Join Valence Funding Network through our Founders Only event series for a panel discussion around alternatives to traditional venture funding, highlighting opportunities for founders at accelerators, incubators, and studios.
T.A. McCann, Managing Director at Pioneer Square Labs, will kick-off the event with a presentation on the value of studios and accelerators and their unique approach to partnering with founders. T.A. will then be joined by Kelli Jones, Managing Partner at Sixty8 Capital and Co-Founder of Be Nimble, and Eric Tobias, Partner at High Alpha, to weigh in on their experiences as both operators and investors in the space. The discussion will feature tangible advice for evaluating whether a less traditional path to venture funding may be a fit for your business, tips for preparing applications, best practices for pitching, and more. There will be ample time for audience Q&A as well. 
Pioneer Square Labs
Managing Director
T.A. McCann is a serial entrepreneur. He was founder and CEO of Senosis (acquired by Google), Gist (acquired by Blackberry) and Rival IQ, a leader in marketing analytics. Previously, he was an EIR at Polaris Venture Partners, Vulcan Capital where he built Vulcan Labs and Providence Health Services, focused on quantified health ideas and investments. He also held senior roles at Microsoft leading …
Valence
VFN Director
Georgia Messinger (she/her/hers), originally from Los Angeles, CA, is a junior at Harvard University studying psychology and computer science on a gap semester currently to explore startups and venture capital. Georgia has founded two companies, Trill Project and Girls Get IT. Experienced in managing teams of 30+ other students, Georgia’s organized conferences for hundreds of attendees (BOLD Conference & Young Women’s Conference), created organic marketing campaigns to generate thousands of clicks, written dozens of blog pieces across all platforms, pitched on national television, and secured $120k+ in equity-free funding for her projects. Georgia’s work focuses on the intersection between social impact and technology and has been featured as Apple’s App of the Day (four times) and on TechCrunch, InStyle, Refinery29, KTLA, and more.
Over quarantine Georgia launched The Bottom Line Podcast through Harvard Ventures, the leading startups and VC club at Harvard, which she is president of, and ran the largest pitch competition for undergraduate students, i3 Innovation Challenge, which has awarded $700k+ in equity-free funding to other founders. On campus, her studies range a wide array of topics including Latin Poetry, Buddhist Art History, and Artificial Intelligence. She is a researcher in the The Systems Neuroscience of Psychopathology Lab and a member of Harvard Women in Business, Harvard Women in Computer Science, Harvard Undergraduate Student Art Collective, and formerly the Harvard Crimson and the Harvard Advocate. She represents .406 Ventures (previously she represented Lightspeed Venture Partners) on campus as their scout.
Georgia is especially energized in entrepreneurial communities and is honored to now be connecting more Black founders to mentorship, peer to peer communities, and, of course, funding through her work with Valence.
