Each year, Harlem Capital brings our community together through two cornerstone events: our Annual General Meeting (AGM) and Harlem Capital Homecoming.

Our AGM is where we reflect on the year’s wins and share firm updates and insights with our investors. Harlem Capital Homecoming is where we reconnect with our portfolio company founders, facilitate conversations that matter, and build community beyond business.

AGM started off with a firm overview and moved through keynotes, founder firesides, and a networking reception. Ben Sun of Primary Venture Partners set the tone with a keynote on what makes a founder truly exceptional. Ben laid out five attributes that shape his investment lens: 

• Setting vision and strategy
• Recruiting great people
• Selling the story to investors
• Delivering an exceptional customer experience
• Showing an ability to learn and evolve. 

He reminded us that early investing is about deeply understanding a founder’s potential and asking the key question: would you bet against them?

We also heard from Darwish Gani of OpenBorder and Qiyun Cai of Fintary, two Harlem Capital portfolio company founders who are reshaping logistics and finance across borders. Their stories gave us a behind-the-scenes look into what it takes to scale in emerging and global markets, from product pivots to customer discovery.

Colin Kaepernick, founder of Lumi, closed the AGM with a message on what it truly means to pursue greatness. He challenged us to think beyond legacy and consider how resilience, intention, and purpose allow leaders to shift norms and bring others along. His reflections reminded us that success is not just about outcome. It is about how you get there and who you elevate in the process.

This year’s AGM gave us the space to reflect, share, and recommit to what matters most: backing the most ambitious, thoughtful, and relentless founders out there. A reminder that our biggest wins come from the people we believe in most and that progress is powered by people who are building bold things.

The next day, Harlem Capital Homecoming brought the energy up a notch. We kicked off with updates on the firm, then moved into a series of practical, founder-focused conversations led by experienced voices. Neil Parikh, founder of Casper and Slingshot AI, spoke about how expanding your vision can lead to more strategic decision-making. Nathan Habib followed with a tactical session on sales, helping founders rethink how they approach conversations from preparation to connection to conversion. The advice from these sessions were grounded, useful, and tailored to the realities of building.

A standout moment was our conversation with Grammy-nominated artist and entrepreneur Big Sean. He shared lessons from his new book Go Higher, and spoke candidly about entrepreneurship, fatherhood, mental health, and self-discipline. He emphasized the importance of building structure through therapy, mindfulness, and daily habits. These practices are not just wellness tools, they make long-term performance and leadership possible. His openness brought the room in and made the conversation feel deeply personal and powerful.

We ended the day with friendly matches at Hell’s Kitchen Pickleball Club. It gave everyone a chance to decompress, share laughs, and strengthen connections after a full day of ideas and inspiration.

Together, AGM and Homecoming delivered on their goals, offering meaningful conversations, valuable insights, and a strong sense of community to our Investors and Founders. We’re grateful to Cooley and Brown Rudnick for helping bring these two days to life.

Looking ahead, we’re excited to create even more opportunities for founder-to-founder connection during future gatherings.

We are proud of what these events represented and even more excited about what they sparked. At Harlem Capital, all winners are welcome.

About Harlem Capital

Harlem Capital (HCP) is an early-stage, diversity-focused venture capital firm. HCP makes initial investments of $1mm to $2.5mm in U.S. seed rounds for 10-15% ownership.

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