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Mentor Office Hour: From Lab to Deal Flow: How Early Founders Get on a VC's Radar

Oct30Friday, October 306:00 PM – 7:30 PM JST
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About this event

Most early founders don't lose investors at the pitch. They lose them much earlier, because nobody inside the fund has seen them yet. Scouts, smaller funds and deal-flow platforms decide who gets in front of a partner.

Join us for Mentor Office Hour with Filip Dybowski, PhD, Venture Scout at Decile Group, a neuroscience PhD from UT Southwestern who now works on the investor side of early-stage deal flow.

The session opens with a short discussion with Filip on how scouts and smaller funds find, filter and pass on early startups, and what moves a founder from cold outreach to a real conversation. Then selected founders pitch and get live feedback on their biggest challenges, while everyone else learns from the discussion.


Agenda

  • Welcome and Introduction

  • Meet the Mentor: Filip Dybowski, PhD

  • Discussion: From Lab to Deal Flow

  • Live Office Hours: Founder Pitches and Feedback

  • Audience Q&A

  • Closing Remarks


Featured Mentor

Filip Dybowski, PhD, is a Venture Scout at Decile Group, a venture platform whose Decile Hub is used by 1,000+ VC funds to run their operations and share deals. He earned his PhD in Neuroscience at UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas and moved into venture through VC Lab's Venture Institute.

He has also stood on the founder side of the table, taking second place at UTMB's Innovation in Life Sciences pitch competition in 2024. Filip brings a scientist's lens to early-stage companies, with a focus on life sciences and deep tech, and a clear view on why smaller, thesis-driven funds are often the most accessible first door for founders.


Moderators

  • Erdinc Ekinci, Co-Founder & CEO of Openfor.co, Founder & CEO of Co-Capital

  • Yu Li Shein, Co-Founder & COO of Openfor.co, Venture Scout at Decile Group


What You Can Expect

  • Live feedback from a VC scout on your pitch and positioning

  • How scouts and smaller funds source and screen early-stage startups

  • What makes a founder worth passing to a partner before big traction

  • Why thesis-driven micro funds can be the right first check

  • How to turn science and deep tech into a story investors understand

  • Lessons from real founder pitches and open Q&A


Who Should Join

  • Pre-seed and seed founders preparing their first raise

  • Scientists and researchers turning lab work into a company

  • Deep tech, life sciences and healthtech founders

  • Founders who keep hearing "too early" from investors

  • Openfor.co members who want live pitch feedback

  • Operators and aspiring VCs curious how deal flow really works


Continue Your Founder Journey

Openfor.co: we solve the distribution problem

Everyone can build now. Getting seen and getting traction is the hard part. We make founders visible, guide them live every week, and give them the AI and platform to grow.

No equity. Monthly. Sign up free: https://www.openfor.co/sign-up


Co-Capital: the open network of venture supporters

Investor, scout, fund manager or ecosystem builder? Co-Capital is a free, non-commercial venture capital community: podcasts and features, the Open Ecosystem Atlas of 7,400+ venture supporters in 62 countries, and private gatherings for investors.

Request your seat: https://co-capital.vc


Organized by Openfor.co and Co-Capital, in collaboration with Founder Institute Japan, Korea & Taiwan and Founder Capital.


This session is for educational and informational purposes only. It does not constitute investment advice, an offer, a solicitation, or a guarantee of funding, introductions or investment outcomes.

Speakers