San Diego, California, United States
I’m passionate about working with entrepreneurs and founders like you to navigate the challenges of building, scaling, and funding successful businesses. With years of experience across startups, brand building, and growth strategies, I’ve honed practical insights to help you move faster, avoid common pitfalls, and focus on what matters most. As Co-Founder of Confirm B, I helped build a multi-brand consumer diagnostics company with retail distribution in over 20,000 stores, including CVS, Walmart, Walgreens, and Rite Aid. Through strategic fundraising and operational execution, we scaled rapidly and achieved a nine-figure acquisition four years ago. Currently, I’m a General Partner at Cross Ocean Ventures, where I invest in innovative technology companies and work alongside founders to help them secure funding, refine their strategies, and unlock growth opportunities. I also serve as an Entrepreneur-in-Residence with Yale Ventures and as a lead mentor for Berkeley SkyDeck and Techstars, supporting early-stage startups with fundraising, investor relations, and sustainable scaling strategies. ✨How I Can Help You Whether you’re just starting out or ready to take your business to the next level, I can provide guidance and support across key areas: ✔️Developing strategies to launch and scale your startup ✔️ Crafting compelling fundraising pitches and engaging with investors ✔️ Designing effective GTM strategies to attract and retain customers ✔️ Optimizing operations to maximize growth and revenue ✔️ Building strong teams through organizational structure and hiring strategies ✔️ Creating a clear path to profitability and financial stability ✔️ Navigating mergers, acquisitions, and exit planning ✔️ Overcoming personal challenges and building resilience as a founder ✔️ Exploring leadership development and career transitions ✔️ Connecting you with the right partners, networks, and resources ✔️ Conducting market research and analyzing competition to identify opportunities ✨Awards and Recognitions - San Diego Women of Distinction - Inc. 500 Fastest Growing Company Honor Roll - San Diego Most Admired CEO - Inc. Best Places to Work For - San Diego Best Places to Work For (3 consecutive years) 🚀 I believe that every founder has a unique story and journey. My goal is to meet you where you are, provide actionable insights, and help you turn your vision into reality without unnecessary stress or wasted time. Let’s focus on what’s next and make it happen. 🎗️All proceeds of our bookings goes to charity Book 1:1 Video Call :https://intro.co/ZeynepIlgaz?source=intro
Cross Ocean Ventures ' mission is to help talented entrepreneurs from around the globe change the world for the better by building good companies that profitably grow to a large scale. Industries invested in SaaS, New Health, Medical Devices, Consumer Technology, Fintech, CyberSecurity, Software Development, Employee Screening, B2B Solutions, eCommerce and web applications
Helping Ph.D. innovators translate their research into startup ventures across biomedicine, therapeutics, medical hardware, digital health, physical sciences, and engineering. Collaborating with academic leaders, entrepreneurs, and investors to accelerate the commercialization of cutting-edge technologies
Advisor | Helptivo It is an honor to serve as an Advisor to Helptivo, an all-in-one platform designed to help small nonprofits, student-led initiatives, college clubs, and community organizations efficiently manage volunteers, track impact, organize events, and communicate their work through a single, accessible system. Helptivo was founded by Arden Pala, founder of Sports4Kids-CA, a youth-led nonprofit that brings free sports clinics to students and schools across San Diego. Through Sports4Kids, Arden and his team have raised over $350,000 and introduced sports programming to more than 1,000 students, with support from organizations including the Lucky Duck Foundation, APWireless Infrastructure Partners, OPTYO, Project Play WNY, the Sycuan Tribal Government, Barons Market, Target, and others. While scaling Sports4Kids, Arden identified a recurring challenge across nonprofits and student organizations: fragmented tools and manual processes for managing volunteers, events, and impact. Helptivo was built to solve this problem by offering a streamlined, affordable solution that enables organizations to focus more on mission and less on administration.
NuFund Venture Group is a new wave of angel investors with a new fund model investing in new technology leaders. NuFund, formerly known as Tech Coast Angels – San Diego (TCA – SD), is one of the largest, most active and most successful early-stage investor groups over the past 20+ years. NuFund invests an average of $10-15M yearly to early-stage startups. We focus mainly on SaaS, Deeptech, IoT, E-commerce, Digital Health, DTX, Digital Health, Diagnostics, Medical Devices, Pharma, Genomics, Sustainability,Telecommunication.
SkyDeck offers all the benefits of a traditional accelerator along with the vast resources of the world’s number one ranked public university. Formed as a partnership between UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business, the College of Engineering, and the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research, SkyDeck offers a powerful environment for startups to grow and launch.