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Natacha Merritt
Director VR/AR investments
West Summit Capital
Bio
Natacha Merritt was born and raised in Silicon Valley, where an entrepreneur spirit became part of her DNA. Her network is comprised of many tech executives in Silicon Valley, Hollywood, internet digital media and AR/VR. Natacha has over 15 years of experience in digital media and has worked with top entertainment companies of the world. She is a artist and twice published author and VR developer. She excels at identifying the greatest content companies and platforms globally. Founders see themselves in her artistic spirit and background and are naturally drawn to her multifaceted investment insights.
She recently joined Silicon Valley venture fund WestSummit Capital to spearhead their VR/AR and chabot strategy with a focus on content and B to C. 
WestSummit Capital is known for some great growth stage investments in the foundations of VR/AR, including leading Unity’s previous round, as well as investments in Twitch and Movidius.
Sessions
  • Chatbot Superpowers: The Democratization of AI! Investors Founders and Artists Share Insights
    10:45 AM - 11:00 AM May 31
    Chatbots: the democratization of AI, beyond Alexa. How will Chatbots give us all superpowers? 2016 was the year of Virtual Assistants, with over 300M invested in Chatbots alone. Messaging apps surpassed social networks in terms of daily users. Microsoft went as far as to say that the operating system of the future isn't Windows but "Conversation as a platform". Chat bots and virtual assistants have become omnipresent in our interaction with brands and soon will be an extension of our humanity. From bots that help us drive, to manage our finances or even our love lives, these bots will become increasingly an extension of our selves. The democratization of AI has begun, as platforms are enabling users to build their own bots without coding. How are investors, artists and innovators looking at this new trend? Where are the greatest opportunities? How should AI startups go about looking for funding? How are these new bots changing our realities? This panel will consist of investors in frontier tech who are expanding their portfolio to include AI/chatbot related tech, a founder (s) of some one of the most disruptive chatbot companies and an artist/futurist using AI and virtual assistants as a medium. Some key questions will be: - how will AR and bots collide in terms of content creation? - Virtual Assistant and chat bots: traction in past 4 months. - how are virtual assistant going to change our lives? - how will care bots help us care for the elderly and teach the young? - how will AI and chat bots affect how we view death and memories? - will chat bots ever be as easy to create as a selfie? - how do we get more women and minorities excited to found some of these companies? - what practical advice do the investors have for founders seeking to raise capital for their AI/Virtual assistant ideas? - how far away are we from “Her”? what are the components needed to get there?.