Yasmin Dunsky

Just shipped this week's Diaspora.nz podcast with Paul Copplestone, founder & CEO at Supabase. We talk about: ⚡️why open source is an unfair advantage — as a product development strategy, supercharging recruiting, and helping build customer community. ⚡️how they are building the end-to-end tech stack for AI startups — seeing many customers grow into the millions of users in just weeks, growing to be one of the most tagged products by makers on Product Hunt + most redeemed Y Combinator “perks.” ⚡️raising $116M, and scaling to ~80 people in 30+ countries over the past 4.5 years, operating as a distributed + asynchronous team. ⚡️building three startups over nearly a decade living in South East Asia. Subscribe + listen links in comments below👇 Subscribe at diaspora.nz for weekly episodes 🎧👈

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🚨 This is it – The Final Push! 🚨 We’re down to the wire, and your vote could be the one that helps Ferna Tech take the stage at SXSW London 2025! Our panel, “A $16M Blueprint: How Black Founders Can Raise Smart Capital, Drive Culture & Go from Founder to Funded,” is more than a conversation—it’s a movement. It’s about reshaping the narrative, opening doors, and creating actionable pathways for underrepresented founders to thrive. This is your chance to make a statement: → That representation matters → That excellence against all odds deserves a global stage → That community-driven progress is the future 🔗 Vote here: https://lnkd.in/dHQzFMav 👇🏽 How to vote: 📹 #fernatech #sxsw #voteferna #fernafounders #blacktech #founders #venturestudio #AfroTech #Community #innovation

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Impactful Biz, Ops & Investment Roles at Early Startups & VCs: • Chief of Staff to Ex. Head of Product at Google • Founding GTM at the most YC product used by other YC companies in the past four years • Chief of Staff to a Partner at a Top-Tier VC Fund • Head of Platform of a NY State Backed Accelerator • Investment Associate at a Seed Stage Fund Investing in Category-Defining Companies • Partner at a Defense-Focused VC Fund • Chief Revenue Officer of a New Space Company in El Segundo • Venture Capital Analyst at a fund investing in overlooked geographies • Investment Associate at a Spirit-Focused Fund • Strategy & Ops Lead at a Company Focused on Helping Improve Autism • Senior Product Manager at a Company Focused on Building Shopify for Content Creators • Program Manager for a Space Security Company • Open-ended Investment Position at a Top-Tier Accelerator • Biz & Ops Lead for One of the Most Loved Digital Consumer Products 💸 All companies are well-funded and backed by top-tier investors. ⬇ You can find links to the roles above, plus many more, in the comments.

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I’m thrilled to be announcing that Notion Capital is leading the $15m Series A investment in Cogna today. In the industry, we like to think that software has been eating the world. But when you look at the data a better description would be more of a nibble. Depending on what source you look at the software industry represents between 5-8% of global GDP. Contrast that with the services industry that represents between 60-70% of GDP and worth around $25 trillion on a global basis. Most services have been out of reach for the software industry. They have either been too complex or too specialized for off the shelf software to access in any economically viable way. But that’s beginnning to change with GenAI leading to the emergence of ‘service as a software.’ Cogna is at the forefront of this opportunity - building precision software at scale and delivering huge productivity gains for traditional industries. We know Ben Peters & Lars Mennen well having backed their previous company Five AI that was acquired by Bosch in 2022. And we’re very excited to be backing them again together with Hoxton Ventures & Chalfen Ventures Read my full blog post on why we invested here. Radu Bozga Ben Peters Lars Mennen Bryan G. Mike Chalfen Hussein Kanji Kirsten Connell https://lnkd.in/eh8mhcJb

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During yesterday's LibreQoS APNIC webinar, I posed the question: won't more bandwidth solve these problems? As Herbert Wolverson said, yes, more bandwidth is good, but, still these problems remain if queueing is done incorrectly. Here's my take on why bandwidth alone is not as good as bandwidth + good queueing policies: Generally it was believed that 'data is important, so don't throw it away; hang on to it and send it later'. In practice, this has proven to be suboptimal as two issues may emerge: 1) latency increases for some flows due to heavy demand from other flows using the same bottleneck link, 2) even a single flow can have excessive latency due to aspects of typical TCP behavior (referred to bufferbloat) when the buffers grew large enough that the data being buffered was retransmitted anyway. It turns out that not all data is equally important. Active Queue Management is the art of deciding priorities, both in deciding what data to throw away, but also in allowing some later arriving data to be transmitted ahead of data in another connection that arrived before it. These problems have been studied, and good solutions have been found by using certain queueing policies in routers and switches, referred to as “fq_codel’ and “cake”. These track the different flows not by classifying the data, but by watching the behavior. Flows that send relatively little data (DNS lookups), or at a measured pace (video chat) have priority over flows that send a lot of data as quickly as possible (App and System updates, Video and ISO downloads).

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Once you’re in it, you’re in it. #Startup #founders don’t just take financial risk - they invest years of their lives. For many, it’s absolutely worth it. To me, the first task is the most important one: to define your target and make absolutely sure it’s one worth that level of investment.

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Rolling into another day of the Primary Summit. Hit me up if we should connect onsite. Kudos to the Primary Ventures team so far, as yesterday’s Pre-Seed Summit was on point. Mar Hershenson, Benjamin Sun, Chris Douvos, Zach Weinberg, and Graham Pingree all dropping helpful nuggets for fund managers. Some paraphrased highlights: - Chris Douvos (AHOY Capital) - Most fund decks are terrible. Start with your people (not your strategy) and know you have about 6 slides of his attention. - Zach Weinberg (Curie.Bio ) - beleives SF’s AI talent is a significant advantage over NY, wouldn’t build AI in NY. Also questions if VC exits can keep up with VC expansion (generally hilarious and smart Twitter follow) - Mar Hershenson (Pear VC) - VC is so much more competitive now. It’s not enough to be an ex-founder with a great network and domain expertise. Have a better “why you are different” or do something else! - Benjamin Sun (Primary Venture Partners)- still sees arbitrage in going long NY venture (vs. SF). Do the work to keep various influential networking nodes aware of what you’re doing and how you think.

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Wonderful article about Emily Knight and the whole The Engine Accelerator team on the amazing work their doing changing the world with #ToughTech!

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Excited to be back at the NY Tech Alliance #techmeetup. Let’s meet and explore how NuStartz can help in transforming your startup. #nytechmeetup #nustartz

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🚨 I'm beyond excited to welcome Aniruddh Bharadwaj to the Centralize (YC W24) team as our founding engineer & newest relationship gardener! 🌱 Ani has a history of shipping 0 → 1 features FAST at Convoy Inc, Clumio, and Modern Treasury. At Modern Treasury, he was the first engineer focused on reconciliation, and the tech lead who prototyped and drove the launch of their Reconciliation product, directly leading to enterprise deals and $XM in ARR. Since joining us a couple months ago, Ani’s already shipped thousands of lines of code and built numerous foundational features across the stack. He doesn’t stop there — you’ve already seen him with us, dressed up as a gardener (link in comments) at conferences, pitching customers, and building pipeline as an engineer! Truly one-of-a-kind 💎 Here’s the best part: Rachit Kataria 👨🏽‍🌾, Ani, and I have known each other for over a decade. Rachit & Ani were freshman year roommates at University of Southern California! It’s crazy that the world has brought us back together on this rocketship, and we couldn’t be more excited 🚀 P.S. We're growing the engineering team at Centralize! Ani has set the bar very high — if you’re a cracked, full-stack, product-focused engineer who wants to join the next GTM unicorn 🦄, please reach out with the most impressive thing you’ve built & a picture of you doing your favorite hobby!

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This San Franciscan has landed in the Big Apple for #NYTechWeek! Here’s why it was important to me to be out here this week and I view NYC as a sister city. ((scroll down for 2 events The Council is hosting today!)) 🏭🏥 Reminder: The Council Fund invests at Pre-seed in Software’s Third Act, the transformation of the essential economy. Our investments span healthcare and industrial sectors like manufacturing, logistics, construction. 🐂 I’m eternally bullish on NY & SF and hate how many pit the two cities against each other. The reality is that a lot of capital and talent flow back and forth between the cities. They need each other to thrive! 🗽🌁 Cities like NY & SF attract young and mid-career talent because of their population density, transient nature, beauty, and reputations as cities where someone new on the scene can make a name for themselves. For the areas we invest in, I’m *specifically* excited about NY because of: 🏗️ Closer proximity to industrial hubs which are scattered across the Midwest / Rust Belt 🏛️ Closer proximity to DC where a lot of regulation around VC, startups, healthcare, onshoring initiatives, and industrial sectors takes place 💰 Many of the large financial institutions that are backing hard tech focused funds and major healthcare initiatives are also headquartered here in NYC 🎯 We’ve got several startups here who are hitting it out of the park, like Dirac and Siena. This has further validated my belief in this ecosystem to support young companies! Today we are kicking off with 2 events on Day 1 of #NYTechWeek 👉 AI Demo Day: The Council, Next Wave NYC, Lynx Collective, Flybridge will host 8 founders and 200+ investors and founders for a pitch competition this evening! Luma: https://lnkd.in/gbdYiJMw 🔜 Can still join the waitlist! Small & Big VCs in Hard Tech: The Council joined General Catalyst, Lux Capital, Iron Prairie Ventures, AlleyCorp, House Of Ventures, Steel Atlas for 2 back to back panels on industrial innovation & collaboration across the capital stack Luma: https://lnkd.in/gj6D4-Au ⏰ Event has passed

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Next week is NY Tech Week, and on Wednesday, I'll be co-hosting TechWalk at 2 PM in Central Park. More details here: https://lnkd.in/eFey-aBd I look forward to connecting and chatting about the dynamic world of early-stage startup investing, go-to-market strategies, and the venture capital ecosystem. As a Venture Fellow at Fordham Angel Fund (FAF), I bring hands-on experience evaluating startups, conducting market analysis, and developing go-to-market strategies. Let's discuss founder due diligence, growth hacking techniques, and the nuances of crafting effective term sheets. I'm also passionate about discussing programs like Vencapital and Venture Cooperative that support minorities and women breaking into VC. Additionally, I'd love to share insights on content creation and storytelling from my experience hosting a YouTube podcast. If you're interested in personal branding, networking, or leveraging LinkedIn for career growth, let's connect! Join me for a walk and chat about the global business landscape, embracing diversity, and adapting to new environments. See you there! #NYTechWeek #TechWalk #Startups #VentureCapital #ContentCreation #PersonalBranding #Networking #GlobalBusiness #DiversityInVC

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For any #edtech app to realize its potential, data must flow seamlessly and securely. But data integration is deceptively complex and costly. It’s also *not* what gets edtech developers and engineers out of bed... ...except perhaps for Mick Hewitt Doug Weber and the team at Ednition, who are building the critical infrastructure to help schools and companies to solve rostering and data interoperability challenges in education. Already Ednition has processed billions of rostering records for edtech companies working with school systems of all sizes. As Mick once said: let’s compete on apps, not infrastructure. We’re incredibly excited to join GSV Ventures Avalanche Array Education and others in this seed round. On the roadmap are even more robust integrations with LMSs and other features that will unlock data silos. If you’re building in #edtech and find yourself wrestling with data challenges, give Ednition a look (or hit me up for an intro)! Many Reach companies are happy customers.

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The last time I was in Atlanta was in April 2018, and I talked for 12 hours straight about early-stage venture capital and startups at digitalundivided. Kathryn Finney is my witness. ====== I arrive in Atlanta this evening, and I'll be there till Monday, when I leave in the afternoon. If you'll be in town for the National Minority Supplier Development Council (NMSDC) annual conference, please DM me so we can find time to meet. Kurtis Trevan, Candace Mitchell, Brit F., Jewel Burks Solomon, Mark Shaughnessy, Averi Thomas-Moore, Dyci Manns Sfregola, CSCP . . . Please share to help me extend my reach. My network in Atlanta is vanishingly small. I'd love to bring a small group of Industrial Transformation & Supply Chain Tech folks together for an impromptu meetup to try and get The Atlanta Supply Chain Meetup back in the early stages of formation. I'd particularly love to meet someone who wants to build the local community with help from The Worldwide Supply Chain Federation. Also, if you're a pre-seed or seed stage startup founder, I'd love to hear about what you're building. Our Investment Thesis: REFASHIOND Ventures: The Industrial Transformation Fund invests in early stage startups refashioning legacy industries through Data & AI, Advanced Materials, Advanced Manufacturing, & Next Generation Supply Chains; Defensible through economic moats. At most venture capital firms, Industrial Transformation & Supply Chain Technology is a tiny, emerging “area of interest” . . . At REFASHIOND Ventures: The Industrial Transformation Fund, it’s our entire world. Join us. #IndustrialTransformation #SupplyChain #Innovation #Technology #Startups #VentureCapital

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Want a front-row seat to the frontier of tech? We’ve got the role (or two) for you! We’re expanding our frontier-tech team at Blackbird by hiring a Frontier Tech Investments Associate and Foundry Fellows! Got questions? We've got answers... 1️⃣ What are the roles? 🧪 Associate = a full-time VC investment gig in our Blackbird Investments team, working directly with me. We’re looking for someone with a science and/or engineering background and more curiosity than they can handle. You’ll grow your own investment brand and practice, support our portfolio founders, and will help build Foundry, our early-stage frontier-tech accelerator. ✨ Foundry Fellow = a casual/contract gig in our Blackbird Investments team, ~15h per week for 3 months. The Fellowship is ideal for PhD students and ECRs who want to learn more about startups and VC. You’ll go deep on emerging areas relevant to your expertise (or curiosity!), get a front-row seat to groundbreaking companies in those areas, build out your non-academic network, and develop a solid writing practice. 2️⃣ Why are you hiring? We love frontier tech, and we’re ready to grow our team. 3️⃣ Wow, it’s so great that you’re starting to look at deep tech! Look, we get it: we don’t make a lot of noise about our frontier tech investing. Buuuut we’ve been deep-tech investors since we backed Tim Kentley-Klay to found Zoox back in 2014—we’ve been on incredible journeys with PsiQuantum (building the world's first utility-scale quantum computer right here in Australia!), Inventia Life Science (transforming drug discovery with high-fidelity cell models), Remedy Robotics (surgical robots for remote endovascular procedures), Opto Biosystems (minimally-invasive neural implants to treat cancer), and more. We believe that frontier technologies, and great frontier-tech investing, will be part of the solutions to the greatest problems humanity faces today. 4️⃣ When do applications close? May 31st at 11:59pm AEST. 5️⃣ I have more questions! I’m sure you do! Clare Birch and I are hosting an AMA to answer any and all questions about these roles. Want to know what a week in the life of our team looks like? What’s keeping us up at night? What our ideal candidate looks like? Come along and find out - registration link in the comments 👇 Apply for these roles: Associate - https://lnkd.in/gCfj4EUJ Foundry Fellowships - https://lnkd.in/gj6ATZVZ If you know anyone that we should meet, send me their details! Cameron Elise Ben Andrew Robin Joseph Adelaide James Olivia Lucinda Raghav Jesse Christie Mohamed Tom Amee Pablo Haya Loong Hon Joshua Benjamin Megan Harry Denzil Matthew Diana Daniel Tom Deanna Justin Amar Lilly Stone Thomas

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Day 71: Last Call: Join Us at LvlUp Ventures Private Investor Cocktail Hour in NYC YOO NYC Startup Ecosystem Colleagues & Investor Friends, Just a few spots left! Who's going to make it? I know we’re all used to packed schedules and constant pitching—but this is different. This is your chance to break bread (and clink glasses) with the people who actually move the needle. Whether you're a savvy angel, an ambitious VC, or just dipping your toes into the investment world, this event is your invitation to level up—literally! 🗓️ LvlUp Ventures Private Investor Cocktail Hour 📍 New York City — September 19th ⏰ Doors Open: 5:30 PM EST 🍸 Open Bar & Appetizers: Premium drinks and snacks 📈 Exclusive LvlUp Ventures Presentation: The future of startup investing—now. Why attend? Because networking with the right people can accelerate your next deal. This isn’t just a casual mixer. It’s a chance to align yourself with innovation, gain insights, and spot those opportunities others miss. Trust me, you don’t want to be the one reading about this event later on LinkedIn wishing you'd gone. Special thanks to our incredible partner, Rho! A game-changing business banking platform that's redefining how companies manage cash flow and scale efficiently. No fees, 24/7 support—what more do you need? Ready to RSVP? Request your invite here >> https://lnkd.in/gD4S5bsS << Your seat at the table (and a drink in your hand) is waiting. Will we see you there, or will you miss out? What’s one key thing you look for when attending investor events? Drop your thoughts in the comments! Let’s make the next days of our journey count, filled with more stories, inspiration, and community impact! P.S. Want to get involved? If this resonates, repost, to share with others ♻️ and follow Javy Martinez for more in the future.

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I'm incredibly honored to be featured alongside some amazing peers in TechCrunch's Top VC Investors Under 30 in NYC list! A huge thank you to TechCrunch and Dominic-Madori Davis. This achievement wouldn't have been possible without the support and mentorship I've received. Special shout-out to Serena Dayal. She not only gave me the vocabulary and toolbox with which to explore investing and entrepreneurship, more importantly, she imbued me with confidence: the confidence to send a great cold email, approach someone at a networking event, or apply for a job I never thought I would get. At Chai Ventures, we invest $100-500K in pre-seed and seed-stage companies where women dominate decision-making and spending power. I'm passionate about innovations in consumer technology and goods. Companies like Mimikai, the first in over 25 years to secure a new EPA repellent registration with its exclusive active ingredient, Undecanone, are making groundbreaking strides. Also, Zeen (formerly known as Landing), a platform for visual, shoppable blogs, is redefining how we engage with content and commerce. I'm also dedicated to expanding the definition of women's health to address chronic conditions that disproportionately affect women, such as thyroid disorders, endometriosis, and osteoporosis. I'm optimistic about the transformative impact technology can have in this space. Committed to enhancing transparency in the VC industry, I believe clear funding criteria and open communication can demystify the investment process, making venture capital more accessible to entrepreneurs and aspiring investors. Despite recent challenges, I'm more energized than ever about my career choice. Being a doer means rolling up my sleeves to find impactful solutions and support our portfolio companies through tough decisions. As a connector, I bridge gaps, link founders with key resources, and build networks that generate value. I see myself in venture capital for the long haul. There's no other profession that offers a front-row seat to technological innovation. Supporting visionary founders like Aagya, Aya, Ellie, and Miri is an unparalleled experience. Outside of work, I'm training for my first marathon, playing racquet sports (ping me if you want to attend the next Founder & VC Squash Night hosted by me, Maria, and Theron), needlepointing, spending time with family (especially Soju, my Shiba Inu 🐕), trying new restaurants, and capturing moments with film photography. To founders looking to pitch: I'm incredibly excited by those who turn challenges into opportunities. If you have a strong team, an innovative and scalable product or service, and you're ready to seize a significant market opportunity, let's connect! Thank you to everyone who has supported me on this journey. 🚀 Here's to many more years of innovation, growth, and making a difference! Link to the full TechCrunch piece: https://lnkd.in/eREbag_q

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Looking beyond #VC funding for your #startup? Aakash Shah of Wyndly (YC W21) reveals how he built a multi-million dollar #healthtech company using creative capital strategies. Learn how he leveraged Y Combinator's network and alternative funding methods to revolutionize allergy treatment. In case you missed it, you can watch the #FundraisingDemystified #podcast here: https://lnkd.in/eZT63YS4

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