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Today, we’re excited to announce our 3rd Annual Emerging Manager Circle Summit.
When I started the Emerging Manager Circle 5 years ago, the goal was simple. I wanted to find a safe space for me to learn and grow alongside my peers - those experiencing the difficulty and excitement of what I was going through. Much like the founders running companies, I found myself overwhelmed by the magnitude of starting a firm, raising capital, building a team; all responsibilities that were above and beyond my day job of investing in companies and helping those founders through their early journeys to product market fit. I needed help. The Emerging Manager Circle was a selfish call-to-action to ask for help from my peers and I’m confident we wouldn’t exist as a firm today without that initial group of individuals and the many more that have joined us since.
Today, our group stands at nearly 700 emerging fund managers from around the globe. While I no longer can say that I know all the members, I do share a kinship with everyone in the group. All of us have gone through the same journey (the difficulty AND excitement) of starting a venture firm. We experience so many of the same emotions along the way and my hope is that by working together, we make less of the same mistakes. If nothing else, I know that having a safe space for me to ask questions, learn from my peers and find help along the way has had a tremendous impact on our firm, and I’m hopeful that it has made some type of a difference for the many others in the group.
Since 2022, we have hosted an intimate, off-the-record Summit, bringing together emerging fund managers and the LPs courageous enough to back them. The speakers at the summit have included some of the most accomplished GPs and LPs from the venture ecosystem, often telling stories and perspectives that have never been shared elsewhere. In the past two years, we’ve been fortunate to host luminaries like Fred Wilson from USV, Roger Ehrenberg from IA Ventures and Eberg Capital, Joel Cutler / Ken Chenault / Adam Valkin from General Catalyst, Josh Koppelman / Hayley Blarna / Molly Fowler from First Round and Dorm Room Fund Mamoon Hamid from Social + Capital and Kleiner Perkins. I learn so much from these conversations and the ability to share a day with partners in the emerging manager community (GPs and LPs) is one of my favorite days of the year.
This year, we have a star studded line-up that includes many of the heroes I’ve looked up to as I aspired to be a venture capitalist (and still do). Amongst them are Annie Lamont of Oak HCFT, Gordon Ritter of Emergence Capital, Semil Shah of Haystack, Dave Yuan of Tidemark, Chris Farmer of SignalFire, Charles Hudson of Precursor Ventures, Beezer Clarkson of Sapphire Ventures and famed angel investor, Scott Belsky. As always, this content will be unfiltered, unique and intimate. We have many more speakers in the mix that we will announce in the coming months and know that this year’s EMC Summit will be our very best yet.
We’ll be hosting this year’s Summit on October 17th in NYC. While we would love to welcome as many people as we can, last year we had over 1,500 applicants for just over 200 slots and anticipate a similar level of constraints for this year’s event. For those interested in joining us, please complete the application linked here to request attendance and our team will follow up with you to confirm your spot as availability allows.
As always, I’m so thankful to many peers, LPs and mentors that have shaped the Emerging Manager Circle community over the years and for the opportunity to give back to a community that has given us so much. I’m hopeful you will consider joining us for this year’s event and/or joining the EMC group if you are not already a member.
Thank you.
– Rick Zullo & the Equal Ventures team
PS - If you are interested in contributing to the event as a speaker or sponsor, please email us at emc@equal.vc.
I'm just running across this and really excited. As an EM - there aren't a ton of resources focused on the uniqueness of our challenges. Looking forward to participating in the community. FWIW - first saw mention of this on X.
Many thanks for sharing your initiative Rick! It's a lot of inspiration as I'm trying to build the same group for aspiring Managing Partner/General Partner of M&A, VC, and PE.