Llama Lounge 18: at Zoom HQ in downtown San Jose
Let’s Make History — the Largest GenAI Startup Event in the South Bay
Sold Out. Approved attendees must show gov ID
Llama Lounge celebrates its 2-year anniversary —founded in April 2023
Above: We will be hosted at Zoom HQ in downtown San Jose
- Event Founder: Jeremiah Owyang, Blitzscaling Ventures (Linkedin).
- Ten AI Startups on demo floor, networking, food & bev.
- Gov ID required for entry. Must be registered and approved.
- Travel Recommendations:
-- Paid Parking Garage, 325 W San Fernando (Google Maps)
— Short walk from San Jose Caltrain (Google Maps)
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Primary Audience: AI Founders:
-AI Founders: CEOs of AI Startups (majority)
-Investors who back them
-Corporate AI partners
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Llama Lounge Agenda:
5:00PM:
-Doors open. meet 10 AI startups
6:30pm:
-Group photo by Erick Davidson (1 min)
-Conch Call* and Kickoff: Jeremiah Owyang (3 min)
-Welcome from Eric Yuan, CEO of Zoom (5 min)
-Remarks from San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan (5 min)
-10 AI startup pitches, MC: Product Hunt CEO, Rajiv Ayyangar (20 min)
-Return to demo floors, networking
9:00pm:
Event concludes
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Meet 10 AI Startups on the Demo Floor:
Demo Pitch Emcee: Rajiv Ayyangar CEO of Product Hunt
- Amolino: AI for sales forecasting & deal execution
- Clika: Compress for smaller, faster, hardware-ready
- Daero: Obsessively field-centric AI for construction
- Fetch AI: Platform for agent search and discovery
- InOrbit: AI-powered robot orchestration platform
- Marketrix: Let your software support itself
- Rtvr: Make your browser self-driving
- Streamalive: AI that transforms chat into engagement
- ThingLink: Immersive learning made easy
- Vimes: Crisis intervention software to save kids’ lives
Startups can apply to be featured on the demo floor. Minimum of 3/10 demo slots reserved for women founders, last few events were at parity.
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About Llama Lounge: The AI Startup Event Series
Since April 2023. We feature lightning talks from leading CEOs, government leaders, and industry thought leaders—alongside 10 AI startup pitches and a demo floor for personal demos and relationship-building with AI founders, investors, and corporate AI leaders. The event has been hosted at: Zoom, AWS, GenLab, Stanford, SAP, Canopy, Capgemini, Hanahaus, and birthed at Sunset Squares.
- Watch 1-min drone video of Llama Lounge
- See photos and posts of prior events.
- Logo by Sightbox
- Mentioned in The Atlantic, AdWeek, and Techcrunch
- A signature conch audio call signals event kickoff
- Group photos by ErickD
- No relation to Meta.
#LlamaLounge
Above Chart: Registered attendee data as of May 15th (one week before the event)
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Corporate AI Leaders:, who partner with AI Startups:
Zoom: Execs, Product team, Ecosystem team
Adobe, Engineering Management
Adobe: Lead software engineer
Albertsons: Sr Machine Learning Engineer
Amazon: SWE
Amazon: Business Leader Amazon Pay Product
Amazon: MLE @ Amazon Search Science & AI
Apple, Global Program Stratey
AWS: Director, AWS AI Devices
Bytedance: Director of global patnership
C3 AI, Vice President and Chief Data Scientist
Cisco: Head of Products AI/ML, Speech and Computer Vision
Cisco: Product Manager
Coupa: AI Center of Excellence
Datadog: Head of AI products
Fujitsu Research of America: Alliances
Google, Open Source
Google, Senior Software Engineer
Google, Sr Engineering Manager at Google Colab
HP: Principal AI Solutions Architecture
HPE: SR Marketing Manager
JETRO: Startup relations
IBM: Vice President, Product Management
IBM: Head of Community, AI Alliance
IBM: Artificial Intelligence Researcher
IBM: Software Engineer II, Enterprise AI
Intel: AI research lab
Intel: Engineering
Linkedin: Senior Software Engineer
Lucid Motors: Engineering & Program Management
Mazda Motor Corporation, Innovation & New Ventures
Megagon Labs, Head of Product
Meta, Director, AI Infra Ecosystem and Partnerships
Meta, Product Manager Lead
Meta, Product Manager, AI
NRI: Software Architect
Nvidia: Inception program
Nvidia: Software engineers
Oracle: Software Architect
Palo Alto Networks, TPM
Palo Alto Networks: AI Product Leader
Panasonic: Global Strategy & Transformation
QA, Head of Channels and Ecosystems
Rakuten Symphony, President of Unified Cloud Biz
Salesforce, Sr Director Products
Swisscom Outpost, VP Technology & Innovation
Thesis Capital
UCSC: Innovation & Entrepreneurial Development
ViaPath Technologies: VP of R&D
Volkswagen:, AI Open Innovation & Technology Strategist
Zoominfo, Enterprise Architect
...more to come
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VCs and Investors, backers of AI Startups:
Blitzscaling Ventures
10vc
500 Global
Advantary
AE Investments
Airbus Ventures
AutoTech Ventures
Avenir
BDev Ventures
Berkeley Angel Network
Berkeley SkyDeck
Breakthrough Ventures
Converge VC
Cota Capital
DCG Ventures
DCM Ventures
Dell Tech Capital
Diversity Venture Capital
Dnipro VC
DST Global
Edgerunner Ventures
Embedding VC
Everest AI Ventures
Fetch AI
Forward Deployed VC
G2C Venture Partners
Ganas ventures
Galaxy Ventures
GIC: Gov of Singapore
HP Tech Ventures
HealthTech Capital
Hesperian Ventures
How Women Invest
Inception Studios
Informed Ventures
Insight Partners
Jolly VC
Juniper Ventures / Perplexity Fellow
KX Horizon (KXVC)
LaMarka
MS&AD Ventures
Omni Ventures
Ottomate Global
Pacific 8 Ventures
PodiumVC
Presidio Ventures
Principal Venture Partners
Qualcomm Ventures
Race Capital
Raydiant
Rebellion Ventures
RingCentral Ventures
SHACK15 Ventures
Scale Ventures
Script Assets
Sequoia Capital
ShuckerVC
SignalRank
Singtel Innov8
Speciale Invest
Standard Investments
Samsung Catalyst Fund
Trampoline Venture Partners
Vangal
Venture Builder
VentureXchange Ltd.
Vibranium Ventures
WAVE Ventures
Wipro Ventures
XY Ventures
Zhenfund
...more to come
Above Photo: Llama Lounge 17 at Stanford
Above: Llama Lounge 16 at AWS in SF
Above: Llama Lounge 15 at GenLab with Disrupt in SF
Above: Llama Lounge 14 at SAP in SF
Above: Llama Lounge 13 at Capgemini in SF
Above: Llama Lounge 12 at CANOPY in SF
Above: Llama Lounge 11 at AWS in SF
Above: Llama Lounge 10 at Hanahaus in Palo Alto
Above: Llama Lounge 9 at Capgemini in SF
Above: Llama Lounge 8 at GenLab in SF
You can host an AI event in your city: AI Salon, our sister event series run by my business partner, Jeff Abbott, of Blitzscaling Ventures.