Beck Venture Center Startup Forum: Investor Panel

Register for Startup Forum Here!

Beck Venture Center Startup Forum: Investor Panel
Back by popular demand! Join us for an engaging panel discussion featuring seasoned venture capitalists. This event offers a unique opportunity to hear directly from VCs about what they look for in potential investments, the challenges startups face, and how to successfully navigate the fundraising process. Whether you're an entrepreneur, investor, or simply interested in the world of venture capital, this panel promises valuable takeaways and networking opportunities.

About Featured Speakers:
Featured panelists include Tem Tumurbat, Natalie Levy, Matt Smith, & Kelly Coyne.

Natalie Levy: Natalie Levy is the Founder of She’s Independent, a women-first investment group offering an entirely new way to support women’s financial independence and influence through investing. She’s Independent marries empowerment and action, with the ultimate mission of closing the power gap in investing by getting more women on the cap table, in the boardroom, and into positions of influence.
An accomplished engineer turned Wall Street derivatives trader, investor, and advisor, Natalie has over a decade of tech operational experience, a portfolio of 45+ seed through later stage private investments, and has experienced liquidity events averaging a >20x return.
She resides in Boulder, CO with her loving rescue pup Beans and is passionate about gender equity and mental health awareness.

Kelly Coyne: Kelly Coyne is a venture capitalist with C-suite operational experience in both B2B and B2C companies.
Before joining D4 Investments, Kelly was the founder and managing partner of Grit Ventures, an early-stage fund focused on Artificial Intelligence and Robotics. She has served as a full time and interim executive at many early-stage hardware, consumer and AI companies.
As an executive, she has helped grow multiple start-ups from conception to over $100M valuations by developing and leading go-to-market strategies. Kelly has driven successful product launches, including identifying the right markets for new companies’ products.
Kelly is a partner at D4. She earned her BS from University Colorado (Boulder) and an MBA from Oxford University.

Tem Tumurbat: Tem is the Co-founder and Managing Partner of Nomadic Venture Partners, where he focuses on fund strategy, fundraising, investing, and portfolio construction.
Prior to co-founding NVP, Tem was an investment professional at Resource Capital Funds (RCF), a mining focused private equity investment firm, managing early to late stage investments. He de-risked companies, commercialized their businesses and successfully completed M&As that delivered hundreds of millions of dollars to investors.
Prior to RCF, Tem worked for Newmont Mining Corporation as a mining engineer and then as a project engineer. Tem also co-founded MNG Summit, a non-profit organization supporting Mongolian students and early career professionals.
He started his professional career as an entrepreneur where he started and operated a transportation company in college to help pay for college tuition and support extended family.

Blair Simpson: As Principal, Head of Diligence at Denver Angels, Blair leads analysis for investment opportunities in early-stage technology companies across industries. Blair previously served as Principal at Frontier Venture Capital in Boulder, Colorado, where he led investments in B2B tech startups such as HData (Data Intelligence), Project Canary (Energy/Climate), Qualiti AI (DevOps), and Fathom (Generative AI/ML). Prior to Frontier, Blair served as a Venture Associate with The Fund Rockies, leading due diligence for investments in Pre-Seed companies headquartered in the Mountain West. Blair earned his MBA from the University of Colorado Leeds School of Business, where he graduated Magna Cum Laude in 2021 and was recognized as the MBA Finance Student of the Year.

About Beck Venture Center's Startup Forum:
Startup Forum is a program series designed to empower entrepreneurs with essential knowledge and insights crucial for startup success. Each session within the series features a diverse lineup of industry experts and thought leaders who delve into a wide array of topics. These topics include Accounting Basics for Startups, Discovering a Winning B2B Value Proposition, venture capital insights, founder panels, and practical advice on capital fundraising, among many other topics. Through engaging speakers and interactive panels, Beck Venture Center’s Startup Forum provides invaluable guidance and networking opportunities aimed at equipping founders and entrepreneurs of Mines and the broader community with the tools and understanding needed to navigate the competitive startup landscape effectively.
The local startup community is the heartbeat of the Beck Venture Center, and we ensure plenty of time for networking at every startup forum event! Come network with us and enjoy complimentary snacks and drinks, including happy hour beverages, courtesy of the Beck Venture Center. We hope to see you there!

Event Timeline:
3:30 PM: Doors
4:00 PM - 7:00 PM: Program and Networking

Upcoming Startup Forum Dates:
Forum 5: Wednesday, March 12, Marketing for Startups, Register HERE.
Forum 6: Wednesday, April 2, Clean Tech Startup Panel, Register HERE.

Register for Startup Forum Here!