Underscore VC

In just over a week, we’re uniting SEVEN Boston tech communities for one big gathering—Tech Communities Unite—hosted by Jovial and Jellyfish! With groups like AIGA Boston, Boston Code and Coffee, Boston Product Management Association (BPMA), Mind the Product ProductTank Boston, Underscore VC Product Core, UXPA Boston, and Women In Product Boston, it’s set to be an incredible night of: ❤️ CONNECTION – People connecting with people—in real life. Everyone’s looking for meaningful connection, and Jovial events are designed to make networking effortless and impactful. With light facilitation and unique experiences, you’ll find specific, actionable ways to support each other. Plus, seven communities in one room? It’s the most efficient, impactful networking event you’ll attend! 🤝 COLLABORATION – Having previously led product teams, I strongly valued my engineering and design counterparts. Within an organization, these teams need to be closely collaborating to ensure they are aligned on what they are building and why. Why not promote that same collaboration across communities? 🌱 LEARNING – We aren't hosting panels, speakers, or fireless 🔥 fireside chats (🤪 find me a fireside chat actually by a fire's side). But Sandra, you say, how will people learn? From one another. My perspective has always been that there is much to be learned from anyone and everyone, and the opportunity to not only connect, but also learn, multiplies when you create moments and places where people may do so. 🔗 REGISTER HERE: https://lu.ma/9wk2adj4 – Note: there is a waitlist - sign up asap, as we’ll be releasing more spots soon! Thank you to Industrious for sharing their beautiful space at their newest South Station location! We are excited to be the very first event hosted at this location! #TechCommunitiesUnite #ProductManagement #Engineering #Design #Networking #bejovial

The Underscore VC Core Summit was truly one of the events of the fall here in Boston. Bravo to the team! One of the panels put together was to discuss "What Boston's Startup Ecosystem Needs to Thrive" with Ari Fine Glantz from New England Venture Capital Association and Patricia Geli from C10 Labs moderated by James Orsillo, CFA from Underscore. My takeaway? Lean into the strengths of what makes Boston's startup ecosystem special: our size. We are only a couple degrees of separation from the resources, partners, and capital needed to take each of us to the next level. Use it! 🤝 Thara Pillai from Harvard Innovation Labs highlighted the need for startups & investors to work more closely together to surface the right opportunities to the right capital providers 👥 Leaders from Klaviyo surfaced the opportunity of better matching talent coming through our university & employer pipelines to hiring employers and hopefully helping both sides more easily match talent 📣 Zach Servideo talked about the importance of highlighting earlier stage companies so they get the visibility and recognition they deserve on their way up the mountain Most of all, there's an optimism in the air that we have all that we need right here. It takes a village. Tell a friend about a local startup or operator and have them pass it on so we can continue to put it all together! Thank you Underscore VC for facilitating the conversation!

The NEVY Award nominations are in! And two of Underscore's portfolio companies, Hi Marley and Herald, will be battling it out for "Hottest Startup of the Year." May the odds be ever in your favor! See you at the NEVYs.

For what it's worth, we would put our money on Chris Gardner winning Survivor... See you at the 12th Annual NEVY Awards!

Ready to relive the magic of #CoreSummit?! We've got you covered. 📽 Did you join us at the summit? We want to hear from you! Tell us who you met, what you learned, or what you thought of the experience in the comments. We would like to say another big thank you to our 2024 sponsors Fidelity Investments, Gunderson Dettmer, GW & Wade | The Colony Group, WilmerHale, Alera Group, Inc., Baker Tilly US, Banc of California, Bank of America, Bridge Bank, Customers Bank, GoingClear | Digital Agency, Mintz, and Wells Fargo for sustaining the heart beat of the Core Community!

🚀 Exciting News from Hue.! We’ve closed a $4.5M funding seed round led by our incredible partners at Fika Ventures and Underscore VC! A huge thank you to our team, VC partners (Arteen Arabshahi and Richard Dulude), and clients who are all on a mission to turn real customers into brands’ most powerful marketing channel. We’re beyond excited for this next chapter. Onward and upward! Thank you to all participating investors for supporting our journey: 💜 - Fika Ventures - Underscore VC - Glasswing Ventures - The MBA Fund - Google for Startups - Heirloom ventures (tristan walker) - Courtyard Ventures - The Graduate Syndicate - Phoenix Fund Go team! Janvi Shah Nicole Clay Sylvan Guo Holly Guenther Elena Allison Angel Catalan Noureen Shallwani #FundingNews #WomenInTech #PoweredByHue #HarvardBusinessschool

The Hue team is supercharging ecommerce conversion through shoppable and authentic, user-generated video technology. And we're thrilled to formally announce that we've backed this team! Read why: https://lnkd.in/eJvq2GJw Having led Hue’s pre-Seed funding, we've recently re-invested into the team’s $4.5M Seed round co-led by Fika Ventures. We were introduced to the Hue team through one of our portfolio company founders, Charlotte Lawson, of Darby - Thank you, Charlotte! Upon meeting the team, we were struck by their unique blend of attributes, expertise, and lived experiences that make them uniquely qualified to serve their customers. Hue CEO Janvi Shah previously worked at Google, where she was a technical product manager with unique visual AI expertise from working on Google Search and Google Photos. Nicole Clay, Hue CMO, previously served as a Marketing Director & Chief of Staff at L’Oreal. Having worked on Lancome and Kiehl brands, she brings relevant industry knowledge to pursue the beauty opportunity. Sylvan Guo, Hue COO, brings years of startup operating chops, serving previously as a Digital Growth and Analytics Manager at fast-growing startups Airbnb and Tubi. If there is a team that deserves to win in this category, and has the lived experience and technical skills required to iterate to success — this is it!

Hi folks. I will be in Vegas next week for Money 2020. My calendars already pretty jammed but if anyone will be there and wants to connect, message me and perhaps we can arrange to bump into each other at one of the endless events and parties! Money20/20

Many thanks to Tony Zhang for prompting me to hold a roundtable using his Sbur platform and for Insperity for hosting the event in their cool space. The topic was Fundraising in Tight Times and we had a great turnout of just the right size for real conversations. We laughed, we cried, and all hugged it out in the end. Founders rock!

LLC or C Corp??? VentureFizz is always looking for ways to help entrepreneurs! We have partnered with Polsinelli to share real conversations and information about startups. In this video, we cover the important topic of Company Formation for startups. We have 3 guest speakers: Rafi Finegold, Founder & CEO of Handily Chris Gardner, Partner at Underscore VC Prithvi Tanwar, Boston Managing Partner at Polsinelli 3 Topics are covered: * LLC versus C Corp * What are the potential downsides of setting up an LLC, including founder equity split and raising capital? * What about the costs associated with setting up your corporate entity? Please note, this video is for informational purposes only and it is not meant to be legal advice for any of these topics. For anyone seeking legal advice, please consult with an attorney. #startups #companyformation #llc #ccorp #entrepreneurship