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 #175.

I'm Jonathan, the creator of SF IRL. I've been a Bay Area resident all my life and moved into San Francisco about 4 years ago. My full-time job is at Brex where I meet founders and VCs while trying to create a community in the city. 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 9000+ subscribers. As we keep growing, if you enjoy reading these, please share this with your friends so we can hit 10,000 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!

Sponsored

Dora AI Hiring a Mid Level/Senior Backend Engineer

You might be a good fit if you:

    •    Want to help build the next generation of AI-powered workflow orchestration that solves high-value business problems.

    •    Enjoy owning features end to end — from design and implementation to deployment and iteration.

    •    Are interested in growing into a leadership role as the company scales, including mentoring other engineers over time.

    •    Have experience with technologies like Go, Kafka, MongoDB, Temporal, or similar. This isn’t a strict checklist, any adjacent experience here is valuable. We prefer to hire smart engineers because they can grow into any position.

    •    Are excited about joining a high performance software engineering team, that works hard but also plays hard too.

This role may not be the right fit if you:

    •    Are looking for a strict 9–5. As an early-stage startup, we work long hours and push 70h/week whenever required.

    •    Are afraid to jump out of your comfort zone, whether if it comes to learning a new tech stack or performing duties outside of your job role. This is a startup and everyday is different.

    •    Want very tightly defined scopes and processes. You'll be dealing with a ton of ambiguity and we need people on the team who can navigate it.

Interested? Email [email protected]

Kato Hiring a Founding GTM Strategy & Operations Hire in SF

Lenders spend over $24B every year hiring agents to perform manual, repetitive servicing work. Existing AI solutions try to automate this, but they treat regulatory guardrails as an afterthought - meaning they can’t guarantee compliance and can’t be trusted with critical servicing workflows.

Kato takes a different approach.

Regulations aren’t an afterthought - they’re the foundation. We start with a regulatory rules system and layer an AI decision engine on top of it. With this architecture, we’re building an AI-powered servicing platform that automates critical workflows across every channel with full compliance and best-in-class recoveries. Human teams are then free to focus only on the judgment-driven work that truly needs them.

Kato is founded by a team with deep operating expertise in financial services and software engineering:

• Pratik Risbud (CEO/Co-Founder): Former Investment Banker at Goldman Sachs and led Credit/Operations at Brex

• David Zhu (CTO/Co-Founder): Former Software Engineer at Google and Engineering Manager at Brex

Kato is backed by institutional capital from Pear VC and angel investors from top tech companies such as Brex, Bridge, and Square. We are looking for top talent to join our team and power our growth.

We’re looking for a Founding GTM Strategy & Operations hire to help build the operational machinery that turns our early traction into a repeatable, scalable revenue engine. This is one of the most critical hires at Kato - someone who will work directly with the CEO to build out our sales motion, strengthen our brand, and create leverage across the go-to-market function.

This is a role for someone who is hungry, resourceful, and wants outsized career growth. You’ll help build the GTM engine from the ground up, and once it’s running smoothly, you’ll have the option to deepen your role in sales or expand into other high-priority areas of the business (marketing, recruiting, operations) depending on where you want to grow.

The role is full-time and in-person in San Francisco (4 days/week in the office).

Founders Raising?

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.

Looking for a Cofounder, Hiring, or a New Role?

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.

Want to see your event here - help sponsor us?

Events Coming Up

Dec 15th, 2025 - Cafe Compute: Big Chip Club Launch

Location: San Francisco

Time: 7-9pm

What: ​We are so excited to present, Big Chip Club! Come enjoy your childhood favorite cereals, eat breakfast for dinner, and marvel at the big chips of Cerebras. We'll have tons of desks and office space for folks to come co-work.

Dec 16th, 2025 - Practical Workshop for Early Stage Founders

Location: San Francisco

Time: 9am

What: Join us during the pre-Christmas week for an exclusive session designed for founders who want to scale faster, avoid common mistakes, and get direct feedback from Igor Ryabenkiy, one of the world's leading investors.

Dec 16th, 2025 - Cocoa & Coding: Holiday Hack Night

Location: San Francisco

Time: 7-10pm

What: Join us for a festive night blending cookies, community, and a fun coding challenge. We'll have a DIY hot chocolate bar, fresh holiday cookies, and a build challenge designed to spark inspiration and collaboration.

​What to expect:

• ​Hot chocolate bar with all the toppings (think whipped cream, peppermints, festive sprinkles)

• ​Christmas cookies and other snacks

• ​Fun holiday movie playing in the background

• ​Optional hack challenge if you're feeling competitive

• ​Tool demos and Q&A from our hosts—ask us anything!

• ​A relaxed space to code, collaborate, or just chat with us about AI or the holidays

Dec 17th, 2025 - Euro Xmas in SF

Location: San Francisco

Time: 5:30-8pm

What: Come join us for a fun and festive Christmas gathering! We're bringing together the best and brightest European operators and founders in SF.

​It's a great chance to meet new people, build your community, and catch up with new and old friends over some festive drinks and snacks!

Dec 16th, 2025 - Convex Holiday Party and Sync-up

Location: San Francisco

Time: 5:30-8:30pm

What:

Got an event coming up? Submit it here so it appears in our next issue.

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