Investing

I am an angel investor participating in seed and pre-seed raises. Although this list is non-exhaustive, I am most interested in investing in startups that fall in the following categories:

Online Community-Building Tools

Today’s biggest social platforms all contend with harrassing behavior, unauthorized disclosures of private information, copyright violations, and a host of other problems related to both users and content. Block Party, Smyte, Sentropy and similar third-party services for other social platforms intrigue me, as well as data protection products like Tall Poppy.

Quality Content and Marketplaces

People became used to the idea that everything online should be free, and then we became more cognizant of enormous pitfalls of that approach, including the decimation of journalism funding and the laissez-faire free exchange of personal data. I think experimentation with alternative models of monetizing content, like Substack and Zette Media, is healthy and beneficial.

Authentication and Authorization

Broadly speaking, we live more of our lives online than ever, a longtime trend accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Organizations that can secure some of the “new” surfaces — IoT of course, ICS, and even VR/AR — will be well-positioned. I’m especially curious about more streamlined versions of strong authentication on these surfaces.

These areas are my focus because they are where I feel I can be most valuable given my experience, but I am also open to other inquiries.