Upcoming Get-Togethers with Entrepreneurs and Investors
Sbur Founders’ Office Hours: Unblock Your Venture & Tour Sbur
Hosted by Varnit Khanna, Co-Founder • Sbur
Virtual Get-TogetherRSVP to see the link
Building a company shouldn’t be a solo sport. Join us for an open, unscripted Office Hours session designed exclusively for founders.
Whether you’re a prospective member curious about how Sbur can support your journey, or a current member looking to tap into the collective brainpower of the community, this space is for you. Drop in with your sharpest questions or current bottlenecks—from pitch feedback and fundraising sanity checks to GTM strategies, early hiring, and navigating product-market fit.
Come ready to get real answers, meet fellow founders, and see how Sbur operates behind the scenes.
Sbur Founders’ Office Hours: Unblock Your Venture & Tour Sbur
Hosted by Varnit Khanna, Co-Founder • Sbur
Virtual Get-TogetherRSVP to see the link
Building a company shouldn’t be a solo sport. Join us for an open, unscripted Office Hours session designed exclusively for founders.
Whether you’re a prospective member curious about how Sbur can support your journey, or a current member looking to tap into the collective brainpower of the community, this space is for you. Drop in with your sharpest questions or current bottlenecks—from pitch feedback and fundraising sanity checks to GTM strategies, early hiring, and navigating product-market fit.
Come ready to get real answers, meet fellow founders, and see how Sbur operates behind the scenes.
Your newest machine is only as good as the person running it, and right now, that person may not exist.
Every Massachusetts shop I talk to says the same thing: the orders are there, the equipment is there, but the skilled operators aren't. We can keep competing for the same shrinking pool of talent, or we can solve this together.
That's why Accumet is joining Sbur and MassMEP to host a candid, CEO-to-CEO virtual conversation on practical solutions to the skilled labor shortage. There will be no sales pitches, just manufacturers sharing what's working, what isn't, and what we can build together.
You'll walk away with:
* Recruiting strategies for reaching untapped talent pools
* In-house training and apprenticeship models that shorten time to productivity
* Retention practices that keep skilled operators from leaving
* Ways to partner with MassMEP, schools, and workforce programs
* A network of peer CEOs tackling the same challenge
Who should attend: CEOs, owners, presidents, and operations leaders of Massachusetts manufacturing companies, especially those running machining, fabrication, or production operations.
Building a startup is exciting, challenging, and sometimes a little lonely. But some of the best breakthroughs happen when we bring the right people together, share ideas, challenge assumptions, and learn from one another.
That’s exactly what we’re hoping to create with Sbur here in Vermont.
I’m excited to announce the launch of the Sbur Vermont Chapter.
Sbur is a growing community of founders, investors, and entrepreneurs who believe in the power of relationships, collaboration, and collective problem-solving.
With 900+ founders and investors in its Boston chapter, Sbur is creating opportunities for meaningful connections beyond traditional networking.
And now, we’re bringing that spirit to Vermont!
Open to founders, investors, and startup ecosystem supporters.
Whether you’re building your first startup, scaling your next venture, investing in innovative ideas, or supporting entrepreneurs, I’d love for you to join us.
No formal pitches. No pressure. Just an opportunity to learn about Sbur, connect, share, and build meaningful relationships.
Vermont has incredible entrepreneurial talent. Imagine what we can accomplish when we connect that talent with a broader network of founders, investors, and resources.
What VCs Won’t Tell You”: Herd Mentality and the Untold Rules of Investments – An Investor & Founder Roundtable
Hosted by Jeffrey Smith , General Partner • SIP Capital
RSVP to see the addressBoston
Here’s what I’ve learned from the inside: venture capital runs on rules most founders never get to see.
Whether a fund invests in you often depends less on your company than on things outside your control. Those include the fund’s own economics, where it is in its life cycle, what its partners are betting on, and what its investors expect from it. Then there’s the rule nobody in our industry likes to admit: VCs move in herds. Investors watch each other closely. When a respected firm jumps into a company or a sector, others rush to follow. When nobody has committed, even great companies can struggle to get a yes. Hot sectors get crowded and overpriced, while overlooked ones stay starved for capital.
I’m hosting this roundtable to talk openly about these rules: how investment decisions get made inside a fund, including ours at SIP Capital, why the herd forms, and how you can use that knowledge to choose the right investors and approach them at the right time. Bring your hardest questions. I’d rather have a real conversation than give a lecture.
Who we are at SIP Capital
We’re a US–Japan ventures capital firm. We invest in early-stage US startups built to scale through the Japanese ecosystem and then globally. We believe AI is moving from bits to atoms and driving a new industrial revolution, so we focus on:
* Reshoring and reindustrialization: robotics, automation, and digital twins rebuilding the industrial base
* Physical AI and compute: AI infrastructure across cloud, on-premises, and edge, plus agentic and generative AI
* Human factors and efficiency: AI-driven tools that make the workforce safer and more productive
* Energy and advanced materials: electrification, grid management, and energy resilience
Our check is only part of what we offer. The rest is what comes after: our teams in the US and Asia, our market-entry capabilities, and the corporate relationships that help our companies get into Japanese and global supply chains. We’ve backed companies like Lightmatter, Kodiak AI, EnCharge AI, SEEQC, Realtime Robotics, and XL Batteries.
The untold rules we’ll unpack
* The herd effect: why VCs follow each other into deals and sectors, why one committed lead investor can unlock a round, and how to build momentum instead of waiting for it
* Hype cycles and blind spots: how herd behavior makes some sectors crowded and overpriced while others are overlooked, and how founders can turn that to their advantage
* Fund math decides more than you think: why a VC needs every investment to have the potential to return the whole fund, and how that quietly filters out good businesses
* Timing inside the fund matters: how a fund’s age, remaining capital, and reserves for follow-on rounds change whether a firm can say yes
* The partner meeting is where deals live or die: how consensus, internal champions, and a single skeptic can shape the outcome
* Thesis is destiny: why most “no”s is about fit, not quality, and how to tell before you reach out whether you’re a real candidate
* Investors have investors too: how expectations from limited partners shape what funds back and when
* What investors bring beyond the check: how to tell whether a fund’s network will move your business, including why Japan and Asia can be a growth lever for US startups
* Open Q&A: fundraising, investor fit, how VCs think. Nothing is off the table.
Seats are limited. I hope to see you there.
Your Next Big Customer Is Down the Road: A Roundtable among Manufacturers, Robotics and AI Companies
Hosted by Helen Fang, CEO • Acclaro Corporation
RSVP to see the addressBoston
What if the partner who could double your capacity is already down the road, and you've never met?
We've seen how supply shocks, tariffs and workforce shortages hit hardest when companies go it alone. With our co-hosts Sbur, MassMEP and Synergy, we're inviting local manufacturers to collaborate, explore forming a consortium and do more business together.
Featured case study: Shlomo Assa and Helen Fang, Co-Founders of Acclaro will compare Candela's outsourced manufacturing model following its private-equity acquisition with Acclaro's all-U.S. manufacturing and sourcing for its skin treatment equipment. They will share the long-term advantages of going domestic: continuous cost reductions, faster and on-time delivery, stronger negotiating power on pricing, and a price premium from selling Made in USA equipment in 60 countries. Jeff Smith, a serial entrepreneur and manufacturer turned investor, will also share his perspectives, as his current limited partners are major Japanese manufacturers.
What you'll take away:
* Trusted connections: meet nearby manufacturers and robotics companies to buy from, sell to and partner with.
* A path to a consortium: how a local manufacturing alliance could be organized.
* Bigger opportunities: team up on contracts none of us could win alone.
* The domestic advantage: a real-world business case for Made in USA.
* Shared answers: swap ideas on workforce, automation and supply-chain risk.
Who should attend: Owners and C-suite leaders of manufacturing, robotics and AI companies.
Building a startup is exciting, challenging, and sometimes a little lonely. But some of the best breakthroughs happen when we bring the right people together, share ideas, challenge assumptions, and learn from one another.
That’s exactly what we’re hoping to create with Sbur here in Vermont.
I’m excited to announce the launch of the Sbur Vermont Chapter.
Sbur is a growing community of founders, investors, and entrepreneurs who believe in the power of relationships, collaboration, and collective problem-solving.
With 900+ founders and investors in its Boston chapter, Sbur is creating opportunities for meaningful connections beyond traditional networking.
And now, we’re bringing that spirit to Vermont!
Open to founders, investors, and startup ecosystem supporters.
Whether you’re building your first startup, scaling your next venture, investing in innovative ideas, or supporting entrepreneurs, I’d love for you to join us.
No formal pitches. No pressure. Just an opportunity to learn about Sbur, connect, share, and build meaningful relationships.
Vermont has incredible entrepreneurial talent. Imagine what we can accomplish when we connect that talent with a broader network of founders, investors, and resources.
60+ Commercial Property Operators, One Fall Evening, & You
Hosted by Reneldy Senat, Founder • Idoleyes Interactive
RSVP to see the addressBoston
Come for the connections. Leave with new relationships, and a better sense of where property operations are heading next.
Geoffrey AI is partnering with SBUR to bring the commercial real estate community together in downtown Boston for a relaxed, relationship-driven evening built around the people shaping the future of property operations.
This is an opportunity to meet the people you may want to know before the next opportunity, operational challenge, or urgent need arises.
This room is designed for property owners, asset managers, property-management leaders, operations professionals, service providers, technology companies, and industry partners from across the CRE community.
No long conference agenda. Just the right people, useful conversations, and time to build relationships.
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