# LvlUp Ventures

Surya Pugazhenthi served as Venture Scout at LvlUp Ventures (Shopline-backed seed fund), Feb – May 2026. Result: 3 companies surfaced for potential investment from 20+ founder outreaches.

- **Organization:** LvlUp Ventures (Shopline-backed seed fund)
- **Role:** Venture Scout
- **Dates:** Feb – May 2026
- **Result:** 3 companies surfaced for potential investment from 20+ founder outreaches
- **Career period:** Season 2, UC Santa Cruz (2024 – 2026)

## Context

Seed funds need scouts embedded where strong technical founders actually show up first.

## What Surya did

- Sourced and evaluated pre-seed and seed founders at demo days including Afore Capital's Spring 2026 Showcase and PearX W26, focusing on B2B software and AI infrastructure.
- Drafted personalized outreach to 20+ founders (Coverflow, Polarity, Hilt, Hexagon, Clayzo among them) and converted 10 conversations into founder calls.

## Outcome

Secured 3 companies for potential investment — outreach as a repeatable, instrumented pipeline.

Source page: https://suryapugaz.com/career/lvlup-ventures