6 high-profile investors joining us at Web Summit

Even in a market downturn, investment remains essential. Meet some of the VCs and investors set to make money moves at Web Summit 2022.

In just a few short months, Web Summit 2022 will be welcoming some of the top investors and VCs in the world to speak on stage and share their wisdom and insights.

Between them, these investors have funded – and continue to fund – world-changing startups from around the world, as well as future unicorns, and companies that have become household names.

Here are six of the top investors joining us in Lisbon from November 1-4 this year.

Wesley Chan, FPV Ventures

Wesley Chan is the co-founder and managing partner of venture capital firm FPV. Wesley is the Series A lead and board director at Canva, and has led investments in more than 20 unicorns and five decacorns.

As a partner at Google Ventures, Wesley helped lead investments in companies including Ring, Robinhood and AngelList.

Before joining Google Ventures, Wesley was a senior engineer at Google, founding Google Analytics and Google Voice. The MIT graduate also worked on the development of the AdSense and AdWords programs.

Beth Ferreira, FirstMark Capital

Beth Ferreira is a partner at FirstMark Capital, a VC firm investing in a broad range of consumer companies, including next-gen commerce, consumer tech and mobile startups. FirstMark recently announced its newest funds – FirstMark Capital VI and FirstMark Capital Opportunity Fund IV – which are worth US$1.1 billion in commitments.

Prior to FirstMark, Beth was the managing partner of WME Ventures, the venture capital arm of WME-IMG and led investments in Glossier, Daily Harvest and MasterClass.

Before embarking on a career in venture capital, Beth was COO at Fab and oversaw operations in the early days of Etsy. Beth holds a BA from the University of Pennsylvania and an MBA from the Wharton School of Business.

Fred Destin, Stride.vc

Fred Destin is the founder of Stride.VC, a venture capital firm based in London that is currently investing out of its second GB£100 million fund.

With more than 15 years of experience in the technology industry, Fred has served on the boards of Huboo, Collective Benefits, Hofy and Unibuddy, while acting as the lead investor for companies including Cazoo, Zoopla and Deliveroo.

Prior to founding Stride.vc, Fred was a general partner with Accel and Accomplice (formerly Atlas Venture). With a portfolio holding a total enterprise value of more than US$20 billion, Fred has generated in excess of US$1.4 billion in value to investors.

Carlos Eduardo Espinal, Seedcamp

Carlos Eduardo Espinal has been a seed investor and partner at Seedcamp since 2010. During this time, Seedcamp has backed many successful firms, including European unicorns Revolut, Wise (formerly TransferWise) and UiPath.

Prior to Seedcamp, Carlos worked as an associate at Doughty Hanson Technology Ventures, as an engineer for the advanced communications technologies group of the New York Stock Exchange (SIAC), and as a consultant at Baltimore Technologies.

Carlos has written a book called The Fundraising Field Guide, designed to answer common questions startups have around the fundraising process. The VC veteran also regularly joins Seedcamps’s official podcast, This Much I Know, to talk about all things startup.

Christine Tsai, 500 Global

Christine Tsai is the CEO and a founding partner of 500 Global. Since the firm’s inception in 2010, Christine has led the growth of 500 Global to more than US$1.8 billion in AUM, 2,500-plus portfolio companies, and a vibrant community of founders spanning 77 countries.

The UC Berkeley graduate was a product marketing manager at Google and YouTube for eight years before moving into the venture capital space.

Christine’s focus at 500 Global is on investing in startups outside of traditional spaces such as Silicon Valley. The CEO said recently, “there used to be this perception in 2010 that deal flow outside of Silicon Valley is second-tier. And now I don’t think anyone would say that”.

Geoff Ralston, Y Combinator

Geoff Ralston is the president and CEO of Y Combinator, and has been with the company since 2011. Y Combinator is a renowned startup accelerator that has helped launch more than 3,000 companies, including Reddit, Airbnb and Dropbox.

In the period since 2011, the Stanford graduate also co-founded Imagine K12, an edtech accelerator that merged with Y Combinator in 2016.

Prior to Y Combinator, Geoff led the team that built RocketMail – the web mail service that became Yahoo Mail in 1997. Geoff also served as chief product officer at Yahoo before going on to serve as CEO of Lala Media, a cloud music startup that was acquired by Apple.

Want to learn more from experts in the venture capital space? Meet the speakers joining us in Web Summit for one of our most inspiring events yet.

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