InvestHer Academy

Samantha joined Elaia Partners in 2008. She began her career as a consultant at Eurogroup, a consulting firm specialised in organisation and strategy, within the Bank and Finance division. She then joined Clipperton Finance, a corporate finance firm dedicated to high-tech growth companies, before moving to Elaia Partners in 2008. She became an Investment Manager in 2011 then a Partner in 2014. Education: EDHEC Business School, Schulich Business School of Toronto (Bachelor), Loyola University of Chicago (MBA) Expertise: SaaS, Marketplace, Digital Media, Mobile, AI Learn more Learn more about Sam & Elaia Partners on her LinkedIn, follow her on Twitter @Sjerusalmy

Nicole got her entrepreneurial start in the 4th grade, orchestrating cousins into theatrical plays and charging neighbors admission. From there, she founded 3 startups which is the source of her passion for helping grow startups. Since then, she's spent over 15 years working with and funding early-stage web software companies. Most recently, she's the Chief Product Officer at Techstars (www.techstars.com) and was a key catalyst in growing the organization from 2 people to a global powerhouse with 18 offices worldwide, events in over 500+ cities, and a market cap of over $5B with $265M under management. She's an expert in growing global organizations, building startup ecosystems, working with early stage startups, venture capital, and more. She sits on boards, has invested in over 90 companies, was named one of the "Coolest People in New York Tech" by Business Insider, Marie Claire named her one of the "NewGuard", and Entrepreneur Magazine called her "One of the 7 most powerful women to watch". Nicole graduated with her Master’s Degree in Sport Psychology from the University of Florida, likes to do at least one philanthropic thing annually, and shares the wonderment of parenthood with the love of her life, Mark. In her free time, you’ll find Nicole speaking in public at large events like SXSW and WebSummit, on her bike, on a trail, or on the slopes, hanging with her big fat greek family, traveling to some exotic destination, or generally making a fool of herself to entertain others (like boxing!). Specialties: technology seed-stage companies, operations, public speaking and community relations, growth strategies, fundraising, venture capital, pitch for capital Learn more Discover more about Nicole on her blog(http://nearlynicole.com) and follow her on Twitter @nglaros (https://twitter.com/nglaros).

I am a Principal at Mangrove, where I focus on consumer applications and brands as well as B2C and B2B SaaS businesses and marketplaces. Above all, I like working from an early stage with driven entrepreneurs who want to take over the world by offering a frictionless customer experience combined with an innovative business model and a vision to leverage mass format changes such as mobile, AR, audio and voice. I am particularly passionate about finding opportunities at the underexplored “edges” of the venture market, be they geographic or demographic. I currently serve as a board member of Sybel, Safe365, Attentive.us, Echobox and as a board observer at RedPoints, Flo, GetAlbert. ​