When you’re just starting out, we believe there’s nothing more important than building the right product for the right people. We helped Flatiron Health, Digit, Blue Bottle Coffee, and Slack figure it out fast — and we can help you, too.
Author of Sprint. Former design partner at GV and design leader at YouTube.
Early-stage startup investor. Former general partner at Capital Midwest Fund.
Creator of the Design Sprint. Author of Sprint. Former design partner at GV.
Our startup advisors are Jeanette Mellinger, Charles Adler, and David Cirilli.
We are backed by more than 100 LPs, who act as an extended team to help us find and support startups. Our LPs include founders and executives from YouTube, Google, Slack, Square, Uber, Mozilla, Gusto, Clubhouse, Coinbase, Flatiron Health, and many other technology companies.
We invest flexibly across the spectrum of seed stage, including Character Labs, our sprint program for pre-seed founders.
Especially in enterprise, industry, healthcare, and the life sciences — where new AI capabilities dramatically increase the addressable market for software.
We invest in the world's best technical founders and aren't limited by a geographic focus.
What's your unique advantage as a team? How should you differentiate in the market? What are the founding hypotheses behind your company, and how do you know they are true? Early-stage startups need to answer these questions ASAP, and we can help.
We’re not just talking about resources and advice — we actually clear our calendars and sprint with your team. Ask any founder we've worked with.
We've used sprints to help more than 300 startups answer questions and validate hypotheses. Thousands more have read our books Sprint and Click embraced the methods.
Smart calendar assistant.
AI for prioritizing sales opportunities.
Voice AI for phone calls in healthcare.
AI deep research for sales prospects.
AI industrial control systems that save energy and money.
AI platform that accelerates drug development.
Platform for medically integrated specialty pharmacy.
Audio collaboration for musicians and podcasters.
AI-native video meeting platform.
Generative AI for materials science.
Cross-platform AI notetaker.
The freest, fastest gifting platform for businesses.
AI data platform for nonprofit fundraising.
AI agent for financial analysts.
Next gen document processing with AI.
A novel technical approach to safer, faster ML models.
The marketing platform built for healthcare.
Tools for patient groups driving rare-disease research.
Commercial insurance automation.
Automating regulatory filings for drug development.
Building better pesticides with AI.
Programmable proxy platform for APIs and services.
Open network of smart receipts for business spend.
AI-native global payroll platform.
Research-grade experiential data for chronic disease.
Personal AI tutor for students, schools, and governments.
Fast and fun AI video maker for storytellers.
Modern logistics for surgical staffing.
AI healthcare companion.
Natural language analysis for geospatial data.
Notable investments from our previous roles at GV and Capital Midwest Fund
Messaging, search, and collaboration platform for teams.
Improving lives by learning from the experience of every cancer patient.
Sourcing, roasting, and serving great coffee to the world.
Exceptional primary care supported by custom technology and design.
World's largest digital coupon marketplace.
Jobs and training for skilled workers in manufacturing.
Puts money on autopilot with machine learning.
Cellular platform makes it easy to set up and manage connected devices.
All-in-one platform for third-party risk management.
Bringing simplicity and delight to payroll, benefits, HR, and finance.
We exist to help founders like you build the right product for the right people. We invest capital and time to help you figure it out fast.
But it’s not just about technology and money. For us, it’s personal, because time is our only finite resource. An hour spent at work is an hour we can’t spend with family or friends, or taking care of ourselves or our communities.
We believe the best use of our time is helping you build products and services that create meaningful change for your customers. Let’s work together to make it count.
Character Labs is our sprint program for pre-seed founders working in AI. Learn more →
