Ayori Selassie

Ayori Selassie, who also goes by "Selfpreneur", is based in the United States. She grew up in Oakland, California, and studied at Laney College and San Francisco State University. Crunchbase lists her current role as Senior Manager, Product Marketing for Platform, Heroku and Einstein at Salesforce. Her Crunchbase job history dates her first Salesforce role to 2007.

At Salesforce she launched Einstein Prediction Builder, the point-and-click tool for building AI models in CRM. She was also an early advocate for ethical AI at the company. She founded BOLDforce, the employee resource group for Salesforce employees of African and African-American descent, and served as its president. Earlier, she worked as a solution engineer at Salesforce.

Outside Salesforce she founded Pitch Mixer in 2011. It was an entrepreneur forum that introduced Oakland founders to angel and venture funding, and Mayvenn founder Diishan Imara gave his first investor pitch there. She also founded Selfpreneur, which is built around the Life Model Canvas, a framework she holds a patent for. Another company she founded, AI Newbies, runs podcasts, training and workshops that make AI accessible to non-technical people. She is also a co-founder of Black Women in Computing. Crunchbase counts 3 companies founded and 2 exits, one of them by IPO.

Crunchbase lists 5 investments in 5 portfolio companies, with no lead investments. The companies shown are HawkEye 360, Solv, Udacity, Form Energy and Pit Liquor by Distilled Bath and Body. Her own work history lists Udacity and Solv as investments from August 2021.

She built her investing practice through structured programs. She was a fellow in the second cohort of the Black Venture Institute in April 2021. She then joined the inaugural class of the Material Change Institute fellowship, a one-year program for investors from underrepresented groups. In a Fast Company interview about the fellowship, she said she needed to learn portfolio construction, due diligence and fundraising, even though she already understood technology. At the time of that interview she had led two investments and invested in six companies. She has since spoken on angel investing paths at the HBCUvc Angel Investing Summit, which covered direct investments, donor advised funds, syndicates and co-investing.

A conference speaker bio describes her as an investor in You.com, an AI chat-based search engine. Crunchbase and other sources do not give a date or round for that investment.

She is the Founding General Partner and Managing Director of Life Model Ventures. Tech Intersections describes it as an investment syndicate focused on ethical AI and data companies. Her operating background in enterprise AI, data platforms and responsible AI is the context for these investments.

Her 2024 Stevenson Symposium bio states her thesis: helping leaders launch, grow and scale products, services and experiences that change life, business and society. She does this through direct investment and advisory support. It says Life Model Ventures focuses on pre-seed to Series A investments in AI and Future of Work.

Her Crunchbase bio also mentions wellness, wealth building, wisdom and web3 innovation as areas of interest. Her portfolio spans education, healthcare access, energy storage, satellite data and consumer goods, so her checks have not been limited to AI. She is based in the United States. Check size, ownership targets and syndicate size have not been published in the sources reviewed. Founders should not assume any figures.

• You.com: AI chat-based search engine. She is described as an investor in a conference speaker bio. The date is not public.
• Udacity: online platform that trains workers in technology skills. Her profile lists her as an investor from August 2021.
• Solv: convenient healthcare access company. Her profile lists her as an investor from August 2021, and Crunchbase shows a Series C round.
• HawkEye 360: Crunchbase lists a Series D participation. The date is not public.
• Form Energy: Crunchbase lists a Series D participation. The date is not public.
• Pit Liquor by Distilled Bath and Body: Crunchbase lists a pre-seed round.

• crunchbase.com/person/ayori-selassie-da6c
• symposium.stevensonschool.org/symposium-2024
• techintersections.org/speakers/ayori-selassie
• bitconference.sched.com/speaker/randomgirl
• fastcompany.com/90726051/investing-has-a-diversity-problem-that-this-n
• businesswire.com/news/home/20220301005483/en/Material-Change-Institute
• officehours.com/ayori-selassie
• computerhistory.org/profile/ayori-selassie