Startup Grind Conference 2026

​Where startups from pre seed to series A meet investors ready to change their trajectory.

​Startup Grind Conference is our annual gathering in Silicon Valley for the people building and backing the next wave of startups. For two days, we put early stage teams, investors and ecosystem leaders in the same rooms to talk about product, fundraising, AI and the real work behind growth.

​Every year, thousands of founders and operators fly in to share what is working, what is not and what comes next. On stage and in the hallways, the focus is always on honest conversations and useful connections, not on hype.

​Meet the Speakers – Startup Grind Conference 2026

​This isn’t a recycled conference circuit. The Agenda is LIVE

​And look who is confirmed.....

​It’s the operators building the AI stack.
The founders scaling from 0 → 1 → 100.
And the investors writing the biggest checks in Silicon Valley.

​Here’s who’s taking the stage:

​🚀 AI Infrastructure & Deep Tech

• ​Tuhin Srivastava – CEO & Co-founder, Baseten

• ​Harrison Chase – CEO & Co-founder, LangChain

• ​Lin Qiao – CEO & Co-founder, Fireworks AI

• ​Mitesh Agrawal – CEO, Positron AI

• ​Stefano Ermon – CEO & Co-founder, Inception

• ​Ivan Poupyrev – CEO & Founder, Archetype AI

• ​Maithra Raghu – CEO & Founder, Samaya AI

• ​Soyoung Lee – Head of GTM & Co-founder, TwelveLabs

• ​Robert Brooks – VP of Revenue & Founding Team, Lambda

• ​Travis Addair – Sr Engineering Director, AI at Rubrik | Co-founder & CTO, Predibase

​💡 Founders Building Category-Defining Companies

• ​Dave Ferguson – Co-CEO & Co-founder, Nuro

• ​Amjad Masad – CEO, Replit

• ​Adarsh Hiremath – Co-CEO, Mercor

• ​Gabe Pereyra – President & Co-founder, Harvey AI

• ​Rahul Vohra – Founder & Head of Superhuman Mail

• ​Michel Tricot – CEO & Co-founder, Airbyte

• ​Grant Lee – CEO & Co-founder, Gamma

• ​Karri Saarinen – CEO & Co-founder, Linear

• ​Abhinav Asthana – CEO, Postman

• ​Avlok Kohli – CEO, AngelList

• ​Immad Akhund – CEO & Co-founder, Mercury

• ​Tanay Kothari – CEO & Co-founder, Wispr Flow

• ​Matt Hammel – COO & Co-founder, AirOps

• ​Nurasyl Serik – CEO & Co-founder, RemoFirst

​💰 The Investors Backing the Next Generation

• ​Mamoon Hamid – Partner, Kleiner Perkins

• ​Chetan Puttagunta – General Partner, Benchmark

• ​Sangeen Zeb – General Partner, GV

• ​Hans Tung – Managing Partner, Notable Capital

• ​Christine Tsai – CEO & Founding Partner, 500 Global

• ​Jon Callaghan – Managing Partner & Co-founder, True Ventures

• ​Anish Acharya – General Partner, Andreessen Horowitz

• ​Corinne Riley – Partner, Greylock

• ​Rajeev Dham – Partner, Sapphire Ventures

• ​Steve Jang – Managing Partner & Founder, Kindred Ventures

• ​Stephanie Zhan – Partner, Sequoia Capital

• ​Tomasz Tunguz – Founder, Theory Ventures

• ​Navin Chaddha – Managing Partner, Mayfield

• ​Kobie Fuller – General Partner, Upfront Ventures

• ​Sundeep Peechu – Managing Partner, Felicis

• ​Kanyi Maqubela – Managing Partner, Kindred Ventures

• ​Frédérique Dame – General Partner, GV

• ​Fabiola Quinzaños – Partner, Monashees

• ​Mike Duboe – General Partner, Greylock

• ​Tiffany Luck – Partner, NEA

• ​Matt Kraning – Partner, Menlo Ventures

• ​Brian Rothenberg – Partner, defy.vc

• ​Joe Dormani – Partner, Thomson Reuters Ventures

• ​Ann Bordetsky – Early Stage Investor (NEA, Rival, Uber, Twitter)

• ​Matt Stephenson – Head of Tech Talent, Bain Capital Ventures

​🧠 Product, Platform & Ecosystem Leaders

• ​Tamar Yehoshua – Chief Product & AI Officer, Atlassian

• ​Rachel Wolan – Chief Product Officer, Webflow

• ​Philip W. Braddock – Head of Atlassian for Startups

• ​Wen Sang – COO & Co-founder, Genspark.ai

• ​Sarah Ramos – Head of Marketing, Base10 Partners

• ​Ceci Stallsmith – Head of Marketing, Lovable

​🌉 Community & Platform Builders

• ​Lindsay Amos – Founder, Amos Comms & The Platform Team

• ​Joan DeGennaro – Founder, The Platform Team | Director of Community & Events, Scale Venture Partners

• ​Lindsay Selvitelle – Founder, ls/events & The Platform Team

• ​Maria LaMagna – Founder, Press Publish Studio & The Platform Team

​This is not a theory conference.

​It’s the people writing the checks, building the models, scaling the products, and shaping the AI economy — all in one place.

​More speakers dropping soon.

​Community Partners 2026

​Bay Area Founders Club - The Bay Area Founders Club (BFC), founded by Dr. Paul Fang in Silicon Valley in 2022 and managed by a dedicated group of Stanford alumni and students, is a thriving community of over 100,000 members, including more than 5000 startups and over 1000+ venture capital firms.

​Founder Social Club - Founder community to connect, learn, and grow together ran by Colton Kaplan

​Buzzable - Buzzable makes events go viral and turns them into engaging communities! Ran by Hesam Jafari

​Startup Intros - Startup Intros is where early-stage founders and VCs connect, faster. We’re building a thriving Bay Area startup community through a curated newsletter, in-person events, and tools to streamline the pitch process. Ran by Dev Chandra