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2025 MatchPlay Startup Summit

2025 MatchPlay Startup Summit

New York City · Lowenstein Sandler, Midtown

In partnership with

Exclusive dinner sponsored by

The 2025 MatchPlay Startup Summit in NYC brought together over a hundred founders, investors, and operators for a full day focused on our theme, “Trust: The Future Is Closer Than You Think.”

Hosted at Lowenstein Sandler’s Midtown offices, the summit mixed keynotes, panels, and networking that went deep on what it actually takes to build trust in today’s fundraising environment: transparent diligence, aligned incentives, sharper storytelling, and investor relationships that go beyond the pitch deck.

Highlights

Panel

How Fast-Moving Technologies Are Rewriting the Human Experience

A look at the breakthroughs reshaping life itself — from neural interfaces that can read thoughts, to synthetic tissues that merge biology and technology, to deep AI systems learning faster than we can comprehend.

The session brought together world-changing startups leading these revolutions to explore how neuroscience, biotech, and AI are converging to redefine what humans can do; what happens when technology begins to merge with our bodies and minds; and how these changes will reshape creativity, health, and human identity in the next three to five years.

Not a panel about speculation — a front-row look at the future already unfolding.

Panel: How Fast-Moving Technologies Are Rewriting the Human Experience — Theron McCollough, Harsha K. Rajasimha, Paul Le Floch, Mike Graffeo

Fireside Chat

New Frontiers: The Future Is Closer Than You Think

AI isn’t a moment — it’s a movement. And the future is arriving faster than we can process.

In this opening fireside chat, Bipasha Ghosh took us on a guided tour through the world’s most transformative technologies — AI, blockchain, VR/AR, IoT, 5G/6G, and neural computing — and how they’re converging to reshape how we work, create, and live.

With two decades of experience across CNN, BBC, Reuters, and MIT Sloan, Bipasha revealed how companies, classrooms, and communities can embrace this new era thoughtfully, ethically, and strategically.

Fireside Chat: New Frontiers — Mahesh Narayanan and Bipasha Ghosh

Panel

The Match Effect: Building Trust When Investing in the Age of AI

In a world where algorithms can predict markets but can’t replicate trust, investors are redefining what it means to find the right “match.”

This conversation brought together leading investors to explore how trust, alignment, and authenticity have become the new currencies of capital — how investor–founder relationships are evolving in an age when data is abundant but genuine conviction is rare, and why the best investments still start with human chemistry.

From identifying signals that matter to navigating AI-driven diligence, the panel revealed how the smartest investors approach relationships, risk, and intuition in 2025.

Panel: The Match Effect — Abe Kwon, Maddi Holman, Michael Janes, Aakarsh Malhotra

About MatchPlay

MatchPlay tees up startup founders on their journey towards their entrepreneurial moonshot. Acting as trusted caddies, our team will stand side-by-side with founders to guide them through the challenging fairways of startup success. With transparency and community in mind, our goal is to match founders to the right resources around the world, ensuring they have the perfect swing to drive their startup to new heights.

About Lowenstein Sandler

Lowenstein Sandler’s Emerging Companies & Venture Capital (ECVC) group provides a tailored approach to the legal strategies and services essential for the successful launch, growth, and culmination of new enterprises. Their collaborative, multidisciplinary ECVC practice takes a 360° approach to innovation, investment, and business, representing both investors and startups across the technology, life science and healthcare vertical throughout all stages of a company’s life cycle.

Each year, the ECVC group helps create hundreds of new businesses and closes thousands of transactions. Because they represent both investors and companies seeking financing, they are ideally positioned to facilitate fruitful relationships between startup, emerging, and growth companies and providers of capital. The firm serves as outside general counsel to many technology and life science companies, often counseling them on matters involving financings, licensing, and intellectual property.

Have questions or want to connect? Reach out to Abe Kwon (Partner – Emerging Companies & Venture Capital, Lowenstein Sandler) at akwon@lowenstein.com.

About Gildre

Gildre is for founders, entrepreneurs, executives, anyone looking to make an impact and drive change. Whether that’s changing the way a single customer does business or tackling a groundbreaking social issue, their community is here to support and lift one another.

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