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- SF IRL - May 27th, 2025
SF IRL - May 27th, 2025
A curated newsletter showcasing the top tech & startup events in San Francisco
Jonathan Chang
May 27, 2025
In partnership with
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 #146.
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!
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May 27th, 2025 - Seed and Series A Fintech Founders Dinner with Brex CFO Ben Gammell
Location: San Francisco
Time: 6:30pm
What: For fintech founders, Brex & Cervin Ventures are cohosting an intimate dinner with Brex CFO Ben Gammell.
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
May 27th, 2025 - What Matters in AI: Parenthood & Policy
Location: San Francisco
Time: 7-9pm
What: As conversations about fertility, AI, and education move from the clinic to Congress—and from the coasts into cultural mainstream—a new generation is asking: What kind of future are we building, and for whom?
This panel brings together leaders from healthcare, tech, and education to explore how innovation is reshaping the landscape for parenthood.
May 28th, 2025 - ai + health Demo Night #005
Location: San Francisco
Time: 6:30-9pm
What: curious about how new machine learning models are finding their way into clinical workflows, biosensors, and healthtech?
join us for a series of demos that remove the hype of ai and focus on active solutions being implemented today.
demo spots will be prioritized for those with current traction, and everyone is invited to share during the open mic.
May 28th, 2025 - AI Agent World Tour in SF
Location: San Francisco
Time: 4:30-9:30pm
What: We’re bringing together the builders, researchers, and doers working on AI Agents in Production in the most lo-fi way possible.
May 28th, 2025 - All Things Web at Vapi
Location: San Francisco
Time: 5-8pm
What: What’s new in Voice? A lot. LLMs are transforming the Voice AI space - and fast, too! Join us on May 28 at Vapi HQ in SF for an evening of cutting-edge tech talks, tasty snacks & drinks, and great conversations about the future of the web and Voice AI. Don’t miss it!
May 28th, 2025 - Founders’ Olympics: Tech Chess Tournament at the 1097
Location: San Francisco
Time: 7-10:30pm
What: 🕒 Timing:
Doors open 6:30pm sharp
Doors close at 7:00pm — no late entries allowed
We’re serious about starting on time. Respect the board, respect the crew.
🏡 Venue:
Private luxury 2,800 sqft condo in SoMa
(you’ll get the exact address upon approval)
May 28th, 2025 - SF Demo Night
Location: San Francisco
Time: 6-9pm
What: Every month, we raise the bar – and in May, we’re taking it even higher. The top founders, engineers, and product obsessives will gather under one roof to experience the next wave of game-changing innovation. The room will be packed, the stakes will be high, and the spotlight will be on 10 elite pre-Series A teams ready to steal the show
May 29th, 2025 - LeanAI Leaderboard Founders & Builders Happy Hour
Location: San Francisco
Time: 6-9pm
What: 🎉 Congrats to all the founders building Lean AI-Native companies that are scaling extremely quickly!
To celebrate this movement and the Lean AI Leaderboard, Notable Capital ($5B AUM) and Henry Shi ($150MM annual revenue with 200 people) are hosting an exclusive happy hour for founders and builders like you, who are pioneering the new wave of efficient, profitable Lean AI-Native Startups.
May 29th, 2025 - AI/ML Dev Tools Demo Night
Location: San Francisco
Time: 5-8pm
What: Join us for an evening focused on AI/ML Model Reliability and Evaluation, featuring lightning demos and expert-led discussions.
Lightning Demos — will spotlight real-world implementations and best practices for ensuring the reliability of models in production—covering monitoring, alerting, observability, and incident response.
The Future of AI/ML Model Evaluation — will explore current techniques and emerging methodologies for assessing model performance, fairness, and robustness, with insights from leading practitioners shaping the future of trustworthy AI.
Networking & Community – Mingle with developers, founders, SREs, and AI advocates
May 29th, 2025 - Techscaler Founder Showcase
Location: San Francisco
Time: 6-8pm
What: Over the last few weeks, a cohort of 13 Scottish founders have immersed themselves in the heart of global tech innovation - Silicon Valley. At the showcase, they will share what they’ve built, learned, and where they’re going next.
May 29th, 2025 - AMA with Emmett Schear
Location: San Francisco
Time: 5-8pm
What: Emmett Shear served as CEO of Twitch until recently when he started his new company, Softmax, with the mission to solve the AI alignment problem.
In this in person Ask Me Anything session, we will discuss with Emmett the mission of Softmax, how he envisions tackling the AI alignment problem, AGI, post-AGI scenarios, building an AI company in 2025, and many other topics.
May 29th, 2025 - Exclusive CMO and CRO Cocktail Evening
Location: San Francisco
Time: 6-8pm
What: An invite-only evening for 10 senior marketing and revenue leaders in SF.
May 29th, 2025 - Stanford Founders Demo Day Spring 2025
Location: Stanford
Time: 8am-6:30pm
What: The Stanford Founders Demo Day – Spring 2025 is a premier gathering designed to foster innovation, showcase talent, and ignite meaningful connections within the Stanford entrepreneurial ecosystem.
May 30th, 2025 - AI Fundraising Trends 2025 w/ Peter Walker
Location: San Francisco
Time: 3:30-6:30pm
What: Join Inception Studio and Carta for an exclusive deep dive into the latest AI fundraising trends in 2025.
Featuring Peter Walker, Head of Insights at Carta, this intimate event is reserved for our community of founders, AI leaders, and network of top VCs at the leading edge of AI investments.
May 30th, 2025 - Founders’ Olympics: Tech Poker Tournament
Location: San Francisco
Time: 7:30-11:30pm
What: A Texas Hold'em tournament where every hand is a test of instinct, psychology, and nerve. Expect big bluffs, sharper reads, and a room full of killers.
3-4 tables
No-Limit Texas Hold’em
$20 buy-in
5000 chips
Blinds double every 30 minutes
No rebuys. No rake.
Payouts: 1st (50%), 2nd (30%), 3rd (20%)
Venue: shown upon acceptance
May 31st, 2025 - ai + health 24hr hack @ studio 45
Location: San Francisco
Time: 9:30am
What: join for a weekend long ai + health hack where you'll tackle real challenges across kenya and beyond.
we welcome doctors, designers, developers and researchers to this 24-hour collaborative weekend.
build something meaningful that makes a difference - you'll be part of a global community with teams working simultaneously in nairobi and san francisco.
June 2nd, 2025 - Seats of Success: Immigrant Entrepreneurs Tables
Location: Mountain View
Time: 6-8:30pm
What: What to expect:
Mastermind Circle: Each attendee will introduce themselves and their business, and share specific areas where support is needed.
Fireside Chat: Hear from a successful immigrant entrepreneur who scaled her business to $1M in annual revenue, sharing the real lessons behind her growth.
June 2nd, 2025 - AI Bitrage: The Golden Era of Opportunity in Financial Services
Location: San Francisco
Time: 5-7:30pm
What: Join NFX and Core Innovation Capital for an exclusive gathering of founders, AI innovators, and forward-thinking operators as we explore the unprecedented opportunities at the intersection of artificial intelligence and financial services.
June 4th, 2025 - reAgent - the event for agent builders
Location: San Francisco
Time: 5:30-8pm
What: Don’t let anyone tell you different: there’s no such thing as a separate “infrastructure phase” in technology. The tech industry loves tidy narratives — infrastructure first, then apps. But in reality, they evolve together, each driving the other. That’s never been more clear than with AI agents. We’re bringing together top builders to talk about where this is going — and how to turn demos into real-world utility.
June 4th, 2025 - GenAI Collective SF "| Special SF Mystery Event
Location: San Francisco
Time: 6-9pm
What: At the GenAI Collective, we've been quietly rearchitecting. Now, we’re bringing together a select global circle to witness the shift before it becomes visible to the world.
This is an invite to those who notice the inflection points early.
To the builders, the architects, the edge-pushers. The ones who know that what’s next is rarely loud at first – but impossible to ignore once it lands.
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