Investor
Ready to connect with your peers interested in angel investing and VC funding? Grab your free ticket for Startup Boston Week on Sept 14 - 18 today!
The AI-Powered Raise: How Founders and Investors Are Fundraising Differently
Fundraising has always been part storytelling, part relationship-building, and part operational chaos. AI is now reshaping all three. Founders are using it to research investors, personalize outreach, prep for meetings, and manage increasingly complex fundraising pipelines.
At the exact same time, investors are using AI to source startups, evaluate founders, identify market signals, and speed up due diligence behind the scenes.
This panel pulls back the curtain on both sides of the process so founders can better understand not only how to use AI during a raise, but how investors are already using it to evaluate them.
You will walk away learning:
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How founders are using AI to build smarter, more targeted investor lists
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What tools actually help with investor research, outreach, and pipeline management
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How investors are using AI to source and screen startups
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What signals and data founders should surface to improve visibility with investors
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What AI-assisted due diligence looks like from the investor perspective
The fundraising process is becoming faster, more data-driven, and increasingly AI-assisted whether founders realize it or not.
This session is designed to help founders understand how the game is changing in real time and how to use these tools strategically without sounding like a robot that generated its own pitch deck five minutes before the meeting.
State of VC in 2027: What the Future Holds for Startups and Investors
The AI gold rush created an explosion of capital, sky-high valuations, and a seemingly endless number of “AI-powered” companies.
But by 2027, the conversation may look very different.
As infrastructure costs rise, global AI ecosystems fragment, and entire industries rebuild around automation, energy, compute, and longevity, investors are increasingly asking a harder question: what creates durable value once the hype settles down?
You will walk away learning:
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Why AI infrastructure, compute, and energy may become the next major venture battlegrounds
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How investors may distinguish truly “agent-native” companies from businesses simply layering AI onto existing workflows
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What the rise of AI could mean for startup valuations, operating costs, and company structure
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How sovereign AI ecosystems and geopolitical fragmentation may impact fundraising and expansion strategies
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What founders should expect from the fundraising environment over the next 24 months
The venture ecosystem is moving from experimentation into infrastructure, regulation, and long-term market formation. For founders, operators, and investors alike, understanding where capital is actually flowing next may matter far more than chasing whatever trend is currently dominating LinkedIn.
Your First Angel Investment: How to Find, Evaluate, and Back Startups
Angel investing can look deceptively simple from the outside: meet founders, write checks, hopefully invest in the next unicorn. The reality is much more nuanced.
Most experienced angels rely heavily on networks, shared diligence, collaborative deal review, and years of pattern recognition to make investment decisions. This panel offers an honest look at how early-stage investing actually works in practice - particularly inside Boston and New England’s highly relationship-driven startup ecosystem.
You will walk away learning:
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The differences between investing independently versus through an angel network
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How angel groups collaborate on sourcing, diligence, and deal evaluation
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What experienced angels look for when evaluating founders and early-stage startups
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What a realistic first-time angel portfolio strategy looks like
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What the actual time, relationship, and community commitment looks like as an active angel investor
Angel investing is rarely just about capital, it’s often about relationships, access, collaboration, and long-term ecosystem involvement.
Whether you’re considering writing your first check or trying to better understand how early-stage investing works behind the scenes, this session will give attendees a much more grounded understanding of what it actually means to participate in the startup funding ecosystem.
So You Want to Start a VC Fund? What It Really Takes to Launch Fund I
Starting a venture fund can sound glamorous from the outside: build a thesis, raise capital, invest in great founders.
In reality, emerging managers quickly discover they are building a business on top of another business, one that requires fundraising, operations, compliance, relationship management, sourcing, portfolio support, and an enormous amount of credibility before the first check is ever written.
This panel explores what it actually takes to transition from operator, angel investor, or ecosystem connector into a first-time institutional fund manager.
You will walk away learning:
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How to translate an operating background or personal investing track record into a compelling Fund I thesis
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What LPs actually evaluate when considering first-time fund managers
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How emerging managers identify and approach family offices and institutional investors
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Strategies for overcoming the “first close” credibility challenge
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What legal, operational, and compliance infrastructure is required to launch a fund
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How new managers can create an unfair advantage in sourcing and winning allocations
Launching a venture fund is not just about having taste in startups, it’s about building trust, systems, relationships, and a repeatable investment strategy from the ground up.
Whether you’re actively exploring Fund I or trying to understand what separates successful emerging managers from everyone else pitching a thesis deck, this session will provide a far more realistic look at what the path actually involves.
Meet Rumika Sharma! Rumika is our Investor Track Lead for Startup Boston Week 2026.
This is her second year on the Startup Boston Organizing Team. Look them up and connect with them on LinkedIn.