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I'm David Murphy, Founder/CEO of TechFire, recognized in Techmeme's list of nationally-significant tech conferences. Now I'm thrilled to announce the launch of TechFire Ventures to (finally!) tap the huge deal flow our events represent, and the relationships with top of VCs and founders I've built across our 60+ past events since founding TechFire in 2013.
I also couldn't be more excited about our plans to use AngelList's new rolling venture fund platform, one of the most exciting things to happen to VC in a long time (full credit to Sahil Lavingia for getting the momentum, well, rolling, on these new funds, which I believe will revolutionize venture capital — TechCrunch has a great write up if you're new to the concept). Rolling funds will let us focus on getting in the hottest startups, not the overhead of running a fund.
David hosts one of TechFire's many events at Google
David speaks at TechFire's first conference — we've now done 55+ events since 2013.
I first got the entrepreneurial bug while high school as a co-founder in the 1990s of chat pioneer Hotline Communications, which the Toronto Star called "a major force in the online world", used by General Motors, Apple, and millions of users. I'm a graduate of Claremont McKenna College. Before TechFire, I ran a project funded by Elon Musk, David Bohnett, Google, Uber, and Lyft.
For years I've said I wish we had been investing in the incredible founders and alongside the top VCs we've hosted on stage at TechFire. (Click to view a PDF backgrounder on TechFire's events.) Now we'll finally be able to.
I passionately believe the opportunities for early-stage, high-growth technology startups will only continue to grow. If anything, the pandemic (while horrible) has actually accelerated the digital transformation of our work and lives, and there are massive opportunities to own the new way things will be done long into the future even after the pandemic is over. Disruption = opportunity.
The fund is broadly focused on startups across sectors that have the potential to 100x.
I'm bullish on Silicon Valley continuing to lead the way, but also a huge believer in the ecosystems in Los Angeles (#LongLA!) and NYC, and expect to some extent the pandemic will continue the "rise of the rest" as well.