AI, Capital & the New Competitive Landscape

Dave Mendez

Managing Partner, Good Growth Capital · Charleston

Mendez has spent more than twenty-five years in early-stage investing, with over a hundred startup investments behind him. He came to Good Growth from Capital A Partners, which he co-founded — the first venture capital firm in South Carolina, and one that returned more than 9x to its investors.

Before becoming an investor he built one. He co-founded Supplybase, a B2B supply chain software company, and sold it in 2000 — with NEA as the lead investor.

He has since run funds out of New York, London and Amsterdam, including Katalyst Venture Partners and the Techstars City of 2030 accelerator. Earlier still, a decade in engineering, business development and sales, starting at DuPont and later at Conoco and GE, in the United States and the UK. He sits on the boards of Ateios, NALA Membranes and MFNS. Clemson engineering, Kenan-Flagler MBA.

Eric de Jaeger

Head of Product and AI Strategy, JMI Equity

De Jaeger runs JMI’s AI work, helping the firm’s software companies grow through product innovation and AI adoption — building customer-facing products that use AI to improve performance and produce measurable results.

He has spent more than two decades at the intersection of product, technology and business strategy. He built and led a healthcare automation company through an exit in 2021, and held senior roles at Microsoft, Blackbaud and Cloudmed/R1, running teams behind product-led growth. He is currently a director at OnBoard, and holds a mathematics degree from Hartwick College.