BEAN BOX

Matthew Berk has been a software engineer, entrepreneur, and CTO for more than 25 years. He is the creator of the first local search engine and is the author of a wide range of patents in machine learning, generative grammar, data mining and VoIP. Berk holds a B.A., summa cum laude, from Cornell University, and an M.A. from The Johns Hopkins University. Matthew is an equal-opportunity coffee drinker.

Ryan Fritzky has been an entrepreneur, marketer, and product leader for the past two decades. Prior to founding Bean Box, he was a product lead in the mobile consumer and ad-tech space, working on early-stage B2B and B2C products. Fritzky earned his B.A. in finance from the University of Washington Foster School of Business. Ryan enjoys the balance of Latin American coffee and the thrill of an Ethiopian microlot.

Tami Moynihan has more than a decade of experience growing finance operations for both startups and early-stage businesses, primarily in B2C markets, at revenues of up to $200MM. Moynihan earned her M.A. in Professional Accounting from Seattle University. Tami most appreciates the caffeine kick of high-end coffees.

Maryna Gray has refined her coffee-tasting palate over the past decade, and now directs all sourcing and coffee product development for Bean Box. She has acted as juror for the prestigious Cup of Excellence competition, adjudicating the top coffees on the planet in places like Colombia and Peru. She is a board member for the Alliance for Coffee Excellence. Gray earned her B.A. from Amherst College. Maryna enjoys tasting and sharing both the simplicity–and the complexity–of the world of coffee.

Kirby Winfield is a seasoned startup operator and investor, and is currently the Founding General Partner at Ascend.vc, the most prolific pre-seed stage venture fund in the Pacific Northwest. Early in his career, Kirby was a founding team member and operating executive at back-to-back tech IPOs, with Go2Net and Marchex. He is also a two-time venture capital-backed CEO, with AdXpose (DFJ, Ignition) acquired by comScore, and Dwellable (Maveron, VersionOne) acquired by HomeAway. Kirby has been operating and investing in Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning since the 1990s. His first startup pioneered the use of semantic AI for web search. He advised the Allen Institute of Artificial Intelligence on the launch and growth of its highly regarded Ai2 Incubator program, and has backed 30+ AI startups as a VC.