Unicorns or Lemmings: How to Know which Investments Will Take Off How does a VC spot a winner out of a wide range of options? Are there too many start-ups to evaluate properly? At what point in the investment cycle does a VC know whether company is going to be top performer or a flop?  Continue Reading »

Join us on Thursday, January 30th at Columbia University’s Career Design Lab in San Francisco, as we hold the final event in our 4-part series showcasing the “Traction Gap” framework for early-stage startups. The series is geared toward startup founders, entrepreneurial product managers, and corporate innovators. Part 4 will once again feature Bruce Cleveland, Founding  Continue Reading »

How Diversity Drives Entrepreneurial Success Tuesday, January 28 | 2:30 – 3:45 p.m. | Location: Ignite Theater Are organizations missing out on great ideas from within because of the monocultural group that initially reviews them? An active professional and social debate about “manels” (all-male panels), unbalanced review boards and advisory teams is underway. Join us to  Continue Reading »

Unicorns or Lemmings: How to Know which Investments Will Take Off How does a VC spot a winner out of a wide range of options? Are there too many start-ups to evaluate properly? At what point in the investment cycle does a VC know whether company is going to be top performer or a flop?  Continue Reading »

Lack of Market Engineering is why 80% of Startups Fail We’re here to show you how to nail it! Join Wildcat Venture Partners and ColdPressed Marketing for a special l1/2 ay workshop and learn how to do the market engineering work required to create a powerful growth engine. Hear from special guest speaker, Larry Carillo,  Continue Reading »

The San Francisco Chapter of the Columbia Venture Community cordially invites you to attend our 5th Annual Columbia Alumni Startup Demo Night. If you’re interested in seeing first-hand what kinds of awesome companies Columbia entrepreneurs are starting, don’t miss this event! This is also a great opportunity to network and connect with fellow alumni from the region. The  Continue Reading »

Join us on Wednesday, September 25th at Columbia University’s Career Design Lab in San Francisco, as we hold our third event in a 4-part series showcasing new frameworks for practicing early-stage startup innovation. The series is geared toward startup founders, entrepreneurial product managers, and corporate innovators. Part 3 in the series will once again feature  Continue Reading »

Join Capital Factory in welcoming Wildcat Venture Partners on October 8, 2019 for a Lunch & Learn infosession. Industry statistics show that more than 80% of all startups fail. The reason? While most startup teams have strong product engineering skills, many lack the “market engineering” skills required to successfully take their products to market and subsequently  Continue Reading »

Join us on Thursday, June 20th at Columbia University’s Career Design Lab in San Francisco as we hold our second event in a 4-part series showcasing new frameworks for practicing early-stage startup innovation. The series is geared toward startup founders, entrepreneurial product managers, and corporate innovators. Part 2 in the series will feature a fireside  Continue Reading »

From Ideation to Scale: Achieving Startup Traction Join Bruce Cleveland, Founding Partner of Wildcat Venture Partners, and author of the book Traversing the Traction Gap as he discusses the process startup teams can use to go from ideation to scale. Date:  Tuesday, April 23rd Time: 7:00 – 9:00 pm Location: 2490 Middlefield Road, Palo Alto  Continue Reading »

Join us on Thursday, March 21 at Columbia University’s new Career Design Lab in San Francisco as we kick off a quarterly event series showcasing new methods and frameworks for practicing early-stage innovation. The series is geared toward startup founders, entrepreneurial product managers, and corporate innovators. The first event in the series will feature a  Continue Reading »

Did you miss it? Wildcat Venture Partners held our 4th Annual Startup Mixer on Monday, March 11th, during the SXSW Interactive Festival. This year, we partnered with First Republic Bank and Shareworks to gather the industry’s most prolific minds, cultivating a lively environment for our guests to make meaningful connections. Guests were invited to escape the chaos and find  Continue Reading »

World of Connections 2018 – Digital Transformation World of Connections is an invitation-only event gathering together 300 entrepreneurs, innovators, VCs, and technology leaders. This year the focus is on Digital Transformation. Digital transformation is the integration of digital technology into all areas of a business. The most disruptive startups today are Data First companies. They are leveraging cloud, sensors,  Continue Reading »

The CHRO Institute is an executive level program designed for high potential human resources executives looking to develop and enhance their leadership skills. They focus specifically on HR leadership challenges, rather than technology, sales or general leadership as do many other programs. Their sessions are taught and facilitated by Fortune 1000 CHROs and Columbia faculty  Continue Reading »

Products That Count is one of the largest networks of product managers in the world. Over 200,000 product managers committed to building great products join to network, learn and get inspired by leaders such as WVP Founding Partner Bruce Cleveland, Netflix Product VP, Coinbase CPO, and Box CPO. They attend local speaker series, listen to  Continue Reading »

SVOD or Silicon Valley Open Doors is a leading technology investment conference that brings in an eclectic mix of 2000 most creative, forward-thinking, and insightful people in the entrepreneurial and investment world to the heart of it all – the Silicon Valley! From founders to CEOs, from industry legends to brand young entrepreneurs, SVOD brings together  Continue Reading »

The annual Horasis Global Meeting is one of the world’s foremost gatherings of business leaders who interact with key government officials and eminent thought leaders. The Horasis community of more than 400 selected world leaders from 70 countries gathered for an unparalleled experience advancing solutions to the most critical challenges facing corporations and societies today.  Continue Reading »

Did you miss it? Wildcat Venture Partners held our 3rd Annual Startup Mixer on Monday, March 12th, during the SXSW Interactive Festival. This year, we partnered with ATX Seed Ventures to gather the industry’s most prolific minds, cultivating a lively environment for our guests to make meaningful connections. Wildcat and ATX Seed Ventures invited guests to escape the chaos of  Continue Reading »

Did you miss it? Wildcat hosted the Product Architecture Series – Designing Pillars for Success On March 1st, international design and consulting firm, IDEO, joined forces with Wildcat Venture Partners and the Traction Gap Institute to host another thought-provoking event. The Product Architecture Series – Designing Pillars for Success, focused on new businesses getting to  Continue Reading »

Startup Culture: Where do we go from here? There’s been a well-documented breakdown in the culture and values of Silicon Valley. From Uber’s founder’s threats, to allegations that Google failed to act on sexual harassment and gender discrimination complaints. We’ve created an ecosystem of “fun” workplaces with all the perks – from espresso machines to  Continue Reading »

Kicking off in the Davos during World Economic Forum week, the SOLVER Series brings together thinkers, innovators and cross-sector leaders to share and spark new solutions and partnerships to impact the global goals. Shape the World is one of many independent, exclusive sessions and introduces world-changing projects run by the Global Shapers Community, an initiative  Continue Reading »

As part of the 1Mby1M initiative, Sramana Mitra is offering this FREE online 1M/1M strategy roundtable to entrepreneurs interested in discussing positioning, financing, and other aspects of a start-up venture. Using Webex Events, up to five entrepreneurs will be able to pitch their businesses and all other attendees can join in on the conversations via a live  Continue Reading »

SeedCon: Entrepreneurship and Venture Capital Conference Cohosted by the Entrepreneurship and Venture Capital (EVC) student group at Chicago Booth and the Polsky Center, SeedCon is a conference designed to bring together successful entrepreneurs and seasoned venture capitalists to share ideas and advice, foster creativity, and ignite the entrepreneurial spirit within. Registration is now open for SeedCon 2017. Event Details Friday,  Continue Reading »

The 1st annual Bay Area Muster invites veterans, corporate partners and innovators to come, bring their best ideas and develop new connections and insights. Bunker Labs, a not-for-profit organization and national network of entrepreneurs founded by military veterans to help other veterans start and grow businesses, is excited to announce the Muster Across America Tour.  Continue Reading »

Women Founders Network: Building the Female Entrepreneur Ecosystem The focus and goal of WFN is to connect women founders building high-growth businesses not only with the required capital but also with the resources, connections, mentorship and sponsorship that they need to grow scalable, transformative, successful businesses. WFN has awarded and directly invested $485,000 in women-founded  Continue Reading »

This October 2,000 of the best and brightest will gather to discuss, witness, and share the leading cutting-edge innovations transforming today’s global health care system. Health 2.0’s flagship event connects thought leaders, providers, innovators, investors, and start-ups for four days packed full of curated discussions, demos, exhibits and networking. In 2017 we’re showcasing over 100 speakers, 150+ LIVE tech  Continue Reading »

On August 21, 2017, Wildcat Venture Partners hosted an intimate evening for our portfolio and industry friends on How to Differentiate with Data Science. We welcomed special guest speaker, Eric Colson, Chief Algorithms Officer at Stitch Fix, who discussed what it means to differentiate by data science vs. merely using it as a supportive tactic. Guests  Continue Reading »

Date: August 4, 2017 Techstars LA accelerator takes a horizontal focus and will accept tech startups from around the world that are innovating across a wide range of industries and challenges and seeking to build a deep network across the Los Angeles tech ecosystem. For more information visit their website.

Bunker Brews are a great place to expand your veteran network, learn from experts, and be inspired to act on your own venture ideas. This month our very own Bunker Labs CEO, Todd Connor will be in attendance and our new Bay Area Executive Director, Justine Evirs will be moderating a discussion with Bruce Cleveland. DATE AND TIME  Continue Reading »

On May 12, 2017, we opened our doors and welcomed 150 of our closest friends and partners to the new Wildcat office in San Mateo. With entrepreneurs, executives, industry partners, other venture capitalists, and our Limited Partners in attendance, the evening was full of laughs and great conversations. People mixed, mingled, dined on light bites,  Continue Reading »

Date: May 4, 2017 Katherine Barr will be participating in a workshop at Caltech on Negotiations. The workshop is being held for undergrad and graduate Caltech students.

Katherine Barr to speak at Stanford Entrepreneurial Finance & Management Class on April 20, 2017.

Bruce Cleveland discusses Navigating the Traction Gap EVENT LINK: VetCon WHEN: Friday, March 24, 2017, 4:00-4:45pm (PT) WHERE: GSV Labs – 585 Broadway, Redwood City, CA

Every March, thousands of people flood the city of Austin for SXSW Interactive. The city is transformed into a funhouse of networking opportunities for up and coming millennial professionals, seasoned industry veterans and everyone in between. This year Wildcat Venture Partners hosted its 2nd Start-up Mixer, bringing together these talented minds in one place. What’s  Continue Reading »

Bryan Stolle will be speaking on the following panel at SXSW 2017. Psychopaths in Silicon Valley: A Guide Whether you’re living the startup life or laughing at its caricature portrayal in HBO’s “Silicon Valley,” you’ve likely used the word “psychopath” as a casual insult. Is there any truth to it? There are uncanny parallels in  Continue Reading »

Bill Ericson to judge Gigaom’s 2017 AI Start-up competition at Gigaom AI 2/15-2/16 in San Francisco. Gigaom will be holding our first annual competition for the AI start-up that delivers the highest ROI to corporate customers. The GAIN competition coincides with the annual conference Gigaom AI held in San Francisco, CA, February 15-16th 2017. AI  Continue Reading »

  Phyllis Whiteley joins the judging panel to choose the winner out of the 3 finalist teams of the UC Berkeley Method of Entrepreneurship Boot-camp on Friday, January 13, 2017, 10 – 12 noon, at Banatao Auditorium in Sutardja Dai Hall on UC Berkeley campus.  Participants in the boot-camp include 80+ Berkeley students (engineering, liberal  Continue Reading »

Rapid technological innovation along with an in escapable shift in consumer behavior is creating nothing short of a revolution. Those who don’t change won’t just lose business; they may stand to be out of business. InsureTech Connect is dedicated to helping companies make sense of the tectonic shifts taking place so you can plan for the future  Continue Reading »

On Monday, October 3rd Wildcat had the honor of hosting one of the only screenings in the bay area for the film Generation Startup. The film gives you a glimpse into the struggles and triumphs of six recent college graduates who put everything on the line to build startups in Detroit. It is an honest, in-the-trenches  Continue Reading »

Last week, Wildcat hosted the first in a series of Traction Gap events. Following up on our June launch event where we introduced the Traction Gap, we were excited to announce the formation of the Traction Gap Institute (TGI) and its strategic partnership with Velocity, a top-tier executive coaching firm led by John Baird and Ben Tauber. Guests were treated to  Continue Reading »

Join us as we explore the next wave of disruptive big data, advanced analytics and AI as it meets new business and engagement models, interconnected digital ecosystems, digital core systems, and regulatory challenges. Insurance Disrupted is the FIRST Conference to focus on InsurTech and the disruption happening in Insurance industry because of it.  We also are the  Continue Reading »

Abhas brings his deep and broad experience to MATTER, where he will discuss his digital health investment thesis: where he thinks the biggest opportunities are, where he’s bearish, and what the changing makeup of the healthcare industry and adoption of value-based care mean for all stakeholders. He’ll discuss why he and his team believe Clover  Continue Reading »

The Ascendant is an exclusive, nomination-based professional network for the most prominent and progressive senior executives at the forefront of marketing transformation. Along with hard-hitting content, what sets this conference apart is its strong focus on elevating member influence through a series of personal branding resources, one-on-one executive coaching sessions, and high-level networking opportunities. Ascendant’s  Continue Reading »

Last week Wildcat Venture Partners co-hosted Product Sync, a meet-up for Silicon Valley’s top product managers, entrepreneurs, and VC’s. Following up on our recent launch event where we introduced the Traction Gap, we were excited to share the framework with entrepreneurs and PM’s in our portfolio and broader ecosystem. We co-hosted Product Sync with Nikunj  Continue Reading »

Twice a year, C100 brings up to 20 promising Canadian companies to Silicon Valley for 48Hrs of mentorship, networking opportunities, investor meetings, and unparalleled access to C100’s extensive network in Silicon Valley. “48Hrs in the Valley” has been a signature C100 program with over 200 alumni companies since 2010. These startups have collectively raised over  Continue Reading »

The Girls in Tech Catalyst Conference is a three-day event showcasing women at the forefront of the technology and start-up spaces, with inspiring keynotes from female leaders, as well as workshops, panel discussions, and networking events. The conference offers attendees exciting discussion and sage advice on innovation and technology, and will provide them with a  Continue Reading »

The Viseo Talent Summit will bring together the tech industry’s best and brightest head of talent, recruitment, PE and VC investors and CxOs at the heart of today’s emerging enterprises. Join Elizabeth Patterson and panelists as they discuss the current challenges and solutions for attracting and keeping top talent in the competitive environment. A sampling  Continue Reading »

Every year, SXSW Interactive takes over Austin, transforming the city into a networking hub for professionals, budding business people and everyone in between. This year Wildcat Venture Partners and Mohr Davidow teamed up with Escalate Capital to host the 6th Annual Start-up Mixer in an effort to bring together these talented minds in one place.  Continue Reading »

Wildcat Venture Partners and Mohr Davidow Ventures announced that they will be hosting a private screening of CodeGirl, the latest documentary from Director Lesley Chilcott (executive producer of An Inconvenient Truth and Waiting for Superman). After the film—which follows ten teams of girls as they compete in Technovation, an entrepreneurship and coding competition—Katherine Barr, general partner at Wildcat Venture Partners,  Continue Reading »

The rumors are real. Word on the street is that a certain Fortune 40 company has been preparing for a first-of-its-kind experimental retail space – their own Bat Cave – and instead of Gotham, this one’s in SoMA.  The space is dedicated to exploring a new sector of the economy that is forecast to contribute $1.7 trillion to the global economy with  Continue Reading »

Katherine Barr of Wildcat Venture Partners would like to invite you to an intimate dinner for visionaries who have become leaders in their fields, changed the game, and inspired others to follow their own, unique paths. Event Link: 25at25.splashthat.com Date: Thursday May 21, 2015 Time: 5:00pm Location: Twenty Five Lusk   Speakers: Tina Perry Executive Vice President, Business  Continue Reading »

SXSW is a crazy week of panels, parties, and networking. In the thick of it, Neon teamed up with Mohr Davidow Ventures and their other partners, Wildcat Venture Partners, Comerica Bank, Connectup, BottleRock Napa Valley, Silvercar, and Escalate Capital, to throw a great party at SXSW on Monday. Here are some of our favorite snaps from the event.