Lightfield: The Startup Odyssey — In conversation with Keith Peiris

Keith and Henri previously built Tome, an AI presentation tool that grew to 25M users in less than a year, then did the hardest thing founders can do: pivoted, shrank the company to seven people, and rebuilt the company as Lightfield. Join us for a conversation with Keith Peiris, CEO and Co-founder of Lightfield, which recently raised a $47M Series A led by Andreessen Horowitz, with participation from Coatue, Greylock, and Lightspeed. Lightfield is reimagining CRM as a business world model to help with predictable agentic work and accurate forecasting in the chaotic era of company building. They serve thousands of businesses from YC to scale upsEvent starts at 5:00pm. Keith will begin speaking at 5:30pm. Dinner will be served at 6:15pm. Some of the questions we’ll explore: Why Henri as his co-founder? What made him certain? How do you know the difference between a product that's working and a product worth spending ten years on? What does it actually take to tell a team of 70 you're stopping? Tome grew through virality; Lightfield sells consultatively, with engineers deployed at customers. How do you rebuild a company's instincts that completely? If you were starting over today, would you still begin with a wedge product? About Keith Peiris:Keith Peiris is the CEO and Co-founder of Lightfield, an AI-native CRM backed by a16z, Coatue, Greylock, and Lightspeed. He holds a BASc in Nanotechnology Engineering from the University of Waterloo, where he worked on magnetically levitating microrobots. Before Lightfield he co-founded Tome, the AI presentation platform that reached 25 million users and raised $81M, then wound it down to rebuild CRM from scratch. Earlier he led product at Instagram, growing Instagram Direct to 500 million monthly users. About Outcast Ventures:​Outcast Ventures is an early-stage venture firm co-founded by Andy Chen and Amy Lin, alums of Coatue, Kleiner Perkins, NFX, and YC. Outcast is built on the belief that founding teams matter more than founding ideas. Outcast invest $500K–$1M at pre-seed and seed. Some teams are already formed. Others form through Catalyst.Sponsors:Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), a division of First Citizens Bank, is the bank of some of the world’s most innovative companies and investors. SVB provides commercial banking to companies in the technology, life science and healthcare, private equity and venture capital industries. SVB operates in centers of innovation throughout the United States, serving the unique needs of its dynamic clients with deep sector expertise, insights and connections. SVB’s parent company, First Citizens BancShares, Inc. (NASDAQ: FCNCA ), is a top 20 U.S. financial institution with more than $200 billion in assets. First Citizens Bank, Member FDIC.Fenwick is a leading law firm, purpose-built to guide visionary tech and life sciences companies and their investors through every stage of growth, from startups securing their first round of funding to leading publicly traded global enterprises. As one of Silicon Valley’s original legal practices, today we have over 600 lawyers, patent agents, engineers, and scientists serving clients all over the world. Named 2024 Practice Group of the Year for both Life Sciences and Technology by Law360, we are consistently ranked a Chambers first-tier firm for delivering the deep experience and technical skill that help innovators at the forefront of their industries shatter boundaries and redefine what’s possible.