Pachamama Ventures & Starshot Capital: Bloomberg Invest Recap Happy Hour
My friend Sam and I are returning to NYC to attend Bloomberg Invest 2026 and we look forward to exchanging notes post-event with fellow VC investors, allocators, and other finance leaders.
Join us for this happy hour at one of the most beloved bar institutions in NYC.
Meet your hosts:
Karen Sheffield, Founder & Managing Partner at Pachamama Ventures from San Francisco, CA
Karen Sheffield is the Founder & Managing Partner of Pachamama Ventures, a venture capital firm investing in US early-stage climate tech companies. Previously, she worked for American Airlines, PepsiCo, and Visa in multiple and progressing finance roles. A self-described operator turned investor, Karen began angel investing 4 years ago and, ever since then, has dedicated much of her time to uncovering opportunities in unlikely places. Karen holds a double degree in Finance and Economics from Texas Christian University (TCU) and an MBA from The University of Texas at Austin.
Karen is an active member of several organizations such as Global Women in VC, WeInvest LATAM, Pipeline Angels (as a VC-in-Residence), among several others. She has also been featured in the Snowball Wealth podcast, StrtupBoost, Women in Climate, VC Lab, and others as a guest speaker. She has made several sector-agnostic pre-seed and seed investments to date (including 6 climate tech deals) and she sits in the advisory board of 2 startups and 1 non-profit organization.
Karen is the "2025 NAWRB Climate Leader" Award recipient with recognition from the California Treasurer's Office and Fiona Ma herself.
Sam Levac-Levey, Founding Partner at Starshot Capital from San Francisco, CA
Sam is a Founding Partner of Starshot Capital. He is also a founding member of Work on Climate – the largest technical climate community in the world – where he previously served as Vice Chair. Before Starshot, Sam did venture work with a family office and corporate alumni community. He has been recognized by the government of Canada as a Canadian Global Executive.
Sam dedicated his early career to understanding the fundamentals of what makes innovation successful in different industries. At SpaceX, he designed tools to increase manufacturing speed and reliability. At Tesla, he designed components to make a new product launch easier to manufacture. At Lilium, he oversaw the design of the fuselage of the electric flying car, balancing the needs of different teams with the required aerodynamic performance.
He also developed a climate education tool that maps & prioritizes over 100 climate solutions, endorsed by key climate figures. The tool provides insights on which solutions are the most impactful, neglected, and ripe for disruption.