OCTOBER 2–8, 2023

Launch•a•blenoun - An event series designed to facilitate the creation of innovative, venture-scalable startups.

but Why Apply
ONE:
$250,000

You'll have the opportunity to launch your vertical, generative apps startup with $250,000 in pre-seed funding from MVL, $25k AWS credits, and be highlighted at Madrona's IA40 Summit.

TWO:
mentorship

Work and learn from fellow entrepreneurs, foundation model experts, and VCs. Take a look at some of our previous events.

Event Details

Launchable is an event series designed to facilitate the creation of innovative, venture-scale startups. We are excited to announce that the winning company at Launchable will be highlighted at Madrona’s IA40 Summit. The IA40 Summit is a premier gathering that celebrates the top intelligent applications making a significant impact across industries.

Join us to build and advance your vertical, generative apps idea, learn from experienced operators and expert mentors, and pitch to a panel of VC judges. There are two ways to participate: 1) as a team, or 2) as an individual with an idea and/or eagerness to join a team.

Launchable includes a series of presentations from industry experts, discussions and networking, and time to work with your team to develop the idea, business model, prototype and final pitch.

We are looking for participants with varying backgrounds, including business, software development, product, and design. We hope to see vertical applications spanning travel, finance, digital health, climate, gaming, real estate, ecommerce, and more. The event fee is $75 for applicants who are accepted. If $75 is a barrier to entry, please contact hello@madronavl.com to request sponsorship

Idea presenters will be required to pitch in-person in Seattle on Sunday, Oct 8.

Speakers

Thomas Dohmke
CEO
Github
Farah Ali
VP, Electronic Arts
GM, SEED
Kanu Gulati
Partner
Khosla Ventures
Ambrish Verma
CPO
Flex
Yohei Nakajima
GP, Untapped
Founder Baby AGI
Nancy Wang
Venture Partner
Felicis Ventures
Amit Zavery
SVP of Engineering
Google
Wei Gao
Venture Partner
Madrona
Diego Oppenheimer
Partner
Factory
Tim Porter
Managing Director
Madrona
Rama Sekhar
Partner
Norwest Venture Partners
Maria Karaivanova
Co-Founder
WhyLabs
Jason Knight
Co-Founder
OctoML

Mentors

Maria Gilfoyle
Investor
Madrona
Palak Goel
Investor
Madrona
Matt Lerner
Former SVP Product at Redfin,
Co-Founder of Walk Score
Neha Gupta
Co-Founder
Stealth mode
Lakshay Chauhan
CEO & Co-Founder
Finpilot
Elliott Waldron
Co-Founder & VP Data Science
Read.ai
Brian Fioca
Founding AI Engineer
Blueprint AI
Greg Coquillo
AI Product
Amazon
Brian White
Co-Founder
Suplari
Alessya Visnjic
CEO & Co-Founder
WhyLabs
Sanjit Singh
CEO
Boltt
Zaki El Twaishi
Director of Data Architecture
Electronic Arts
Krista Richmond
Sr. Development Director - Analytics
Electronic Arts
Farah Akoum
Sr. Director of Product, Search, Discovery & Transact
Zillow
Brett Greene
Founder & CEO
New Tech Northwest
Pedro Torruella
ML Staff Engineer
OctoML
Luis Vega
ML Staff Engineer
OctoML
Jamie Nicole Johnson
Attorney, Emerging Companies & Venture Capital
Perkins Coie
Michael Avent
Partner, Emerging Companies & Venture Capital
Perkins Coie

Judges

Tina Hoang-To
Founding General Partner
Kin Ventures
Rajko Radovanović
Partner
a16z
Jon Turow
Partner
Madrona

Organizers

Flora Ku
Operations
Madrona Venture Labs
Mike Fridgen
Managing Director
Madrona Venture Labs
Sam Dore
Talent
Madrona Venture Labs
Jay Bartot
Partner
Madrona Venture Labs
Jason Flateboe
Partner
Madrona Venture Labs
Jimmy Bales
Operations
Madrona Venture Labs

Agenda

OCTOBER 2-8

Event dates & times
displayed in Pacific Time (PT)

Monday
2
Learn
4:45 - 7pm
tuesday
3
build
5 - 6:15pm
Wednesday
4
Learn
5 - 7pm
Thursday
5
build
5 - 6:15pm
friday
6
Learn
5 - 7pm
Saturday
7
build
All Day
sunday
8
In-PERSON 
PITCH DAY
All Day

Pre-Event Activities

  • Sep 6 - Application due (5p PT)
  • Sep 11 - Participants selected & notified
  • Sep 13 - Idea pitch videos are due
  • Sep 15 - Participant voting completed
  • Sep 22 – Teams selected & assigned
  • Week of Sep 25 - Teams encouraged to meet virtually and make plans

Monday, Oct 2 – Virtual

  • 4:45-5:00p – Kickoff
    Mike Fridgen & Flora Ku, MVL
  • 5:00-5:45p: A Conversation With
    Amit Zavery, Google
    Mike Fridgen, MVL– Moderator
  • 5:45-6:30p: Big Tech Panel:
    Building GenAI Apps (Embedded)

    Wei Gao, Madrona – Moderator
    Farah Ali, Electronic Arts
    Maryam Gholami, Meta
    Nancy Wang, Felicis Ventures

Tuesday, Oct 3 – Virtual

  • Build with your team

Wednesday, Oct 4 – Virtual

  • 4:00-4:45p: VC Panel
    Tim Porter, Madrona – Moderator
    Yohei Nakajima, Baby AGIRama Sekhar, Norwest Venture PartnersKanu Gulati, Khosla Ventures
  • 4:45-5:30p: Founder Panel:
    Vertical GenAI Apps (Native)
    Jay Bartot, MVL – Moderator
    Jason Knight, OctoML
    Maria Karaivanova, WhyLabs
    Diego Oppenheimer, Factory

Thursday, Oct 5 – Virtual

  • Build with your team

Friday, Oct 6 – Virtual

  • 4:00-4:45p: A Conversation With
    Thomas Dohmke, Github
    Keith Rosema, MVL – Moderator

Saturday, Oct 7
All day – Virtual

  • Build with your team
  • Pitch practice

Sunday, Oct 8
In-Person Event + Virtual

  • 3:00-4:40p: Final Pitches Judged by VCs
    Tina Hoang-To, Kin Ventures
    Rajko Radovanović, a16z
    Jon Turow, Madrona
  • 4:50-5:00p: Winner Announcement & Closing
    Sam Dore, MVL
  • 5:00-6:00p – Networking (In-Person Only)
Apply

GOT DATA?

HOSTED BY

SPONSORs

Thank you to our incredible sponsors, Silicon Valley Bank and Electronic Arts, as well as our in-kind sponsors who are offering the winning and competing participants the following:

Madrona's IA40: The winning team will receive one ticket to the event, curated meetings with attending VCs, a seat at one of the 10/10 dinners (sponsored by Google, which hosts these exclusive gatherings for founders and VCs), and a dedicated conference slide that highlights the name of the winning company, its concept, and contact information for the founders.

GitHub: The winning team will receive tickets to GitHub's annual developer conference, Universe. Additionally, all eligible builders will gain access to GitHub for Startups, which includes 20 seats of GitHub Enterprise free for one year and a 50% discount in year two, along with access to office hours, live demos, and networking opportunities across GitHub's global community.

AWS: The winner of the event will receive $25,000 in AWS Activate credits, and participating teams will receive $5,000 in credits.

OctoML: Participating teams will receive $100 in compute credits/team.

Interested in sponsoring Launchable? Reach out to hello@madronavl.com.

Deadline Extended: Wed Sept 6, BY 5p PT