Denise Dunlap Co-Founder and Managing Partner Loon Creek Capital Group Sage Growth Capital denise@looncreekcapital.com denise@sagegrowthcapital.com www.linkedin.com/in/denisedunlap55 Denise brings a rare combination of operator experience, investment acumen, and community leadership to everything she does. Her career spans founding and running companies, mentoring entrepreneurs, and shaping the ecosystems that help them thrive. Earlier roles include CEO of an IT services company and Director of Boise State University’s business incubator. She has been an active angel investor and a recognized leader in the angel investment community since 2008.
Denise co-founded Loon Creek Capital Group in 2010, building it into a trusted resource that provides consulting and administrative services to angel investors across the country. In 2019, she co-founded Sage Growth Capital, a fund dedicated to companies that need growth capital but aren’t a fit for traditional bank or equity financing. She serves as CEO/Managing Partner of both organizations. In 2025, Denise was appointed President of the COBE Advisory Council at Boise State University, where she helps guide the College of Business and Economics in developing the next generation of entrepreneurs and business leaders.
Denise holds a BBA from Boise State University, a first-degree black belt in Shaolin Kung Fu, and is a certified Wrangler/Packer. She collects hobbies the way others collect frequent flyer miles! A few of her interests include golf, growing vegetables, classic cars, riding horses/motorcycles/bicycles, collecting wine, and turning wine bottles into artificial sea glass.
Most founders default to a SAFE for early financing because it's what they've seen. But the instrument you choose shapes your company's trajectory, your ownership, and your life as a founder — often more than the valuation does. This session brings together practitioners behind three distinct structures to walk through how each works, when it performs best, and what it actually looks like in the docs.
