About Us
Project 2.8 was founded by Shashi Srikantan through Columbia Venture Community to ensure female founders have equal access to venture capital as their male counterparts.
Since the initial founding of the project in 2020, the number of female founders funded through VC’s has declined, but our portfolio companies have expanded. Our mission is to ensure that female founders achieve equal access to their male counterparts. With the backing of Columbia Venture Community, Project 2.8 is creating a network and community for female founders, ensuring their long-term success.
Since 2021, Céline Gauchey and Lisa Smith have led the program as volunteers, continuing to expand the curriculum and grow the program’s network of mentors, instructors, and investors. Project 2.8 is currently launching our fourth cohort in September 2023 .
The accelerator is for early-stage, female-led companies. Our founders are alumnae of Columbia University. We select early-stage companies that have a viable business idea, with proof of concept as well as a competitive differentiation analysis. Our goal is to prepare our founders for investment.
Each cohort is made up of ten founders who participate virtually. We offer a curriculum that spans eight weeks and includes virtual sessions led by subject matter experts in topics ranging from Growth Hacking to Funding. We also provide a network of mentors with various areas of expertise, and a community of alumnae who offer support and shared experience. We welcome anyone who wishes to support our cause by providing mentorship, instruction, and investment.
Meet the Team
-
Céline Gauchey
CO-DIRECTOR
Céline Gauchey is a graduate student at Columbia University studying Computer Science. Prior to beginning her masters, she was a software engineer at JPMorgan Chase & Co for three years. She graduated from Barnard College in 2019 with a double major in Economics and Psychology. During her time at Barnard, Céline held internships at various venture capital firms and startup accelerators, including the Techstars IoT Accelerator, NextGen Venture Partners, and Founder.org. She also spent a summer interning in the fashion department of ELLE Magazine. While at Columbia, she was a part of the Columbia Economics Society and Columbia University American Red Cross Chapter executive boards. Céline is originally from San Francisco and is currently based in New York City.
-
Lisa Smith
CO-DIRECTOR
Lisa Smith is the CEO and founder of Moving On Productions, (TrAnscrIbed) a captioning and subtitling company. She graduated from Columbia University with a degree in Political Science and then worked as a journalist, writer, and television producer before completing her MBA. Immediately afterward she started Moving On Productions choosing to bootstrap and operate as a solopreneur but eventually expanding to a team in the US and the Philippines. Her experiences, and the obstacles along the way, have made her passionate about supporting other female founders in their startup journey. She regularly mentors and advises entrepreneurs. She also founded a nonprofit, Enable Mothers, which supports single mothers with an opportunity gap in obtaining remote jobs.
-
Shashi Srikantan
FOUNDER
Shashi Srikantan founded Project Two.Eight in 2020. Shashi is an investor at Level Up Ventures, where she heads the Venture Lab and invests in early-stage, tech-enabled startups led by Black and Latinx founders. The mission of Level Up is to help close the racial wealth gap in under-resourced communities through private sector investment and community-focused initiatives. Shashi is well-versed in sustainable finance and ESG-related themes, and her interests lie in identifying and supporting those companies working on solutions to societal or environmental challenges. Shashi earned her B.S. in Finance from Villanova University and her M.B.A. from Columbia Business School and is New York-based.
-
Angela Nethery
FOUNDER LEAD
Angela Nethery is a graduate of Columbia Business School and currently works at Mercury Capital where she is responsible for researching, screening, and evaluating potential venture investment opportunities. Prior to attending graduate school, she worked at various start-ups and banking institutions where she developed a passion for finance and helping founders with building their start-ups. She also served in the United States Air Force for four years. Angela currently resides in the New York City area with her Husband, Brian, and their son, Theo.
-
Angela Peijie Yu
OPERATIONS LEAD
Angela recently graduated from Columbia University where she majored in Economics and French. During her time at Columbia, she was deeply involved in entrepreneurial and technology organizations such as Columbia Organization of Rising Entrepreneurs, Data Product Initiative, and Columbia Venture Community. Since December 2020, Angela has been working closely with Columbia Venture Community as Member Insights Lead, a role that allows her to develop insights into CVC’s membership base and member needs. Deeply passionate about building and scaling products, she has extensive project and internship experience working with startup founders and non-profit organizations. Currently, Angela is part of the business development team at echo3D, a tech startup in NYC building tools and infrastructure for AR/VR developers.
-
Jessica Meksavan
INSTRUCTOR LEAD
Jessica is a seasoned finance leader with over fifteen years of finance and strategy experience at different financial institutions and tech companies, covering multiple industries. She has proven leadership in financial modeling and forecasting, credit risk management, capital markets strategies, investments and synthesizing it for executives. She is currently Head of Finance and Operations at Kea AI and in this role, she manages and owns all aspects of finance, from the operational to the legal to the compliance to the strategic aspects. She resides in San Francisco with her husband and two kids.
-
Orcun Dogmazer
WORKSHOP LEAD
Orcun Dogmazer is a Fulbright Scholar studying International Affairs at Columbia SIPA with a particular focus on development. He graduated from Koc University in Istanbul with a degree in Economics and International Relations. During undergrad, he co-founded a digital marketing SaaS and engaged in various community-building activities, mostly through his podcast series. Before joining Columbia University, he worked as an analyst in a global development firm working to advance the SDG agenda. He has prior experience in product, growth & e-commerce and is an alumnus of the Turkish Entrepreneurship Foundation.