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- SF IRL - July 7th, 2025
SF IRL - July 7th, 2025
A curated newsletter showcasing the top tech & startup events in San Francisco
Jonathan Chang
July 07, 2025
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 #152.
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
Building out an IRL SF community for young hustlers starting out in the founder journey. Will have a series of intimate events in SF all designed to meet your future cofounder, customers and collaborators. We also have a Whatsapp group to join as well!
July 8th, 2025 - Founders TopGolf
Location: San Francisco
Time: 6-8:30pm
What: Play TopGolf with other fellow founders in SF.
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 Jonathan’s People You Should Meet here - coming soon.
Events Coming Up
July 8th, 2025 - Fundraising Deep Dive with NFX & Mission St Capital
Location: San Francisco
Time: 6-8pm
What: Join us for a networking session and panel with appetizers and light refreshments, plus insights and tactics for fundraising. This event is designed for seed and pre-seed founders looking to learn from VCs.
Our panel includes Valerie Osband Mahoney, Principal at NFX, and Surabhi Todi at Mission Street Capital, both of whom will bring their perspectives on evaluating founders and helping them with product-led growth, GTM, and management.
July 9th, 2025 - Sunrise Starters Run Club: After Hours Run
Location: San Francisco
Time: 6:30-7:30pm
What: The honest truth: SF is packed with forced networking events and founder happy hours where everyone’s pitching, posturing, or collecting LinkedIn links. It's easy to show up and leave without meeting anyone you'd actually call next week.
What we're creating: A weekly ritual for the early career tech crowd—founders, engineers, designers, PMs, VCs, early employees—anyone ambitious, curious, and looking to make the city feel smaller in a real way.
July 9th, 2025 - AI Builders Night: Comet and Sonar Innovations @ Perplexity
Location: San Francisco
Time: 7-9:30pm
What: Join us at Perplexity’s San Francisco HQ for an exclusive evening with fellow builders and startup founders.
Get an exclusive first look at Comet, Perplexity’s new agentic browser, and explore the latest advancements in our Sonar API.
You'll connect with top founders, give and get product feedback, and have a first look at what’s next in AI search and developer tools.
Location: San Francisco
Time: 5:30-8:30pm
What: Join us for a special fireside chat with Jamie Turner, Co-Founder and CEO of Convex, and Sam Lambert, CEO of PlanetScale. This conversation will explore the deep technical partnership between the two companies, building the future of backend infrastructure with PlanetScale for Postgres.
This fireside chat is a rare opportunity to hear from two infrastructure CEOs about what it takes to scale a modern database platform, how they approach developer experience, and what’s next for performance-first backend systems.
July 10th, 2025 - Fintech Fest 1.0
Location: San Francisco
Time: 12-6pm
What: This summer, we’re flipping the script on traditional fintech events.
On July 10 in San Francisco - join The Financial Club, co-hosting with J.P. Morgan, and in partnership with: Synctera, TransUnion, The Financial Columnist, Market Reads (The Podcast) and others for Fintech Fest 1.0 — an open-air fintech experience designed for real connection.
July 10th, 2025 - Dinner & Debate: Build or Buy in the AI Age
Location: San Francisco
Time: 6-9pm
What: 🍽️ Dinner & Debate: Build or Buy in the AI Age
An invite-only evening of good food, sharper hot takes, and actionable AI strategy from AI founders themselves.
When & where
July 10, 2025 | 6 – 9 PM • Location is revealed to guests once confirmed.
6-7:30PM - Cocktails + sushi flowing 🍣 🍸
7:30-8:30PM - Main panel talk + Hot takes
8:30-9PM - Breakout huddles
July 10th, 2025 - Leopard.FYI San Francisco Low Key Happy Hour @ Shepherd HQ
Location: San Francisco
Time: 6:30-8:30pm
What: Join the Leopard.FYI community for a Low Key Happy Hour in North Beach (San Francisco) at Shepherd HQ (900 Kearny St. Floor 7).
Networking events can often be stressful, male-dominated, and not conducive to forming genuine connections. Leopard events provide a relaxed alternative, bringing together community members in a supportive and safe space <3
July 10th, 2025 - The AI Collective & Windsurf ~ Open Build
Location: San Francisco
Time: 6-8:30pm
What: Builders, welcome. We’re teaming up with Windsurf – the AI-native IDE that’s rethinking what it means to code in flow – for a special evening designed to inspire, connect, and unlock your next creative wave.
This is the first-ever collab between The AI Collective and Windsurf, and we’re keeping it fresh, simple, and high-vibe. Expect deep conversations, spontaneous demos, peer energy, and a space where great ideas catch wind!
July 11th, 2025 - Tech Catan Tournament
Location: San Francisco
Time: 6-9:30pm
What: You're invited to a game of Tech Catan with a crowd of high signal founders, operators, & investors, presented by Techgames.xyz, Mailmodo & Wefunder.
If you're a statistically literate techy who also finds beauty in abstraction, you probably LOVE games. 🧠
Perhaps you also worked very hard this week and now you're looking to relax. 🔥
July 15th, 2025 - The Agentic Browser Summit
Location: San Francisco
Time: 5-9pm
What: The Agentic Browser Summit is our inaugural collective of keynotes, discussions, and industry perspectives taking on the most ambitious end-game of software with a goal to improve human life. This is Day 1 of this movement, and we at Hyperspace welcome everyone tinkering, thinking about, or building components for it to come together
July 15th, 2025 - First Block — From Thiel Fellow to $2B Startup: Inside Mercor
Location: San Francisco
Time: 5:30-8pm
What: How do you reinvent hiring when AI can vet every candidate in minutes?
Join us in San Francisco for an invite-only taping of First Block, Notion’s founder-led series on building breakout companies from day one.
For our next episode, we’re sitting down with Brendan Foody, Co-founder & CEO of Mercor — the AI-powered talent marketplace that’s leapt from dorm-room idea to a $2 billion valuation in just two years. Backed by Felicis, Benchmark, and Jack Dorsey, Mercor matches thousands of specialists with the world’s fastest-growing AI labs.
July 15th, 2025 - Between Two Founders #007: Plaid Co-founder & CEO Zach Perret
Location: San Francisco
Time: 5-8pm
What: Get ready for an exhilarating deep dive into the dynamic world of fintech! Join us for an exclusive conversation as Zach Perret, Co-Founder and CEO of Plaid, sits down with Jeff Seibert, Co-Founder and CEO of Digits. Together, they'll unravel the extraordinary journey of building a company that's reshaping financial technology as we know it.
July 16th, 2025 - -1 to Bret Taylor
Location: San Francisco
Time: 3:30-5pm
What: South Park Commons is delighted to host Bret Taylor as part of our -1 to Now series!
Event Details
3:30pm: Doors Open
4:00-5:00pm: Fireside Chat
July 16th, 2025 - Harry’s Helpful Healthtech Hang
Location: San Francisco
Time: 5:30-8pm
What: A happy hour but one where everyone has the intention of helping others, empowering them to achieve their professional and personal goals. You will mingle, enjoy beverages and light bites (read: open bar for beer & wine), pay it forward, and maybe get help in return.
July 16th, 2025 - Funded Female Founders - YC & Early Stage VCs
Location: San Francisco
Time: 5-8:30pm
What: Join us for the second edition of Funded Female Founders hosted by Superconnected and Startup Grind — now launching in San Francisco.
After drawing 125+ attendees in Menlo Park, we’re bringing this high-impact evening to SF — uniting founders, investors, and operators who are scaling startups and championing women in leadership.
July 17th, 2025 - Figma for Edu Presents: Treasure Island Creative Mixer
Location: San Francisco
Time: 3:30-7pm
What: Welcome to Maker Island AKA Treasure Island!
Get ready for a night of connection, conversation, and creativity—with one of the best views of San Francisco! Co-hosted by Figma for Education and Intern Ship, this mixer brings together top student designers and creatives from the SF design & tech world—all set against the stunning skyline of SF.
This isn’t your typical networking event—it’s a space where career creatives and students will come together to celebrate the community-happening on an island. That’s right, Treasure Island, with panoramic sunset views of the San Francisco skyline as your backdrop. It’s part social hour, part design-fueled inspiration session, and part golden-hour hang with the brightest young minds in the Bay Area. Whether you’re new to the design field, a current student looking to break into a career in tech, or an industry creative using Figma’s tools to create—you’ll feel right at home.
July 18th, 2025 - SF Voice AI Builders Meetup
Location: San Francisco
Time: 6-9pm
What: Join us for the launch of the Bay Area's first dedicated Voice AI Builders Meetup in San Francisco! This is your stage to show off what you're building, learn from fellow builders, and connect with the most innovative voice AI experts in the area.
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