Lair East Labs

11/27/2025

🦃 Happy Thanksgiving!

As we celebrate today, we’re deeply grateful for our partners, mentors, founders, investors, and friends who helped make 2025 a remarkable year. Your support and collaboration moved the needle for our portfolio and community in real ways.

Enjoy the time with loved ones—Happy Thanksgiving! 🧡

06/20/2025

Still buzzing two weeks later from our standing-room-only session at hashtag ! 🚀

🚀 We kicked things off with energizing opening remarks from venue partner Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Jie Li of Lair East Labs, followed by an inspiring keynote from Xiaochen Zhang of AI 2030.

Huge thanks to co-hosts AI 2030, Amazon Web Services (AWS), FinTech4Good, and 1871 for bringing a full house of founders, operators, tech leaders, investors, and students. Your energy—and the patience while we sorted through a mountain of photos and notes—made this recap worth the wait.

The night kept its momentum with a 🔥 fireside chat led by Ben Christensen featuring sharp takes from Harry Mendell, Shaji Chandrashekhar, Shyam Nagarajan, and Serena Palumbo on steering AI in high-stakes finance & healthcare.

The momentum carried into “Building & Investing in Responsible Innovation,” where moderator Marie Roker-Jones guided Alexander Fleischer, Rachna Srivastava, Krystal Nzeadibe, Jayeeta Putatunda, and our own Michelle Wang through candid lessons on balancing speed, safety, and ROI.

💯 Thank you to every attendee who packed the room, asked tough questions, and stayed late to swap ideas. Special shout-outs to the volunteers and venue team—you kept everything seamless behind the scenes. Let’s keep pushing the frontier of ethical AI, and we’ll see you all at the next hashtag !

06/05/2025

Join us during NYC Tech Week 2025 for an immersive evening we're co-hosting with team AI 2030, FinTech4Good, 1871, Amazon Web Services (AWS), for insight and discussion on how responsible AI is reshaping financial services, healthcare, and impact sectors. Limited spots: https://lu.ma/jfa2fv11

Come to catch up with Michelle Wang and Jie Li and hear insights in AI we and Xiaochen Z. have lined up for the audience:

6:00 PM – 6:30 PM | Fireside Chat
Operationalizing Responsible AI in High-Stakes Industries
Chair: Ben Christensen, Head of Partnership, AI 2030
- Harry Mendell, Data Architect Technology GrouRSVP: https://lu.ma/jfa2fv11p, Federal Reserve Bank of New York
- Shaji Chandrashekhar - Sr Mgr, WW Spec, NoSQL Databases, AWS
- Shyam Nagarajan, Chief Operating Officer, Hedera
- Joshua Dubin, Managing Associate General Counsel, Verizon
- Serena Palumbo, Managing Director, Chief Confidentiality & Privacy Officer, HIPAA Privacy Officer KPMG

6:30 PM – 7:00 PM | Panel Discussion
"Building and Investing in Responsible Innovation"
Chair: Marie Roker-Jones, Chair of Women in AI Leadership, AI 2030
- Alexander Fleischer, Executive Director Ventures & Innovation Ecosystem North America, Capgemini
- Rachna Srivastava, Senior Director - AI Innovation, Symphony
- Krystal Nzeadibe, Sr Worldwide Go-To-Market Specialist, AWS
- Jayeeta Putatunda, Director - AI CoE, Fitch Ratings
- Michelle Wang, Partner, Lair East Labs

RSVP: https://lu.ma/jfa2fv11

hashtag hashtag hashtag hashtag hashtag hashtag

11/27/2024

Whether you are celebrating with loved ones or getting through another work week (hello international friends!), we are so grateful for you.

To who inspire us through relentless ambition, and who lend your expertise, and to our global that makes everything possible: THANK YOU!

Your time, energy, and support help us empower to create impactful and sustainable ventures that address big challenges.

We believe that innovation knows no borders. This year, we’ve been proud to help founders bridge markets, form meaningful partnerships, and turn bold visions into reality.

As we gather with loved ones this week, we’re reminded that none of this would be possible without the collective efforts of this incredible community.

Wishing you all a warm, joyful, and gratitude-filled Thanksgiving 🧡

10/13/2024

🚀 We’re thrilled to co-host the inaugural Newark Demo Day as part of Newark Tech Week (NWT) on October 15 at The Newark Museum of Art! This collaborative event, powered by New Jersey Innovation Institute, Lair East Labs, Newark Alliance, and Audible, with support from New Jersey Economic Development Authority (NJEDA), will bring together 10+ innovative startups from the NJ and NYC region to showcase their innovative solutions.

🎤 Expect opening remarks from NJ tech leaders, exciting startup pitches, networking reception, and exhibition booths featuring outstanding startups and stakeholders in the regional tech ecosystem. This is a fantastic opportunity to connect with early-stage tech companies, explore investment opportunities, and support emerging technologies.

✨ Join us and be part of this landmark event: https://lu.ma/qr0yf596

07/19/2024

Celebrating our brilliant 2024 venture fellows! Thank you Carolyn Kim, Chuck Dodge, Jonathan Lee, Mitchell Quon, and Sherry Wang for all your hard work and support, especially helping with last month 🙏

What is a venture fellow? VFs help find and evaluate breakthrough technology , particularly those with a vision. The role is a combination of , , and working with Lair East Labs' companies to support on strategic initiatives.

👋 Interested in becoming a next year? Find us at https://laireastlabs.com/venture-fellows/

06/28/2024

We had an incredible morning at our Breakfast event during #2024, where John Shen shared his inspiring journey and immigrant founders mingled to exchange notes and resources. 

John's parallel entrepreneurial journey showcased another successful immigrant founder story in the U.S. He spoke about overcoming his first business failure and bouncing back from the lowest point in his life, teaching us the true meaning of -- the freedom and ability to choose how we respond to external challenges and uncertainties. 

John also mentioned that and are critical as a founder. He shared how he was able to be a parallel entrepreneur by launching American Lending Center, Sunstone Management, and another two businesses in his memoir "Crossing the Swamp." Additionally, John's book signing added a personal touch for the audience, leaving them with a tangible piece of his learning and a simple yet powerful message: "Never, never, never give up." We want to give a BIG shoutout to John and , for their dedicated support of the early-stage startup community. 

Another round of thanks to for housing the event and to Arcjet, ASCENDING Inc., and American Lending Center, LLC, for supporting it. 

We look forward to supporting more immigrant founders everywhere! 🚀

06/20/2024

We are thrilled for Frich, a 2023 cohort alum, for raising a seed round in this climate! Huge congratulations to Aleksandra Medina, Katrin Kaurov, and the rest of the team 🎉

Haven't met them yet? Check out the coverage linked below:
https://techcrunch.com/2024/05/30/meet-frich-an-app-where-gen-z-talks-and-learns-about-money-that-just-raised-2-8m/

Frich gives users the ability to ask questions anonymously on the app to get a better sense of how others their age are doing financially without feeling competitive. They can also anonymously share financial data to see how they compare with peers. 💡

The app has grown to over 100,000 Gen Z users nationwide, with primary markets being New York, Florida, and Texas. Frich makes money by partnering with banks and brands such as a credit builder or a lifestyle brand, and charging them a flat fee to be on its platform. And they are approaching $1 million in annual recurring revenue (ARR) with a B2B subscription model!

We are cheering for you from Lair East Labs and can't wait to see where you head next!

Frich launched its app in the summer of 2021 and since then, has grown to over 100,000 GenZ users nationwide.

06/18/2024

The photos are in and more to come! They captured the highlights of our , but don't fully do justice to the energy we were surrounded by at the 4 events Lair East Labs had the fortune of hosting!

We saw how founders and investors rose above underestimation to be advocates of their own dreams, as evident by Aleksandra Medina (Frich), Tiffany Zhou (OLEADA), Julia Peter (LocalAway), and Rachel Zhao (PayPal Ventures) 💪

We heard how John Shen (American Lending Center) overcame layers of obstacles to pursue parallel entrepreneurial journeys against the backdrop of being an 🚀

We learned a great deal about and from the two events we were a part of. Jane Tran, Dovran Amanov, Denzil Eden, and Rein Wu led an absolute 🔥 panel on how they utilize and . Michelle and Jie also supported a discussion on the implementation of GenAI in various industries 💡

HUGE thank you to American Lending Center, Arcjet, ASCENDING Inc., InvestHK New York (& Ranjit Unnithan), and Wolf Greenfield (& Daniel Rudoy) for making these events possible 🙏 You enabled thoughtful discussions and mingling of founders, operators, investors, and ecosystem partners.

And a BIG shoutout to our team members who helped put this together! Michelle, Jie, Joy, Carolyn, Mitchell, Chuck, and Sherry you are the MVPs 🙌

06/07/2024

It's 3 for 3 at ! We hosted a room full of and to talk about the future of applications, including some hot takes from the panel 🔥

Big shoutout to Jane Tran for hosting the discussion with Dovran Amanov, Denzil Eden, and Rein Wu. 🙏

We also heard from Daniel Rudoy on how to protect AI innovations through 💡

This is a wrap on events, but we're still here to support diverse, early stage founders. If that's you, please reach out! Have a great rest of your 🙌

06/06/2024

Two events down, one more to go! We will see you at + Panel: Future of AI Applications tonight!

Here's footage from the room at our & mixer 🥂 Thank you to the panelists for an inspiring discussion and to every attendee who brought their energy and passion 🔥

05/31/2024

Event Spotlight 💡 AI+ Panel: Future of AI Applications 💡
When: June 6, Thur
What: Join us for a discussion on and its applications across various industry verticals! Panel speakers are and of AI-enabled :

​👋 David Hojah, Founder & CEO of Parrots AI
​​👋 Dovran Amanov, Founder & CEO of Neuronspike
​​👋 Denzil Eden, Founder & CEO of smarty.ai
​​👋 Rein Y. Wu, Ph.D., Founder & CEO of IndicatorLab
​​👋 moderated by Jane Tran, Co-Founder & COO of Sixfold

💬 We also welcome Daniel Rudoy, a Shareholder and Executive Committee Member of Wolf Greenfield, who will share insights about current and upcoming IP practices in the AI space.

👉 Join us at https://lu.ma/aiplus

We are very grateful for the support of:

​🙏 Wolf Greenfield is among the 10 largest law firms in the country devoted exclusively to intellectual property law. The firm’s primary practice areas include patent, litigation, post-grant proceedings, and trademark and copyright. More than 90% of the firm’s practitioners have science or engineering degrees and 70% hold advanced degrees (MD, PhD, or MS).

🙏 ASCENDING Inc. is an AWS Certified Advanced Consulting Partner. ASCENDING provides AI and Cloud computing consulting service to SMB and startups.

🙏 Arcjet helps developers protect their apps in just a few lines of code. It allows developers to build security in from the beginning rather than bolting it on later and wasting time refactoring. This includes features like rate limiting, bot detection, signup form spam protection and attack detection.

🙏 American Lending Center, LLC is a private non-bank lender headquartered in southern California, and a nationally recognized leader in commercial lending, providing capital to small businesses nationwide. We believe that the success of the small business community is built on access to fast, flexible credit.