chris P.

Swell Partners is a mission-oriented, growth-minded venture capital firm based in New York City that is obsessed with helping portfolio companies build world-class teams in order to give them the competitive edge. Swell backs extraordinary founders building category-creating companies and gives them an unfair recruiting advantage. You can think of Swell as a next-gen venture firm with the DNA of a world-class talent agency. Early stage and category agnostic, Swell VC typically invests in seed and series A stage companies across multiple sectors. For the last decade, Swell VC founders Rusty Ralston and Jay Patil have played a key role in the expansion of the New York City tech ecosystem through their investments and startup sales recruiting practice. Previously, as early employees of a venture-backed talent assessment machine learning startup, they learned the importance of recruiting and how a winning culture can determine the outcome of a company. With this serving as the foundation, Swell has solidified a track record of investing in and building some of New York City’s most recent success stories, including Tapad’s $360MM exit. “You win with people” is not a cliche — it is the definition of Swell’s approach with founders and the core philosophy on shaping industry winners. Swell has established an elite talent network comprised of sales, business development, product, and marketing executives who have scaled startups from inception to acquisition and/or IPO. As the best candidates are never looking, Swell helps portfolio companies access top-performing talent that appears hidden or unavailable. Swell VC is a true partner and extension of the team that adds material value where founders need it most: people.

The Angel Capital Association (ACA) is the professional society of angel groups and private investors that invest in high growth, early-stage ventures. Our mission is to fuel the success of angel groups and private investors that invest in high growth, early-stage ventures. ACA provides professional development and delivers services and benefits to support the success of ACA members. We also serve as the promotional voice for the global angel community and the public policy voice for the US professional angel community. ACA membership includes more than 250 angel groups, accredited platforms and family offices from across the world. Our members represent more than 8,000 accredited investors funding approximately 5,000 portfolio companies.

Swell Partners is a mission-oriented, growth-minded venture capital firm based in New York City that is obsessed with helping portfolio companies build world-class teams in order to give them the competitive edge. Swell backs extraordinary founders building category-creating companies and gives them an unfair recruiting advantage. You can think of Swell as a next-gen venture firm with the DNA of a world-class talent agency. Early stage and category agnostic, Swell VC typically invests in seed and series A stage companies across multiple sectors. For the last decade, Swell VC founders Rusty Ralston and Jay Patil have played a key role in the expansion of the New York City tech ecosystem through their investments and startup sales recruiting practice. Previously, as early employees of a venture-backed talent assessment machine learning startup, they learned the importance of recruiting and how a winning culture can determine the outcome of a company. With this serving as the foundation, Swell has solidified a track record of investing in and building some of New York City’s most recent success stories, including Tapad’s $360MM exit. “You win with people” is not a cliche — it is the definition of Swell’s approach with founders and the core philosophy on shaping industry winners. Swell has established an elite talent network comprised of sales, business development, product, and marketing executives who have scaled startups from inception to acquisition and/or IPO. As the best candidates are never looking, Swell helps portfolio companies access top-performing talent that appears hidden or unavailable. Swell VC is a true partner and extension of the team that adds material value where founders need it most: people.

Our mission is to unlock the potential of human creativity—by giving a million creative artists the opportunity to live off their art and billions of fans the opportunity to enjoy and be inspired by it. Spotify transformed music listening forever when it launched in Sweden in 2008. Discover, manage and share over 70m tracks for free, or upgrade to Spotify Premium to access exclusive features including offline mode, improved sound quality, and an ad-free music listening experience. Today, Spotify is the most popular global audio streaming service with 365m users, including 165m subscribers across 178 markets. We are the largest driver of revenue to the music business today.

Rebel Venture Fund (RVF) is a student-run, early stage venture capital fund that operates in conjunction with the University of Nevada Las Vegas. Student associates are involved in the entire investment process, from screening business plans to writing checks. The process is overseen by RVF management board, consisting of venture capitalists, angel investors, attorneys, entrepreneurs, and business executives. Rebel Venture Fund will typically make investments between $25,000 and $50,000.

Kargo creates memorable experiences for advertisers that go beyond the first impression to captivate consumer attention. With its suite of exclusive omnichannel advertising solutions, Kargo helps leading brands drive meaningful customer connections across mobile, social, CTV and the open web. With a focus on performance, Kargo helps the world’s largest advertisers achieve incremental brand lift and higher returns on ad spend. For publishers, Kargo’s proprietary platform maximizes revenue per impression through unique creative and targeting solutions. The key to our success is our people. We’ve built a community that values teamwork, is not afraid to take chances and relentlessly strives to disrupt the industry and stand out from the crowd. Diversity is fundamental to the Kargo culture as we celebrate and embrace our differences in our inclusive workplace. Founded in 2003, Kargo is headquartered in New York with offices across the globe.