Dayna Grayson has been in enterprise capital for greater than a decade and was one of many first VCs to construct a portfolio across the transformation of commercial sectors of our financial system.
At NEA, the place she was a associate for eight years, she led investments in and sat on the boards of firms together with Desktop Steel, Onshape, Framebridge, Tulip, Formlabs and Guideline. She left NEA to start out her personal fund, Assemble Capital, that focuses solely on early-stage startups, with a portfolio that features Copia, ChargeLab, Tradeswell and Hadrian.
It ought to come as no shock, then, that we’re completely thrilled to have Grayson be a part of us at TechCrunch Disrupt 2023 in September.
Grayson has greater than confirmed that she has a eager eye for transformational expertise. Desktop Steel went public in 2020 — she nonetheless sits on the board as chair of the compensation committee. Onshape, one other NEA-era funding, was acquired by PTC in 2019 for a whopping $525 million. Framebridge was additionally acquired by Graham Holdings in 2020.
Grayson noticed a possibility to develop a enterprise model extra hyperfocused on the kinds of offers she was doing at NEA, which centered round manufacturing and digitizing industrial verticals. That’s the place Assemble Capital got here in. It’s a $140 million fund helmed by Grayson and former Uber exec Rachel Holt.
At Disrupt, Grayson will function a Startup Battlefield choose. The Battlefield is without doubt one of the world’s most prestigious and thrilling startup competitions. Twenty+ early-stage startups hop on our stage and current their wares to a panel of professional VC judges, who then grill the founders on every little thing concerning the enterprise, from the income mannequin to the go-to-market technique to the staff to the expertise itself.
The winner walks away with $100,000 in prize cash and the glory of being a Battlefield winner. Households names in tech have gotten their begin within the Battlefield, from Dropbox to Mint.
Grayson joins loads of different seasoned buyers on the Battlefield stage, together with Camille Samuels, Deena Shakir, Terri Burns, Shauntel Garvey and Alexa Von Tobel.
Disrupt 2023 goes down from September 21 to 23 and is digital. Snag a ticket right here beginning underneath $100 for a restricted time!
