Vice Chair at Pie. Former Co-Founder of @FifthStarFunds & TapCommerce (acquired by @Twitter). Chicago | NYC | San Francisco | Berlin.
Chicago, IL
Joined August 2009
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Samir Mirza retweeted
Excited to announce our $11.5 million Series A at Pie @trypieapp, where we're on a mission to defeat social isolation. Our vision: doing things you enjoy with people you like should be as easy as calling a Uber. Looking for new friends? Easy as Pie.
wsj.com/articles/bonobos-co-…
Samir Mirza retweeted
We're so excited to announce that Elle Ramel and @svmirza are joining the @chicago_blend board of directors! Read the full press release!
chicagoblend.org/news-insigh…
Samir Mirza retweeted
NEW: I looked at a white paper by @fifthstarfunds, which seeks to serve as a "family and friend" round for founders without such network.
I looked at the impact this could have: on average, Black founders raise less than 1,000 from family and friends.
techcrunch.com/2023/04/06/fr…
Samir Mirza retweeted
Everyone is talking about Black founders only receiving 1% of venture capital. But what is actually happening and how do we solve it? A 🧵
The @FifthStarFunds team was honored to receive WBC's Innovation Champion award with our friends at @TechRiseChi & @LongJumpFund for our work to invest in Chicago's underestimated entrepreneurs. Huge thx to @KuriakoseAbin & @WorldBizChicago for their immense support to our org's.
Samir Mirza retweeted
The Fifth Star team is proud to announce that our portfolio has grown to 20 Black-led startups here in Chicago! Please meet our newest investments: @BarterE_ @thebetterspot @FlareFinSys @health_hciss @nxgrad @PiggyBackNetwrk @findthatspark_ @joinsupperclub
fifthstarfunds.com/post/20-s…
Samir Mirza retweeted
A wonderful night bringing together founders from the Fifth Star portfolio. This is what the future of Chicago Tech looks like. Stay tuned for announcements soon on our newest investments! 🙌🏾
Samir Mirza retweeted
Thanks to our guest speakers Halima Nguyen & @AlyaAWoods of @CooleyLLP, @tmgrace of @longjumpfund, @SamaraMHernandz of @ChingonaVC and @svmirza of @fifthstarfunds, who talked to our Chicago Venture Fellows yesterday about the basics of fund formation.
Samir Mirza retweeted
Fifth Star is hiring a full-time Managing Director to lead the organization and scale our impact as the nation’s preeminent Friends and Family fund for Black tech founders. See our link below for more info and please share the role in your networks! fifthstarfunds.com/managing-…
Samir Mirza retweeted
We’ve been selected as recipients of @GoldmanSachs One Million Black Women grant! This initiative is the largest of its kind in scope and provides Fifth Star with multi-year investment to close the Friends & Family funding gap for Black women. More info: fifthstarfunds.com/post/part…
Samir Mirza retweeted
Congratulations to @FifthStarFunds portfolio companies @Buoypricing and @Eventnoire for being selected as recipients for the third Google for Startups Black Founders Fund! When we #FundBlackFounders, we all win. Congrats to Candice & Jeff! More info here: blog.google/outreach-initiat…
Samir Mirza retweeted
We can't improve what we don't measure. Check out the report from @WorldBizChicago in partnership w/ @FifthStarFunds & @Chicago_Blend on the state of funding for underrepresented founders. We're fighting to close the Friends & Family funding gap for Chicago's Black tech founders.
Today, World Business Chicago’s Research Center releases Chicago Business Bulletin, Issue No. 5: Black, Latino & Women Founded Startups in Chicago. Follow us as we will spotlight this report in the days and weeks ahead. bit.ly/3dPDhpR
Samir Mirza retweeted
Kicked off the Lightning Talks series yesterday with @pawn__shark
Thanks to our amazing speakers who were open about their experiences with exiting companies 🙏🏼 @svmirza @DrewSocial @MattSilver
and our sponsors: TeamWorking by TechNexus, Hubspot for Startups & SVB
Thanks to @itsabhinaya and @pawn_shark for organizing this on Wed 8/17! I'll be speaking about Exit Learnings, Privilege, and Social Impact in Tech. Looking forward to the chat! 🙏🏿
RSVP - Lightning Talks: Exited Founders
⏰ Wed, Aug 17 - 5:30PM - 7:30PM
📍TeamWorking by TechNexus
🔊 @svmirza @MattSilver
Sponsored by HubSpot for Startups
eventbrite.com/e/lightning-t…
We did it! Somehow managed to talk about mental health, immigrant parents, religion, imposter syndrome, getting acquired, privilege in entrepreneurship, and @FifthStarFunds all in an hour. @khalifestyle is one of my faves in Chicago Tech and was wonderful to chat on his podcast.
Got the opportunity to sit with my good friend @svmirza of @fifthstarfunds. We talk about the ups & downs of entrepreneurship; from dealing with imposter syndrome to exiting to Twitter for $100M. Lots of good gems in this one. Enjoy! ☕
youtube.com/watch?v=DA9mCqz9…
Samir Mirza retweeted
The @FifthStarFunds summer newsletter is out! Catch up on our latest investments, a new partnership with @GoldmanSachs, and exciting updates from our portfolio. We're on a mission to elevate the Black tech founders of Chicago: mailchi.mp/fifthstarfunds/20…
Chicago will win because we have folks like @ClaudeCimeus. So grateful for everything this guy does for our community and looking forward to this week! 👇🏾👇🏾👇🏾
