VC LIVE!: The OZEMPIC® Trade: How Venture Investors Weigh the Impact of GLP-1 Drugs

Alim is a Partner at Spike Ventures, AV’s fund for Stanford alums. Before joining AV, he worked at American Express Ventures and GE Ventures, focusing on enterprise, B2B, fintech and AI/ML investments. Prior to investing, Alim worked in tech at Google, where he generated revenue for advertisers and managed a $100M book of business. He also spent time at PayPal in product marketing and Instart Logic, a startup backed by a16z and KPCB, where he focused on business development and partnerships. He holds a BS in Business and Accounting from the University of Southern California where he graduated magna cum laude, an MS in Management Science & Engineering from Stanford University and an MBA from The Wharton School.

Meera’s background includes strategic, financial, and operational experience from her time at Yale University, where she managed a $1B budget (of a $4B organization), led M&A transactions, and secured business development relationships with corporate partners. Most recently, she worked with early-stage venture funds and incubators like Create Venture Studio and Polymath Capital Partners and was responsible for launching business ventures and sourcing investments in enterprise SaaS, infrastructure, and ecommerce. Meera has a BA in Economics from Swarthmore College and an MBA from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth.

Prior to joining The Yard Ventures, Grant was an entrepreneur, management consultant, product manager, and VC investor. He was a founding member and editor-in-chief of the Morning Brew, a successful media startup which exited to Business Insider. As a senior consultant with Deloitte, he led projects focused on tech strategy. Within Deloitte, he incubated and managed a people analytics product, and co-chaired a new strategy practice focused on the future of work. As an active contributor to innovation within Harvard’s venture ecosystem, he has helped to operationalize a new tech-enabled, democratized investing platform, as well as a new venture debt firm — and has had the privilege to advise, support, and learn from many startups within the community. Grant earned his MBA from Harvard Business School, and his BA, Phi Beta Kappa, from the University of Michigan.

Naren combines a technical engineering background with experience at startups and VC firms. Before joining AV, he worked with the investing team at venture firm Data Collective (DCVC) looking at frontier tech deals. Before that, he was a Program Manager at Apple and Tesla and has worked for multiple consumer startups. Naren received a BS and MS in mechanical engineering from Stanford University and an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business. In his free time, he enjoys teaching golf to beginners and composing music.

Ludwig has been on all sides of venture — as an entrepreneur, corporate buyer of ventures, and venture capitalist. Before Alumni Ventures, he experienced the daily realities of entrepreneurship as Founder and CEO of a mobile payments venture that served over 12 million people. Earlier, at a Fortune 100 telecommunications manufacturer (Nokia), he held general manager and business development roles that included investing in and acquiring venture-backed businesses. His first experience in venture capital was with an $800 million global fund that focused on enterprise and mobile software both before and after the dot.com crash. Ludwig began his career as a strategy consultant with the Boston Consulting Group. He has a BA from Brown University and an MBA from Columbia. He lives in NYC with his wife and 2 teenagers.