Founded in 2016 with the goal of providing individuals with a more concrete pathway into venture capital, GoingVC has continued to grow into a vibrant, collaborative, and inclusive community of like-minded individuals who have the common goal of advancing their careers in the field.
Over the course of our programs, we have had the pleasure of being joined by many investors from some of the top VC funds in the world, including:
What We Offer
The opportunity to meet and network with a multitude of VCs, industry leaders, and like-minded peers.
Access to VC job opportunities before they go public.
Coursework designed to give you a better understanding of the day-to-day and big-picture responsibilities of a VC.
Help in building your fluency in the “language of VC”.
A chance to refine your pitch of startups to the GoingVC team and potentially invest real-world capital alongside other institutional investors.
We Also Give You Access To
- An archive of videos of conversations with VCs from previous cohorts
- A variety of live-online courses run by VCs, investors, and other industry professionals
- A personal headhunter looking to match you with suitable VC roles
- Exclusive access to GoingVC events and meetups
- A resume-checking service
- Mock interviewers to help you prepare for your latest VC interviews
- GoingVCs entire alumni network
The GVC Team
John Gannon
Co-Founder, General Partner
John Gannon
Co-Founder, General Partner
John has mentored thousands of current and aspiring VCs through his VC Careers blog and email list, which counts VCs from top firms like Sequoia, KPCB, and Bessemer as subscribers.
He serves as an advisor to Quantopian (Spark, A16z, Bessemer), Wallaroo Labs (Greycroft, Eniac, RRE, Boldstart, Resolute), and also advised Concord (Bloomberg Beta) prior to their acquisition by Akamai.
John was the founding member of the sales & marketing team at Turbonomic (Bain Capital Ventures, Highland Capital Partners), has worked in product management and services leadership roles at growth-stage startups like DigitalOcean and VMware, and raised seed capital from professional angels and VC firms for his own startup.
Arno Niazi
Co-Founder & CEO
Arno Niazi
Co-Founder & CEO
Arno is a serial entrepreneur that has built profitable companies.
He has worked at Chicago-based VC fund Origin Ventures, where he focused on Saas, Ecommerce and Marketplaces. He also worked at the family fund Bluestein Associates.
Arno holds and MBA from Chicago Booth, as well as two bachelor degrees in Economics and Accounting. He also received a Masters degree in Marketing from Uppsala University in Sweden.
In his free time, Arno loves walking and running in forests.
Anthony Bellafiore
Chief Operating Officer
Anthony Bellafiore
Chief Operating Officer (COO)
In addition to his role at GoingVC, Anthony Bellafiore is currently an Associate at LaunchCapital, where he focuses on sourcing and diligencing startups across a range of investment verticals, as well as performing market research on different sectors and industries.
Previously, Anthony was a member of the Funding Team at Greylock-backed European accelerator, Entrepreneur First, where he managed the firm’s investor network and helped its portfolio companies prepare for their funding rounds. He has also built up a cryptocurrency-focused newsletter – The Altcoin Transmission – to over 1.4k subscribers, and has consulted for and advised various startups in the content marketing and fintech sectors.
A dual-citizen of Italy, Anthony has lived and worked in Spain and the UK and loves meeting founders from the lesser VC-trodden corners of the world. Some of his main interests lie in sustainable ocean and energy, cryptocurrency, logistics, and impact investing.
Anthony graduated from Penn State University with a B.A. in Economics, a B.A. in English, and a minor in International Studies.
Abhishek Samdaria
Branding Strategy Lead
Abhishek Samdaria
Branding Strategy Lead
As the Branding Strategy Lead at GoingVC, Abhishek runs point on all aspects of technology operations, website maintenance, and technical planning and development. His previous work revolves around technical roles with a bit of operating experience sprinkled in.
In addition to GoingVC, Abhishek currently works as a technology consultant at EY, with a focus on product management, technical operations, and software strategy. At EY, he’s worked as a PM and developer for a pre-revenue product and helped plan and develop the product from its ideation phase to be client-facing. Besides his PM work, he helps run a biannual internal design thinking competition and has helped with the development of a published white paper on the future of consumer financial services.
In college, Abhishek was the founding member of a HealthTech startup focusing on improving accessibility to mental healthcare. In addition to health tech, he is interested in cross-border VC, quantum computing, fintech, and ed-tech.
Abhishek graduated from Macaulay Honors College at CUNY with a B.S. in Computer Science
Chris DN
Head of Community Development
Chris DN
Head of Community Development
As Head of Community Development, Chris maximizes community engagement. This includes promoting members to meet/post, tracking member satisfaction, being a super-connector between members/our GVC network, managing Slack, and helping with bay area events.
Previously, Chris was at Sequoia Capital where he monitored the health of Sequoia’s global portfolio (4 years). He also has 5 years of management consulting / technology implementations experience, and 5 years leading Montreal’s largest Asian event production company.
When he’s not engulfed in the VC world, he obsesses over fitness/health hacks and recently completed 365 of consecutive workouts/500 days of absolute cold showers.
David Ongchoco
Head of Community & Events (SF)
David Ongchoco
Head of Community & Events (SF)
David currently does Growth at Amplitude, a product analytics startup backed by Sequoia, Benchmark, Battery Ventures and IVP. David is also an investor at the Wharton Alumni Angels and a mentor at Alchemist Accelerator.
Previously, David spent time at First Round Capital’s Dorm Room Fund, Learn Capital and True Ventures. He also started an international nonprofit called YouthHack which ran startup weekends and code weekends for students in over 8 countries and an outsourcing business which helped startups outsource to the Philippines. In a previous life as a journalist, David wrote about startups and venture capital for publications like the Huffington Post, Inc. Magazine, Technical.ly, among others. He also helped ghost write the book of SeventySix Capital Managing Partner Wayne Kimmel.
David graduated from the University of Pennsylvania where he studied Computer Science and Cognitive Science. Prior to coming to the US, David was born and raised in the Philippines and has a soft spot for the rapidly developing Southeast Asia startup ecosystem.
Houston Rhodes
Senior Program Manager
Houston Rhodes
Senior Program Manager
Houston is a Senior Program Manager at GoingVC where she is responsible for working on initiatives that support the development of GoingVC’s platform through engaging and networking with investors and members.
Prior to GoingVC, Houston worked in entrepreneurship and investment banking. Her experience includes building a time-sensitive vesicourethral anastomotic device for prostatectomies as Co-Founder of UroLink. She also worked as a clinical sponsor liaison, maintaining communication between three clinical sponsors and the team. Post co-founding UroLink, Houston worked at BMO Capital Markets in New York City as an Investment Banking Analyst, assisting managing directors and directors on advising multiple initial public offerings, acquisition financings, mergers and acquisitions, and debt refinancings for biotechnology, medical technology, and healthcare services companies. Houston is currently helping build a healthcare services startup, Residence Respite, as a Business Development Associate.
Houston holds a Master of Biomedical Innovation and Development from the Georgia Institute of Technology, as well as, a Bachelor of Arts in Global Health and a Bachelor’s of Science in Evolutionary Anthropology from Duke University.
Iman AbuAlia
Investor Program Manager
Iman AbuAlia
Investor Program Manager
Iman is the Investor Program Manager at Going VC. In addition to GoingVC, Iman works as a Community Manager at crypto.com.
Iman has spent the last few years working at and building startup accelerator programs in the Middle East. Starting as a business associate at Techstars and then going on to help build an accelerator for Wamda Capital, a Dubai-based VC and finally working with Microsoft and the Dubai government, managing an accelerator program for AI startups.
Previous to her work with accelerators, Iman worked as a business analyst for McDonald’s marketing team and was an initial team member of two different startups in London and Dubai.
In her free time, Iman enjoys spending time outdoors, mostly on the water.
James Ransom
Senior Program Manager
James Ransom
Education Program Manager
After working for Armory Square Ventures as an Investment Analyst, James joined the startup side to gain experience as an operator. Along the way, he worked for Justworks, and attended Techstars with his previous role as Head of Sales & Growth at PowerSpike.
Currently, James is Head of Sales at ExPrep, an education startup building interactive training and spreadsheet automation for Excel. Accustom to wearing multiple hats, James enjoys working across sales, marketing, product, and finance to build early-stage companies. In addition to working at ExPrep, James advises early-stage startups in raising capital by structuring investments and providing introductions.
James joined GoingVC as a member in Cohort 5, and joined the team as Education Manager after completing the program. At GoingVC, he is responsible for creating models and assignments for the curriculum.
James graduated from Syracuse University with a B.A in Finance and Information Management & Technology. In his free time, he loves to play guitar and rescue feral cats.
Karine Agajanian
Head of Investor Program
Karine Agajanian
Head of Investor Program
Karine was an early team member at Anzu Partners, an industrial tech venture fund based in Washington, DC, where she enjoyed a chaotic role in fundraising, due diligence, portfolio support, cybersecurity, and dealflow operations.
In addition, Karine was an Associate at the NY-based PE firm Olive Tree Ridge, where she helped source and evaluate deals with a focus on immigrant-owned businesses. She currently consults with several early-stage startups and first-time funds on their fundraising and overall strategy.
In her personal time Karine enjoys keeping up with the latest emtech and social impact startups, working on developing her data science skills, and talking for hours on end to anyone who will listen about the real future of work.
Karine has a Bachelor of Psychology from the University of Utah and a Corporate Finance Certificate from Georgetown University.
Nomzana Augustin
Director of Admissions
Nomzana Augustin
Director of Admissions
Nomzana “Zana” Augustin is a dynamic economic development professional with experience leading program strategies, implementation, and evaluations focused on education and the future of work. Currently, Nomzana leads Management Leadership for Tomorrow’s (MLT) community engagement strategy and operations that aim to propel high achieving Black, Latinx, and Native Americans into high trajectory opportunities at Fortune 500 companies and other high-barrier industries such as tech, consulting, and financial services.
Nomzana was previously at FHI360 and Save the Children, conducting program and portfolio management for US government, philanthropic, and private sector-funded projects in Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe, Latin America, and the Caribbean. Nomzana holds a master’s degree in public policy from Johns Hopkins University and a bachelor’s degree in business with a focus on finance and entrepreneurship from California Lutheran University. She is currently based in Washington, DC.
Rachel Masterson
Associate Program Manager
Rachel Masterson
Associate Program Manager
Rachel has a background in international trade consulting for SMEs in the middle Tennessee and Phoenix areas. She also has experience consulting in various areas of business development for multiple social entrepreneurial start-ups. Her most recent work experience is in the venture capital space, as an Analyst for InvestU (a combined ASU + Thunderbird investing network) as well as an Analyst for the Arizona Founders Fund in Phoenix, AZ. In addition to GoingVC, Rachel is also working on developing an entertainment venue that incorporates a unique dining and sports bar experience with street soccer.
Rachel holds a Master of Global Management from the Thunderbird School of Global Management, with concentrations in Finance & Global Affairs. Rachel also received her BBA from Belmont University with a major in International Business and minors in Spanish & Entrepreneurship.
Roger Kuo
Community Development Manager
Roger Kuo
Community Development Manager
Roger is currently a business and marketing strategy consultant helping aspiring entrepreneurs with their product-market fit, go-to-market strategy, and marketing/branding strategy. Previously, he worked with Cardplus (fintech payments) as a Director of Product Marketing, and with Shanghai Valley (cross-border US-China venture capital) as a Director of Business Development, where he was responsible for bringing new startups to the platform. Prior to that, he was a successful entrepreneur in the e-commerce space.
He was born and raised in San Francisco and graduated from San Francisco State University with a degree in Business Administration. In his free time, he enjoys learning about new technologies (particularly regarding impact investing, fintech, crypto, AI, smart cities and transportation tech), meeting new people, and travelling the world.
Seena Vajed
Head of Investor Relations
Seena Vajed
Head of Investor Relations
Seena is a technology enthusiast with a background in business development, events management, and working with early stage technology startups. His early exposure to the startup world as a founder of his own events company in University combined with his technology focused studies in Economics drove him into the intersections of Venture Capital and Entrepreneurship.
Seena is currently the Business Development Manager at a Digital Mental Health startup called Healthynox where he leads efforts with investor relations, strategy, and works closely with the founders to help scale growth. Previously, Seena worked as a Project Manager for a consultancy based in San Francisco called Connection Silicon Valley that sources opportunities for Canadian startups, corporates and VCs to connect with the Bay Area technology ecosystem.
Seena holds a Bachelor’s degree in Economics from the University of British Columbia. Outside of his work he enjoys hiking the outdoors, attending music festivals, and traveling.
Shravani Rau
Designer
Shravani Rau
Designer
Shravani is a designer for GoingVC, where she is responsible for not only the design of the website but also the branding strategy of GoingVC.
Besides her role at GoingVC, Shravani is also Product Designer at a startup in Bangalore, India, focusing on designing the product line for an Ayurveda healthcare app (for both Android and iOS)
With a masters degree in Computer Science from New Jersey Institute of Technology and a passion for design, she made a career switch from development to design after moving back to India.
She has worked with several startups as a developer and now as a designer.
Apart from digital product design, she makes and sells handmade products. She enjoys painting, reading, music, and anything DIY.
Stephen Nehlig
Head of Business Development
Stephen Nehlig
Head of Business Development
Steve is a startup operator with experience in sales, business development, and sales operations. He started his career as a Financial Management Program trainee at General Electric but quickly moved into selling B2B enterprise software for a Series A startup in Washington DC. There, he managed a team of outbound sales representatives and developed onboarding, training, and management systems to quickly ramp new sales hires.
Currently, he operates a seed-stage education startup that went through Intel’s Edtech accelerator, the NSF I-corps program, and Towson University’s incubator. He also currently leads GoingVC’s business development efforts, focusing on formalizing relationships with top university programs.
He holds a BA in Business from The George Washington University.
Vishal Banerjee
Head of Revenue & Growth
Vishal Banerjee
Head of Revenue & Growth
Vishal Is Head of Growth at GoingVC, where he is responsible for designing and implementing the overarching strategy for GoingVC’s brand, digital marketing, content and offline customer engagement.
Vishal has investing and operating experience, having worked in Venture Capital in addition to having a background in Business Development and Digital Marketing. Some of his main interests lie in HealthTech, Logistics, SaaS and AI.
Vishal’s focus is on early-stage investing and helping young companies to scale. As a citizen of the UK, Vishal has a particular passion for working with immigrant entrepreneurs looking to expand to the US. Prior to moving to the US, Vishal was a Strategy Consultant at EY in London, where he helped global consumer brands achieve profitable growth.
Vishal holds an MBA from the Yale School of Management and a BSc in Economics from the London School of Economics and Political Science.
Yezhisai Murugesan
Product Manager
Yezhisai Murugesan
Product Manager
Yezhisai’s responsibilities as a Product Manager at GoingVC include determining the customer’s wants, managing the product roadmap, overlooking the end to end product lifecycle by acting as a key cross-functional point of contact, identifying key differentiators for each of the product offerings and introducing new product ideas based on market needs.
Prior to GoingVC, Yezhisai has worked at technology companies holding various product and engineering roles. Her experience and interests pan across various fields from Artificial Intelligence, Augmented Reality to Blockchain technologies. Apart from working full-time as a Product Manager in the San Francisco Bay Area, she mentors young and upcoming product managers and engineers. She works with early-stage startup founders to help them find product market fit, discover their competitive edge, build a sustainable strategy and translate the grand vision into actionable milestones to ultimately generate long-term revenue.
Yezhisai holds a Masters in Computer Science from the University of Southern California, Los Angeles and most recently, attended Stanford Graduate School of Business for Innovation and Entrepreneurship.