San Francisco
Photograph: Cole Keister

Founder Pitch Night: When Your Career Starts With a Startup

Join ETH UPortunity and Swissnex for an evening of bold ideas, founder pitches, and peer exchange.

Join Us

What happens when entrepreneurship becomes your first career?

This night kicks off with a conversation exploring entrepreneurship as a first career step: Why do some people choose to build a company instead of following a traditional career path, and what becomes more possible when you start early?

After a discussion between experienced founders and representatives from university accelerators, we’ll showcase seven first-time, early-stage founders from Switzerland’s leading technical university, ETH Zurich.

They are taking the leap to build their own companies and put their ideas in front of fellow founders and the wider San Francisco startup community.

Meet the founders behind:

Mano Games – Leveling up education for teenagers.

Frameway – AI-native video editing platform.

Robinreal – AI-powered real estate, from search to contract.

Softletics- Redefining Prosthetic Fit.

Cartorga- AI-powered enterprise visibility for leadership.

RAROG – Detection system for saving lives.

Perlin.bio – Chemical manufacturing w/ de novo designed enzymes.

Partners

The pitch night is part of the ETH UPortunity x Swissnex internationalization program, hosted by Entrepreneur First.

Speakers

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    Bio

    Aaron Edell

    Global Head of AWS Startups, Accelerators and Universities

    Founded 2 machine learning startups, 1/ Machine Box (sold to public co in 2018) and 2/ GrayMeta (sold to a neocloud in 2022). Built AWS’ global FinOps business from scratch to $1B in 3 years. Currently run AWS Startups’ business for the early stage, including through relationships with Y Combinator, Stanford, Berkeley, a16z, Harvard, MIT, and others. Angel investor, author, hacker, and AI red-pilled.

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    Bio

    Elena Garidis

    Associate Director, Ecopreneurship Partner Programs

    Elena Garidis is Associate Director of Ecopreneurship, Partner Programs at Stanford University, where she leads programs and partnerships within Stanford and with global universities that support entrepreneurs tackling sustainability challenges. She began her career at J.P. Morgan before co-founding a VC-backed fintech and data science startup, where she led partnerships, sales strategy, and fundraising efforts. She has since coached over a hundred early-stage founders on building financially sustainable, values-aligned businesses. Drawing on her experience across finance, startups, and entrepreneurship education, Elena helps founders connect their entrepreneurial ambitions with opportunities to advance sustainability and drive systems change.

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    Bio

    Perry Klebahn

    Adjunct Professor at Stanford University

    Past founder our of Stanford in the 90’s, then COO at Patagonia, CEO at Timbuk2. Now Teaching at the Design Institute at Stanford running the Accelerator LaunchPad for the last 15 years. Taking 12 founder per year through a relentless focus on prototyping and demand testing. Historcally getting 50% launched in the market per year.