Raising a Pre-Seed in 2025
Join the North House community for a lunch and learn fireside chat on Raising a Pre-Seed in 2025
Speakers:
Chris Neumann, Angel/VC
Annika Ng, Blossom Social
Steven ten Holder, Zeroshot Biolabs
Julie Letizia, Benny
Anastasia Kiku, Reusables
Hosted by:
BYOL: bring your own lunch
We'll have coffee + snacks.
And if you wanna come early or stay after to cowork, email [email protected]
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About Chris: Chris Neumann is a 4x founder turned early-stage investor with a focus on enterprise software, developer tools and AI. Chris was previously a General Partner at Panache Ventures, Canada’s leading early-stage fund. Before that, Chris founded Commonwealth Ventures, a San Francisco-based accelerator for Canadian and UK startups. He was also a Venture Partner at 500 Startups, the CEO and Cofounder of DataHero (acquired by Cloudability) and the first employee of Aster Data (acquired by Teradata). Chris is dedicated to supporting the most ambitious founders in Canada and around the world as an investor and through his blog, chrisneumann.com.
About Steven:
Steven is currently building Zeroshot Biolabs: a tech-bio startup creating biological foundation models that translate zebrafish drug-exposure screens into meaningful human pre-clinical insights. Previously, he conceived of and co-founded Acorn Biolabs, a biotech startup accelerated by Y-Combinator, incubated by Johnson&Johnson, and now valued at over $100M. Acorn non-invasively collects, transports, and cryopreserves young cells directly from consumers to superpower future longevity therapeutics.
About Anastasia: As Co-Founder at Reusables.com, Anastasia is on the front lines of the fight against single-use packaging. Reusables is shaping the vision for zero-waste food retail by providing packaging-as-a-service to restaurants and helping them to easily transition from single-use to reuse. In her spare time, you can find Anastasia in the mountains – skiing, hiking, or biking. Her favorite quote is ‘You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough.’
About Annika: She's the Co-Founder and COO of Blossom Social, a fast-growing investing platform with a community of over 400,000 retail investors across North America. At Blossom, they're making investing social. On Blossom, you can share your portfolio, trades, and investment ideas, and learn from each other in a transparent and collaborative way. As COO, she leads operations, partnerships, and user experience, helping scale Blossom into one of the most engaged retail investing communities in the country. I’ve had the privilege of spearheading partnerships with institutions like Nasdaq, BMO, CIBC, VanEck, and State Street, bringing world-class educational content, events, and tools to retail investors.
About Julie: Cofounder of Benny: the first nourishing energy drink without the nasties, powered by yerba mate and brain-boosting adaptogens. They're all over Canada, all over your social media and raising capital to expand.
About North House:
North House is a startup studio for scale-ups. Our members are founders, operators, and builders focused on being the future anchor tech companies of Canada.