Laura Fingal-Surma

Founder

2021 - Current

Urbanist Ventures is on a mission to scale urbanism through startups. Follow along or get involved! → https://urbanist.vc Want to talk urbanist startups? Async me at https://async.com/laura Open to interesting and impactful advising and fractional cofounder opportunities. Portfolio highlights: Swyft Cities – Unlocking density with modular mass transit (spun out of Google) Treasury – Getty Images for premium spatial assets (co-founded with Zaha Hadid Architects) Symbium – Instant permits as starting point for computational law (developed at Stanford's AI Lab) LiveNearFriends – Marketplace for living near friends and family (founded by Culdesac cofounder) Blissway – Next gen tolling infrastructure with congestion pricing applications Pacaso – Carpooling for second homes (cofounded by Zillow cofounder) Beltways – Modular, accelerating moving walkways with last mile potential Earthgrid – Plasma drilling tunnels to underground utilities 100x faster and 95% cheaper Parker – Innovating in the mobile home park space, starting with increasing investment Daily Blends – Automated retail that partners with public transit networks LP: Unpopular Ventures, First Check Ventures

Founding Strategy Partner

2022

Swyft Cities is unlocking urban growth with modular mass transit developed at Google.

Advisor

2024

Treasury is the Getty Images of premium spatial assets. Built for the spatial computing revolution unfolding around Apple Vision Pro. Manifesto: https://treasury.space/notes/dayone

Angel Squad Vertical Lead

2023

Hustle Fund is a venture capital fund that invests in fast-executing teams at the pre-seed and seed stages. Great founders can look like anyone. - Bring deals within my area of expertise (future of cities, built environment, proptech) to 1500+ angel investor members

Angel Squad Member

2022

Co-investments alongside Hustle Fund include: Parker, Daily Blends, Flex, Vinovest, GroWrk Remote, daydream "You are the epitome of 'hustle,' Laura." — founder advisee

Board Member

2023

The Parking Reform Network educates the public about the impact of parking policy on climate change, equity, housing, and traffic.

Treasurer

2023

Emerging Leader, Stanford Alumni Real Estate Council

2023

SPIRE empowers the Stanford community to innovate within real estate, place making, and the built environment. - Nominated to the inaugural cohort of Emerging Leaders of the Stanford Alumni Real Estate Council

Investor

2022

Pacaso is carpooling for second homes. Category-defining global leader in co-ownership. Enriching lives and better utilizing resources.

Founding Owner

2020

Angel Investor

2021

Stanford Angels & Entrepreneurs seeks to strengthen Stanford’s startup community by fostering relationships among entrepreneurs and alumni investors.

Angel Fellow

2022 - 2023

On Deck is where top talent comes to accelerate their ideas and build companies, surrounded by a world-class community. • ODA7, selected for Mastermind leadership

Cofounder & Chief Operating Officer, YIMBY 501(c)(3)

2019 - 2021

YIMBY stands for Yes In My Back Yard, a social and political movement fighting to increase the supply of housing and dense, vibrant, walkable communities. YIMBY popularized the seemingly obvious, but at the time controversial, idea of achieving housing affordability primarily through abundance. The movement's influence extends beyond housing policy to urban planning, transportation, environmental sustainability, and social equity. YIMBY Action, a pioneering 501c4 political nonprofit, was the public-facing brand of the national YIMBY movement — fighting for abundant, affordable housing through organizing, advocacy, and elections. Yes In My Back Yard (YIMBY) was the traditional 501c3 nonprofit arm of the national YIMBY movement — making housing more accessible and affordable by upholding housing law, training housing advocates, mobilizing supporters of new housing, and proposing improvements to housing law.

Chief Financial Officer, YIMBY 501(c)(3)

2019 - 2021

President & Chief Operating Officer

2018 - 2021

• Led and rebuilt organization out of sophomore slump, from 1 to 15 employees and edge of insolvency to sustainable $2M+ annual budget across related entities • Championed brand-aligned affiliated entities/M&A strategy to consolidate and scale; cofounded affiliated traditional 501c3 nonprofit in 2019 • Strategically productized learnings and competitive technological advantage into chapter infrastructure enabling new and existing YIMBY groups to level up rapidly • Innovated and iterated to achieve product/market fit and unlock organic national growth • Scaled from one city to 20+ chapters across 7+ states and got flywheel turning with dozens of inbound inquiries about starting or becoming a chapter in final two quarters from 10+ additional states (cadence of 1/week) • Built marketing & digital team capable of organically generating 2M unique impressions in 24 hours • Continuously leveraged technology and optimized organizational structure, management, operations, branding, messaging, and marketing to maximize impact and efficiency • Led orgs through complex strategy, fundraising, conversion, data, and compliance challenges "Laura has been one of the best managers I have ever had. She has empowered me to be innovative, bold, and creative. I have felt safe to speak my mind, experiment, and be vulnerable. She has been one of the biggest reasons why I enjoy working at YIMBY Action." — direct report "If [Laura] offered me a job building nuclear bombs, I would 100% take it." — employee

Founding Board Member

2017 - 2021

YIMBY Action officially incorporated starting in 2017. • Persistently and creatively advocated for building more housing of all kinds • Strategically built the people, narrative, and coalition power to flip unlikely politicians and score legislative wins • Brought increasing structure, order, strategy, and professionalism to grassroots YIMBY movement, its organizations, and the board

Chapter Lead, San Francisco YIMBY

2016 - 2020

SF YIMBY advocated for abundant, affordable housing in San Francisco and became the first chapter of YIMBY Action. • Envisioned and cultivated network of grassroots neighborhood YIMBY groups inspired by Progress Noe Valley • Meticulously documented best practices, iterated, innovated, and productized learnings into what ultimately became chapter infrastructure ("YIMBY in a box") for YIMBY Action chapters

Board Chair

2018 - 2019

Founder, Progress Noe Valley

2015 - 2019

Progress Noe Valley was San Francisco's first YIMBY neighborhood group and inspired subsequent development of centralized infrastructure to power YIMBY chapters nationwide. • Organically recruited first 500+ Noe Valley neighbors and advocated for abundant housing and transit on their behalf, countering the prevailing NIMBY (anti-housing, anti-growth) narrative • Earned press coverage from Curbed, Streetsblog, Noe Valley Voice, SPUR, Bay Area Metropolitan Observer • Helped form San Francisco YIMBY and ultimately parent org YIMBY Action to fuel and scale similar pro-housing groups nationwide • Progress Noe Valley became a chapter of YIMBY Action, with a mailing list of 3500+ neighbors as of September 2021 (10% paying recurring membership dues) and successfully lobbying an unlikely local elected official to champion fourplex legislation to begin to dismantle decades of apartment bans that drove up the cost of housing

Chief Financial Officer

2017 - 2018

Advisor & Contributor, various predecessor efforts and campaigns

2015 - 2016

• Supported re-election of then-San Francisco Supervisor Scott Wiener, who had emerged as a voice of reason on housing • Advocated for consolidating, strengthening, and formalizing fragmented pro-housing efforts under a clear and unified brand — YIMBY, which stands for Yes In My Back Yard (the opposite of NIMBY for Not In My Back Yard) • Helped ignite and name/define a movement