Investments

I’ve made six angel investments personally, all in founders I knew before investing:

• Portfolio:
  • Paystack (2016 Seed) – Acquired by Stripe for $200M+ in 2020.
  • Beek (2016 Pre-Seed) – Raised $13M Series A led by Lightspeed in 2022.
  • Sano (2015 Seed) – Raised 2018 Series A from Fitbit. Acquired by One Drop in 2020.
  • MatterFab (2014 Seed) – Raised 2015 Series A from GE Ventures and AutoDesk. Shut down.
  • Experiment (2013 Seed) – 2021 grant by Robert Downey Jr. via Experiment Foundation.
  • 10 Storks (2013 Seed) – A subscription box I bootstrapped with my wife. Shut down.
• Returns:
  • I invested $45K total and have returned $200K (4.4X DPI) so far.
    • My anti-portfolio of founders who I knew and/or advised over the years and then never asked to get an allocation in their seed round would easily increase my IRR over 100%.

I’m now launching Utopic, a pre-seed VC fund investing in new scientific startups.

• Mission:
  • Empowering scientists to launch more startups that solve the world’s biggest problems by being their first investor and advisor.
• Strategy:
  • Find scientists with world-changing ideas.
  • Help them launch startups.
  • Invest the first $50K-100K in these companies.
  • Personally advise them on accelerators, fundraising, growth, and exits.
• Deal Flow:
  • Founders find me through my writing on this website, LinkedIn, and Twitter.
  • I find great founders by being an active alum of Y Combinator (W15) and the University of Michigan (B.S., B.B.A, ’10), advising prospective founders even before they start their companies.