Blue Tulip Ventures

Rana el Kaliouby is an Egyptian-American AI scientist and entrepreneur whose work centers on humanizing technology and bringing emotional intelligence to the digital world. She co-founded and led Affectiva, an MIT spin-off that pioneered the field of Emotion AI, raising over $50M in venture capital before the company was acquired by Smart Eye in 2021, where she became Deputy CEO. She is now co-founder and General Partner of Blue Tulip Ventures, an AI-focused firm investing in early-stage startups building Human-Centric AI, and remains an active angel and pre-seed investor focused on underrepresented founders. She holds a PhD from the University of Cambridge and completed a postdoctorate at MIT, teaches as an executive fellow at Harvard Business School, and authored the bestselling memoir Girl Decoded. She is a TED speaker, co-host of a PBS NOVA series on AI, and an advocate for AI ethics and diversity in tech.

Reid Hoffman co-founded LinkedIn, served on PayPal's founding team, and has been a partner at Greylock since 2009, where his investments included Airbnb and Aurora. A prolific author and podcast host, he has written extensively on networks, scaling, and artificial intelligence, and co-founded the AI startups Inflection AI and Manas AI. In 2026 he announced he would leave Microsoft's board to spend more time on Manas AI's drug-discovery work.

Board director and advisor, former COO and President of Amazon Robotics, with expertise in corporate strategy, scaling, and M&A; an active Underscore Core Member.

SVP of Revenue with over 20 years scaling startups through IPO, and an early Affectiva executive.

Professor at Northeastern University and Dean of Inclusive Computing, with interdisciplinary machine learning research.

Board of Advisors member and founding LP to Operator Collective. She is a corporate officer at Stripe and served as its COO from 2014 to 2021, having earlier spent a decade at Google.

Partner at Brown Advisory focused on strategic investment solutions and co-founder of Invest in Girls.

CEO of Livio Labs applying AI to mental health, a Harvard startup mentor, and inventor of the Reebok PUMP.

Chief Scientific Officer at Microsoft and member of the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology.

An angel investor and chairman of EDventure Holdings focused on nurturing startups in health care, human capital and aerospace, Esther has invested in companies including Facebook, LinkedIn, 23andMe and Evernote and trained as a backup cosmonaut.

CMO and brand officer with experience in experiential consumer marketing and as a farmtech startup entrepreneur.

Harvard Business School professor of technology management and innovation, and author of 'Competing in the Age of AI'.

VP of AI at Workday, senior advisor at Mozilla, and Harvard faculty and fellow advocating for responsible technology.

Businessman and telecoms dealmaker, and trustee of the Eisenhower Fellowships.

Virtual human pioneer and Head of Strategy at Hour One, focused on the virtual human economy.

CEO of The Atlantic, co-founder of SpeakEasy AI, and former editor in chief of WIRED.

CMO experienced in HR tech, ed tech and AI startups, focused on building AI-forward marketers.

AI and climate lead at Hugging Face, AI and social justice chair, and adjunct professor at McGill.

Advisor, trustee, director and investor; former COO of IBM Research and CTO of Xerox, with expertise in global innovation.

AI strategist, speaker and creative technologist, serving as Chief Storytelling Officer at Blackrock Neurotech.

GM and VP of AI Data at Smart Eye, former COO and Head of Engineering at Affectiva, with over 25 years in startups.

Advisor and director, formerly a general partner at Intel Capital, with over 25 years in disruptive tech investments and acquisitions.