At this virtual SheWorx Roundtable, we sit down with Pialy Aditya, Chief Strategy Officer, Republic and General Partner of WOCstar Fund. 

We will discuss: 

- What she looks for as an angel investor 

- Biggest lessons learned as a founder in the fashion-tech space

- How to transition from a founder to a senior executive at large publicly-traded companies 

Background on Mentor

Pialy Aditya is the Chief Strategy Officer at Republic. An innovation-driven executive with a proven ability to scale both multi-billion dollar corporations and early stage startups, Pialy previously led ShopYourWay Digital, the social commerce loyalty program with tens of millions of members. She was a pioneer in the fashion tech space, launching Mintbox, an online platform with private micro-targeted, credit card-linked sale experiences. Before launching Mintbox, Pialy focused on global strategy at Donna Karan (a division of LVMH) and worked directly with designer Donna Karan to commercialize Urban Zen. 

Pialy She is an advisor and investor in startups focused on social commerce, blockchain, and big data. She  is currently working to launch WOCstar, a fund focused on female founders with a strong focus on founders of color. She has a BS from NYU’s Stern School of Business and a MBA from Harvard Business School. 

The next event in our Female Founder series is featuring Janelle Benjamin, serial entrepreneur and investor. She is one of the few Black female entrepreneurs to raise over $1 million in funding and successfully exit. Previously, she was the co-founder and COO of SuperData Research which was acquired by Nielsen in 2018.

We'll discuss:
- The process of scaling her company to an exit
- Key lessons from her fundraising journey
- Her biggest mistakes along the way and what she learned from them

At this SheWorx Virtual Roundtable, we sit down with Nihal Mehta, Founding General Partner at Eniac Ventures. At Eniac they call Nihal the human Rolodex, thanks to the thousands of connections he has made with some of the world’s top companies and brands. He developed many of these connections over the past 20+ years while founding five different tech startups. Eniac leads seed rounds in bold founders who use code to create transformational companies.

We will discuss, during these challenging times how to:

- Communicate with investors and tell a story of growth and opportunity

- Reassess your business model and execute a pivot

- Develop and maintain entrepreneurial resilience


About The Mentor:

At Eniac they call Nihal the human Rolodex, thanks to the thousands of connections he has made with some of the world’s top companies and brands. He developed many of these connections over the past 20+ years while founding five different tech startups. Prior to founding Eniac, Nihal was the founding CEO of LocalResponse, where he grew revenues 2153% in three years and landed them on Inc. 5000’s Fastest Growing Companies. Nihal also was the founding CEO for buzzd, the first real-time mobile cityguide, and ipsh!, one of the first full-service mobile marketing agencies in 2001, which was acquired by Omnicom (NYSE: OMC) in 2005.

Early in his career, Nihal honed his ability to spot top entrepreneurial talent by investing in Admob (acquired by Google), Swiftkey (acquired by Microsoft), Tapad (acquired by Telenor), Tala, and Uber to name a few. Because of his experience both building and funding top technologies, he frequently guest lectures at business schools around the country on entrepreneurship and mobile marketing and is published in over 15 books and white papers on the subject.

Outside of the office Nihal loves to spend time with his wife Reshma and is a big supporter of her non-profit Girls Who Code. Around town, you will usually see him with his son Shaan and beagle-bulldog Stanley. Nihal is the life of the party, which is why he always spearheads Eniac events.

Nihal graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a BA in Philosophy and a BSE in Computer Science.