• SF IRL
  • Posts
  • SF IRL - Jan 25th, 2026

SF IRL - Jan 25th, 2026

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

Author

Jonathan Chang
January 26, 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 #179.

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!

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. 

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: 6-8:30pm

What: Growth Craft: The AI-Native Growth & GTM Stack

​AI has lowered the bar to building product, and raised the stakes to winning the distribution game. As more teams ship faster, growth and go-to-market have become the real differentiators.

​Traditional GTM and customer workflows were not designed for this pace of product development. Manually building landing pages, running A/B tests, and iterating on funnels the old way slows teams down at the exact time when speed and iteration matters most.

​But who is writing the new rulebook for growth in an AI-native world? And what does it even look like?

​On Jan 27, come hear from four AI-native founders and industry insiders as they share their stories building companies at the heart of the new AI-native growth craft.

Location: San Francisco

Time: 5:30-8pm

What: Join us for an interactive session where Perplexity, Merge, Databricks and NEA will showcase short technical demos highlighting the latest innovations built on MCP.

​After the demos, stick around to meet the presenters, ask questions, and explore how these projects are pushing the boundaries of contextual AI systems.

Location: San Francisco

Time: 7-9pm

What: Join the District Community and guests for a New Year, New Aura mixer in Cow Hollow, SF, where we’ll toast to fresh momentum and this next chapter of building together.

​Dive into an evening of good energy and bold ideas. Each attendee will be able to experience aura photography to discover your 2026 energy through a creative lens. 

Location: San Francisco

Time: 5-8pm

What: Join us on January 28th for a hands-on, engineering-first workshop focused on how teams fine-tune and evaluate open-source LLMs in real production systems.

​This session is designed for AI engineers and tech leads at startups and enterprises who are already building with LLMs and want to move beyond prompting. We’ll cover when supervised fine-tuning makes sense, when reinforcement fine-tuning actually helps, and how strong evaluation loops keep systems reliable as they scale. You’ll work through a live, hands-on workshop that mirrors how modern teams design training and evaluation pipelines for real use cases, with an emphasis on practical trade-offs, iteration speed, and measurable model improvements.

Location: San Francisco

Time: 7-9pm

What: ​​"Why are there no coffeeshops open late? But what if I want to co-work at night?!?" - everyone on Twitter

​​​Look no further! We are so excited to present Cafe Compute! The first, late-night pop-up coffeeshop with a barista bar ☕️, donuts 🍩, swag 🎉, and more.

​We're kicking off the New Year at checkpoint 0. Join us in manifesting that 2026 will be the year when your validation loss converges to 0.

Location: San Francisco

Time: 6-8pm

What: AI is moving fast, but not everything matters. This evening cuts through the hype to focus on what’s real in 2026: where AI is creating meaningful value, how regulation and safety are evolving, and what founders and operators need to pay attention to now.

Location: San Francisco

Time: 6-8pm

What: Want to build your network? Join us at Peacekeeper on Weds 1/28, and mingle with like-minded young professionals in San Francisco.

Location: San Francisco

Time: 6-8:30pm

What: ​We're bringing together 20 seed to Series A founders from our community—founders that we believe have a unicorn trajectory.

Location: San Francisco

Time: 5:30-8:30pm

What: Join us for a live conversation with Keith Peiris, Co-Founder & CEO of Lightfield, and Grace Gong, Founder & CEO of Smart Venture Media and host of Venture with Grace and Smart Venture Podcast.

Location: San Francisco

Time: 3:30-5:30pm

What: ​Curious what the brilliant minds of SPC are up to?

​​​​​Join us for a showcase of the latest demos from SPC. Live demos only.

​​​​Demos will be in person at SPC-SF, starting at 3:30pm PT.

Location: San Francisco

Time: 5:30-8pm

What: ​Join the founders of BotSync in an intimate discussion about the future of automation in manufacturing. Dark factories (no humans on the assembly line) have been running now for decades, but recent advances in robotics have made the way for many more AI-native factories.

Jan 29th, 2026 - v0 Studio

Location: San Francisco

Time: 11am-5pm

What: ​v0 is getting ready for biggest product update yet.

Join us in the studio for early access.

​Open build sessions all day.

​Get a first look at v0's new capabilities and build alongside the v0 Team.

Location: San Francisco

Time: 6:30-9:30pm

What: ​Come build with the latest Distiller Alpha “Agent Computer" from PamirAI which have

  • ​8GB Ram + 32GB eMMC

  • ​Mic + Speaker

  • ​64-bit ARM 2.4 GHz

  • ​Bluetooth and Wi-fi

  • ​🔌 USB-C · I²C/SPI · UART · GPIO · PWM

Location: San Francisco

Time: 6-9pm

What: Join us for the next edition of AI Evals on Tap featuring lightning talks on how real teams approach AI evaluations.

​Whether you're an engineer, product leader, or AI practitioner, you'll leave with actionable insights on improving reliability and performance, and connect with fellow builders who care about shipping AI products that actually work.

Location: San Francisco

Time: 6-10pm

What: Before the Ballot is about clarity before choice. Elections are shaped long before Election Day — by the information people see and the understanding they carry. Build tools that cut through noise and help people show up informed.

Jan 30th, 2026 - AI Influencer Summit

Location: San Francisco

Time: 2:30pm

What: ​In 2026, AI is poised to reshape the media business, changing:

  • ​how creative studios approach content & storytelling

  • ​how writers approach their craft

  • ​How advertisers engage their audience

  • ​how audiences engage with media 

​The first wave of this change is represented by AI Influencers – the virtual characters, singers, actors, models who are drawing huge audiences and brand deals on social media.

​Who should attend? The Summit will bring together leaders from Hollywood, Madison Avenue, Silicon Valley, and the AI creator community.

Location: Palo Alto

Time: 9am

What: ​Join us on Saturday, January 31 for the Prompt Driven Development (PDD) Hackathon, hosted by PromptDriven.ai and Toolhouse at the 500 Global offices in Palo Alto.

Feb 3rd, 2026 - Cloudflare IRL

Location: San Francisco

Time: 5:30-8:30pm

What: ​​Cloudflare IRL with PlanetScale & Replicate

​Tuesday, February 3 // 5:30 PM - 8:30 PM PST
930 Alabama St, San Francisco

​What we're doing:

​→ Live demos
→ Hosted by Cloudflare + PlanetScale + Replicate
→ Food, drinks, music
→ vibes (both in the coding and music sense)

Location: San Francisco

Time: 5:30-8:30pm

What: ​Vibe Shift: The Builders Behind the Models
Where foundation models meet product imagination.

​Foundation models are evolving fast—but the real differentiation is happening where research meets real-world products. Join Rocket and Twill for an in-person evening with the builders shaping how AI actually gets shipped.

​This event brings together leaders across applied science, AI engineering, and product to unpack what it really takes to turn foundation models into scalable, user-loved experiences. Expect candid insights, practical lessons, and forward-looking perspectives from those working at the frontier.

SF IRL is Sponsored By