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SF IRL - Nov 10th, 2025

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

Author

Jonathan Chang
November 10, 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 #170.

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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Triumph is building the next generation of skill-based, real-money gaming. Backed by General Catalyst, Goodwater Capital, and Drive by DraftKings, Triumph creates competitive mobile games where players can put their skills to the test, compete head-to-head, and win cash.

Among the top 30 apps in the App Store and ranked number 1 in the Casino category for months, Triumph has hundreds of thousands of monthly active users and hundreds of millions of games played. The company is growing rapidly and is looking to expand its team to help shape the future of real-money gaming.

Based in San Francisco, Triumph operates at the intersection of gaming and finance, solving complex problems in real-time multiplayer systems, payments, and player experience. The team moves fast, ships often, and takes pride in building products that are both technically challenging and genuinely fun to play.

Why Work at Triumph?

Triumph merges the speed of a start-up with the scale of a top-tier mobile platform. It champions ownership, experimentation, and the chance to make an immediate impact on millions of players worldwide.

If you are motivated by building products that merge engineering depth with entertainment, then Triumph provides the opportunity to work within a tight-knit, high-output team backed by world-class investors.

Open Positions:

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: 10am-12pm

What: ​It's Veterans Day and a pre-Sync conference. Come hang with Convex on Tuesday, November 11th, from 10:00 am to 12:00 PM.

​Sync up with your favorite backend team while enjoying free boba and coffee on us at Little-Sweet.

Location: San Francisco

Time: 4:30-6pm

What: ​South Park Commons is delighted to host Edwin Chen, Founder & CEO of Surge AI, as part of our -1 to Now series!

​​​​​​​Event Details:

  • ​​​​​​​​​4:30pm: Doors Open

  • ​​​​​​5-6pm: Fireside Chat

Location: San Francisco

Time: 5:30-8pm

What: ​👋 Welcome to our monthly SF meetup!

​​​❤️ Whether you're a developer, founder, or simply curious about the future of AI, you won't want to miss these insightful talks and community demos from leading experts in the field.

Nov 12th, 2025 - AI For Developers #30

Location: San Francisco

Time: 5:30-8pm

What: Join us at our monthly AI for Developers event to explore the latest in AI development, machine learning, deep learning, natural language processing, computer vision, AI programming, and AI-driven applications.

​Discover how leading companies and startups are building tools and platforms that help developers ship faster, fine-tune smarter, and design better AI-powered products.

​Don’t miss this opportunity to network with fellow developers, learn from experts on the frontlines of AI, and gain practical insights to boost your Generative AI skills!

Location: San Francisco

Time: 5:30-8:30pm

What: AssemblyAI and Rime invite you to join fellow voice AI builders and enthusiasts for a panel discussion, networking, and great wine/refreshments.

​Our panel will break down the critical engineering decisions behind modern voice agents.

Nov 12th, 2025 - Overnight Success: Vanta

Location: San Francisco

Time: 4:30-6:30pm

What: ​Christina Cacioppo taught herself to code after leaving venture capital at USV because she realized the future belonged to people who build. She'd wake up at 5:45 AM to manually send "automated" compliance emails to Vanta's first customers, testing what worked before writing any automation code.

​The security compliance space in 2018? Nobody cared. Startups didn't need SOC 2. VCs told her the market was too small. She spent six months interviewing companies, building spreadsheet prototypes for Segment and Front, doing compliance work manually while pretending it was software.

​She pivoted from security checklists that didn't work to compliance certification that did. Built a meeting recorder and voice assistant that both failed before landing on Vanta. Her first 600 customers signed up without a real website. Just a llama and an opt-in form.

​Now Vanta is worth $4.15 billion and serves 12,000+ companies.

Location: San Francisco

Time: 5:30-8pm

What: ​Harvey AI is rewriting the rules of law - and just hit a $5 billion valuation along the way. Join Notion’s co-founder Akshay Kothari in conversation with Harvey's co-founder & president Gabe Pereyra to unpack how they scaled Harvey to $100M+ ARR while redefining what AI can do in one of the world’s most regulated industries.

Nov 13th, 2025 - Gen AI at Work: Sunnyvale

Location: Sunnyvale

Time: 2:30-6:30pm

What: Generative AI offers immense potential, but selecting tools, navigating security, and ensuring adoption can be complex.

Join Google AI experts in Sunnyvale where they'll share our vision for the AI-powered workplace and show you how our AI-first approach can transform businesses and foster innovation through powerful use cases and live demos. Learn how to begin your journey with AI, no matter your current productivity tools. 

Location: San Francisco

Time: 6:30-9pm

What: ​Lindy is the easiest way to build AI Agents.

​Come join for a 2hr session with the Lindy team to build agents, meet others in sales, and see the latest in what's possible.

​The founding team at Lindy will share how they use agents in their sales workflows.

​Whether you have multiple Lindy's in production or are building new one's for the first, you're welcome to join.

Location: San Francisco

Time: 5-8:30pm

What: ​This is a special AI By the Bay meetup, leading to the conference of the best Bay Area AI meetups. Rigorous AI engineering with MCP toolchains is presented in more detail there — reserve your seat today!

​Our 8th AI Agent Meetup is sponsored by PayPal & Neo4j and the AI Alliance.

Location: San Francisco

Time: 4-6pm

What: Bio & Health Founders Mixer (Invite Only)

​A private meetup for some of the most interesting early-stage companies building at the intersection of biology and technology.

​Hosted in partnership between:

  • ​IndieBio, the world’s leading accelerator for deep-tech biotech startups backed by SOSV’s $1.5 billion fund. With labs in San Francisco and New York, IndieBio helps founders turn biology into real products that solve planet- and people-scale problems.

  • ​DraperU Ventures, founded by VC Tim Draper. The Draper ecosystem has backed its fair share of legendary bio and health companies (and not just Theranos) — think Colossal Biosciences, Algen, Verge Genomics, Precision Neuroscience, and more.

Location: San Francisco

Time: 9-11am

What: A small, founder-only coffee hangout for people actively building AI apps / systems with personalization at the core.

​No agenda. Just real conversation with people actually shipping things — what you’re building, what’s working, what’s breaking, what we’re learning from users.

Location: San Francisco

Time: 5-8pm

What: ​Cache Me Outside is a happy hour for the AI crowd that likes their inference fast and their cocktails strong. 🍸

​Baseten, Minimax, and CodeRabbit are bringing together engineers and AI leaders for an evening of great drinks, delicious food, and conversation—all with a stunning view of the Bay. 🌉

Location: San Francisco

Time: 5:30-7:30pm

What: ​Learn more about open roles at ElevenLabs!

​Join us for an evening in our San Francisco office, just days after the excitement of our inaugural ElevenLabs Summit.

​This event offers a behind-the-scenes look at how ElevenLabs is redefining enterprise AI adoption - from the groundbreaking technology built by our engineers to the strategies driving our rapid global growth. You’ll hear real stories of innovation, impact, and scale directly from the teams making it happen, and see how our voice technology is transforming customer experiences worldwide.

Nov 14th, 2025 - Applied Agents Hackathon

Location: San Francisco

Time: 9am

What: 🚀 Applied Agents Hackathon — $70K in Prizes!
📍 October 24th, 9 AM – 8 PM | San Francisco

​Calling all AI builders in the Bay Area! Anthropic, Windsurf, ElevenLabs, and Runway are teaming up for an exclusive one-day hackathon in San Francisco, focused on building the next generation of Applied AI agents.

​Join us for a full day of hands-on building with cutting-edge tools, expert mentors, and a shot at $70,000 in prizes and credits. Whether you're working on productivity, creativity, or real-world AI applications — this is your chance to push boundaries and showcase your ideas.

Nov 15th, 2025 - Grand Opening: PDR-1

Location: San Francisco

Time: 3-7pm

What: ​GRAND OPENING RECEPTION

​PDR-1, a new arts warehouse slated to become the premier hub for artists, arts entrpreneurs and light industrial makers in Bayview-Hunters Point San Francisco.

Location: Stanford

Time: 10am

What: 🚀 Build with Google Gemini Hackathon

​Win up to $5M in Seed Funding | November 15th, 10am–6pm*

​Join GDG Stanford for an elite hackathon where you'll build cutting-edge projects with Google Gemini and earn 30-minute VC pitch meetings with top-tier investors.

Location: San Francisco

Time: 2-8pm

What: Join us on Saturday, November 15th, for a high-energy 5-hour sprint with 100 top hackers.

Location: San Francisco

Time: 9am-6pm

What: ​🚀 Be part of the second Daytona HackSprint!

​We’re bringing together San Francisco’s brightest AI builders for an intense one-day sprint to create projects at the frontier of AI.

​🏆 $40,000+ Prize Pool – Cash & Credits

​Main Prizes

​​​🥇 1st Prize: $3,000 cash + $10,000 Daytona credits + Special CodeRabbit Swag
🥈 2nd Prize: $1,000 cash + $5,000 Daytona credits
🥉 3rd Prize: $500 cash + $3,000 Daytona credits

Location: San Francisco

Time: 10-11:30am

What: ​We’re expanding to SF!

​Join the Bio-Health Athletic Club to meet new people in your industry while improving your Vo2 max! We'll run at a conversational pace and talk all things biotech + health tech (and so much more). All levels of runners are welcome.

Location: San Francisco

Time: 7-8pm

What: come see a lineup of demos at the intersection of art & technology! talks will be short, 5 minutes each and are personal projects, no startups/companies :~)

​join us afterwards for drinks together tba

Location: San Francisco

Time: 6:30-8:30pm

What: We will dive deep into how startups can harness MySQL to power next-generation AI solutions.

​You’ll discover practical strategies for architecting robust databases that support rich, real-time data interactions. Our expert speakers will walk through real-world use cases, showing you how to seamlessly integrate MySQL with Gen AI frameworks. Whether you’re just getting started or looking to optimize existing systems, this session will provide actionable insights to elevate your startup’s AI capabilities.

Location: Palo Alto

Time: 6:30-9pm

What: Join us for a lively evening at our Founders & Investors Social! This casual gathering is the perfect opportunity to mingle, connect, and unwind with fellow founders and investors in a relaxed atmosphere.

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