Grand Ventures on the Road: in Denver

By: Kelly Wiarda

General Partner, Camila Noordeloos and Head of Marketing, Kelly Wiarda made a quick trip to Denver for a Board Meeting and VC/Startup Happy Hour event.

After a quick Monday morning direct flight from Grand Rapids, Camila Noordeloos and Kelly Wiarda landed in the sunny city of Denver, Colorado. That April evening, they met Rich Maloy and Matt Blomstedt from SpringTime Ventures on the rooftop of a local hotel to connect with other investors, startups, and founders from the area. We owe a big ‘thank you’ to Rich and Matt for inviting their networks to join us and to the team at Insperity for sponsoring the evening. Lots of great connections were made!

Camila and Kelly had such a fun evening that included connecting with two of our own portfolio company CEOs: Damayanti Dipayana from Manatee and Thomas McGrath with iink Payments. It is always a joy to see them in person (instead of on a Zoom call) and be able to share a drink and meal together.

We also reconnected with friendly faces of people from Michigan who have relocated to Denver for work and lifestyle along with meeting many new faces of founders and investors from across the region. After closing our Fund II in October 2023, it’s a goal of ours to connect with more co-investors and founders through engagements like this. Overall, we were thrilled with the turnout and look forward to hosting more of these events across the U.S.

After a great evening, Camila stayed in the city for a board meeting with the Manatee team and had meetings in the city. What a joy to connect with friends and colleagues. We look forward to doing it again this summer and fall in a city (hopefully) near you.

About Grand Ventures: Based in Grand Rapids, MI, we are an early stage venture capital fund investing in seed stage B2B SaaS companies in emerging regions. Learn more on our website.