☕️ Nicole Ripka & $500k checks for Camp

NYC, SF, El Segundo Tech Breakfast Clubs coming up

Author

Morgan Barrett
July 03, 2025

👋 Hi, Breakfast Club Members!

Thank you to Luka @ Remgu for sponsoring today’s newsletter - you know Luka as the go to partner for top European dev talent but now he’s also offering Latin American dev talent

We’re rolling! Guest lists for the upcoming Tech Breakfast Clubs are coming together nicely. Incredible founders.

Scroll down to read my interview with Nicole Ripka from betaworks. She’s an absolute force of nature, a very talented investor, and also my cohost for July’s NYC Tech Breakfast Club.

Before we get into the interview, I want to plug betaworks 13 week in person accelerator. They call it Camp and this year the theme is Interfaces. It comes with a lot of support and a check (up to $500k). 

Resources:
-Clerky offers a $100 discount for TBC Members on their formation packet. Reply to the newsletter and I’ll send you an invite
-Fixing the YC SAFE: Reply to the newsletter and I’ll send you a redline for the YC Postmoney SAFE that can save founders millions in dilution
- Time to get a Ramp card? Reply to the newsletter and I’ll hook you up with a bonus
- Free Zendesk for 6 months. Time to scale your customer service? Talk to Zendesk

Tech Breakfast Club Events

NYC Tech Breakfast Club July 16th
Cohosting with Nicole Ripka, investor at betaworks and all around great human to know

For Founders & VC’s

El Segundo Tech Breakfast Club July 29th
Come hang with Grant Gregory, partner at Cantos, and one of the pioneers of American Dynamism

For Founders & VC’s

SF Tech Breakfast Club July 30th
Cohosting with Danielle Strachman, one of the most legendary evaluators of talent and Partner at 1517

For Founders & VC’s

NYC ML Leaders Tech Breakfast Club August 6th
Brought to you by the first name in Inference, Baseten! We’re showing the engineers and CTO’s some love with their very own Tech Breakfast Club.

Tech Breakfast Club 🤝 Luka @ Remgu

Meet Luka, founder of Remgu, who sources top European (and Latin American) talent for fast growing companies

#Sponsoredpost

You studied CS at Waterloo – incredible CS program – then worked in Toronto, Chicago, and NYC for almost two decades... why did you move to Croatia?
I moved to Canada as a kid from Croatia, but in 2017 I went back on vacation and met my wife. I moved back to be with her, and once I settled in, I kept meeting incredible technical talent — fluent in English, highly skilled, and eager for meaningful work. 

You worked at Toptal. Why did you leave and start Remgu?
Toptal gave me valuable experience and a look inside the freelance space. But I saw a gap — companies needed long-term, senior-level engineers without inflated costs, and great engineers wanted stable, impactful projects. I started Remgu to solve that. We run lean with small margins, so clients get top-tier European and Latin American talent at fair rates — typically $50–$80/hour — and engineers get to work on projects that matter.

Who is Remgu a good option for?
We’re a great fit for startups and SMBs who need deeply vetted engineers they can count on — whether it’s a founding engineer to build your MVP, or strong additions to an existing team. We tailor every match and only send one or two standout profiles per role, so you’re not wasting time on irrelevant resumes.

Why is Remgu better than other options?
Our model is lean and efficient. We focus on quality, speed, and long-term relationships. That’s why our clients stick with us and keep coming back as their teams grow.

How do I get in touch?
If you’re building your team and want long-term talent without the high cost or churn, reach out directly on LinkedIn or email me at [email protected]

Nicole Ripka Has An Eye for Talent

I didn’t think we’d start the interview here - I try to avoid controversy or at least conceal it deeper in the interview 
Yeah, well, we were talking about it before you pressed record but, yeah, I’ll say it. I like SF like ALOT. 

Wow
But here’s the thing. I’m a real New Yorker. I’ve been here my whole life. 

I’d never doubt your New York credentials 
I’m not going anywhere. But, I like SF. I had a really pleasant trip this month. It’s a good city. 

Where should we start?

We can talk about whatever you want. I’m confident it’ll be entertaining
Well I grew up on Long Island and I have a twin brother and a younger sister…

Actually I’ve got a question - why does everyone in NYC know you?
Hah - well maybe for a couple reasons. I went to Penn and when you have 2 siblings around town, who are also extraverted, the world gets especially small

You’re like the least Penn person I know. How was it? 
I was actually super lost in college. I meet so many students today and they have their shit together. They’re studying CS and Philosophy and they're on top of it. That wasn’t me. I actually took time off from college to do some soul searching or figure out who I was. And I think what I found was that I’m just a curious person. I like discovering cool shit. In the early days of kickstarter, I was obsessed with learning about the different projects and backing them. Sometimes there were weird inventions, other times it was a film or an art project.

Tell me about something you backed on kickstarter
It was called Land Art Road Trip. Two guys from Harvard wanted to take 30 artists through the American Southwest to make art and camp at Land Art sites for four weeks. I was their single backer and it meant I got to go on the trip. I booked a flight to Nevada, not knowing anyone and unsurprisingly it was as transformative as it sounds - the trip changed my life. 

What’s a Land Art Site?
Google Spiral Jetty - you probably recognize it from an art history text book cover. The land art movement was basically when artists in the '60s and '70s started making massive pieces directly into the land - like literally moving rocks and dirt, building spirals out in salt flats, carving into cliffs. Most of it’s out West because there’s space, and the light is insane. And I don’t know, the Southwest has always had this sort of romantic pull on me - it’s big and quiet and kind of surreal. It’s stuck in my head ever since.

But around the same time, like 2014, I joined Peloton as their first intern. My friend Ryan was like the 6th employee and he offered me the chance to join the team and work with John Foley. 

The founder of Peloton? 
Yeah and I sat right next to John. You gotta love a CEO who puts the intern's desk right next to his. At Peloton I’m literally doing everything. Riding the bike, running Facebook ads, writing the blog. This six month stretch, with the road trip and with working for Peloton - it’s incredibly formative. 

So you go back to Penn and graduate and keep working for Peloton? 
No, I start an art gallery. 

Of course - 
I was obsessed with discovering young and unknown artists. I liked running a business and championing great talent. I moved out to the Hamptons and opened a small gallery. 

Pre-pandemic there were hardly any galleries in the Hamptons despite there being a lot of wealth. During that period I would spend all of my time scouting Yale and RISD thesis shows. One of the first artists whose work I sold is Sarah Meyohas. I sold 6 or 7 of her pieces to friends and family. 

Wow - that’s so funny and amazing. For the readers Sarah is like fine art meet’s technology and finance, I highly recommend checking out her work 
Yeah so I ran the gallery for a while but ultimately I missed Tech and the community there. And to be honest it wasn’t the right time for me to be operating a physical space on long island isolated when I was figuring out who I was as a young person. I got a role as a designer at a startup and then joined a cool creative shop in New York called Matte projects. And then somehow, it was actually my mother’s idea, I enrolled at Stern for business school. That didn’t seem like a possible path for me since, in my mind, an MBA is for people who work at Goldman. 

What happened at Stern? 
I wanted to start another business. I actually met Tyler Denk right as he was starting Beehiiv. I was building Gayjoy. I wanted it to be the lesbian barstool. Like a next gen media property for lesbians - it’s a rabid fan base that's totally underserved. So I started writing a beehiiv newsletter and throwing events and working with really cool partners. I collaborated often with brands like bumble, SoHo House, maude, and Ace Hotel. 

But I was also working with Dorm Room Fund while I was at Stern. About a year into Dorm Room Fund, they asked me to lead the New York/Midwest team. And something clicked. I realized that the thing I enjoyed doing most was investing with DRF. I found the thing that leveraged my skills - my extrovertedness, my relationship building skills, my ability to find really smart people early. I call what I found Nicole-Career-Fit. There’s nothing that makes me feel better than, for lack of a better phrase, hooking it up. Can I get you a job? Can I help you find a romantic partner? (I have 2 marriages under my belt) Can I introduce you to someone who’s going to invest? Can I help you hire someone? And it turns out that you can get paid for that (potentially paid really well) as a VC. 

I love it. Tell me about betaworks 
Yes! So I’m an investor at betaworks and we’re on our third fund. We invest in companies where AI is a part of the core innovation. In the early days (2008) betaworks incubated companies. Some you’ll know: Giphy (acquired by Meta), Dots (acquired by TakeTwo) and Bitly. So product building is in our DNA, so is consumer as a category. Later, betaworks pivoted into a more traditional VC model. We wrote the first check into HuggingFace in 2016 so we are also well known for that. Some other notable investments include Granola, Sandbar & Browser Company.

What type of checks does Betaworks write?
We write two types of checks. 

  1. Camp checks. So Camp is our accelerator and every year we run it around a theme. Last year it was AI Agents & AI Apps. This upcoming cap it’s “new interfaces.” It’s a 500k on an uncapped SAFE with a 25% discount. Our next cohort starts in August. Applications are open now. 

  2. Non Camp checks - we’ll do 150k to 750k and we look for 5% ownership. 

When should people call you?
I want to meet two types of people - people who are raising right now and people who have the intention to start a company one day. My goal is to be the first check for founders who are building around AI in very strategic/thoughtful ways. But if you’re trying to be the first check in truly world changing companies, you can’t always just drop in at the exact right moment - a lot of times it takes years before someone is ready to raise. So I want to meet the smartest, most creative people now in case they might start something in the future. 

So, I have to circle back to my original question about how do you know everyone? I remember back to the first time we met at Tech Breakfast Club and you were more knowledgeable about the guests than I was 
I have a lot of homies. Lori Berenberg at Bloomberg Beta, Will McKelvey at Lerer, Mia at CRV.  There’s a lot of different ways to be successful in venture. And when I look back at what's worked generally in my life, it’s talking to as many interesting people as I can and being of service to them in any way I can. I learn by talking to other people. And a lot of times it’s not even about work. Even when I talk to founders, like on a first call, we might not even discuss their company initially. I just want to hear their story.

About Morgan Barrett:
Morgan is the creator of Tech Breakfast Club. He hosts breakfast meetups in NYC, LA, SF, (and occasionally Austin, Miami, Boston) that bring together the best founders and investors.

Morgan is also a Startup Lawyer at Optimal, an elite lean boutique startup law firm repping clients funded by a16z, Sequoia, Kleiner, Accel, and countless other VCs. He works with clients from formation to exit, in collaboration with Optimal’s partners.