General Partner
Hi! I’m Benjamin. I’ve been investing for 7 years alongside Angels including Naval Ravikant and Jason Calacanis and Venture Capital firms including Khosla and Benchmark. As an operator, I’ve been doing R&D for 8 years in startups (WeWork and Figma), NGO (National Bureau of Asian Research), as a consultant (IDEO), and in enterprise (Amazon AWS). My formal training in human sciences (BS, Neuroscience & Behavioral Biology) and design (MFA, Interaction Design) give me a unique advantage investing in private markets. The first startup I invested in returned more than 100x.
GP Exits
2014 via AngelList
Thesis
Innovation generates outsized returns. I have access to innovative companies from around the world, because of my expertise in working backwards from unmet needs within complex and competitive markets. I've led research and strategy for product launches across a range of industries:
Celmatix from pre-seed to $60M series D (2014)
Omron launch of first fitness product for US consumers (2014)
PingMD from seed through acquisition by Kipu Health (2017)
Amazon AWS with first direct to consumer product, Honeycode, from concept through tier 1 AWS launch (2020)
I’ve contributed to books on the subject such as Validating Product Ideas and Becoming a Design Entrepreneur and taught at VCs (NEA), incubators (Techstars), and universities (Harvard and Cornell).
Over the last decade, I’ve developed close relationships with designers and technologists who are now founders and industry leaders.
Testimonials
“Benjamin stands out by making the case for both reason and emotion; logic and empathy; data and people. This balance is his sweet spot, and why I continue to seek his perspective as a trusted friend and advisor.”
— KARIN, MANAGING PARTNER AT COLLINS
“Benjamin is a thought-leader in the making. He has a functional design sense with distinct personality that make his work exceptional. His design chops mixed with his keen intuition for simplicity and UCD make Benjamin a must have for any cutting edge design team.”
— Thani, Founder, Qualified.com
“Benjamin blends his background in cognitive neuroscience research and applied interaction design seamlessly, providing value at every stage of an innovation challenge...truly invaluable when tackling complex digital and systems based challenges.”
— ALBERT, PARTNER AT NEA
“Benjamin has the rare ability to pave the way to a future where systems for better understanding our customers are in place.”
— TOMER, FOUNDER
Fund Details
I will look for founders who are using design to satisfy enduring human needs with defensible technology. I am particularly interested in SaaS products in B2B, cloud infrastructure, data/ML, smart real estate, creator tools, and integrated developer environments. I’ll avoid entertainment and most advertising business models.
I am investing $20-100K checks in early-stage companies that have the potential to 100x. I will take my pro rata almost never. My primary focus will be helping these companies get to their next financing milestone, often series A.
$1M per year from ≈50 LPs → ≈10-50 investments per year
2% management fees (80% redeployment back into the fund) / 0.15% AngelList fees / 20% carry
My main focus will be on the rolling fund, meaning that I’m raising a quarterly subscription instead of a lump sum of cash to spend over x years. Because a traditional fund is typically deployed over 4 years, the number you see above roughly equates to a $4M traditional fund. This fund, however, will roll on beyond that, growing organically over time.
I’m capping the fund at $1.2 million a year, which allows me to take on a few more LPs. Some options:
Syndicate: $12,500 minimum per quarter, 2 year ($100K) minimum (mimics a traditional fund)
Rolling: $12,500 minimum per quarter, 4 quarter ($50K) minimum (most common)
If interested, you can fill out this form to get updated when spots become available (likely starting Q2 2021).