Name: Entrepreneurship | Founders & Funders: A Love Story
Start: 2025-04-18T15:30:00-0400
End: 2025-04-18T16:30:00-0400

Friday April 18, 2025 3:30pm - 4:30pm EDT

CODE Building

Like any great romance, the relationship between founders and funders is a thrilling roller coaster of passion, frustration, and the occasional “ghosting.” From the euphoric honeymoon phase of early investments to the sobering reality of scaling struggles, and those dreaded “we need to talk” board meetings, this panel explores the messy—and often misunderstood—dynamic between the creators and the capitalists. It's not all rainbows and dollar signs, but it's certainly a wild ride.

Join a seasoned crew of entrepreneurs and investors as they spill the tea on navigating the highs and lows of the founder-funder relationship. Learn how to spot red flags (and green lights) to avoid financial heartbreak, what investors really look for in a long-term commitment (or a quick exit), and how to survive those times when the money’s running low and the tension’s running high. Plus, hear the best (and worst) pitches they've ever seen—and the stories behind how these unlikely couples first met.

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Note: This Conference session is ticketed.

Please purchase your tickets on Eventbrite. You will then receive an email from Sched with login information that allows you to make your personal schedule.

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A special thank you to our sponsors: The 13th Annual Tom Tom Festival is presented with the University of Virginia, UVA Innovates, Virginia Tourism, RL Beyer Custom Homes, and Ludwig Kuttner.

Speakers

Adeleke Omitowoju

Angel Investor

Adeleke Omitowoju is an investor, operator, and long-time champion of entrepreneurs with over 15 years of experience across venture capital, private equity, enterprise sales, and startup growth. He’s passionate about helping founders scale transformative businesses—from early... Read More →

Alex Zorychta

Managing Partner, Not Yet Ventures

Alex Zorychta is Managing Partner of Not Yet Ventures, a Charlottesville-based venture capital firm pioneering the earliest stage of unicorn startup investing. He's coached 16 startups from pre-idea to YC/Techstars funding, and founded his own startup that was funded by Y Combinator... Read More →

Jake Spradling

Co-Founder & CEO/CTO, CargoLabs Inc.

Full Stack software engineer building web-solutions for truckers.LinkedIn: Jake Spradling

Kate Byrne

Tom Tom Foundation, Conference Chair, The Tulle Box, Co-Founder, WomenAdvancing, Podcast Host

Kate Byrne grows things; people, businesses, movements. Her career marries her love of media, the power of technology, financial literacy and the impact of heart in people and business as forces for good. The Stanford grad is a trusted voice and cross-sector translator, a gifted rainmaker... Read More →

Marty Weiner

Former CTO Reddit, Founding Engineer Pinterest

Marty was a founding engineer at Pinterest and spent 4.5 exciting years building Pinterest from tiny to big. In 2015 he joined Reddit as its first CTO tasked with helping bring the company into working order. Much gray hair was created, but now Reddit has even IPO’d and is on the... Read More →

Pauline Idogho

Founder & CEO, Mocktail Club

Pauline Idogho is the Founder/CEO of Mocktail Club, a line of premium crafted ready-to-drink non-alcoholic cocktails inspired by her quest to find sophisticated and better-for-you alternatives to alcohol. Prior to founding the company, Pauline had a 15-year career in investment... Read More →

Sponsors

434 Accelerator

434 is a long-format accelerator program, providing select technology-driven, early-stage startups based in and around Charlottesville with at least nine months of program support, including: dedicated workspace, experienced founders-in-residence, monthly programming, a large network... Read More →