How Decentralized Finance Are Reshaping the Bankings Tack 

A fireside chat with Kamino, the No 1. lending protocol on Solana, with 2.6Bn in lending volume and 120M in annualized revenue. This session serves to be an introduction of on-chain finance. Stablecoin issuer Circle's IPO has brought about the Chat GPT moment for on-chain finance. Smart contract enabled on-chain finance is set to re-architecture today's financial stack and bring about trillions of dollars of value in efficiency gains and new business opportunities.

Kamino is Longhash's fund 1 investment. I plan to host a fireside session with the founder of Kamino.

Leader(s):

Emma Cui

Strategy Session: YOU are the Agenda 

Venture capitalists are masters of strategy when it comes to building companies—but what if the same rigor applied to life itself? In this eye-opening session, Jack Crawford, Founding General Partner at Impact Venture Capital and longtime Kauffman Fellow, shares the most surprising insight from decades spent inside the minds of high-performing entrepreneurs, investors, and CEOs: the same tools that create business success are too often ignored in our personal lives. Drawing from his upcoming book, The Great Perspective – The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Strategic Planning for Life (Coming 2025), Jack brings humor, humility, and hard-won wisdom to a conversation that will inspire you to build a bold, values-driven roadmap for your own life. If you've ever helped founders map out a five-year vision—but haven’t done the same for yourself—this session is your invitation to change that. Strategic planning isn’t just for startups anymore

Leader(s):

Jack Crawford

How Can GPs Most Effectively Contribute to Building the Skills of the CEOs and Founders They Back?

Great investors don’t just provide funding—they help shape leaders. This session explores practical ways GPs can accelerate the growth of the CEOs and founders they back, from sharpening leadership skills to navigating scaling challenges. Join us to discuss effective approaches, common pitfalls, and how to maximize your impact as a partner in talent development.

Leader(s):

Tim Jackson

Secondaries 2.0: Underwriting Liquidity Through a Hybrid of Venture Capital and Investment Banking

A new secondaries model is emerging. One that underwrites direct secondaries like investment banks, through founder-aligned, company-controlled liquidity windows.

This session breaks down a next-gen approach that fuses venture capital with investment banking mechanics: acquiring secondary shares (from founders, early employees, and angels) at a discount, warehousing them in SPVs, holding for a valuation uptick (usually at the next round), and reselling to accredited investors or new primary VCs. All executed in coordination with the company—preserving price control, cap table integrity, and governance.

We’ll explore:

\- Why the traditional secondaries model is outdated

\- Why private stock markets failed to scale

\- How structured liquidity windows unlock value without chaos

\- What this means for GPs, LPs, founders, and employees

\- Why Kauffman Fellows should lead the Secondaries 2.0 wave

This isn’t theory—it’s already being executed. If you're thinking about liquidity, cap table strategy, or building the next evolution in fund design, this session is for you.

Leader(s):

Ahmad Takatkah

AI Rollups: Buzz, Bet, or Breakthrough

A candid Fellow-led discussion on AI rollups: are they a new venture playbook, just hype, or a transformative way to scale? Come ready to share what you’re seeing, where you’re skeptical, and how you’re approaching this fast-moving space.

Leader(s):

Itxaso del Palacio, Alex Lazarow, Tomasz Swieboda

VC Firms M&A

Merging firms, is it a good strategy, and what to expect.

Leader(s):

Patricio Aznar Leon de la Barra

Product-Led Venture 

Phil Wickham, Spencer Foust, and Collin West have been leading a highly acclaimed talk—most recently at Hanwha and in Phil’s Stanford class—on rethinking venture firms through a product and engineering lens. Drawing from their work at Sozo and Ensemble VC, they’ll share how to design scalable, repeatable processes that transform how firms operate. This talk offers Fellows a fresh framework for building the next generation of VC firms.

Leader(s):

Phil Wickham, Collin West, Spencer Foust 

Stablecoins: Rebuilding the Global Financial System

Stablecoins are having their moment. In 2024, they moved over 27 trillion dollars, surpassing the combined volume of Visa & Mastercard. Stablecoins are quickly becoming the digital infrastructure for the next iteration of the global financial system, offering faster & cheaper ways to move money and access yield. Join Samantha Lewis, Partner at Mercury, & an OpenTrade Founder, a startup backed by a16z crypto & Cirlce, to unpack the drivers behind this explosive growth & explore what it means for entrepreneurs, investors, and the billions still outside of the financial system.

Leader(s):

Samantha Lewis

The Startup‑ization of VC: Why VC Firms Are Now Acting Like Fintech Startups

Tomorrow’s top VC firms won’t look like boutique investment shops—they’ll look like venture-backed startups themselves. They’ll raise capital to build product, hire engineers, launch internal platforms, and scale like fintech companies.

This session unpacks the Startup‑ization of Venture Capital—a shift where VC firms are evolving into product-driven, software-enabled, multi-asset platforms. They don’t just invest—they serve a growing universe of stakeholders: founders, employees, scouts, angels, co-investors, accredited retail investors, family offices, and institutional LPs. Each one is a “user” with their own dashboard, experience, tools, and access needs.

We’ll explore:

\- Why new VC firms are raising funding rounds for the firm, not just the fund

\- How VC firms are transforming into full-stack asset managers (equity, venture debt, secondaries, RBF, credit)

\- What it takes to build internal tech—deal platforms, liquidity engines, LP/Founder-facing tools

\- How VC firms can serve multiple capital constituencies without breaking brand or governance

\- What this means for small GPs and emerging managers looking to punch above their weight

It’s already happening—from Tribe to new models like 776 Ventures. If you’re thinking about how to scale your firm, raise firm-level capital, or build for more than one customer segment—this is the where to think out loud with other fellows about it.

Leader(s):

Ahmad Takatkah

Fundraising for Fund II/III

If you’re an emerging manager raising a Fund II or III, this session is for you. I’ll share some of our best practices from recently closing our Fund III and we’ll make it a lively and uplifting (yes!) discussion. Looking forward to it.

Leader(s):

SC Moatti 

Europe’s Rising HealthTech Hub

Vienna has quietly become one of Europe’s most dynamic healthcare and HealthTech ecosystems—where investors, founders, and institutions are driving innovation across the sector. Join Lucanus Polagnoli (KF27) for a conversation on why the city is emerging as a magnet for HealthTech and what opportunities it creates for global investors. He’ll also share a look ahead to Storm.Days, Europe’s leading HealthTech Investor Summit (Jan 29–30, 2026), which brings this ecosystem together alongside cultural experiences that only Vienna can offer.

Leader(s):

Lucanus Polagnoli

When Scandal Hits the Portfolio: Navigating Fallout and Fiduciary Duty

Fellows share experiences of navigating portfolio company scandals—fraud, misconduct, or reputational crises. Together, we’ll explore how to balance fiduciary duty and reputational risk while managing founders, teams, and LPs.

Leader(s):

Rafa De Haro 

Unlocking Liquidity: Strategies to Drive Portfolio Company Exits

Join us to discuss and exchange insights on strategies and frameworks to drive liquidity in portfolio companies.

We’ll explore practical approaches, share real-world experiences, and learn from each other on how to navigate successful liquidity events—whether through secondary transactions, strategic sales, etc.

Leader(s):

Caio Bolognesi

Digital Asset Treasuries: Friend or Foe?

Crypto isn’t just eating the markets — it’s climbing onto the balance sheet. Digital Asset Treasuries like MicroStrategy promise fat returns, 24/7 liquidity, and a new kind of corporate clout… or they could blow a hole in your books faster than you can say “mark-to-market.” Are DATs the smartest treasury hack of the decade or Wall Street’s next cautionary tale? This round-table will pit true believers against hardened skeptics to explore whether Bitcoin, stablecoins, and tokenized assets are the ultimate strategic weapon—or a Trojan horse. Bring strong opinions and sharper questions: in the world of digital asset treasuries, you’re either playing offense, or you’re already behind

Leader(s):

Jehan Chu 

Treating Founders as Your Customers: Using NPS to Build Even Stronger VC–Founder Relationships

Fred Wilson once wrote: “The entrepreneur is the customer and the LP is the shareholder.” Many of us already embrace that mindset—so how can we take it further? In this session, Nicolas will share how TDK Ventures embedded Net Promoter Score (NPS) into its DNA from day one, turning founder feedback into a powerful engine for trust, insight, and improvement. Starting with the very first survey of 12 portfolio companies, you’ll hear how candid feedback (“the good, the bad, and the ugly”) was transformed into tangible changes that made the firm stronger and better. Whether you’ve used NPS before or are exploring it for the first time, this roundtable offers a practical and cost-free way to elevate relationships into lasting equal-win partnerships.

HBR article: "Why VCs Should Use Net Promoter Scores with Founders" (Sept 2024)

<https://hbr.org/2024/09/why-vcs-should-use-net-promoter-scores-with-founders>

Leader(s):

Nicolas Sauvage

Corporate Innovation: Can Startups, VCs, and Corporates co-exist in Turbulent Times?

Corporate innovation and investments are under siege. Governments are changing the rules. The top 100 global corporations are being displaced daily. How can we galvanize a movement to bring global corporates into a symbiotic relationship with startups?

Leader(s):

Andy Hwang, Rob Freelen