Launch of the 2018 VC Master Lunch Auction Series to benefit the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society!
San Francisco, California —Over 30 top Silicon Valley, New York City, and Los Angeles venture capital investors are joining Notable Labs to help raise funding and awareness for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society (LLS) through the “2018 VC Master Lunch Auction Series.” The virtual auction hosted on Charitybuzz will offer bidders the opportunity to meet, pitch, and strategize one-on-one with legendary investors. Bidding is now open on CharityBuzz at https://www.charitybuzz.com/support/LLSVCAuction. The VC auctions run between now and June 1.
David Lee, a past participant of the VC Master Lunch Auction Series, remarked “As a lymphoma survivor myself, this is something that really means a lot to me. LLS has done some of the best work raising awareness, funding, and doing research for blood cancers and I really wanted to get behind that. For winning bidders the meetings are less about securing an investment from an investor, and more about getting advice, access to, and spending some quality time with an investor that they otherwise wouldn’t be able to meet. They’re getting ideas on their venture and life advice on how to begin investing and entrepreneurship.”
The 2018 auction features opportunities to intimately meet one-on-one and get critical advice from the following prominent venture capitalists:
Group 1 Auction Dates: May 16 — May 30
- Alex Rampell — General Partner at Andreessen Horowitz
- Bill Trenchard — Partner at First Round Capital
- David Eisenberg — Founder of and Partner at Red Swan Ventures
- David Lee — Founder and Managing Partner at Refactor Capital
- James Hardiman — Partner at DCVC
- Jim Kim — Founding Member and General Partner of Builders VC
- Shelley Zhuang and Yizhen Dong — Partners at 11.2 Capital
- Vishal Vasishth — Co-founder and Managing Director of Obvious Ventures
Group 2 Auction Dates: May 17 — May 31
- Alex Kolicich — Partner at 8VC
- Chris Howard and Leah Busque — Founding and General Partners at Fuel Capital
- Emily Melton — Partner at DFJ
- Hunter Walk and Satya Patel — Partners at Homebrew
- Kim-Mai Cutler — Partner at Initialized Capital
- Mark Suster and Kara Nortman — Partners at Upfront Ventures
- Paul Buchheit — Creator of Gmail and Partner at Y Combinator
- Rob Go — Co-founder and partner at Nextview Ventures
- Robert Pollak, Topher Conway, Kevin Carter, Brian Pokorny, and Abram Dawson — Partners at SV Angel
- Scott Nolan — Partner at Founders Fund
Group 3 Auction Dates: May 18 — May 31
- Blake Byers, Jessica Verrilli, Laura Melahn, and Michael Margolis — Partners at GV (Google Ventures)
- Eric Hippeau & Graham Brown — Managing Partner and Partner at Lerer Hippeau
- Jared Heyman — Partner at Pioneer Fund
- Jess Lee — Partner at Sequoia Capital
- Justin Butler — Partner at Eclipse Ventures
- Zal Bilimoria — Founder and Managing Partner at Refactor Capital
Group 4 Auction Dates: May 22— May 31
- Hilarie Koplow-McAdams, Ben Narasin, and Rick Yang — Partners at New Enterprise Associates (NEA)
- Leo Polovets — Founder and General Partner at Susa Ventures
- Alda Dennis — General Partner at Initialized Capital
The “2018 VC Master Lunch Series” auction honors Rhett Krawitt, a 10-year old boy who was diagnosed with B-Cell Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia in 2010. Thanks to research funded by LLS and his doctors at UCSF, in 2014, Rhett achieved full remission. Five years ago, then 5-year-old Rhett joined David Lee to rally venture capitalists for the 2013 auction with the slogan “My name is Rhett and I give a damn!” For this year’s auction Rhett, age 10, returns to celebrate, “Thanks to my doctors and nurses, my family and friends, and the research funded by LLS, now I’m Gone With the Cancer. Thank you, David and all the VCs, for raising lots of money for LLS, so that someday every blood cancer patient will say ‘Gone With The Cancer. Why? Because my name is Rhett, and I give a damn!’”
100% of the proceeds of the auction go on to benefit LLS. Dr. Mignon Loh, Chair of the UCSF Pediatric Leukemia Department and a past LLS grant recipient highlights, “I think it’s really important for people to understand that the money they contribute to LLS goes directly to real researchers and real projects that actually make a difference in patients’ lives.”
Notable Labs’ COO/co-founder Pete Quinzio added, “We’re proud to support the ‘2018 VC Master Lunch Auction Series’ and the LLS, which like Notable, is an organization that is changing the way that blood cancer is treated by putting patients first.”
Over the past 8 years, ventures capitalists have supported the LLS and raised hundreds of thousands of dollars to fund blood cancer research and cures. Please join us this year in support the wonderful cause.
About LLS
The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society (LLS) is the world’s largest voluntary health agency dedicated to blood cancer. The LLS mission: Cure leukemia, lymphoma, Hodgkin’s disease and myeloma, and improve the quality of life of patients and their families. LLS funds lifesaving blood cancer research around the world and provides free information and support services. An estimated 1M people in the United States are living with, or are in remission from leukemia, Hodgkin lymphoma, non-Hodgkin lymphoma or myeloma. Approximately every four minutes, someone new is diagnosed with blood cancer. Approximately every 10 minutes, someone dies. Leukemia causes more deaths than any other cancer among children, adolescents, and young adults under the age of 20. Research funding by LLS has led or contributed to such advances as chemotherapy, bone marrow and stem cell transplantation and new, targeted oral therapies such as Gleevec, Rituxin, Velcade and Vidaza. To learn more, visit http://www.lls.org/.
