
September 15th deadline!
PRE-SEED AND SEED FOUNDERS THIS IS FOR YOU!
Sharpen your story. Find your community. Build your company.
October 14, 2025 · LA Tech WeeK
The first hour will be all about the pitches — founders taking the stage to present their startups to top LA VCs. Then the lights will drop and the space will transform into an after-hours vibe, where founders, investors, and community come together to connect and celebrate.
This opportunity is for pre-seed or seed founders to get feedback from LA VCs including Alpha Edison, Amplify.LA, Bonfire Ventures, and Fika Ventures.
Presented by Gunderson Dettmer — the law firm focused solely on the venture capital and emerging company ecosystem — and Alpha Edison — the venture firm backing breakthrough ideas and the ambitious founders behind them.
PitchLive.LA is a live pitch event that will bring together fearless founders and forward-thinking investors for a high-energy night of real storytelling and bold ideas.
JUDGES
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Partner, Alpha Edison
Britt is a Partner at Alpha Edison, where she focuses on investments in AI, fintech, and deep tech. She has worked with companies across asset classes to scale.
She helped launch Alpha Edison nine years ago, where they've invested in over 100 companies. Before joining Alpha Edison, she was an investor at Bain Capital Credit, focusing on middle market companies and distressed situations. There she worked with companies to structure opportunistic capital strategies through both debt and equity. With a passion for financial inclusion, she also worked in corporate development at the fintech startup Funding Circle.
Britt holds a BS from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and an MBA from Harvard Business School. While at HBS, she launched the women's entrepreneurship initiative called Series W. Britt is originally from Arizona, and you can typically find her outdoors—hiking with her dog Mookie, skiing, playing beach volleyball—or with her head in a book. -
Principal, Bonfire Ventures
Jennifer Richard is a Principal at Bonfire Ventures, where she leads seed-stage investments with a focus on Vertical AI, SMB Tech, and Commerce Enablement. She represents Bonfire on the Board of several companies such as Rwazi, Reactiv, Prado and Inveterate.
Before transitioning into venture capital, Jennifer spent 5 years operating at early stage, venture-backed companies going from 0 to 1. Her career spans building and scaling commerce platforms globally, managing complex logistics, and understanding customers across diverse verticals and geographies. Her expertise in product management and global supply chains has allowed her to drive significant growth for early-stage companies.
Jennifer holds a BA from Emory University and an MBA from the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley. She is also a proud Kauffman Fellow. Based in Los Angeles, Jennifer enjoys traveling, playing tennis and wakeboarding when she's not chasing the next great investment opportunity. -
Founder and Managing Partner, Amplify.LA
Paul is the founder and Managing Partner of Amplify - which launched in 2012 and has funded 135 companies since its inception. He also has served as a Board Partner at Greycroft for the past 13 years. Previously, he was the founder of the Mailroom Fund — a joint venture between Accel Partners and William Morris Endeavor (where Paul worked for 14 years as EVP and head of Digital).
Paul has been a member of the Board of Councillors at the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism at the University of Southern California (USC) for the last decade. Also at USC, he is currently an Expert-In-Residence at the Greif Center for Entrepreneurship at USC Marshall School of Business. For each of the past 9 years, Paul has been named to the list of the 500 Most Influential People in Los Angeles by the LA Business Journal.
Canadian by birth, Paul is an avid sports fan of the Toronto Blue Jays and Raptors and loves to cook and enjoy great food.
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General Partner, Fika
TX Zhuo is the general partner of Fika Ventures, focusing on fintech, enterprise software and marketplace opportunities.
An entrepreneur at heart, TX has been involved with startups since his college days where he started then successfully sold an online college textbook marketplace. After a stint at McKinsey where he was a core member of their financial services and consumer goods practices, he came back to his roots and served as the CFO for an electric vehicle startup, Lit Motors. Thereafter, he worked for Innovation Endeavors, a seed stage venture fund backed by Eric Schmidt. In 2012, he co-founded Karlin Ventures, based in Los Angeles, where he served as the managing partner for 4 years before co-founding Fika Ventures. He is a strong proponent of transparency and efficiency and is constantly on the lookout for new platforms that seek to disrupt old, antiquated industries.Once a competitive badminton player who trained 4-5 days a week, he now can be found on the golf course or maxing out his ClassPass account on the weekends. He is also passionate about supporting initiatives that help cancer fighters.
TX holds an MBA from Stanford and a BA in Mathematics and Economics from Wesleyan University.
what to expect
TOP 10
Ahead of the PitchLive.LA event, the top 10 semi-finalists will be invited to a storytelling development dinner hosted by Gunderson Dettmer, and led by experienced coach, entrepreneur, and education and angel investor, Jason Yeh.
finalists
Finalists selected for their vision and execution will pitch to a panel of LA’s top tier VCs live during LA Tech Week, including Alpha Edison, Amplify.LA, Bonfire Ventures, & Fika Ventures. Top finalists will receive $5,000 credit towards legal services from Gunderson Dettmer.*
winner
The winner will receive startup services worth >$50K, including legal, branding, financial services & marketing.
And bragging rights.
Presented by GUNDERSON DETTMER & ALPHA EDISON
this is Los Angeles
Not just a city, but a current — of culture, reinvention, and unapologetic ambition.
The world looks to LA for what’s next in technology, storytelling, music, art, fashion and startups.
LA is for the builders in basements, the dreamers who won’t wait their turn,
and the founders brave enough to step into the spotlight and drop the mic.
We don’t just launch companies here.
We launch creative revolutions.
Sponsored By:
Meet Your Entertainment
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Emily Wagner, aka DJ EM, was born and raised in New York City, where her love affair with music and nightlife started long before she could legally drive.
As a teenager, she was already part of the city’s electric club scene. School nights you’d find her at Studio 54, rolling home at 5 AM. She had her Sweet 16 at Xenon, one of the city’s most iconic spots at the time.
It was in the heart of the club world that her obsession with sound, movement, and the raw energy of a packed dance floor began. Em has always seen dance as a ritual of expansion and self-discovery—a way to tap into something larger than oneself. Together, dancers charge a room and forge unspoken bonds. Naturally, this obsession led her to the DJ booth, where she became captivated by how a DJ can tell a story through music, guide the crowd on a journey, shift the room’s vibe, and let people lose themselves in the rhythm.
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Randy is a LA-based comedian and podcaster originally hailing from Queens, New York. After going to a fancy Ivy League university and spending over a decade as an investment banker and private equity investor, Randy decided he did not like paying his bills on time and jumped head first into stand up comedy. Randy’s style of comedy reflects his diverse upbringing in New York City by a Dominican father and an Irish-German mother, his experiences as a single man in his 30’s, and the everyday absurdities we all take part in but never seem to notice. Randy has performed in over 30 cities across the US opening for Jeff Dye (The Tonight Show, MTV, Better Late Than Never) since 2018. He’s been a featured performer at the the Big Pine Comedy Festival 2022, the Idaho Comedy Fest 2021, and the Fringe World Festival - Australia 2020. Randy’s weekly Ready Set Blow Podcast was featured at the Boston Podfest 2018.
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