I invest in highly technical founders who like to build things with their hands, care about customer service, and love open source.
I invest in teams great at software across all industries.
I don't care if/where you went to school or worked, but I do care about your git profiles or YouTube videos or personal homepage or other portfolio.
I have made angel investments in ~50-100 companies.
My check size is usually $10,000, but sometimes less and sometimes more.
I usually invest in seed rounds, but sometimes later like a Series A.
I usually invest as an individual, but sometimes through a shell company.
I love being the first check.
My research commitments mean I don't have time to be the lead investor.
I like to invest in companies in accelerators. Accelerators streamline logistics. I'm happy to trade a worse valuation for time savings.
I invest mostly in "hard tech" startups, but sometimes invest in other things.
I do a lot of things for the founders I invest in, from technical strategy to recruiting to marketing to writing code to designing DSLs to code reviews.
I avoid companies that believe in patents or copyright.
I am not much help with legal or fundraising issues, but do provide a lot of fundraising intros.
I invest in things I'm interested in, that I think could make the world better, and in founders who I want to work for (since I will be doing part time work for you for many many years).
I am delighted when I get returns but expect zeroes. I want you to go after your biggest dreams, and I only win big if you win big.
All the money I make I reinvest in more startups, give away, put into research, or spend on my family and fancy vacations.
I am happy to receive cold pitches via plain text email.
A sample of the companies I've invested in is listed below: