15th Annual Funding, Exits and IPO's 2026 - #FEIbabcsf
🔍 Event Overview
Join us for an exclusive evening where leading venture capitalists share their insights on the 2025 technology investment landscape and offer a forward-looking view on the Silicon Valley IPO pipeline for 2026.
This event is designed specifically for anyone working with and supporting high-growth tech companies and want to stay ahead of the curve on capital markets, deal structures, and regulatory trends.
💡 What You’ll Learn
- 2025 VC Investment Recap:
- Over $100 billion deployed into AI, fintech, and defense-tech startups.
- Mega-rounds from OpenAI ($40B), Scale AI ($14.3B), and xAI ($10B) reshaped the funding landscape.
- Surge in early-stage funding for robotics, synthetic biology, and climate tech.
- IPO Market Insights:
- 297 U.S. IPOs in 2025, with tech representing 18.6% of total proceeds.
- Successful tech IPOs included CoreWeave, Figma, Chime, Circle and NetSkope
- 2026 Forecasts:
- Which sectors are ripest for IPO?
- How macro conditions will shape exit strategies.
- What companies should prepare for in terms of compliance, audit readiness, and deal velocity.
🥂 Networking & Insights
Enjoy curated networking with peers and industry leaders over wine and hors d’oeuvres.
🎟️ RSVP
Seats are limited. Reserve your spot now to gain exclusive access to the minds shaping Silicon Valley’s next wave of public companies.
| PANELISTS: | |
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RICHARD WATERS West Coast Editor, The Financial Times Richard Waters is the West Coast Editor for the Financial Times. His beat covers the technology industry. Before moving to the West Coast, Mr Waters was based in the FT's New York office for nine years. His roles there included Wall Street reporter, New York bureau chief, and the FT's first information industries editor, overseeing global coverage of technology, telecommunications and media. He previously worked at the FT in London where he held a number of positions, including editor of international capital markets, securities industry correspondent and accountancy and taxation correspondent. Before working for the FT, Mr. Waters worked as a reporter and editor for several financial magazines. He also worked for two years at Lloyd's Bank International and lived in Chile, also working as a teacher. In 2004, he was awarded Corporate Finance Reporter of the Year for his coverage of Google's IPO. He was shortlisted for the Business & Finance Reporter of the Year award at the British Press Awards in 2003 and won the award in 1992 as part of a team covering the BCCI scandal. In 1988, he was named Accountancy Journalist of the Year. He appears regularly on the BBC, CNBC, MSNBC, CNNfn and NPR. Mr. Waters received his Bachelor's degree from St. Edmund Hall, Oxford University |
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BILL REICHERT Partner, Pegasus Tech Ventures Bill Reichert is a Partner at Pegasus Tech Ventures, a $2 billion global venture capital firm with headquarters in Silicon Valley and offices around the world. Bill focuses on deep technology investments, including AI, quantum computing, next-generation chips, materials science, and medical technology. He is also Chief Evangelist of Startup World Cup, the largest and richest venture capital competition on the planet, with over $1.5 million in cash prizes, including a $1 million grand prize. Bill is co-author of the pitching guide, “Getting to Wow! Silicon Valley Pitch Secrets for Entrepreneurs.” He has been a venture capital investor for 20 years, originally as co-founder and Managing Director of Garage Technology Ventures, a seed and early-stage venture capital firm that has been acquired by Pegasus. He has taught at Stanford and Berkeley, and has delivered keynotes and workshops around the world. He began his Silicon Valley career as an entrepreneur, taking two companies public as co-founder or senior executive. Early in his career he worked for McKinsey & Company, the global management consulting firm, in Los Angeles, and the World Bank in Washington, DC. He is a graduate of Harvard College and Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business. He is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations in New York. |
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VALERIE BERTELE General Partner, Yellow Rocks Capital Valerie, a global leader and advocate for female empowerment, she is also an angel investor, VC and an international speaker. She is an alumna of Stanford Graduate School of Business, Nankai University and was previously with Google and Boston Scientific. Currently, Valerie serves as the General Parter at Yellow Rocks Capital, https://yellowrocks.vc/ - San Francisco based early stage VC fund and accelerator, with the current focus in AI companies in Future of Work, Fintech and EdTech. With a career spanning multiple countries (China, Germany, France, USA, Australia, UAE and KSA) and disciplines, she possesses extensive global multidisciplinary experience. Valerie is also consulting several governments on Innovation, Investing and building a GovTech community. Together with helping late stage companies attract growth funding and build expansion and exit strategy. As an active member of community Valerie is organizing events in San Francisco and globally for philanthropy, art and culture, and working with several organizations to empower women in technology, STEM and investing to address gender gap. |
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DAVID GERSTER David Gerster is an Investment Partner at Fusion Fund, an early-stage venture fund based in Palo Alto. Prior to Fusion, he was an investor at the JLL Spark Global Venture Fund, a $100M early stage proptech fund. At JLL, he led the funds efforts to invest in the Series A of OpenSpace, which later raised a Series D at a valuation of more than $900M. He has also invested as an angel, most notably in the first rounds of Cloudera and Alation.
At Groupon, he built an elite data science team that trained the first machine-learned models for mobile deal relevance. At Yahoo, he led the project to collect billions of URL clickstreams in Hadoop and use them to improve Yahoos main web search algorithm. He holds an MBA from the University of California at Berkeley and a Bachelor's degree from Harvard University. |
Date and Time
Wednesday Apr 1, 2026
5:30 PM - 8:00 PM PDT
Networking - 5.30 - 6.30pm
Panel Session - 6.30 - 7.30
Q & A / Post Event Networking - 7.30 - 8.00
Location
SAP
3410 Hillview Ave, Building 1
Palo Alto, CA
THANK YOU TO OUR
CONFIRMED SPONSORS:
Platinum Sponsors
Fees/Admission
$75- BABC Members
$95 - Non-Members
$50 - Young Professionals Members
Hors D'oeuvres and beverages included.
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Contact Information
BABC Events Team - (415) 296 8645
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