​Date: Tuesday, November 3 · 2:30 – 5:30 PM
Location: Venture Dock, 555 University Ave, Palo Alto

​About the Event

​Most founders only meet a VC when they’re already pitching: polished deck, rehearsed lines, thirty minutes to make the case. This is the opposite of that.

​Our Venture Dock VC Roundtable series continues with another small, off-the-record conversation between founders and an investor, set up for the questions you’d never ask across a pitch table.

​This time we’re hosting Amrit Rao, General Partner at Village Global, a pre-seed and seed firm chaired by Reid Hoffman. Amrit is one of the rarer investors who has also raised venture money himself. Before joining Village, he co-founded and ran Made & Modern Furniture, a VC-backed startup using software and advanced manufacturing to make custom furniture. Before that he spent more than ten years investing at firms like Tiger Management and T. Rowe Price.

​Amrit will start with about 30 minutes on his path and how he thinks about early-stage investing at Village Global. Then it’s open floor. Bring what’s actually on your mind, whether that’s your raise, how to tell your story to someone who’s been on both sides, or something you haven’t figured out how to ask anyone yet.

​The room is kept small on purpose, so expect a real conversation rather than a panel.

​We’re also closing the afternoon with a private hour-long roundtable with Amrit, just for Venture Dock members. It’s a smaller room for deeper questions about what you’re building and how you’re raising.

​Meet the Investor

​Amrit Rao — General Partner, Village Global

​Amrit Rao is a General Partner at Village Global, a network-driven venture firm with roughly $500M under management. Village leads pre-seed and seed rounds across all categories and is backed by Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, and Mark Zuckerberg, among others.

​Before Village, Amrit was co-founder and CEO of Made & Modern Furniture, a VC-backed company that combined software and advanced manufacturing to build custom furniture faster and at better value than traditional makers.

​He spent more than a decade before that as an investor at affiliates of Starboard Value, Tiger Management, T. Rowe Price, and Golden Gate Capital. He started his career as an M&A analyst in the CSFB Technology Group, where he worked on advising Google through its acquisition of YouTube.

​Amrit grew up in the Bay Area and, during high school and college, co-authored several research papers at the Stanford/NASA National Biocomputation Center.

​What Founders Will Gain

• ​A look at how a seed-stage GP decides whether a company is worth a first check

• ​An honest take from someone who has pitched VCs as a founder and now sits on the other side

• ​Advice on how to position your company for a pre-seed or seed raise

• ​Time to ask Amrit your questions directly, in a room small enough that he’ll actually get to them

​Agenda

​2:30 – 3:00 PM Arrival + founder networking
3:00 – 3:30 PM Amrit Rao: his background and how he invests at Village Global
3:30 – 4:15 PM Founder AMA + open conversation
4:15 – 4:30 PM Networking
4:30 – 5:30 PM Members-only private roundtable with Amrit

​About VC Roundtables

​VC Roundtables are a Venture Dock series built around real conversation between founders and investors. We cap attendance so everyone gets a chance to speak.

​What is Venture Dock

​Venture Dock is a founder-first community and fund in Silicon Valley, connecting startups with investors, operators, mentors, and strategic partners. We’re based in Palo Alto with a second location in Milpitas.

​What Venture Dock Offers Founders

​Sessions like this one are only part of it. Members get investor introductions and curated programming, from roundtables and fireside chats to working sessions with operators who’ve scaled companies before. You’ll also be building next to other founders, which is where a lot of the most useful conversations happen. Delegations from other markets come through regularly, so there’s a chance to meet founders and ecosystem leaders from outside the Valley. And when you need help with hiring, fundraising, or go-to-market, it comes from people in the community, not a generic playbook.

​Become Part of the Venture Dock Community

​If you’ve been looking for a high-signal founder community in Silicon Valley, we’d love to meet you.

​Members get time like the closed-door session with Amrit at the end of this event. If you’ve been coming to events and want that kind of access, apply to join here: https://venturedock.fillout.com/t/gHcUcf7Tz8us