University Bioconnect: Venture Capital for Deep Tech w/ Justin Ernest

For our next event, we are excited to host Justin Ernest at Joystick Gamebar!

Justin is an investor at Playground Global, a $1.2 billion early stage venture fund based in Palo Alto that invests in a variety of deep tech areas including AI & robotics, engineered biology, next-gen compute, aerospace, and decarbonization. Justin co-leads the venture team and also spends a lot of his time working with portfolio founders on strategy and fundraising efforts. A native of Atlanta, he started his career at Coca-Cola and subsequently held roles at a variety of venture capital and private equity firms including NextGen Venture Partners, TechOperators, Sidewalk Labs, and Advent International. Justin graduated from the University of Georgia and received his MBA from Harvard Business School. Join us as Justin shares his thoughts about the VC outlook on Atlanta biotech!

5:30pm-6:00pm: Networking and hanging out

6:00pm-6:30pm: Justin's presentation and Q/A

6:30pm-7:30pm: Networking and hanging out

7:30pm-late: Arcade games?

Signup and connect with attendees via our LinkedIn page!

Dress code: on the casual side of business casual, depending on your preference. (It's a light social hang, so feel free to wear whatever you have on that day or whatever feels right to you).

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University Bioconnect is founded on the observation that major biotech centers such as Kendall Square in Boston have community gatherings to share ideas and discuss the many themes that are collectively biotech. One can show up to these events and meet tons of people passionate about biotech’s potential to improve the world, people like researchers from top-tier institutions, clinicians, biotech startup founders, venture capital investors, and employees of massive biotech companies. Before you know it, three hours have passed, and connections have been made that sometimes lead to innovations that would have been impossible otherwise.

As we see it, Atlanta is past-due for developing a similar scene. The University Bioconnect Meetup is being launched by Ph.D. students from Georgia Tech, Emory, GSU, and Morehouse with assistance from VentureLab at Georgia Tech, to host monthly meetups with wide-ranging topics to foster the types of connections that make great biotech hubs thrive. With its leading position in research, clinical expertise, and recent and planned infrastructure, Atlanta is well-positioned to create the world’s next top high-growth biotech community; join us and help make that vision a reality!