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SF IRL - Sept 22nd, 2025

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

Author

Jonathan Chang
September 22, 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 #164.

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!

Day ZeroMeeting the top folks in tech, find your next cofounder, and your next role

Location: San Francisco

Time: 6:30pm

What: Calling all CFOs and Heads of Finances. Brex x Kintsugi is hosting a supper club for you. Bringing together 12 of the top CFOs and Heads of Finances at the top early stage companies.

October 9 · San Francisco

Growth is messy. AI is moving fast. And most events just add to the noise.

ApolloNEXT is different. Picture 1,000+ founders and operators who've actually scaled through this transition, sharing what's working right now.

Get hands-on with Apollo's AI GTM platform, hear real plays from teams at Anthropic, Glean, and Apollo who went from $10M → $150M ARR in just 4 years.

Plus Corporate Bro (Ross Pomerantz) is hosting, so at least it won't be boring.

October 9 · San Francisco

50 founders. One room. Real conversations.

We're hosting something we've never done before during SF Tech Week.

Picture this: mini-chats with Apollo CEO Tim Zheng and execs who scaled us from $10M → $150M ARR. No stage. No panels. You sitting close enough to ask the questions that actually matter.

  • Frameworks that broke through every revenue ceiling

  • Pivots & mistakes that cost us months (so you don't repeat them)

Growth is messy as hell. AI is moving fast.

We want to be in the trenches with you, trading what's actually working.

For Seed+ to Series A founders in growth mode.

This is how we're building our founder community at Apollo. Here’s how to get your spot:

  • Step 1: Register for ApolloNEXT

  • Step 2: Apply here for the lunch

  • Step 3: Keep an eye on your inbox for updates

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: 5-9pm

What: ​​friends of afore - we're delighted to invite you to get a first look at some afore's founders-in-residence and portfolio companies

​​many of these founders may raise in the next six months, not all will be raising now, but we wanted to let them share what they're working on and meet some friends of afore

​you can rsvp above for the showcase, happy hour, both, virtual attendance, or just to get the list of companies presenting

Sept 23rd, 2025 - Unicorner Presents: SF Seed+ Founders Dinner

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: 5:30-8pm

What: ​O1 Collective and Uncork Capital are bringing together the European tech community in San Francisco for an evening of conversation and connection.

​Join us for a fireside chat with Sam Chaudhary (Co-Founder & CEO of ClassDojo ) and Ilya Levtov (Co-Founder & CEO of Craft) as they share their journeys of building and scaling companies in the U.S. as European founders. The conversation will dive into the challenges, opportunities, and lessons learned along the way, followed by time to connect with fellow founders and operators over drinks.

Location: San Francisco

Time: 5:30-8:30pm

What: We’re thrilled to feature Frank “Puf” van Puffelen — longtime DevRel Engineer at Google and now DevRel & Experience Lead at FlutterFlow.

​Puf helped grow Firebase from 100,000 to over 4.5 million active developers, built Google’s flagship events program, and has given 120+ in-person talks around the world. At FlutterFlow, he’s continuing to redefine how devtools connect with their communities.

​He’ll join us for an honest fireside chat about building for and with developers — what scales, what burns out, and what still works in 2025.

Location: San Francisco

Time: 5-8:30pm

What: ​Modern reliability engineering is entering a new era. Site Reliability Engineers and observability professionals are under increasing pressure to scale operations, reduce MTTR, and deliver clarity across complex systems. At the Rootly AI Meetup, we’ll explore how AI-driven automation and observability-first practices are reshaping reliability engineering.

Sept 23rd, 2025 - Lightning Hackathon ⚡

Location: San Francisco

Time: 5-9pm

What: Join us for a fast-paced, two-hour hackathon! Build something amazing - by hand, with AI, or a mix of both - in just two hours!

Location: San Francisco

Time: 5-8:30pm

What:

Sept 24th, 2025 - Unicorner Presents: Superpower Founder Fireside

Location: San Francisco

Time: 5-7:30pm

What: ​Join us for a fireside chat and deep dive with Max Marchione, founder of Superpower, the all-in-one health tracking platform.

​P.S. Include a good question for Max, and we’ll prioritize your spot. 🦄

Location: San Francisco

Time: 6-8:30pm

What: ​👾 Old-school pixels. Next-gen brains. 🎯

​Step back into the golden age of gaming and bring AI into the mix.

​Join Lightning AI and Voltage Park for a hands-on evening where you will:

​🎮 Code a retro-style game (think Pong, Space Invaders, Pac-Man, Breakout, or Snake) in the Lightning platform, solo or with a team

​🤖 Train an AI agent on Voltage Park GPUs to play (and hopefully master) the game you just built

Location: Palo Alto

Time: 6-8pm

What: ​We’re bringing together female founders, investors, and allies for an evening of candid conversations, meaningful connections, and community building in the heart of Palo Alto.

​This isn’t another panel — it’s a space designed for authentic networking and shared learning. Whether you’re a founder navigating the early stages, an investor seeking to back bold ideas, or simply passionate about supporting women in tech and entrepreneurship, you’ll find your people here.

Sept 25th, 2025 - SF Voice AI Builders Meetup

Location: San Francisco

Time: 6-9pm

What: ​Who Should Attend

  • ​Developers building voice AI applications

  • ​Founders working on voice-first products

  • ​Researchers exploring conversational AI

Location: San Francisco

Time: 6-8pm

What: Join us on the evening of September 25 in the Lower Haight for Mediterranean food and a practical session on setting up AI agents in fintech, covering prompting, reliability, and MCP-based integrations. We’ll focus on the essentials: clear prompts and system instructions, safe guardrails, evals, and how MCP fits into a clean integration approach. Short Q&A at the end.

Location: San Francisco

Time: 4-10pm

What: The screens are coming out. The controllers are getting charged. Founders, Inc. is hosting its first LAN party.

We’ll have multiple setups running Smash, FIFA, Mario Kart, Valorant, and League. Bring your own controller, laptop, or console if you want to jump in — or just come through to spectate, meet people, and chill.

Sept 30th, 2025 - SF Founders Brew Mixer

Location: San Francisco

Time: 6:30-9pm

What: We are bringing together some of the most ambitious people in San Francisco.

​Give a quick intro about what you're working on, meet other people and cool down with some of the best drinks in the city!

​No entry fees, no corporate agenda, just vibes.

​The perfect way to end the night.

​Look forward to seeing you there!

Sept 25th, 2025 - Agents for Web Dev

Location: San Francisco

Time: 5:30-8pm

What: Join us at our monthly All Things Web meetup for two exciting talks and plenty of time to hang out with the AI and web builder community in San Francisco at Mintlify's brand new office!

​This month's theme: Agents for Web Development

Location: San Francisco

Time: 6-9pm

What: ​Love APIs and dev tools? Building something cool with AI?

​Come eat tacos, have a drink, and meet new folks! 🚀

​Hosted by your friends at WorkOS. 💙

Location: San Francisco

Time: 9:30-6:30pm

What: ​Come hack with us! Join the Supabase team the day after Supabase Select for an all-day hackathon with great prizes, great food, and a great vibe.

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