StrictlyVC events deliver exclusive insider VC content while creating meaningful connections with leading investors & entrepreneurs. Join us for an evening of intimate interviews with industry heavy hitters and impactful conversation, presented by Endeavor and hosted by the National Bank of Greece.
Exclusive VC insights and networking at StrictlyVC
Mix and Mingle – Cocktail parties with killer content.
StrictlyVC events deliver exclusive insider content from Silicon Valley and the global venture scene. If you’re an investor looking to mingle with your peers and watch some killer content, this event is for you. Get the inside scoop directly from sources you can trust. Previous events included interviews with Sam Altman (OpenAI), Marc Andreessen (Andreessen Horowitz), Katie Haun (Haun Ventures), Hans Tung (GGV Capital) and many more!
Ben is a Partner on the investment team at Atomico. He leads investments in companies using AI to automate core enterprise functions, and in those bringing advanced software into complex physical industries like logistics, manufacturing and healthcare.
Three leading investors compare notes on what’s actually driving investment decisions right now and how their expectations of founders are shifting. We’ll cover what’s getting funded, what’s not, and how founders should be thinking about fundraising in the current environment.
Niko Bonatsos is the Founder and Managing Director at Verdict Capital. Niko leads the first money round in ridiculously ambitious tech founders who are building in categories that don’t yet have a name. Niko has been an early stage VC for 15+ years now and was an early investor in companies such as Discord, General Intuition, Hive, Mercor, Pylon, Remote.com, Snap and Triumph Arcade. Prior to becoming a VC Niko was a perpetual student and collected a few degrees from NTUA, the University of Cambridge and Stanford University.
Three leading investors compare notes on what’s actually driving investment decisions right now and how their expectations of founders are shifting. We’ll cover what’s getting funded, what’s not, and how founders should be thinking about fundraising in the current environment.
Johannes is the Co-Founder and CEO of Diffraqtion, where he is leading the development of a breakthrough quantum camera designed to fundamentally expand how satellites and machines perceive the world. Seeing farther, resolving finer detail, and enabling faster, smarter decisions at the edge to enable multiple trillion-dollar industries relying on Edge AI.
He spent his career of 15+ years building and scaling world-class teams delivering pioneering products in Data, AI, and Quantum Tech in various industries from Automotive and Energy to Pharmaceuticals. He was also a quantum researcher at MIT, and has degrees from MIT, Oxford, and Frankfurt.
Building the product is only part of the story. This panel looks at what it takes to get real traction, from finding the right customers to delivering something that actually sticks, and where companies tend to lose momentum along the way.
Some companies cut through faster than others, even in markets that look saturated. We’ll dig into how these three extraordinary founders identify opportunity early, approach product and distribution, and what’s been harder to replicate than it looks from the outside.
Anatolii Kasianov is building one of the world’s fastest-growing AI-first entertainment companies—where AI and creators shape stories for millions worldwide. Since launching HOLYWATER TECH, he has scaled its ecosystem to 85 million users across four leading platforms in vertical series, e-books, and audiobooks. His insights are regularly featured in outlets such as Entrepreneur and Forbes, and he was recently shortlisted for the Digiday Future Leader Awards and winner of Globee Leadership Award.
Some companies cut through faster than others, even in markets that look saturated. We’ll dig into how these three extraordinary founders identify opportunity early, approach product and distribution, and what’s been harder to replicate than it looks from the outside.
Loizos has been reporting on Silicon Valley since the late ’90s, when she joined the original Red Herring magazine. Previously the Silicon Valley Editor of TechCrunch, she was named Editor in Chief and General Manager of TechCrunch in September 2023. She’s also the founder of StrictlyVC, a daily e-newsletter and lecture series acquired by Yahoo in August 2023 and now operated as a sub brand of TechCrunch.
You can contact or verify outreach from Connie by emailing [email protected] or [email protected], or via encrypted message at ConnieLoizos.53 on Signal.
Three leading investors compare notes on what’s actually driving investment decisions right now and how their expectations of founders are shifting. We’ll cover what’s getting funded, what’s not, and how founders should be thinking about fundraising in the current environment.
How Breakout Companies Actually Happen
Some companies cut through faster than others, even in markets that look saturated. We’ll dig into how these three extraordinary founders identify opportunity early, approach product and distribution, and what’s been harder to replicate than it looks from the outside.
Iliana Magra
Journalist, Η ΚΑΘΗΜΕΡΙΝΗ – KATHIMERINI
Iliana Magra is a journalist with the Greek leading daily newspaper Kathimerini. Over the past three and a half years, she has reported on a wide array of topics that relate to the current state of the Greek society, covering not only last year’s elections, the impact of challenges – such as the pandemic and the climate crisis –, and the ways that various developments – from the AI revolution and the war in Ukraine to the MeToo movement – are changing it, but also the experiences of groups of people that remain on the fringes of society. She has written extensively about abuse victims, about people who live in remote parts of the country, about migrants, refugees, and addicts.
She studied Politics at the School of Oriental and African Studies, in London, while also learning Turkish as part of her degree. She is an alumnus of Anatolia College, in her native Thessaloniki.
Building the product is only part of the story. This panel looks at what it takes to get real traction, from finding the right customers to delivering something that actually sticks, and where companies tend to lose momentum along the way.
Mati Staniszewski is the co-founder and CEO of ElevenLabs, a research company building audio AI tools to solve audio intelligence and make digital interactions feel more human — with voice as the most direct path to that. Before founding ElevenLabs, Mati worked at Palantir as a Deployment Strategist, managing large-scale implementations across public and private sectors, and at BlackRock, where he helped launch the Aladdin Wealth platform.
Some companies cut through faster than others, even in markets that look saturated. We’ll dig into how these three extraordinary founders identify opportunity early, approach product and distribution, and what’s been harder to replicate than it looks from the outside.
Andreas invests in consumer and enterprise infrastructure, mobility, and technology-enabled services. He currently serves on the boards of Balena, CircleCI, Diamanti, Forward Networks, Mythic, NumberAI, and Tango. Past investments include Appstream (Symantec), Centerpost (West Corp.), Epocrates (NASDAQ: ATHN), Everdream (Dell), Lexent Bio (Foundation Medicine), Mobile 365 (Sybase), Meetup (WeWork), Silverpop (IBM), Vizu (Nielsen), and Yodle (Web.com).At their core, all of his investments have a platform element. Andreas believes that if entrepreneurs do things correctly and build a springboard, they can solve problems and quickly escalate the value they put into the ecosystem.He graduated Phi Beta Kappa and summa cum laude from Harvard University in computer science, along with an MA degree, and was first in his class at Harvard Business School where he was a Baker Scholar. He previously worked for McKinsey & Company and Cornerstone Research.
Three leading investors compare notes on what’s actually driving investment decisions right now and how their expectations of founders are shifting. We’ll cover what’s getting funded, what’s not, and how founders should be thinking about fundraising in the current environment.
Victoria grew up in Greece, and came to the United States to attend Stanford, where she studied Symbolic Systems with a focus in Artificial intelligence. Prior to starting FINNY, Victoria was a Product Manager at Uber, leading membership growth for Uber One. Victoria is also a Kleiner Perkins Fellow and a published author, on Greece’s contribution to Math.
Building the product is only part of the story. This panel looks at what it takes to get real traction, from finding the right customers to delivering something that actually sticks, and where companies tend to lose momentum along the way.
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Agenda
More to come on the agenda! Check back in for the latest updates.
Three leading investors compare notes on what’s actually driving investment decisions right now and how their expectations of founders are shifting. We’ll cover what’s getting funded, what’s not, and how founders should be thinking about fundraising in the current environment.
Building the product is only part of the story. This panel looks at what it takes to get real traction, from finding the right customers to delivering something that actually sticks, and where companies tend to lose momentum along the way.
Some companies cut through faster than others, even in markets that look saturated. We’ll dig into how these three extraordinary founders identify opportunity early, approach product and distribution, and what’s been harder to replicate than it looks from the outside.
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Disrupt 2026: Meet the connections that change everything at half off
Join 10,000 founders, VCs, and operators on Oct 13-15 for high-signal networking, real deals, and tactical insights you can use immediately. Register before May 29 to save up to $410 on your pass, plus get a second pass at 50% off.
