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“Spero” is Latin for hope. We help founders build a hopeful future. We’re a team of former startup founders, operators, and investors from landmark companies including eBay and Tesla. We invest in determined founders building mission-driven technology companies in three focus areas: wellbeing; sustainability; learning, work, and play. We prefer to lead or co-lead a $3-$10M round (late seed or Series A). Our typical check is $2-$4M, and we reserve capital for follow-on. We are conviction-based investors who play the long game. How We Work With YouWe have the conviction to lead and price your round. We participate in follow-on funding and help with subsequent fundraising. Our concentrated portfolio approach allows us to engage deeply with our founders. We’re supportive throughout the life of a company. Every one of our founders has full access to the entire Spero Ventures team. We know some ideas take time to catch on, so we offer patient capital. We are calm and steady partners in uncertain times. We help companies scale to serve billions of customers. We’ve done this as operators and founders, and as advisors and board members. We connect our companies to a network of founders, advisors, coaches, domain experts, and executive talent. We build community by bringing founders and leaders together through our CEO Summits, Product Leader Summits, founder breakfasts, workshops and thought-provoking events. We offer expert-led workshops that help founders with brand/storytelling, sales/go-to-market, consumer growth, and fundraising. Our focus Wellbeing Agency over physical and mental health People deserve to be in control of their own physical and mental health. For that, they need new kinds of information and access to care. What devices, apps, tools and services will help people live longer, healthier, more vibrant lives? How can genomics help us better understand our world and ourselves, and contribute to new solutions? Companies that answer these questions will make life worth living. Sustainability Protecting and preserving our planet Life is worth living on a healthy planet. But many of the largest systems we rely on - water, food, energy, transportation, product production and waste - were designed in a way that’s unsustainable and detrimental to our personal and planetary health. The economic, social, and health impacts of climate change and industrial pollution are growing too large to ignore: unprecedented droughts, fires and floods have disrupted millions of lives and result in billions of dollars of loss each year. How can we develop safer, more efficient systems? What can we do to improve power grids, recycling, environmental monitoring and disaster analytics? We invest in sustainability with conviction. Learning, Work, and Play Freedom in work and life Savoring relationships, art, joy, and laughter makes life worth living. Today, the way we do these things is changing. We can now learn, work, and play in hybrid ways that suit individual needs. This means self-directed learners need access to education and job preparation. Likewise, self-directed workforces need freedom, flexibility, and the ability to manage their goals. How can we provide better access to rewarding, satisfying work? What tools and support systems do people need to thrive? We invest in powerful visions for the future of learning, work, and play.

Profit and purpose can be a virtuous cycle. Solving humanity's biggest problems can provide superior financial returns. Tech-enabled companies can have significant impact at scale BUT Tech companies and impact investors largely live in different worlds. Avesta can bridge these worlds to harness the tech world toward positive impact. Areas of Focus We invest in tech-enabled companies whose positive impact is aligned with their business. We prioritize (but are not limited to) diverse entrepreneurs. Stage: pre-seed or seed; Typically raising $750K to $4M in the round. ClimateSustainable Agriculture Energy Efficiency Clean Energy Carbon Sinks Clean Manufacturing Circular Economy Green Buildings OpportunityEducation Financial Inclusion Future of Work Health Access & Affordability Housing Entrepreneurship Development What we offerTypical investments of $150K to $500K per company Best-practice based coaching to help founding teams optimize their impact, and align it with their business Unique mix of experiences that help companies bridge both the VC and impact worlds Connections to our broad network of investors and partners interested in impact-oriented tech startups

We build and invest in mission-driven companies. A new type of co-founder, and a more valuable investor.Build With Experts: Every venture is co-founded alongside serial entrepreneurs who have taken companies from 0 to IPO and raised $250M+, and a collective of world-class engineers, designers, and more. Double Your Success: Our performance coaches, startup building playbooks, investor network and capital help us strive to build ventures at twice the speed and half the risk. Stay Focused: Our team and startup building process enables founders to focus on building a great product while we help take care of fundraising, accounting, engineering, legal, and more. We believe that the best way to unlock this potential is to:Invest in world-class entrepreneurs. Help them reach their full human potential through extensive coaching and operational playbooks. Build and invest in companies that help millions of people reach for greater economic opportunity. Why Build With Us?Speed: Skip the 18 months of self-funding with pre-vetted ideas and an EIR stipend. Support: Launch your MVP with studio resources and support. Capital: We’ll invest $250-500K of seed funding. Reduced Risk: Double your success rate and cut your time in half with our ops playbooks, talent and advisory network, and executive coaching. Our ProcessIdeate: We generate and source hundreds of business ideas through our venture partner network, and select the few with potential to become $10B businesses that advance human potential. Explore: We work with entrepreneurs to explore high-potential businesses that fit their expertise; “getting out of the building” with customer development, interviews and prototypes. Validate: We provide entrepreneurs with a stipend to run an MVP to de-risk the business, build the product, acquire early customers, and prepare for launch. The entrepreneur stipend unlocks founding talent that couldn’t otherwise afford 18 months without a paycheck. Launch: We invest $250-500k in each venture, and setup the books, legal, and HR. Founders typically own >50% equity stake, depending on their founding team and investment amount – skipping straight to growing their business, without the early funding slog. Grow: We provide ongoing founder coaching, operational playbooks, recruiting and fundraising support to help founders grow their own skills as they grow their companies. What To Expect For 3-9 months, you’ll be working directly with our general partners, talent collective, and coaches to co-found a company. If we mutually find an idea we’re all excited about, we will invest up to $500k with the potential for substantially more when company milestones are met. Services Provided: Recruiting Fundraising Market Research Engineering Data-Science UI & UX Design Finance Company Formation Marketing Go-To-Market Operations Legal & HR Product Management Validation

We are in the midst of technological shifts at a pace faster than ever before. Calculus VC capitalizes on these shifts to deliver returns and impact. We invest in the Series A and Series B stages of startups in the below sectors: FUTURE OF COMPUTING AND AI Continued advancements in AI will demand new developments in hardware and software. New computing materials and interfaces may emerge. Computing power may be more distributed, and the world will be infinitely more connected. These and more, are our areas of interest: Intelligence beyond language: We expect AI to understand quantitative models and physical phenomenon just as well as it understands language. Large Quantitiative Models are a focus for us. New hardware, materials, and architectures: We expect that demand for computing power will grow exponentially. Quantum computing, as well as distributed computing are expected to grow. We expect advancements in computing materials beyond silicon. Immersive and neural interfaces: These interfaces already exist, we expect they will become more mainstream. Spatial computing, integrating the physical world with digital environments may be our future. COMPUTATIONAL LIFE SCIENCES AND HEALTHTECH Breakthroughs in biology, materials, sensors, and data science are converging to redefine healthcare. Precision and personalization will take center stage as AI enhances how we detect, monitor, and treat disease. Areas of interest include: AI-First Therapeutics and Discovery Platforms: ML-powered platforms designing drugs and biologics via simulation, predictive modeling, and data-rich experimentation. Infrastructure for Programmable Biology: Tools that make biology engineerable – lab automation, bioinformatics, 3D bioprinting, next-gen diagnostics and R&D devices. Continuous, Data-Driven and Personalized Care: Wearables, medical devices, and diagnostics to deliver patient-centric care. These models turn users into real-time data streams, enabling adaptive treatment and personalized interventions. ADVANCED INDUSTRIAL TECHNOLOGIES As we expand the frontiers of possibility, we expect industry to evolve with intelligence, autonomy and environmental sustainability at its core. Areas of focus include: AI and automation in industry: Intelligent machines will optimize production, reduce waste, and enable new workflows. From predictive maintenance to robotic manufacturing, automation will power the next industrial revolution. We support startups enabling this vision. Land, ocean, and space transport and communications: We are interested in advanced materials, robotics, sensors, systems and software that will unlock new frontiers from deep-sea mapping to planetary missions. Resource efficiency: Building the future will demand large reserves of energy and natural resources. Technologies that can serve our energy, food, water, and agricultural needs while supporting a better planet are of interest to us.

We want to build together an innovative, sustainable and inclusive economy through the leverage of private investment conveyed with medium to long term payback prospects. What we believe inWealth can generate more wealth, if invested in responsible entrepreneurs: The accountability of the business that acts in the best interests of all the stakeholders who are drawn to it, develops value over the medium and long terms, and turns out to be a superior investment. Sustainable innovation: We give access to innovative investments that will shape our future economy: we give priority to those who have already embarked on a path of medium-long term economic, social and environmental sustainability, also to reduce risk and acquire greater prospective value Simplicity, Clarity and Transparency: We utilize technology to streamline procedures and provide a seamless, delightful user experience. Even the most complicated documents are made simple to read and comprehend in order to promote wise and informed investment. Through the online platform and special meetings set up by our Investment Managers, all the pertinent information concerning the potential investment is made available. Empowerment and Training: Offering everyone the resources they need to learn about the industry and its quirks will make venture capital investments more accessible. As a result, education is a key pillar for fostering growth in people as well as the ecosystem as a whole. We are a Benefit Company Since its inception, Doorway has decided to be a Benefit Company, that is, a company that places the goals of profit alongside those of value creation and common benefit. How? By conveying venture capital in the service of the birth and development of innovative and sustainable enterprises that can bring positive effects to society. Every day Doorway strives to create real impact by contributing to some of the UN Sustainable Development Goals through its business activities. SDG 4: Quality education - Through the financial education activities carried out during the year and the training initiatives for investors and founders. SDG 5: Gender equality - Doorway promotes the culture of innovation and wants to support successful founders, especially of the female gender, who usually find it more difficult to raise capital. SDG 8: Decent work and economic growth - Through fundraising, Doorway supports those companies that want to grow and expand in Italy and abroad, creating wealth and jobs, especially for young people. Often the investment rounds are used precisely to structure teams and hire new resources. SDG 9: Innovation - Doorway sees the innovation ecosystem as a key driver of economic growth and wants to help it develop in Italy and Europe. We are signatories of the PRI By subscribing to the PRI, the Principles of Responsible Investment, Doorway confirms its ongoing focus on sustainability issues, being part of the international network of more than 4,000 signatory management companies and investors, managing more than $121 trillion in AUM. The initiative, launched in 2006 in New York by the United Nations, aims to establish links between investment and environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues and help signatories include these issues in their investment and shareholding decisions.

The Kapor Center is a family of three distinct organizations working under a shared mission to remove barriers to Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) education, and tech careers, and tech entrepreneurship for underrepresented people of color. SMASH: A 501c(3) public charity which operates STEM education programs. Kapor Capital: A seed-stage investment fund. Kapor Foundation: A 501c(3) private operating foundation. The Kapor Center aims to enhance diversity, equity, and inclusion in the technology and entrepreneurship ecosystem through increasing access to tech and STEM education programs, conducting research on access and opportunity in computing, investing in community organizations and gap-closing social ventures, building diverse and inclusive companies, and increasing access to capital among diverse entrepreneurs. The three organizations are supported by a robust operations team - employed by a separate entity, Kapor Enterprises, Inc. (KEI)- , which provides finance, accounting, human resources, people operations, IT, events, legal, special initiatives, and other operational support. REBUILDING A MORE EQUITABLE TECH SECTOR, ECONOMY, AND SOCIETY From systemic racism and economic inequality to the growing role of tech in all aspects of our lives, we are in a historical moment that requires urgent, bold, and innovative solutions. The Kapor Center’s work focuses at the intersection of racial justice and technology, and we are doubling-down on our work to fight for racial justice and create a more inclusive technology sector. We understand that systems of inequality are at play–and we work to intentionally dismantle barriers to the creation and deployment of technologies across the Leaky Tech Pipeline through research-driven practices, programs, partnerships, and policies.