• SF IRL
  • Posts
  • SF IRL - Apr 13th, 2026

SF IRL - Apr 13th, 2026

A curated newsletter showcasing the top tech & startup events in San Francisco

Author

Jonathan Chang
April 13, 2026

Hi SF IRL! There's a ton of vibrance and energy coming back into the city and at SF IRL, we are excited to be a part of it. Excited to come with you all with some great events for Issue #190.

I'm Jonathan, the creator of SF IRL. I've been a Bay Area resident all my life and moved into San Francisco about 5 years ago. My vision for SF IRL is simple. Showcase the best tech + startup events in SF and to connect all of our builders and investors together. We are a growing community having over 10000+ subscribers. As we keep growing, if you enjoy reading these, please share this with your friends so we can hit 11,000 readers. As always, SF IRL is one of my many side projects. If you like to be involved in helping, please shoot me an email!

Lightfield is an AI-native CRM that remembers everything, then acts on it. It automatically captures and organizes every customer conversation across email, meetings, and notes, creating your team’s collective customer memory. Try Lightfield free today.

Excited to say SF IRL has partnered with ElevenLabs to give founders 33 million in ElevenLabs credits or equivalent to $4k to build voice AI agents.

Check Out the ElevenLabs Startup Grant & use code 11SFIRL723 for expedited review. We believe voice is the most natural way to communicate, and the future of human-AI interaction depends on making those conversations feel real. The ElevenLabs Grants Program exists to give early-stage startups and small teams the tools they need to build the future of AI audio with the best tools available, without cost being a blocker. ElevenLabs is the complete conversational agents platform, so whether a startup is creating an AI tutor, support assistant, or the next generation of voice-powered game characters, the grant will provide them with 12 months and 33 million characters of free access to ElevenLabs' cutting-edge AI audio, equivalent to over 600 hours of audio. 

Jun 2nd-3rd, 2026 - Microsoft Build - San Francisco

Location: Keynotes (Palace of Fine Arts); Sessions and Expo (Fort Mason)

What: This hands-on, no-fluff event is for professional developers and engineers to immerse in the latest advancements across Azure, GitHub, and AI development. After 10 long years we are coming back to San Francisco for 2 days of building together. Learn more and register now. (#MicrosoftPartner)

I’ve made a form to connect the best founders raising with my list of VCs. If you are a founder raising your next round and want to potentially be featured to investors in the SF IRL network, please fill out this form.

I’m launching a newsletter that will feature the top founders looking to hire, founders looking for their cofounder, and operators that are looking for their next role. If you are interested in being featured, fill this form here.

You can subscribe to Day Zero here.

Events Coming Up

Location: San Francisco

Time: 5-8pm

What: ​​As artificial intelligence becomes more present in everyday life, it is beginning to shape how children learn, think, and grow.

​​What does this mean for childhood, and how should it change the way we approach parenting and teaching?

​​Join us for a conversation with Nikunj Kothari, Celeste Kidd, Sonja Schmer-Galunder, and Ari Krakowski—experts in AI, psychology, and education—to explore how emerging technologies are influencing cognitive, social, and emotional development. The panel and audience Q&A will be moderated by Lauren Dash, Head of Brand at Imbue and a parent navigating these questions herself.

Location: San Francisco

Time: 5:30-8:30pm

What: ​Most teams are still overpaying for inference on problems a 4B model could handle. So we're hosting a dinner about it.

​We're gathering a small group of AI infrastructure leaders in San Francisco: engineers and founders building in inference optimization, model distillation, and on-device deployment.
No presentations, off the record.

Location: San Francisco

Time: 6-9pm

What: SF Engineering Happy Hour

​Join Temporal for drinks, AI demos, and a sneak peek at REPLAY 2026.

Location: San Francisco

Time: 5-8pm

What:

Location: San Francisco

Time: 6-9pm

What: ​Heads of Growth & GTM Community Meetup by Gooseworks 🪿

​"what exactly do you do as head of growth?"
"whatever it takes."

​growth, gtm, marketing, content, even "special projects." if you're the kind of person whose job title fails to encompass your actual role, this event is for you. founders / founder-led growth also welcome.

​we'll have the little color-coded stickers on name tags to tell who does what type of growth, conversation facilitators, and a short q&a with experienced heads of growth who've taken it from 0→1000.

Apr 15th, 2026 - -1 to Longshot Space with Nato Saichek

Location: San Francisco

Time: 4:30-6pm

What: ​South Park Commons is delighted to host Nato Saichek, CTO at Longshot Space Technologies.

​​​​​​Event Details

  • ​​​​​​​​4:30pm: Doors Open

  • ​​​​​5:00-6:00pm: Fireside Chat

Location: San Francisco

Time: 5-9pm

What: ​Winter cohorts are wrapping. Demo days are done. You survived. One night to actually exhale before you're back to the grind, come hang.

​DigitalOcean and Zendesk are throwing a proper celebration for the SF startup community. 

​Founders fresh off Y Combinator, a16z speedrun, Techstars, and beyond, this one's for you.

Location: San Francisco

Time: 5-8pm

What: ​This is a small, hands-on workshop for women where you'll build and deploy your first live website in a single session, no prior coding experience needed.

​No prior coding experience needed.

​We’ll use Claude Code + VS Code to vibe code a simple website, push it to GitHub, and deploy it live via Vercel.

Location: San Francisco

Time: 6-9pm

What: ​Founder Real Talk @ EF — How to Find Product-Market Fit

Apr 16th, 2026 - AVs & the City: DRIVE AI Demo Day

Location: Richmond

Time: 12-4:30pm

What: ​AVs & the City: The DRIVE AI Demo Day on April 16 is a drop-in event that transforms UC Berkeley’s Richmond Field Station into a 175-acre living laboratory for the future of autonomous mobility the day before 10th Anniversary Autonomous Vehicles & the City Symposium on April 17 at the Commonwealth Club World Affairs of California.

Location: San Francisco

Time: 5-9pm

What: ​The ArtTech Playground is a curated digital art showcase paired with a live conversation designed to bring engineers, founders, investors, and creatives into the same room

​This space is for the innovators and builders who are exploring pathbreaking ideas and how to use art and technology to build movements from concept to launch

Location: San Francisco

Time: 2:30-4pm

What: South Park Commons is delighted to host Nikesh Arora, CEO of Palo Alto Networks for a fireside chat as part of our -1 to Now Series!

​​​​​​Event Details

  • ​2:30pm: Doors Open

  • ​​​​​3:00-4:00pm: Fireside Chat

Location: San Francisco

Time: 6-9pm

What: SF Climate Week 2026: Founders, Investors & LP Happy Hour

​Join us for an exclusive SF Climate Week 2026 Happy Hour bringing together a highly curated group of climate founders, venture investors, LPs, and ecosystem leaders for an evening of meaningful connections, high-quality conversations, and community-building!

Location: San Francisco

Time: 9am-6pm

What: ​UNLOCK is a one-day summit on April 22, 2026 in San Francisco, focused on how AI is changing drug discovery and life sciences.

SF IRL is Sponsored By