Funding Trends: AI, Capital Crunch + New Funding Playbook with Carta's Hamza Shad + VC Mellie Chow

We discussed a few things including:1. Their career journeys2. Carta3. Archangel and Techstars4. Current trends5. Outlook for investing for 2026Hamza Shad is an insights manager at Carta, where he analyzes data on startups and the venture capital ecosystem. He leads Carta's quarterly State of Pre-Seed report on early-stage companies and has spoken at Startup Grind, 500 Global, SOSV, the World Bank, and more. Previously, Hamza conducted research on entrepreneurship in emerging markets at Endeavor. He holds a bachelor's in economics and political science from the University of Chicago and a master's in international development from University of Oxford. ----Mellie Chow is an Engineer turned Entrepreneur / Operator turned Angel Investor / Venture Capitalist with over 25+ years of experience across multiple industries including telecommunications & cable, utilities & power generation, banking, healthcare, government, and food. She is a Board Advisor at Techstars Toronto Accelerator and a Venture Partner at Archangel Network of Funds, Axion Fund, ventureLAB EIR and University of Delaware - Horn Entrepreneurship - Venture Acceleration Lab mentor. She is also an adjunct professor at New York University SPS and Elizabethtown College of Competitive Product Strategy. She holds a BS in Mechanical Engineering (University of Waterloo), an MBA (Northwestern University - Kellogg School of Management & Schulich). #podcast #AFewThingsPodcast