Tomorrow evening at PlayGround Global in Palo Alto, some very smart people building things you don’t yet understand will explain what’s coming. This is the final StrictlyVC event of 2025, and the lineup is truly remarkable.
The series has traveled the globe under the auspices of TechCrunch. Steve Case rented a theater in Washington, D.C.; we spoke with Greece’s prime minister in Athens; and Kirsten Green hosted us at the Presidio in San Francisco. The concept remains the same: bring together people working on genuinely important developments in an intimate setting, before everyone else realizes their significance.
One memorable moment was in 2019, when Sam Altman told a StrictlyVC crowd that OpenAI’s monetization strategy was essentially to “build AGI, then ask it how to make money.” The audience laughed. He was not joking.
This time, we have Nicholas Kelez, a particle accelerator physicist who spent 20 years at the Department of Energy building things that should be impossible. He is now tackling semiconductor manufacturing’s biggest problem. Every advanced chip depends on $400 million machines that use lasers, which only one Dutch company knows how to make. More galling to some is that Americans invented the technology, then sold it to Europe. Kelez is building the next generation in America using particle accelerator technology. It is as nerdy as it sounds and exceedingly important, especially with growing competition chasing the same prize.
Then there is Mina Fahmi, who created a ring that captures your whispered thoughts and turns them into text. Before you dismiss the idea, know that he and co-founder Kirak Hong spent years at Meta refining this technology after their company was acquired. The Stream Ring is not trying to be your friend; it is trying to extend your brain. Backed by Toni Schneider, an operator who scaled WordPress in its early days, the company Sandbar just emerged from stealth and might be onto something. Schneider is a partner at True Ventures, whose other hardware bets have included Peloton, Ring, and Fitbit, and he will also be in Palo Alto.
We also have Max Hodak, founder of Science Corp, a Time magazine cover subject, and earlier a Neuralink co-founder alongside Elon Musk. He has already restored vision to dozens of blind people with retinal implants. Now he is working on “biohybrid” brain-computer interfaces where chips seeded with stem cells grow into your brain tissue, allowing paralyzed people to control devices with their thoughts. He believes this is just the tip of the iceberg and that 2035 will look wildly different from today.
Finally, we are thrilled to welcome Chi-Hua Chien of Goodwater Capital and Elizabeth Weil of Scribble Ventures. These two VCs backed Twitter, Spotify, TikTok, Slack, SpaceX, Figma, and Coinbase before they were household names. Chien runs Goodwater Capital. Weil founded Scribble Ventures after stints at Andreessen Horowitz and Twitter, has made over 100 angel investments, and her first fund is showing 4x returns. Both believe Silicon Valley is completely misreading the moment as capital pours into enterprise AI, and they will explain why.
PlayGround Global is hosting, along with general partner Pat Gelsinger, the former CEO of Intel. There will be drinks, delicious food, and merriment. Seating is limited, so if you want candid insights directly from these VC and tech leaders and to make meaningful connections, register for your seat before it is gone. StrictlyVC events have limited seating.