19th in the heart of SF.
This demo day is for investors looking for their next unicorn, builders looking to join an amazing team, and friends looking to support their friends - and meet new ones!

👉 AngelList Summer Happy Hour (6PM-8:30PM)
📍 San Francisco
💬 As summer winds down and calendars start filling up, we're bringing together GPs for an evening of connection and conversation. No panels. No presentations. Just great people, good vibes, and a chance to unwind over great food and drinks.
Whether you’re catching up with familiar faces or meeting new ones in the private markets space, we’d love for you to join us.

👉 Mountain View Robotics Mixer (6:30PM-8:30PM)
📍 Mountain View
💬 Come join us at InOrbit for an evening of networking and fun with fellow robotics enthusiasts. Whether you're a seasoned pro or just starting out, this event is the perfect opportunity to connect with like-minded individuals, share ideas, and maybe even spark some collaborations. Don't miss out on this chance to mingle, learn, and have a great time in the exciting world of robotics!

👉 AI evals on tap w/ Braintrust (6:30PM-9:30PM)
📍 San Francisco
💬 Join us for AI Evals on Tap, an evening of quick, engaging lightning talks from industry leaders on how they're approaching AI evaluations.

Whether you're an engineer, product leader, or AI practitioner, you'll leave with actionable insights on improving reliability and performance. Come grab a beer and pizza, and connect with fellow builders who care about shipping AI products that actually work.

👉 The Roast of Full-Stack Alignment (6:30PM-8:30PM)
📍 San Francisco
💬 Tired of pretending to like -yet another- AI alignment paper amidst the endless deluge of Twitter threads? Amen, my friend.

👉 ALIGN AI Executive Summit SF 2025 (9AM-4PM)
📍 San Francisco
💬 Join 200+ senior data and AI leaders for a high-impact, invite-only gathering at the ALIGN AI Executive Summit in San Francisco. Designed for enterprise executives shaping AI strategy, this one-day summit dives deep into the tools, platforms, and products driving real-world AI adoption.

Expect curated content and peer-to-peer conversations focused on turning AI ambition into enterprise-scale execution—from infrastructure and governance to vendor selection and ROI across

👉 HealthTech Hang's August Helpful (and Happy) Hour (2:30PM-5PM)
📍 San Francisco
💬 JOIN US for a "Helpful Hour" and empower fellow HealthTech founders, builders, operators, and enablers! Don't worry, it will be happy too 🥳

👉 Build a coding agent that fixes bugs using Agno, xpander.ai, and Amazon Bedrock (5PM-8:30PM)
📍 San Francisco
💬 Frameworks like Agno make it easy to build autonomous AI agents. But shipping a production-ready agent that integrates with your tools, writes usable code, and scales across your environment still takes too much work.

👉 The KumoRFM Hackathon Challenge (5PM-8PM)
📍 San Francisco
💬 Join the KumoRFM Hackathon Challenge and show us what you can create using KumoRFM, our foundation model for business data that delivers instant, accurate predictions..

👉 Founders Bay: Women Pitch Practice (5PM-8PM) [HOSTED BY ME]
📍 San Francisco
💬 Founders Bay: Women Pitch Practice is a friendly and supportive space for women founders to practice their startup pitches, receive helpful feedback, and grow their confidence —hosted by Mariane Bekker from Founders Bay, Jeni Chang from Founder Institute and Natalie Pan from Funding Breakthrough Lab (accepting Aug cohort applications). Whether you're getting ready for a pitch competition, investor meeting, or just want to improve how you talk about your business — this session is for you.

👉 STEP SF Opening Party @ Barbarossa (7PM-11PM) [HOSTED BY FOUNDERBAY]
📍 San Francisco
💬 ​We're kicking off Step San Francisco 2025 with a fun and relaxed opening party hosted by Founders Bay. Step is the global tech conference for founders, investors, and innovators - connecting thriving startup scenes across North America, the Middle East, and Europe. After hosting 50,000+ attendees and thousands of startups over the past decade, we’re back in Silicon Valley for the second edition of Step SF.

👉 Learn How to Play: Poker Night! (5PM-8PM)
📍 San Jose
💬 Ever wanted to learn poker but didn’t know where to start? Now is your chance. Whether you have never played before or are looking to meet other tech people, this night is all about learning, laughing, and meeting new people! Have fun with us in the South Bay.

👉 Rillet and Inscope Finance Leaders Dinner (5:30PM-8:30PM)
📍 San Francisco
💬 We are gathering a group of finance leaders from the Bay Area for a discussion on how AI is transforming the finance function. The group will be intentionally small to facilitate discussion amongst peers. InScope and Rillet leaders will also share their first hand experience and insights on current AI capabilities and how it's being applied across the finance functions.

👉 Step SF 2025: The AI & Tech Startup Festival [FOUNDERSBAY 20% off] (9AM-5PM)
📍 San Francisco
💬 Join 1,200+ attendees and 150+ companies as we dive into AI agents, deep tech, GenAI, and global scaling - right in the heart of Silicon Valley.

We’ve got an incredible speaker lineup taking shape - and this is just the beginning. From top investors to visionary founders, these are the people you want to hear from. Many more to be announced soon… 👀

👉 STEP SF Closing Party (6PM-8:30PM)
📍 Midway
💬 After hosting 50,000+ attendees and thousands of startups over the past decade, we’re back in Silicon Valley for the second edition of Step SF.

​Now it’s time to wrap it all up with a proper celebration. Join us at The Midway for the Step SF Closing Party - a night of music, energy, and community.

​Expect live DJ sets to keep the vibes going:

👉 AI Transformation Conference (9AM-5PM)
📍 San Francisco
💬 In the intelligence-driven era, all products and services warrant AI-powered technological transformation, upgrading, or complete redesign, which will unleash tremendous market potential. Enterprises failing to achieve intelligent transformation risk permanent elimination from their industries.

👉 Women Building with AI: SF Lunch & Learn Roundtable (11:30AM-1:30PM)
📍 San Francisco
💬 Join us for our first San Francisco gathering of Women Building with AI!
This intimate roundtable brings together women who are curious about, experimenting with, or leading AI initiatives – whether that's building your first chatbot, automating your workflow, launching an AI startup, or transforming how your company works.

👉 Innodata & Twill Present Prompt Exchange: Unlock the Playbook: How Visionary AI Leaders are Scaling Companies to $1B+ Rapidly (5PM-8PM)
📍 San Francisco
💬 Join us for the launch of Prompt Exchange, an exclusive new event series from Innodata and Twill, uniting top tech execs and bold thinkers at the cutting edge of data and AI.

👉 The Future of Creativity: AI, Art & the Human Touch (5PM-8PM)
📍 San Francisco
💬 Join us for an evening exploring the shifting landscape of creativity and art in the age of technology and AI. Hosted at Freepik’s brand-new San Francisco office, this event brings together creatives, technologists, and community leaders for a conversation about what’s next. In partnership with 2rt.studio as our creative partner and Creative Mornings SF as our community partner, we’re excited to bring you an inspiring night of dialogue, connection, and creative exploration.

👉 Mid-Year Capital Outlook 2025 (5PM-7PM)
📍 Palo Alto
💬 The mid-year capital outlook presents a crucial juncture for investors, economists and business leaders as they navigate the ever-evolving financial landscape. Join us as our panel assesses current market trends, evaluates economic indicators, and discusses potential shifts in the global financial markets. They will also share insights into sectors that are likely to thrive or face challenges.

👉 MCP & AI Agents: Drinks + Panel with Anthropic, Cloudflare, Stytch, & Arcade (5PM-8PM)
📍 San Francisco
💬 Join engineers from Anthropic, Cloudflare, Stytch, and Arcade for an evening exploring the cutting edge of MCP and AI agents.

👉 Founder Cocktail Class | Intercom, Numeral, Fondo (6PM-9PM)
📍 San Francisco
💬 Knowing how to make drinks makes you a better founder. Facts.
You’ll learn how to make two classic cocktails (one shaken, one stirred) in a guided class. No prior experience necessary!
Location (San Francisco) shown to approved guests. This event is exclusively for founders.

👉 Responsible AI with Centific + Virtue AI (Palo Alto) (6PM-9PM)
📍 Palo Alto
💬 Join Virtue AI CEO Bo Li and Centific Field CTO, Abhishek Mukherji as we learn from the top minds in Responsible AI and AI Safety.

👉 San Francisco n8n Meetup – Featuring Agents In The Loop Hackathon Winners (6PM-9PM)
📍 San Francisco
💬 Join us for our third n8n Community Meetup in San Francisco, where we’ll be showcasing something special — a live demo from the winning team of the “Agents In The Loop” Hackathon! 🏆

👉 SF MANGO++ Madness Gala (6PM-8PM)
📍 San Francisco
💬 Step into the high-tech energy of MANGO++ Madness Gala by Supermomos — a night of elevated style, electrifying beats, and meaningful connections with top minds from the world’s leading AI and tech innovators.

👉 AI x Design Happy Hour by Asari, Nabi & HAC (6PM-8PM)
📍 San Francisco
💬 Join a vibrant evening where creativity flows. Mingle with fellow designers in the AI space, swap bold ideas, and spark connections that could shape your next big project.

👉 Silicon Valley Founders Meetup 🦄 (6PM-8:30PM)
📍 Palo Alto
💬 Join us for a lively evening at our Founders & Investors Social! This casual gathering is the perfect opportunity to mingle, connect, and unwind with fellow founders and investors in a relaxed atmosphere.

👉 SF Voice AI Builders Meetup (6PM-9PM)
📍 San Francisco
💬 This is your stage to show off what you're building, learn from fellow builders, and connect with the most innovative voice AI experts in the area.

👉 Agents + MCP = Personal AI Assistant (6PM-8PM)
📍 Palo Alto
💬 GetGather MCP makes it easy to connect your agents to real-world user data—like Amazon orders, DoorDash history, airline bookings, and more. No developer accounts or messy APIs. Turn your agent into a truly helpful personal assistant in minutes!
Come join our builder meetup! We’ll kick things off with three assistant demos using GetGather MCP

👉 Data Engineering Summit (6PM-9PM)
📍 Palo Alto
💬 Let’s cut to what matters: modern data engineering is less about sexy code and more about cleaning up after your data’s existential crisis.

👉 Grant Writing Essentials - 1 Day Workshop (9AM-1PM)
📍 San Francisco
💬 This course equips participants with the practical skills and strategies needed to write compelling, fundable grant proposals. From identifying suitable funding sources to crafting persuasive narratives, the course walks learners through every stage of the grant writing process. Whether you’re a beginner or looking to enhance your current grant-writing capabilities, this course provides the tools to increase funding success rates.

👉 AWS AI Hack Day Micro Conference (9:30AM-8PM)
📍 San Francisco
💬 Get ready for an exciting day of learning, hacking, networking, and innovation! This event is all about exploring the potential of AI and creating impactful solutions alongside fellow developers.

👉 Women in AI Pitch Competition (4PM-8PM)
📍 San Francisco
💬 Join Oasis Collective and Women in AI Club at Silicon Valley Bank Experience Center on Friday, August 22nd for the inaugural Women in AI Pitch Competition—an inspiring evening of pitches, curated networking, and celebration spotlighting top women-led startups and artificial intelligence.
This premiere event will bring together trailblazing founders, top investors, technologists, and community champions to connect, showcase transformative ideas, and uplift the next generation of AI leadership.

👉 Founder Beach Club: Summer Of Rho 🌅 (6PM-9:30PM)
📍 San Francisco
💬 Take a quick break from building for an epic night on the coast, featuring endless BBQ from a private chef, fire dancers, top DJs playing alongside live instrumentation, sunset ocean views, and roaring bonfires under the stars. With a curated guest list of SF's top founders, this isn't just a meetup, it's your iconic summer moment.

👉 SF Voice AI Builders Meetup (6PM-9PM)
📍 San Francisco
💬 This is your stage to show off what you're building, learn from fellow builders, and connect with the most innovative voice AI experts in the area.
Community Demo Showcase (3-minute demos)

👉 YC Agents Hackathon (6PM-8PM)
📍 San Francisco
💬 Join us at the YC office for an invite-only hackathon focused on AI Agents and MCP. We're bringing together top builders, current-batch YC founders, and guests from** Vercel, Convex, and Y Combinator** for a 24-hour hackathon ending in live demos and shipped product.

👉 STARTUPS MIX & PITCH (6PM-9PM)
📍 Mountain View
💬 The evening kicks off with an open mixer. Then, we delve into a pitch session. Witness startups present their ideas to a panel of judges and participate in collaborative pitch reviews.
Idea-stage founders are more than welcome!

👉 Agent Foundry (9AM-9:30PM)
📍 San Francisco
💬 An invite-only, founder-focused sprint where 200 of the brightest developers, researchers, and AI innovators build venture-scale products with AI agents and Model Context Protocol (MCP). Designed for exceptional talent ready to launch the next wave of AI-driven startups.

👉 Digital Marketing: Strategies in the Times of AI (7PM-8PM)
📍 Online
💬 AI changes digital marketing. Adapt your skills.
This live online workshop helps San Francisco marketers update their strategies. Learn what works in digital marketing with AI, new algorithms, and changing audiences.

👉 Startup Intro to VC: Connect with Investors in San Francisco and Beyond (7PM-10PM)
📍 Online
💬 This online event teaches startup founders about venture capital. We help you understand how to get funds for your business growth. Finding and talking to investors can seem hard. This event makes it simple. You will get clear, useful information. You will learn how to approach investors.

👉 AGI BBQ Series: Consumer AI Demo (10AM-12PM)
📍 Hillsborough
💬 Join us for the AGI BBQ Series — an ongoing gathering where the most innovative consumer AI founders come together to demo their latest AI-native products, swap insights, and connect over sizzling Brazilian BBQ.

👉 Future Flight Lab (10AM-4PM)
📍 Menlo Park
💬 Future Flight Lab is a one-day hands-on drone workshop for kids in grades 4–8, featuring actual drone startup founders, FPV drone racers, and aerospace scientists as mentors. Build and fly your own drone while exploring the science of flight and the future of aviation.

🎤 Spotlight Readiness: Pitch with Presence & Poise – Highlights from Founders Bay’s Communication Mastery Workshop with Clarisse Nichole

At our latest Founders Bay Virtual Workshop, founders and leaders learned how to transform high-stakes moments—from investor pitches to keynote talks—into opportunities that inspire action. Led by Clarisse Nichole, a seasoned performer with 30 years on stage and a background in corporate training, the session focused on turning nerves into presence, and preparation into impact.

Clarisse’s mantra? A brilliant idea means little if it’s not delivered with clarity, confidence, and connection.

💡 Key Takeaways:

🔹 Calm Your System Before You Speak
High-pressure moments trigger fight-or-flight. Clarisse shared breathwork and vocal reset techniques to center yourself, steady your voice, and release tension before stepping into the spotlight.

🔹 Reconnect to Your “Why”
When nerves rise, purpose fades. Clarisse guided participants to align with the deeper reason behind their pitch or presentation—helping every word land with intention.

🔹 Build a Pre-Performance Ritual
From warm-up stretches to vocal exercises, having a consistent ritual before speaking primes your mind and body for peak performance—whether you’re in a boardroom or on a big stage.

🔹 Presence Is More Than Posture
Eye contact, controlled pacing, and vocal variety keep your audience engaged. Clarisse demonstrated how subtle shifts in delivery can amplify credibility and command attention.

🔹 Confidence Is a Skill, Not a Trait
Clarity comes from preparation, but confidence comes from practice under realistic conditions. Simulating pitch environments helps replace anxiety with muscle memory.

Stay tuned for our next Founders Bay session.

View the entire workshop video here: