San Francisco Startup Networking: Founders & Investors

RSVP: Use this link
Please note that RSVP is managed via Eventbrite to control attendee lists — don’t ignore it to avoid issues with on-site payment.

Bring your next product question to the table
Meet engineers, AI builders, founders and operators at Ascent Valley’s AI & Tech evening in San Francisco. Talk about what you’re building and meet people you could work with. Locals and visitors are equally welcome.
Bring a product idea or a challenge from your work: choosing the right tools, improving an AI feature or finding a useful way to automate a process. Compare approaches with other guests and share what you’ve tried.
Join small-group discussions before the company pitches. During open networking, get to know the people whose work interests you and explore where you could help each other.

Who you’ll meet

• AI and tech founders & entrepreneurs building products or bringing AI into an existing business.
• Engineers & builders including developers, ML and data specialists, and designers turning ideas into working products.
• Product & business operators working on customer needs, growth and the practical use of technology in a business.
• Investors interested in technology businesses and the people building them.

Why This Event Is Different
Compare how people approach both the technology and the business behind a product. Ask why someone chose a tool, how they test it and what users actually need. These conversations help you understand how others work and whether there’s a reason to collaborate. Keep in touch through Ascent Valley after the evening.

Want to Pitch?
Present your company, walk guests through your pitch deck and take questions from the room. Company representatives can apply through our website; our team reviews applications and confirms speaking slots in advance.

Your application creates a public company profile in our Startup Directory. After the event, your company’s details enter our private company database for investor matching. With your consent, your company can also be featured in our Weekly Founder Digest. Our team arranges introductions when both sides want to connect.
Apply to pitch

For Investors
Meet company representatives and discuss the product, its users and the team behind it. Verified investors can receive our Weekly Founder Digest, matched to their investment focus, and request introductions through our team when both sides want to connect.
Investor Pass is a paid ticket reserved for active investors and representatives of investment firms. Our team reviews investor eligibility. If you are attending in another role, please choose a general admission ticket.
Investor verification and weekly digest

Ascent Valley in San Francisco
Explore the record of our San Jose evenings, including AI & Tech Networking. See past dates and venues, with company profiles where available.

See our San Francisco event history

RSVP: Use this link
Please note that RSVP is managed via Eventbrite to control attendee lists — don’t ignore it to avoid issues with on-site payment.

Join our event at Guildhouse for startup and business networking in San Francisco. Meet people building companies, products and teams across the South Bay, and introduce what you are working on.
Bring a business question: how to reach your first customers, make a product decision or build a team. You are welcome whether you run a business, work at a startup or are exploring an idea.

Who this evening is for
Founders and business owners, developers and designers, and people working in product, sales, marketing and operations. Come to share experience, ask questions and see whose work connects with yours.

What to expect
Start with small-group conversations around topics chosen by the community. Hear five founders give five-minute pitches, followed by questions from the room. Continue the conversations during open networking after the pitches.

Want to pitch?
Apply in advance through Ascent Valley. Applications are reviewed and speaking slots are confirmed separately. A general admission ticket does not confirm a pitch slot. You can also attend simply to listen, ask questions and meet people.

Join us in San Francisco
See the date, location and ticket options on this event page. Register for the evening and bring one question you would like to discuss.

RSVP: Use this link
Please note that RSVP is managed via Eventbrite to control attendee lists — don’t ignore it to avoid issues with on-site payment.

You've been running the idea past AI. AI has never once told you it wouldn't work. Tonight you get a room that will.

Five founders, five minutes each, Toy Soldier in San Francisco. Wednesday.

Three reasons people come back:

• You get a table, not a lap of the room. You pick a topic the room voted on and stay there for the hour, instead of wandering with a drink looking for a gap in somebody else's conversation.
• You get a stage short enough to be honest. Five minutes each, no slides read out loud, then the room asks questions. The questions are the good part.
• You get the hour after. The stage ends, nobody's performing any more, and the floor stays open. That's the hour people actually remember.

Your ticket is also a login:
Most events end when you walk out. This one hands you a link: your profile, who else is coming before you get there, a group chat for this specific Wednesday, and a recap afterwards of who you actually met.
Then you land in the San Francisco space and stay there. That's where the second conversation happens, the one you meant to have before the room got loud.
Free with your ticket, on the web or in Telegram: ascentvalley.com/community

Is this your room?
Yes, if you're building something, anywhere from the first line of code to Series A. Or you run a function at a company that's scaling, write the code, do the hiring, or you're still deciding whether to start.

Probably not, if what you're picturing is a room full of investors. How that actually works is further down, and it's better than the picture.

Want the stage?
Apply at Five founders an evening, and we answer everybody, including the people we don't pick. Applying is free, but you do need a ticket, because we check the order number.
Never pitched before? Five minutes is short enough that it's over before the nerves have finished arriving.
What we don't promise, and what we do instead
We don't promise an investor will be in the room on any given Wednesday. Angels and people who work at funds come, some Wednesdays several of them, and we won't tell you in advance who's coming, because we don't know.
We don't run a judging panel, hand out a prize, or keep a leaderboard.
Here's what doesn't depend on who walks in that night. Your application to the stage becomes your profile in our startup directory, and a person reads it, not a scoring script.
Once you're verified, that profile sits in front of the funds and angels in our network, and they ask for the introduction themselves when your company matches what they're actually looking for.
You choose whether you're in the weekly digest and you can leave it any time. We never sell your details, we don't take equity, we don't take a cut of your round, and we don't give investment advice.

Which means the room on Wednesday isn't the whole opportunity. It's the part you can see: ascentvalley.com/pitch

Why it's worth a Wednesday

• Watching somebody explain their company in five minutes teaches you more about explaining yours than another evening alone with the deck.
• You'll hear the question you've been quietly avoiding get asked out loud to somebody else, and you get to watch how they handle it.
• That skill travels. It works on a first date, in a performance review, and at the dinner where somebody asks what you do and you've got twenty seconds before their eyes move on.

So bring the friend who keeps saying they have an idea. Five minutes on that stage is the shortest distance between having an idea and finding out what a room full of strangers thinks of it.

RSVP: Use this link
Please note that RSVP is managed via Eventbrite to control attendee lists — don’t ignore it to avoid issues with on-site payment.

Bring your next product question to the table
Meet engineers, AI builders, founders and operators at Ascent Valley’s AI & Tech evening in San Jose. Talk about what you’re building and meet people you could work with. Locals and visitors are equally welcome.
Bring a product idea or a challenge from your work: choosing the right tools, improving an AI feature or finding a useful way to automate a process. Compare approaches with other guests and share what you’ve tried.
Join small-group discussions before the company pitches. During open networking, get to know the people whose work interests you and explore where you could help each other.

Who you’ll meet

• AI and tech founders & entrepreneurs building products or bringing AI into an existing business.
• Engineers & builders including developers, ML and data specialists, and designers turning ideas into working products.
• Product & business operators working on customer needs, growth and the practical use of technology in a business.
• Investors interested in technology businesses and the people building them.

Why This Event Is Different
Compare how people approach both the technology and the business behind a product. Ask why someone chose a tool, how they test it and what users actually need. These conversations help you understand how others work and whether there’s a reason to collaborate. Keep in touch through Ascent Valley after the evening.

Want to Pitch?
Present your company, walk guests through your pitch deck and take questions from the room. Company representatives can apply through our website; our team reviews applications and confirms speaking slots in advance.

Your application creates a public company profile in our Startup Directory. After the event, your company’s details enter our private company database for investor matching. With your consent, your company can also be featured in our Weekly Founder Digest. Our team arranges introductions when both sides want to connect.
Apply to pitch

For Investors
Meet company representatives and discuss the product, its users and the team behind it. Verified investors can receive our Weekly Founder Digest, matched to their investment focus, and request introductions through our team when both sides want to connect.
Investor Pass is a paid ticket reserved for active investors and representatives of investment firms. Our team reviews investor eligibility. If you are attending in another role, please choose a general admission ticket.
Investor verification and weekly digest

Ascent Valley in San Jose
Explore the record of our San Jose evenings, including AI & Tech Networking. See past dates and venues, with company profiles where available.

See our San Jose event history