ABOUT
Camp Hustle is an oasis for investors.
You’ll connect with 200 other investors who love the same things you do: great founders, great startups, and great terms.
It combines education, storytelling, and adventure. And s’mores. Always s’mores.
Tune in to Camp Hustle Stage to hear from outrageously successful founders with $100s of millions in revenue, and war stories you won’t believe.
Deep dive with a small group into topics like web3, fundraising for your fund, and climate tech.
Hear 6 promising Hustle Fund portfolio companies speed-pitch, and connect with them directly or even invest onsite.
Curious about how other funds evaluate companies? Don’t miss the live pitch event with Shark Tank-style judging from a panel of your peers.
And throughout it all, take advantage of the many opportunities to forge deep relationships with VCs, emerging funds, angels, and family offices.
Grab your pack and load out… Camp Hustle awaits!
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AGENDA
Get here. Get coffee. Get comfortable.
Words of welcome from the Hustle Fund team, and insights from our investment team to kick off the day.
Starting a fund is only possible if you have LPs to back you. And you don't want just any LP... you want LPs who are good humans, with good values, and who won't annoy you to death. In this session, veteran fund managers with multiple raises under their belts will share their best tactics for marketing your fund to potential LPs.
Kun Gao is the co-founder and former CEO of Crunchyroll, the world's largest destination for anime and manga. Kun will share his learnings in building and scaling a company that eventually sold to Sony for $1.2B, including his journey raising venture capital in a time when media companies were largely blacklisted by VCs.
Jillian Manus is a founder, entrepreneur, startup advisor, and renowned investor. She's sharp, direct, and full of incredible stories. Join us to hear her experiences building three different tequila companies, and how she translated those lessons into a career as a VC.
Join a small group for a collaborative, deep-dive discussion. This is a great opportunity to connect more deeply with other Camp Hustle attendees. Here are the topics you can choose from in the morning:
Option 1: Starting a syndicate vs starting a fund
Running a syndicate and running a fund are both great ways to uplevel your skills as an investor. But the logistics, the day-to-day operations, and the deals are dramatically different between the two. In this discussion, we’ll talk about the pros and cons of each option, and tactics to grow each one. Lead by Brian Nichols, GM of Angel Squad and leader of the Uplyft Syndicate.
Option 2: Investing in secondaries
Unlike new equity raised by a company (think Series A, B, C...), secondaries are when an investor purchases equity from an existing stakeholder (early investor, founder, employee). There is no marketplace for this, so transactions take place privately between a buyer and seller with approval by the company. In this chat, we’ll talk about where to source secondary supply, structures, pitfalls/risks, company approvals, secondary pricing/opportunities, and how to think about secondaries vs other asset classes in this market. Lead by Jamie Melzer, managing partner of Hustle Fund Scale.
Option 3: Investing in AI
More AI startups have popped up in 2023 than in any other industry. In this chat, we'll cover things like: what to look for before you invest? what learnings to look for after you invest? how to get started if you don't know anything about AI? where to get more AI dealflow? This session will be lead by EJ Lawless, vertical lead at Angel Squad and head of performance marketing at Indeed.
Option 4: Launching a Fund
We’re cookin’ up some delicious grub. Dive in!
Join Hustle Fund GP and Singaporian native Shiyan Koh for a fireside chat on investing in Singapore-based startups.
Three promising Hustle Fund portfolio founders will have three minutes to pitch their fund. Afterwards, Camp Hustle attendees can ask questions. Investors will be able to request intros and even invest onsite if they want.
Reshma Shetty co-founded the world's first synthetic biology unicorn... and at Camp Hustle she's going to tell us how she did it. If you're curious about how tech can actually, truly change the world, this is the session for you.
Matthew Bell built one of those companies everyone tells you not to build: a cool product looking for a problem to solve. Except Matt's story ends differently from most other founders in this situation. Matt created Matterport - a spatial data company with 10s of millions of dollars in revenue and hundreds of thousands of users.
Join a small group for a collaborative, deep-dive discussion. This is a great opportunity to connect more deeply with other Camp Hustle attendees. Here are the topics you can choose from in the afternoon:
Option 1: Fundraising for your fund
Fundraising for your fund is a lot different than fundraising for your startup. In this chat, we’ll talk about things like: where to find new leads, how to position your fund, how to leverage the press, navigating the SEC’s regulations, tailoring your pitch to each LP, and more. This discussion will be lead by Eric Bahn, co-founder and GP of Hustle Fund.
Option 2: Investing in under-represented founders
At Hustle Fund, we believe historically excluded founders often have the best ideas and the strongest hustle. But they receive only a fraction of VC funding. Join us for a tactical discussion about how increase your dealflow in this category, and the unique (and specific) ways you can support these founders. This session will be lead by Todd Johnson, vertical lead at Angel Squad and director of product management at SoFi.
Option 3: How to approach venture investing with family
If you’re part of a family office or thinking of starting one, this session is for you. This group will discuss best practices around venture investing with family members, strategies to create family alignment, and costly mistakes to avoid. This session will be led by Dave Sachse, longtime entrepreneur and Managing Partner at Family VC + Sachse Family Fund.
Option 4: Marketing + Comms for VCs
Five emerging fund managers will have four minutes to pitch their fund to the Camp Hustle Audience. Names will be drawn onsite, so participants will find out in real-time if they've been selected to pitch. Want a chance to pitch your fund? Drop your name in the hat.
The final speaker of the day, Deb Liu, is the CEO of Ancestry.com. She brings a scrappy startup mindset to every large tech company she's worked for, and boy does she have some stories to tell.
Grab a drink and a bite to eat and make some memories with your new friends.
It doesn’t matter if like your marshmallows golden brown or burnt to a crisp… settle in for s’mores and stories around the campfire.
Even the best days come to an end eventually. See you next year for Camp Hustle 2024!
Speakers
Kun is co-founder & COO of GGWP, which is modernizing moderation and tackling toxicity in gaming and the metaverse.
Previously, he founded and was CEO of Crunchyroll, the world's largest destination for anime and manga. Crunchyroll was acquired in2018 by WarnerMedia, and again in 2020 by Sony for $1.2B. Kun was a first-time founder when he started Crunchyroll, and remained at the helm until its acquisition. At that time, the site had over 20 million registered users and over 1 million paying subscribers. Kun is bringing his learnings from Crunchyroll to his new company, GGWP.
Reshma Shetty is the co-founder of the world's first synthetic biology unicorn - Gingko Bioworks - a company that uses data analytics and robotics to speed up the process of discovering and making new organisms. Reshma and her team started with a simple but revolutionary goal: help people design and build organisms. A decade later, Gingko is now a unicorn at the fore of the synthetic biology revolution with customers seeking to build organisms for use in fields like health, food, agriculture, cosmetics and materials.
In 2008, Reshma was named one of ‘Eight People Inventing the Future’ by Forbes and, in 2011, one of the ‘100 Most Creative People in Business’ by Fast Company.
Matt Bell is the founder and CEO of Matterport, a spatial data company focused on digitizing and indexing the built world. Simply put, they help people capture virtual experiences of physical spaces, which can be used to create easy-to-use floorplans, building plans, facility plan, and more.
Matterport earned $38m in revenue in 2022, with 657,000 subscribers. The platform includes 8.7 million spaces across 177 countries. Some of their clients include Netflix, Redfin, Waldorf Astoria, WeWork, AWS, Choice Hotels, and more.
Deb Liu is the President and CEO of Ancestry. She was previously a senior executive at Facebook, where she created and led Facebook Marketplace, a platform for millions of people to buy from and sell to one another. She also led the development of Facebook’s first mobile ad product for apps and its mobile ad network, in addition to building the company’s games business and payments platform, inculding Facebook Pay.
Prior to Facebook, she spent several years in product roles at PayPal and eBay, where she led integration between the two products. She serves on the board of Intuit and Ancestry and is a seed investor and advisor to several startups. She also holds several payments- and commerce-related patents.
Jillian Manus is Managing Partner at StructureCapital, an early-stage Silicon Valley VC fund that invests in underutilized assets and excess capacity.
Prior to Structure Capital, she served as Co- Director of TMT for Credit Suisse Zurich, and Director of Development for Universal and Warner Bros., she was Associate Publisher of the national publication Upside, reporting on the financial strategies of the technology industry. She was also the Founder of Broad Strategy, and Global Goal Management, Inc. She was named one of the top 25 early-stage Female Investors by BusinessInsider in 2021.
Elizabeth is one of the amazing humans behind Hustle Fund, a pre-seed fund that believes great founders can look like anyone and come from anywhere. Previously, Elizabeth was a partner at 500 Startups, where she invested in seed-stage companies and ran the Mountain View accelerator.
Eric Bahn is a Co-Founder and General Partner at Hustle Fund, an early-stage venture capital firm based in San Francisco. Hustle Fund invests in software startups at the pre-seed and seed stages, backing founders who exhibit great execution and high velocity (aka, hustle).
Previous to Hustle Fund, Eric was an angel investor and partner at 500 Startups. And prior to becoming a professional investor, he spent over a decade as an operator (Facebook, Instagram) and entrepreneur (Beat The GMAT, The Hustle). Eric draws from his product and growth experience to advise his founders in scaling their own enterprises.
Shiyan Koh is the co-founder and GP at Hustle Fund VC. Shiyan is an experienced operator and investor based in Singapore. Prior to Hustle Fund, she was VP of Business Operations & Corp Dev at NerdWallet (employee #10), growing annual revenue from $1 million to more than $150 million. She was also a senior investment associate at Bridgewater.
Shiyan earned her biomechanical engineering and economics degrees at Stanford before attending Harvard Business School for her MBA.
Brian Nichols is a 2x founder, and worked at Lyft, Zoox, and On Deck, among others. He founded the Lyft Alumni Syndicate and has grown it to 3500+ members, and later co-founded Angel Squad at Hustle Fund. Angel Squad is a program and community run by Hustle Fund that teaches new angels how to invest in startups, and gives them access to invest alongside our fund.
Jamie Melzer is the GP and Managing Partner of HF Scale. Jamie joined Hustle Fund in 2021 to help build the growth and late-stage opportunistic investment platform, HF Scale, which has deployed over $20M to date in top Series B through pre-IPO companies.
Before joining Hustle Fund, Jamie was an investor at Brigade Capital, deploying $2B across asset classes, including distressed and high-yield credit, bank debt, and public equities. Before Brigade, Jamie was an II-ranked research analyst at Bank of America.
Haley is a Principal at Hustle Fund VC with over a decade of operating experience at Apple, SaaS startups and the b2b SaaS content marketing agency Animalz.
Haley started angel investing in 2020 while COO of Animalz, with a focus on founders from and/or supporting underserved communities. In 2021, she joined Angel Squad, and helped founder and GM Brian Nichols scale it. She has made 50 angel investments to date. When she isn’t working, she’s hanging out with her son, teaching indoor cycling, or taking a (micro)nap.
Todd Johnson is the Director of Product at Sofi. He's also a Vertical Lead at Angel Squad, where he specializes in finding startups founded by under-represented founders. Todd is an experienced startup advisor and mentor - he actively works with Angel Track and Sand Hill Angels to support founders through knowledge, network, and capital.
Prior to SoFi, and in addition to his investing career, Todd has worked as product manager at Proctor & Gamble, Kraft Heinz, and Intuit. At Camp Hustle, Todd will be co-leading a breakout session on investing in and supporting under-represented founders alongside investor Haley Bryant.
Kun is co-founder & COO of GGWP, which is modernizing moderation and tackling toxicity in gaming and the metaverse.
Previously, he founded and was CEO of Crunchyroll, the world's largest destination for anime and manga. Crunchyroll was acquired in2018 by WarnerMedia, and again in 2020 by Sony for $1.2B. Kun was a first-time founder when he started Crunchyroll, and remained at the helm until its acquisition. At that time, the site had over 20 million registered users and over 1 million paying subscribers. Kun is bringing his learnings from Crunchyroll to his new company, GGWP.
Reshma Shetty is the co-founder of the world's first synthetic biology unicorn - Gingko Bioworks - a company that uses data analytics and robotics to speed up the process of discovering and making new organisms. Reshma and her team started with a simple but revolutionary goal: help people design and build organisms. A decade later, Gingko is now a unicorn at the fore of the synthetic biology revolution with customers seeking to build organisms for use in fields like health, food, agriculture, cosmetics and materials.
In 2008, Reshma was named one of ‘Eight People Inventing the Future’ by Forbes and, in 2011, one of the ‘100 Most Creative People in Business’ by Fast Company.
Matt Bell is the founder and CEO of Matterport, a spatial data company focused on digitizing and indexing the built world. Simply put, they help people capture virtual experiences of physical spaces, which can be used to create easy-to-use floorplans, building plans, facility plan, and more.
Matterport earned $38m in revenue in 2022, with 657,000 subscribers. The platform includes 8.7 million spaces across 177 countries. Some of their clients include Netflix, Redfin, Waldorf Astoria, WeWork, AWS, Choice Hotels, and more.
Deb Liu is the President and CEO of Ancestry. She was previously a senior executive at Facebook, where she created and led Facebook Marketplace, a platform for millions of people to buy from and sell to one another. She also led the development of Facebook’s first mobile ad product for apps and its mobile ad network, in addition to building the company’s games business and payments platform, inculding Facebook Pay.
Prior to Facebook, she spent several years in product roles at PayPal and eBay, where she led integration between the two products. She serves on the board of Intuit and Ancestry and is a seed investor and advisor to several startups. She also holds several payments- and commerce-related patents.
Jillian Manus is Managing Partner at StructureCapital, an early-stage Silicon Valley VC fund that invests in underutilized assets and excess capacity.
Prior to Structure Capital, she served as Co- Director of TMT for Credit Suisse Zurich, and Director of Development for Universal and Warner Bros., she was Associate Publisher of the national publication Upside, reporting on the financial strategies of the technology industry. She was also the Founder of Broad Strategy, and Global Goal Management, Inc. She was named one of the top 25 early-stage Female Investors by BusinessInsider in 2021.
Elizabeth is one of the amazing humans behind Hustle Fund, a pre-seed fund that believes great founders can look like anyone and come from anywhere. Previously, Elizabeth was a partner at 500 Startups, where she invested in seed-stage companies and ran the Mountain View accelerator.
Eric Bahn is a Co-Founder and General Partner at Hustle Fund, an early-stage venture capital firm based in San Francisco. Hustle Fund invests in software startups at the pre-seed and seed stages, backing founders who exhibit great execution and high velocity (aka, hustle).
Previous to Hustle Fund, Eric was an angel investor and partner at 500 Startups. And prior to becoming a professional investor, he spent over a decade as an operator (Facebook, Instagram) and entrepreneur (Beat The GMAT, The Hustle). Eric draws from his product and growth experience to advise his founders in scaling their own enterprises.
Shiyan Koh is the co-founder and GP at Hustle Fund VC. Shiyan is an experienced operator and investor based in Singapore. Prior to Hustle Fund, she was VP of Business Operations & Corp Dev at NerdWallet (employee #10), growing annual revenue from $1 million to more than $150 million. She was also a senior investment associate at Bridgewater.
Shiyan earned her biomechanical engineering and economics degrees at Stanford before attending Harvard Business School for her MBA.
Brian Nichols is a 2x founder, and worked at Lyft, Zoox, and On Deck, among others. He founded the Lyft Alumni Syndicate and has grown it to 3500+ members, and later co-founded Angel Squad at Hustle Fund. Angel Squad is a program and community run by Hustle Fund that teaches new angels how to invest in startups, and gives them access to invest alongside our fund.
Jamie Melzer is the GP and Managing Partner of HF Scale. Jamie joined Hustle Fund in 2021 to help build the growth and late-stage opportunistic investment platform, HF Scale, which has deployed over $20M to date in top Series B through pre-IPO companies.
Before joining Hustle Fund, Jamie was an investor at Brigade Capital, deploying $2B across asset classes, including distressed and high-yield credit, bank debt, and public equities. Before Brigade, Jamie was an II-ranked research analyst at Bank of America.
Haley is a Principal at Hustle Fund VC with over a decade of operating experience at Apple, SaaS startups and the b2b SaaS content marketing agency Animalz.
Haley started angel investing in 2020 while COO of Animalz, with a focus on founders from and/or supporting underserved communities. In 2021, she joined Angel Squad, and helped founder and GM Brian Nichols scale it. She has made 50 angel investments to date. When she isn’t working, she’s hanging out with her son, teaching indoor cycling, or taking a (micro)nap.
Todd Johnson is the Director of Product at Sofi. He's also a Vertical Lead at Angel Squad, where he specializes in finding startups founded by under-represented founders. Todd is an experienced startup advisor and mentor - he actively works with Angel Track and Sand Hill Angels to support founders through knowledge, network, and capital.
Prior to SoFi, and in addition to his investing career, Todd has worked as product manager at Proctor & Gamble, Kraft Heinz, and Intuit. At Camp Hustle, Todd will be co-leading a breakout session on investing in and supporting under-represented founders alongside investor Haley Bryant.
Featured ATTENDEES
THE VENUE
FLYING TO
BAY AREA FAVORITES
Relax at Ridge Vineyards
Explore Winchester Mystery House
Tour Alcatraz Island
Catch a Giants game
Tramp around at Sanborn Park
Try eFoiling
FAQ
Camp Hustle is for anyone who identifies as an investor. If you invest as an angel, on behalf of a venture fund, as part of a company’s fundraising arm, as a member of a family office, etc., this event is for you.
If you’re thinking of starting a new fund or SPV, you will get a lot out of this event.
Last year we had 150 guests. This year we expect 150-200 people to attend.
We purposefully keep this event small so that guests have a chance to connect meaningfully with other investors, not wade through a huge crowd to try and find their people.
So many. One of our primary goals with Camp Hustle is to help you find your people, both offline and online.
For example:
- Exclusive online community for all Camp Hustle attendees
- Team games like bocce ball and cornhole
- Small group breakout sessions
- Conversation cards to facilitate conversations with strangers
- Social events sprinkled throughout the agenda to help you connect with other attendees
Bonfire Sessions are small-group discussions focused on a specific topic. These topics are things like: investing in web3, investing in marketplaces, climate tech startups, how to fundraise for your fund, investing in cannabis, etc.
We’ve designed these sessions for guests to share their subject-matter expertise, and to connect more deeply with people who love what you love.
Interested in leading a Bonfire Session? Apply here.
If you’re interested in speaking at Camp Hustle, please fill out this form. We review all submissions weekly and will get back to you if we think you’d be a good fit for the event.
Yes, we offer a discount for groups of 3 or more.
Contact kera@hustlefundvc.com to get special pricing for your group.
Camp Hustle is an in-person experience. If you’re unable to make the trip to join us in person, we hope you’ll consider coming next year!
Tickets are refundable up to 30 days before the event.
After that, if you’re unable to make it to the event you have the option of transferring your ticket to someone else or exchanging your ticket for a credit for next year.
We are not going to be recording the talks at Camp Hustle. Camp Hustle will be a one-of-a-kind event… an experience that you can’t get if you don’t attend in person.
Yep! Breakfast, lunch, and dinner will all be served at Camp Hustle.
You’ll also have access to coffee throughout the day, and beer / wine in the evening.
When you book your ticket there is an opportunity to tell us if you have any dietary restrictions. We take those very seriously! You’re also welcome to bring your own food onsite if you prefer.
No outside alcoholic beverages are permitted onsite.
A shuttle will be available to transport guests from one of the hotels nearby to the venue. That same shuttle will bring guests back to the hotel at the end of the event.
You’re also welcome to take a Lyft, carpool with friends, or drive yourself.
There is plenty of parking onsite!
Something comfortable. This is not the venue for suits or stilettos.
Last year was quite warm, so most guests wore shorts, skirts, dresses, or linen pants. It does cool down at night, so we recommend layers.
Absolutely. We’ll have a safe space for you to store your luggage during the day. However, we do ask that you keep your valuables (laptop, wallet, phone) with you throughout the day.
