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Angels & VCs

Angeled connects founders with the angels and VCs who fund early-stage startups. The investors below are profiled in our own guides — names, focus, and how to reach them.

10 angels every founder should know

  1. ★
    Fabrice Grinda
    Co-founder of FJ Labs, Grinda is arguably the most prolific angel on the planet. His portfolio runs into the hundreds of marketplace and consumer startups. If you're building a two-sided marketplace or consumer tech company, he understands the category better than almost anyone alive.
  2. ★
    Paul Buchheit
    Buchheit created Gmail at Google and later became a partner at Y Combinator. Few people in tech have sharper product instincts. He's known for backing ambitious technical founders early and being brutally honest in feedback — which is exactly what you want.
  3. ★
    Naval Ravikant
    Founder of AngelList, which democratized startup investing for an entire generation. Naval's 72 exits reflect two decades of early bets on category-defining companies. He's philosophically aligned with lean, founder-led companies and tends to back people who think independently.
  4. ★
    Shervin Pishevar
    Co-founder of Hyperloop One and Sherpa Capital, Pishevar is a high-conviction investor in moonshot technology. If your startup needs patient capital for a bold technical vision, he's one of the few angels who genuinely thinks at that scale.
  5. ★
    Edward Lando
    Founder of Pareto Holdings, Lando is famous for backing founders absurdly early — often before there's a company at all. His track record shows that betting on raw talent, not metrics, can produce extraordinary returns.
  6. ★
    Scott Belsky
    Founder of Behance (acquired by Adobe) and a former Adobe executive, Belsky is the angel to know if you're building creative tools, marketplaces for creators, or design-led products. He writes and thinks deeply about product craftsmanship.
  7. ★
    Ron Conway
    Founder of SV Angel, Conway is the original super angel — he has been in the seed rounds of Google, PayPal, Airbnb, and many others. An SV Angel investment remains one of the strongest early signals in Silicon Valley.
  8. ★
    Alexis Ohanian
    Reddit co-founder Ohanian now invests through Seven Seven Six, with a strong focus on consumer products and underrepresented founders. He's also one of the most accessible top-tier investors — active on social media and genuinely responsive to cold outreach done well.
  9. ★
    Mark Cuban
    A "Shark Tank" star and serial founder, Cuban backs startups across sectors with a bias toward companies with real revenue and clear unit economics. He reads every pitch himself and rewards founders who know their numbers cold.
  10. ★
    Charlie Songhurst
    The former Microsoft head of corporate strategy is a quiet giant of angel investing, with a portfolio spanning AI, infrastructure, and dev tools. Technical founders who want a thought partner rather than a cheerleader gravitate to him.

10 early-stage VCs backing first-time founders

  1. ★
    First Round Capital
    Widely considered the premier seed fund in the U.S., First Round specializes in being the first institutional check into iconic businesses — Uber, Notion, Square, and Roblox all started with them. Their community events, advisor programs, and internal knowledge base are modeled by other VC funds. A First Round investment remains one of the strongest early-stage signals in Silicon Valley.
  2. ★
    Initialized Capital
    Founded by former Y Combinator president Garry Tan, Initialized backed Coinbase, Instacart, Rippling, and Patreon before the market understood their potential. All partners are former founders, and the firm is known for deep operational support on product design, metrics, and hiring. They lead fast, clean seed rounds.
  3. ★
    Pear VC
    Pejman Nozad and Mar Hershenson built Pear into a seed-stage powerhouse writing $250K to $6M checks. They're famous for spotting talent before traction — backing founders at the idea stage and staying close through the messy middle. Their founder community is one of the strongest in the business.
  4. ★
    Precursor Ventures
    Charles Hudson's Precursor writes up to $500K first checks into pre-seed companies, and it has made a specialty of backing underrepresented and first-time founders across any sector in North America. If you have a strong thesis and little more, Precursor will actually read your deck.
  5. ★
    Afore Capital
    Anamitra Banerji and Gaurav Jain's Afore Capital invests $50K to $2M+ at pre-seed, with its Afore Alpha program open to founders at the earliest stages — even before traction or revenue. Any industry, any geography. Few firms are as structurally open to first-timers.
  6. ★
    Y Combinator
    Still the single best credential a first-time founder can earn. The accelerator's alumni network, founder tools, and internal channels give companies a level of support no other program has replicated at scale. Demo Day access alone can replace months of fundraising.
  7. ★
    South Park Commons
    Founded by Ruchi Sanghvi (Facebook's first female engineer), SPC backs founders from the idea stage through seed, with a unique community-first model where founders collaborate long before they incorporate. Ideal if you're a talented operator still finding the idea.
  8. ★
    Lerer Hippeau
    The NYC seed fund focuses on pre-seed and seed rounds in enterprise and consumer. They've backed first-time founders through dozens of cycles and are known for being genuinely founder-friendly — transparent about their process and generous with their network.
  9. ★
    Boost VC
    Adam Draper's fund leads with $500K checks in deep tech, investing globally from San Mateo. For first-time technical founders building frontier technology, Boost is one of the few firms that understands the category natively.
  10. ★
    Sequoia Arc / Sequoia Seed
    The Sequoia Arc program has become a world-class seed platform: a curated 10-week experience that pushes founders to refine positioning, distribution models, and narrative. Getting into Arc gives you structured support on GTM, pricing, customer development, and storytelling — and a path to competitive follow-on rounds.

Full profiles: Notable angel investors and Top early-stage VCs.

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