Startups & Investment Matching

Tim Ferriss has been listed as one of Fast Company’s “Most Innovative Business People” and one of Fortune’s “40 under 40.” He is an early-stage technology investor/advisor (Uber, Facebook, Shopify, Duolingo, Alibaba, and 50+ others) and the author of five #1 New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestsellers, including The 4-Hour Workweek and Tools of Titans: The Tactics, Routines, and Habits of Billionaires, Icons, and World-Class Performers. The Observer and other media have called Tim “the Oprah of audio” due to the influence of The Tim Ferriss Show podcast, which is the first business/interview podcast to exceed 100 million downloads. It has now exceeded 900 million downloads.

Christine Esserman joined Accel in 2017 and focuses on software, internet, and mobile technology companies. Since joining Accel, Christine has help lead Accel’s investments in Blackpoint Cyber, Linear, Merge, ThreeFlow, Bumble, Remote, Dovetail, Ethos, Guru, and Headway.

Barbara is the Chief People Officer of Remote, focused on leading global teams through planning, implementing and scaling, Remote’s cultural vision, to make opportunities accessible to everyone. In Barbara’s most recent role at Stripe, she built the company’s global HR function as its International Head of HR, EMEA & APAC. Prior to Stripe, she spent more than 12 years on the People team at Google. Barbara has over 20 years experience working for fast-paced scale-ups to large enterprise business, with a keen focus of building and nurturing high-performing distributed teams.

Sitar focuses on early-stage investments across a range of areas including vertical networks and software, health and consumer enablement. Prior to Connect, she was with Doughty Hanson Technology Ventures, where she led their Series A round in SoundCloud. Sitar’s expertise is in products with network effects, PLG and/or community-led growth. Portfolio companies include Kheiron, aiCoustics, Faks, Outverse, Woolf University and Lifebit.

Luther Lowe is currently the Head of Public Policy at Y Combinator, where he fights for little tech in the public policy arena. Prior to his time at Y Combinator, he was the Senior Vice President of Public Policy at Yelp. Lowe’s career has been marked by his advocacy for competition policy, open data, and consumer free speech. Lowe’s work has earned him recognition, including being named to Vanity Fair’s ‘New Establishment’ list and being listed among Washington DC’s 500 most influential people. Lowe’s background also includes serving as an aide to retired NATO Supreme Allied Commander General Wesley Clark and working on various Democratic campaigns.

Fernando Cabral is a global leader in the Financial Services industry, where he has been driving large-scale digital innovation and transformation efforts for leading institutions across multiple geographies in Europe and Africa. He is a relentless advocate of accessible, affordable, and inclusive Digital Financial Services as a key enabler to reducing poverty, boosting prosperity, and triggering social and economic impact in underserved communities.

Fernando is also on a mission to create more inclusive and equitable startup and innovation ecosystems, leveraging his organisation Djassi Africa to advance, enable funding allocation, and levelling the playing field for underrepresented founders across Europe.

[Founder, Investor] Cristina Fonseca, 35, is one of the most successful female entrepreneurs in Europe. Having co-founded Talkdesk in Lisbon and San Francisco, the company reached decacorn status and is a market leasder globally in SaaS for call centers. She subsequently founded Cleverly, an AI company sold to Zendesk confirming her reputation as a global level serial entrepreneur. She also co-founded as a General Partner, Indico Capital Partners, the leading VC based out of Lisbon who has backed 5 unicorns and is only of the most prestigious venture capital firms in continental Europe. Cristina is a global speaker and role model.

[Founder] Marcelo is the co-founder and President of Remote. Marcelo was previously VP of Engineering at Unbabel and has held several CTO positions. He frequently speaks at events about leadership and managing remote teams. Marcelo is also a startup advisor and mentor to entrepreneurs. He is a passionate engineer, proud dad, and sci-fi nerd. Reach Marcelo on Twitter @marcelo_lebre.

Inês Santos Silva is a strong diversity and inclusion advocate, serving as Co-founder and Chief Activist at Portuguese Women in Tech, a community focused on increasing the number of women in technology and supporting those already working in the industry. In addition, she is the Founder of Women(dot)Business, a social enterprise that works to create more corporate procurement opportunities for women-owned businesses. Through her efforts, Inês is helping to break down barriers and create more opportunities for underrepresented groups in the tech industry and entrepreneurship.

Miguel Amaro is a tech entrepreneur and investor, known for his role in co-founding Uniplaces and Coverflex, two pioneering Portuguese startups. His entrepreneurial journey underscored the significance of mentorship, leading him to establish the Entrepreneurs Organization Portugal and become a lead mentor at Techstars. Co-founding Coverflex, a company revolutionizing the world of compensation, further showcased his expertise, propelling it to become the largest pre-seed round in Portugal.

[Investor] Mike Sigal is a recent transplant to Lisbon after 35 years as a Silicon Valley entrepreneur and investor. He now serves as an advisor and coach to startup founders, corporate executives and fund managers to accelerate their strategy, fundraising, leadership skills and organizational development. He serves on the Investment Committee of SCVentures, as a Venture Partner at GPO Fund, MiddleGame Ventures, Pella Ventures and Revolution DAO, and as an advisor to Unbounded Capital. Mike’s a globally recognized expert on fintech and innovation on financial services, a frequent speaker at corporate and industry events, and a guest lecturer on corporate venture capital and innovation at Stanford and UC Berkeley business schools. Previously, Mike was a Partner of 500 Startups Fintech Fund responsible for over 80 early-stage fintech investments and a 7-time startup founder with three exits including one IPO.

[Investor] Sean is a founding Partner at PROfounders Capital, an early-stage venture capital fund investing in European digital startups. The fund looks to invest in technology companies that fix broken customer experiences and has invested and supported leading startups such as Unity, GetYourGuide, Small Giant Games, SideQuestVR, and Busuu. Sean co-founded PROfounders in 2010 after joining from Benchmark Capital, and in 2019 and 2020 he was selected by Forbes for the Midas List Europe. Sean has an engineering degree from Rice University and an MBA from Wharton.