Altai Ventures

Congrats to Authentic on announcing their Series A! Cole Riccardi, Kyle Babirad, and the Authentic team are truly building something different, and we are super happy to continue supporting Cole and the entire team in their Series A.

Insurance for SMBs is a space that, rightly so, has received a lot of attention and capital over the last decade. While many startups have focused on solving the processing problem, few have focused on combining customer centricity with vertical depth. At Altai, we know that customer centricity + vertical depth + underwriting discipline + tech + data = a good combined ratio. We have been looking to back a company like Rainbow for some time now and are excited to continuing working with Bobby Touran, Jamie Hankinson, Shalom Yiblet and the entire Rainbow team! You can read more about Rainbow here: https://lnkd.in/eM2y5Aew

On October 27th, Altai Ventures' very own Melissa Beight hosted the second annual WIN: Women in Innovation Awards Gala. Melissa co-founded WIN Awards last year with Lindsay Liu to champion and recognize women leaders, rising stars, and champions in innovation and female-founded startups across industries. At Altai Ventures, we are always striving for greatness, and Melissa is no exception. At the gala, she received The President’s Lifetime Achievement Award for her commitment to volunteer service. Other highlights from the program included WIN: Women in Innovation's first demo day, where itselectric founder Tiya Gordon received a non-equity check and a fireside chat between Melissa Beight and Jenny Sui, Principal at Craft Ventures. We also got to spend time with Altai’s first fellow, Memi Kirikoglu. It was truly a special evening! #vc #innovation #womenininnovation #femalefounders

We are thrilled to officially launch the Altai Fellows Program with our first MBA fellow, Memi Kirikoglu. Memi is completing her MBA at Wharton, where she is already a 1st Year President. Prior to Wharton, she spent five years at Bridgewater, where she served as Chief of Staff to the CEO. Memi embodies Altai’s values as an independent thinker and leader who always strives for greatness, and we couldn’t be more excited to have her join us. Welcome, Memi!   The Altai Fellows program is a one-academic year program for MBA students from top programs to learn about the VC ecosystem and gain hands-on investing experience, access Altai’s playbooks, and serve as an Altai ambassador on campus. #vc #investing #fellows

Let’s go Authentic!