Husky PitchFest is a matchmaking event for anyone interested in entrepreneurship, including founders, aspiring founders, and collaborators who want to share their talent and skills. This new event kicks off in May during UW Innovation Month.

For those who want to attend as fans, the deadline to register is May 9, 2025. Learn more & register here.

In this recurring flagship event, we create an approachable and relaxed discussion environment to build investing skills. By bringing a diverse set of startup ecosystem people together, we work to reduce the power and information asymmetry between founders and funders. While you'll hear a founder pitch, it is only for the benefit of our discussion and isn't a solicitation for investment. Because this is an educational event, we also welcome participants regardless of their accreditation status or active investing role.

Space is limited. Click here to RSVP.

​Join First Row Partners for an interactive workshop on pre-seed deal analysis, designed to help investors refine their decision-making process when evaluating early-stage startups. ​In this session, Yoko Okano and Minda Brusse will lead a deep dive into how to assess investment opportunities at the pre-seed stage—where conviction, market insight, and pattern recognition matter most.

• ​Fundamentals of Identifying a Great Deal – Key factors that signal an early-stage startup's potential.

• Capturing the Core of an Opportunity – How to assess a startup’s product, market demand, and scalability.

• Asking the Right Questions – The most critical investor questions that uncover risks and upside.

​Whether you’re an angel investor, emerging fund manager, or operator-investor, this workshop will equip you with practical tools to navigate the complex world of pre-seed investing.

What are the questions behind the questions that VCs ask? A guide to help prepare you to make every investor interaction count.

We welcomed two fantastic enterprise sales leaders for a conversation about the ins and outs of building a founder-led sales process and how to hire professional sales leaders without the common pitfalls.

This is a short video (14 min) we created for our Ensemble Event Fund investors as we prepared to hear pitches from our semifinalists.

During this workshop, we'll cover the who and why of investing in tech startups, a framework for evaluating early-stage investments, resources to help you get started. Expect a fast pace — so we can have time for Q&A at the end.

In this fast-paced workshop, we cover the basics of fundraising from angels & VCs for founders. Join us to understand the questions to ask yourself around when/where and why of fundraising so you can determine the best path forward for their company.

Chris Yeh, Founding Partner of Blitzscaling Ventures and co-author of the book, Blitzscaling, joined us to share stories and insights about the idea of blitzscaling and what he looks for in companies. Minda met Chris during a Sutton Capital fund manager accelerator last year and enjoyed his perspective.

In this workshop, we walk through elements of the fundraising strategy for founders, in particular as they relate to the development of milestones. We discuss how to describe it as a “spring-loaded” opportunity, and how to navigate the “zig-zag” between company and fundraising milestones. This is an excellent session for founders, but investors are welcome to join us to dig a bit deeper into areas you might consider when talking to founders as they build their capital strategy.