The Future of Creative Entrepreneurship

One year after hosting its first founder and creator mixer during SF Tech Week, Velle returned with a growing community, new collaborators, and two new ways to bring its vision to life.

Hosted at Beacons' San Francisco office in collaboration with Capitalize VC, the evening brought together founders, creators, and operators to explore how creativity, technology, and entrepreneurship are coming together.

The panel featured Simmone Seymour of Capitalize VC and Ilias Anwar, bringing perspectives from venture capital and creator entrepreneurship into the same room. Beacons also introduced Beam, its AI creator agent, giving attendees a look at tools being built to support creators and their businesses.

Our founder, Anika Mehta, shared her journey from creator to founder, turning years of food content into PrepChef AI, your virtual sous chef. Through a demo, she showed how the app helps people turn ingredients they already have into meals personalized to their preferences. She also reflected on building Velle alongside PrepChef, creating spaces where founders and creatives can share what they are building and support one another.

The evening marked the launch of Velle Match and Velle Experiences, extending the community's connections beyond our own events.

Velle Match launched its early version within the community, helping creators, founders, and brands connect around their skills, needs, and collaboration goals. It grew from a familiar challenge: meeting someone at an event, exchanging social handles, and losing the opportunity to follow up with a clear purpose.

Velle Experiences brings our approach to community building to startups and small businesses. From shaping an event concept to bringing in talented creatives from our community, we help partners plan, curate, and bring experiences of their own to life.

Alongside these introductions, curated networking gave attendees space to discuss their ideas and find people whose skills and goals could complement their own.

The experience reflected what Velle has been building toward: a community where meeting in the room is the beginning, with opportunities to collaborate, create, and grow together afterward.

Thank you to Capitalize VC, Beacons, our speakers, and everyone who helped bring this room to life.