Join us on July 14th for a dynamic fundraising workshop with Ben Maitland Lewis of SVB and Ron Levin of Alumni Ventures. The workshop will be hosted live in Boston and virtually via Zoom.
Key Highlights:
- Fireside Chat with Ron Levin: Gain insights from one of the most active VCs in the nation. Ron will share real-world experiences and effective strategies for Seed-to-Series A founders.
- As a top-ranked VC firm, Alumni Ventures is not only one of the most active firms in the country (Top 3 on PitchBook six years running) but also hold top-decile DPI performance and have backed 1,600+ companies alongside a16z, Sequoia, Khosla and Founders Fund.
- Ron Levin has seen a lot of rounds (good and bad), so he will be sharing exactly what he's seeing right now in today's market.
Due to venue capacity, please note that selecting the in-person event during registration is submitting a "request to attend".
You will be notified via email if you are confirmed to attend in-person.
If the in-person event is full upon registration - you will automatically be registered for the livestream webinar and receive Zoom details via email.
If your plans have changed and you can no longer attend the in-person event - please email Georgia Hill so we can offer your seat up to someone on the waitlist.
All registered attendees will receive the link to join virtually, so we still encourage you to tune in, if possible.
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David Shim is the Co-Founder and CEO of Read AI, a Seattle-based productivity AI company that has become one of the fastest-growing startups in the future-of-work space, attracting over 25,000 new users daily, closing a $50M Series B, and earning David recognition as GeekWire’s 2025 CEO of the Year . A serial entrepreneur and University of Washington alum, David previously founded Placed (acquired by Snap) and led Foursquare as CEO, establishing him as a tenured leader who has navigated the funding trail multiple times.
Ron brings a dynamic blend of operational leadership, global business acumen, and values-driven investing to early-stage venture capital. As Managing Partner and Head of the AV Seed Fund at Alumni Ventures, he leads investments in bold, frontier technologies that span sectors and geographies. Ron’s experience ranges from founding and scaling unicorn-status startups to guiding impact-focused portfolios that generate both financial and societal returns.
Before joining Alumni Ventures in 2019, Ron served on the Investment Committee at Yard Ventures, AV’s fund for the Harvard community. His own entrepreneurial journey includes co-founding and leading TravelPerk, an enterprise travel management platform that reached multibillion-dollar valuation and global scale. Prior to that, he launched the B2B division of Booking.com and held strategic roles at McKinsey & Co., US Airways, the Maersk Group, and Lycos.
Ron studied entrepreneurship at Babson College and earned his MBA from Harvard Business School. He resides near Boston with his wife and three young children.
Ben leads SVB’s Startup Banking team for the Northeast and several national programs, partnering with founders from Pre-Seed through Series A to help them scale smarter and faster. A founder first and banker second, Ben takes a hands-on approach to Founder Success by rolling up his sleeves to support clients with GTM strategy, fundraising, and the kind of practical, in-the-trenches advice that provides value beyond banking.
Before joining SVB, Ben was a proud SVB client and spent over two decades as a Founder & CEO in the music, media, and tech industries, earning two successful exits, a few well-earned “fail-forwards,” and a reputation as a purpose-driven, creative problem-solver. Earlier in his career, he toured the world as a professional drummer for multiple bands and later became an award-winning artist manager and record label executive, earning multiple RIAA Certified Gold Records, including for his favorite work with the band Modest Mouse. Those experiences taught him how to think outside of the box and improvise through chaos, an invaluable skill in both startups and life.
A proud YC alum (W15) and advisor to multiple startups and notable accelerators, Ben brings empathy, experience, and a touch of rock ’n’ roll vibes to his work with founders on the daily. He holds a degree in Music Business & Entrepreneurship from Berklee College of Music and an honorary PhD in Mixology from Harvard University (that’s a thing).
When he’s not helping founders succeed or producing 100 events a year for the ecosystem, you’ll find him playing dress-up with his three-year-old daughter or exposing his six-month-old to Rush or NOFX at home in coastal Massachusetts.
