Top 50 Hardware Angel Investors in November 2024

Jason Calacanis is the Founder and CEO of Inside.com and Launch. He previously worked at Weblogs as a Co-Founder and CEO. Jason Calacanis attended Fordham University.

Wei Guo, the founding partner of UpHonest Capital, is an active angel investor in Silicon Valley, focusing on early-stage cross-sector investments. He founded Wei Fund in 2015 and UpHonest Capital Fund I in 2016, invested in well-known companies such as Hims&Hers(NYSE: HIMS), Vicarious Surgical(NYSE: RBOT), Knightscope (NASDAQ: KSCP), Checkr,Lime, Boom, Rescale, Dialpad and more. Since 2015, he has invested in over 400 Silicon Valley startups, over 76 companies with valuations greater than 100 million USD, and 23 portfolio companies that have successfully exited.

Scott is an American entrepreneur and angel investor. He is best known as a co-founder of IronPort and an early advisor and board member at PayPal.Scott Banister started his career as a pioneer in the email business. He was Founder and VP of Technology at ListBot, the largest ASP for business email list hosting. ListBot was acquired byMicrosoft. After ListBot, Scott spent his time working with other start-ups as a board member and investor. These start-ups include eVoice, creator of the first email-enabled home voicemail service, which was acquired by AOL in 2001. He served as VP of Ideas at idealab!, where he contributed numerous innovations, including the unique bid-for-placement search engine model that powers Overture. In December 2000, with Scott Weiss, Banister co-founded IronPort, an email appliance provider that was acquired in 2007 by Cisco for US$830 million.Scott Banister is co-founder and Chairman of Other private equity investments include Zappos.com, LiveOps, Facebook, Hi5.com, Tagged.com, iLike, and Causes.com.Banister attended University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, from which he dropped out in 1996 to move to Silicon Valley. He currently lives in Half Moon Bay, California with his wife Cyan.

Tim Draper is the Founding Partner of Draper Associates. He attended Harvard Business School.

Charles Songhurst is a founding partner of Katana Capital, a long-short equity hedge fund. He also runs the Songhurst Group, which holds assets in a variety of private companies.Charles ran corporate strategy for Microsoft and focused on partnering and M&A. He was involved in the Yahoo acquisition and commercial deal, and the Skypeacquisition. Before running corporate strategy, Charles was focused on the emergence of Google and the growth of the search industry.Prior, Charles was an analyst at McKinsey & Company in London. Charles received a bachelor’s degree from Oxford University in politics, philosophy, and economics.

Daniel Curran is the Founder and CEO at CustEx.com.

Dylan Taylor is a global business leader, commercial astronaut, thought leader and philanthropist. Currently, Dylan serves as Chairman & CEO of Voyager Space, a multi-national space exploration firm focused on building the next generation of space infrastructure for NASA and other global space agencies.Dylan has been recognized by HarvardUniversity, SpaceNews, the BBC, the Financial Times, Pitchbook, CNBC, CNN and others as having played a seminal role in the growth of the private space industry. As an early-stage investor in more than 50 emerging space ventures, including Axiom, Kepler, York, Astrobotic, LeoLabs, Relativity, and Planet, Dylan is widely considered the most active private space investor in the world.Dylan’s technical background, global business experience and unbridled passion for space make him a unique figure within his industry. As a thought leader and futurist, he has written many popular pieces on the future of the space industry for Forbes, FastCompany, Newsweek, SpaceNews, The Space Review, and Space.com. As a speaker, Dylan has keynoted many of the major space conferences around the world and has appeared regularly on Bloomberg, Fox Business, and CNBC.Dylan has extensive global business experience as both a board director and CEO in several industries, including advanced electronics, finance and real estate. He previously served as a Director for UMB Bank, a Fortune 500 company based in Kansas City and as a mutual fund director for the Jackson Funds where he oversaw assets of $8B across 130 distinct funds. He has also served in the roles of CEO, President and Board Director for multinational companies like Prudential PLC, Honeywell, Colliers and Jones Lang LaSalle. Dylan was recognized as a Fortune 1000 CEO with P&L responsibility in excess of $3B and operations encompassing 15,000 employees in over 60 countries. In addition, Dylan has participated in 4 IPOs over the course of his career. Dylan is a leading advocate of space manufacturing and the utilization of in-space resources to further space exploration and settlement. In 2017, he became the first private citizen to manufacture an item in space when the gravity meter he co-designed and commissioned was 3D printed on the International Space Station. The historic item is now housed in the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago.Dylan is an explorer of note. On December 11th, 2021 Dylan became just the 606th human to go to space as part of the crew of Blue Origin’s NewShepard Mission 19. Accordingly, Dylan earned his commercial astronaut wings with the FAA and his universal astronaut wings from the Association of Space Explorers.He is also one of only a handful of humans to have descended to the deepest part of the world’s oceans, Challenger Deep in the Mariana Trench as part of the Limiting Factor Expedition in July of 2022. In that mission, Dylan descended with pilot Victor Vescovo to a depth in excess of 10,800 meters (35,500 feet) into an area of the Mariana Trench that had never been visited by humans. Dylan is the youngest human to have been to the deepest part of the world’s oceans and crossed the Karman line into Space. Dylan has been a member of the Explorers Club since 2014.Dylan maintains an extensive philanthropic impact on the space industry. In 2017, Dylan founded the nonprofit and social movement, Space for Humanity, which seeks to democratize space exploration and develop solutions to global issues through the scope of human awareness to help solve the world’s most intractable problems. Space for Humanity has successfully sent two citizen astronauts to space via Blue Origin including both the first Mexican-born woman (Katya Echazareta), and first African-born woman (Sara Sabry). Building upon his passion and support for the space industry, Dylan serves as a strategic advisor for both the Archmission and the Human Spaceflight Program and is a co-founding patron of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation, which promotes the growth of commercial space activity. Additionally, he is also a leading benefactor to the Brooke Owens Fellowship, Patti Grace Smith Fellowship and Mission: Astro Access.Dylan is the founder and Chairman of Multiverse Media, an integrated global media company focused on science and technology, with an emphasis on space. Multiverse is the parent company of the popular space philosophy website 2211.world as well as the Ad Astra Dinners, a Jeffersonian-style dinner series featuring some of the world’s leading influencers discussing the future of humanity in space. Another subsidiary of Multiverse Media, Multiverse Publishing, publishes books by leading authors including Frank White, Isaac Asimov and Gerard K. O’Neill. Multiverse is also the executive producer of the documentary film, The High Frontier and the forthcoming film, Fortitude. For his influence as a global leader and his commitment to creating a positive impact on the world, Dylan has been honored with numerous personal and professional accolades in recent years. The World Economic Forum recognized Dylan as a Young Global Leader in 2011 and a full member of the World Economic Forum in 2014. That same year he was named a Henry Crown Fellow of the Aspen Institute. In 2020, Dylan was recognized by the Commercial Spaceflight Federation with their top honor for business and finance, following in the footsteps of 2019’s inaugural winner, the late Paul Allen and subsequent winners Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk.Dylan Taylor earned an MBA in Finance and Strategy from the Booth School of Business at University of Chicago and holds a BS in Engineering from the honors college at the University of Arizona, where he graduated Tau Beta Pi and in 2018 was named Alumnus of the year. He is also a graduate of the Global Leadership and Public Policy for the 21st Century program at Harvard University.Dylan and his family reside in Denver, Colorado where he is active locally with Colorado Concern and the Colorado Spaceport. In his spare time, Dylan enjoys hiking, competing in triathlons and spending time outdoors. As a weekend warrior athlete, Dylan has more than 25 top ten finishes and 25 age group wins to his credit, and he regularly interviews world class athletes whom have shown extraordinary resilience as the host of the Legendary Podcast. He is married to legal expert, consultant and author Gabrielle V. Taylor with whom he has two teenage daughters.

Edward Lando is the Founder of Pareto Holdings. He previously worked at Horizons School of Technology as a Co-Founder. Edward Lando attended the Wharton School.

Wayne Chang is the Founder and CEO of Patented.ai. He previously worked at Crashlytics as a Co-Founder and Chairman. Wayne Chang attended the University of Massachusetts.

Lachy Groom - Co-Founder @ Physical Intelligence

Kevin Patrick Mahaffey is the Founder of Lookout and SNR. He is also the Executive Chairman of Stork Club and an Investor.

Scott Belsky joined Adobe as Chief Product Officer, Executive Vice President - Creative Cloud in 2017.Scott Belsky is an entrepreneur, author, and investor. Scott co-founded Behance in 2006, and served as CEO until Adobe acquired Behance in 2012. Millions of people use Behance to display their portfolios, as well as track and find top talent acrossthe creative industries. After Behance's acquisition, Scott served as Adobe's Vice President of Products, rebooting Adobe's mobile product strategy and leading Behance until 2016 when he became a full-time venture capitalist as a General Partner at Benchmark. Scott returned to his love for the creative world, and building products and teams full-time, as Chief Product Officer and EVP of Creative Cloud, at Adobe in late 2017. He continues to work with Benchmark as a Venture Partner, as well as several other early stage venture firms. Scott also manages a portfolio of over 150 private companies from his early investments and product advisory roles in companies including Pinterest, Uber, Carta, Flexport, Airtable, sweetgreen, and many others in the early stages.Scott is also the author of the bestselling books Making Ideas Happen and The Messy Middle (Portfolio Imprint, Penguin Books, April, 2010 and Oct 2018, respectively).Scott is also the founder of the 99U conference for leaders in the design world, and is an advocate for technology and community initiatives that empower creative people and help businesses leverage the creative potential of their people. In 2010, Scott was also included in Fast Company's list of "100 Most Creative People in Business."Prior to founding Behance, Scott helped grow the Pine Street Leadership Development Initiative at Goldman, Sachs & Co. Scott was especially focused on organizational improvement and strengthening relationships with clients. Scott serves on the Advisory Board of Cornell University's Entrepreneurship Program and is a member of the Board of Trustees for the Smithsonian Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum. He attended Cornell University as an undergraduate and received his MBA from Harvard Business School. Scott and his family live in New York City and San Francisco.

Bashar Hamood is the Managing Director and co-founder of FasterCapital and attended Heriot-Watt University. He has broad experience across various organizational domains, including marketing strategy, branding, direct marketing, product launches, analysis, and reporting. As an entrepreneur, he has expertise in brand development and communityoutreach. Bashar is skilled in optimizing team dynamics, aligning diverse agendas, and leveraging strategic and operational drivers to achieve results. He also has a strong analytical approach, carefully studying each case and parameter variation.

Xavier Niel is the Co-Founder and CEO of NJJ Capital. He previously worked at Worldnet as a Founder. Xavier Niel attended Saint Michel de Picpus Catholic private high school.

Mark Cuban is the founder of Fireside, Chairman and Founding Partner of AXS TV, and the Owner of Dallas Mavericks. He previously worked at Broadcast.com as a Co-Founder. Mark Cuban attended the Indiana University Bloomington.

Venture Capitalist, Managing Partner, Chief Technology Officer

Marc Benioff is Chair and Chief Executive Officer of Salesforce. Marc Benioff attended the University of Southern California.

Auren Hoffman is the CEO and Chief Historian of SafeGraph and he was the CEO of Rapleaf. Auren holds a B.S.E. in Industrial Engineering and Operations Research from the UC Berkeley. He writes a blog called Summation.

Will Herman is an active angel investor, corporate director, author, and startup mentor. He was previously a serial entrepreneur, having started five companies, taking two of them public. Will is an adviser at the hardware incubator, Bolt, and a mentor at TechStars. He lives and works mostly in the Boston area.

Mark Pincus is the founder and Executive Chairman of the Board of Zynga. He has served as our Chairman from April 2007 to March 2016 and the company's Executive Chairman since March 2016. He previously served as Chief Executive Officer from April 2007 to July 2013 and from April 2015 to March 2016, and as Chief Product Officer from April2007 to April 2014. In 2014, he founded superlabs, a San Francisco-based product lab focused on developing products that connect and empower people, which was acquired by Zynga in 2015. Pincus also founded Zynga.org in 2009, a non-profit organization dedicated to using social games for social good.From 2003 to 2007, Pincus served as Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of Tribe.net, a company he launched and one of the first social networks in the industry. From 1997 to 2000, he served as Chairman of Support.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: SPRT), a help desk automation software company he founded, and he served as Chief Executive Officer and President from December 1997 to July 1999. From 1996 to 1997, he served as Chief Executive Officer of FreeLoader, Inc., a web-based news company he founded.Pincus also made founding investments in Napster, Twitter, and Facebook.Pincus graduated summa cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business and earned an MBA from Harvard Business School. He is an angel investor in multiple Silicon Valley startups and regularly gives lectures to aspiring entrepreneurs.

Naval Ravikant is the CEO and a co-founder of AngelList. He previously co-founded Epinions (which went public as part of Shopping.com) and Vast.com. He is an active Angel investor, and have invested in dozens of companies, including Twitter, Uber, Yammer, Stack Overflow and Wanelo.

Hesham Zreik is the Founder and CEO of FasterCapital, an online accelerator and incubator. He has co-founded over 100 startups as a technical co-founder and invested in them as an angel investor. Under his leadership, FasterCapital has expanded its network to include over 1,000 regional partners, 1,000 mentors, and 200 partnerships with incubators,accelerators, and venture funds. The organization has helped over 300 startups raise more than $1 billion.Zreik began programming in 1989 with Basic, transitioning to QBasic in 1992. He ranked 7th in the Baccalaureate exams and earned an engineering degree at HIAST, followed by a DBA at Edinburgh Business School and a Master’s in Computer Information Science from AABFS.In 2018, Forbes ranked him #39 among the top 50 investors based on his investment activity and successful exits. He has invested in over 100 startups, co-founded more than 40, and has served as a mentor and board member for various companies. Zreik's investment interests include AI, fintech, blockchain, e-commerce, IoT, HR, and B2B startups.His portfolio includes companies such as Twitter, Zomato, and SpaceX. In 2002, he founded ZGroup Mobile, growing it to a valuation of $2.5–$3.25 million by 2005. The company was a candidate for acquisition by Incagold plc.

Shervin Pishevar is the Co-Founder at Virgin Hyperloop.

Bryan Rosenblatt (born July 4, 1989 in New York, New York, United States) is an American Venture Capitalist and entrepreneur. He is a Partner at Craft Ventures, a venture firm with over $2 billion AUM started by David Sacks. He is also a founder of Riverside Ventures, which he started in 2017, and a former executive at Reddit and Twitter. Hepreviously worked at Reddit as the Head of Sales. Bryan Rosenblatt attended the University of Connecticut School of Business and Charles University.

Jaan Tallinn is the Co-Founder of the Centre for Study of Existential Risk and Future of Life Institute.

Managing Partner @ Jolly VC, LLCFounder and Patent holder - GROTU mobile app @ 101 Islands LLC. Angel investor in 44 pre-IPO technology startups. Frequently invited by accelerators and angel forums to Judge startup competitions and discuss technology innovation. Former IT Consulting industry executive who sold hundreds of millions of dollars inconsulting services to Fortune 500 companies working for Cap Gemini, HCL, L&T, NTT data.

An entrepreneur and corporate marketer turned VC, with an interest in early-stage, disruptive technology. Over 100 seed stage investments including Oculus, Flexport, Rec Room, Anduril, Flock Safety, OssoVR and Mux.

Esther Dyson - Founder @ Way to Wellville

Cyan Banister is a partner at Founders Fund, where she invests across sectors and stages with a particular interest in augmented reality, fertility, heavily regulated industries and businesses that help people with basic skills find meaningful work. Prior to joining Founders Fund, Cyan was an active angel investor with a portfolio including Uber,Thumbtack, SpaceX, Postmates, EShares, Affirm and Niantic, creator of Pokémon GO. A self-taught engineer and entrepreneur, Cyan has held a number of technical leadership positions throughout her career. As an early employee at IronPort, which was acquired by Cisco, Cyan oversaw support infrastructure and performance for a global customer base. She has a passion for the arts and is a voracious film, documentary and media consumer.

Justin Kan is the Co-Founder of Stash. He previously worked at Atrium as a CEO. Justin Kan attended Yale University.

As Senior Director of Product at Twitter, Jeff has led the company's consumer, developer, and publisher facing products, including Twitter for iOS, Android, and the Web, Fabric, Crashlytics, Answers, Digits, Twitter Kit, TweetDeck, Twitter's Publisher Platform, and Gnip.Previously, Seibert was Twitter’s Director of Developer Platformwhere he led Fabric, the company’s suite of mobile developer tools, as well as its enterprise Data Platform and Content Syndication efforts.Seibert was the co-founder and CEO of Crashlytics, an award-winning crash analysis service for iOS and Android apps. Crashlytics was acquired by Twitter in 2013 and has become an essential piece of the mobile developer toolchain - today powering over a million apps across well over two billion devices worldwide.Seibert co-founded Increo in 2007 and served as its COO and lead architect until its acquisition by Box in 2009. He subsequently oversaw the integration of Increo’s document preview and annotation technologies into Box’s cloud content platform.Seibert gained experience at Apple in both marketing and engineering capacities and led Stanford University's Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders seminar series as Co-Coordinator. He was selected as a Mayfield Fellow in 2007 and received a B.S. in Computer Science from Stanford University in 2008.Seibert is a frequent presenter on both entrepreneurship and technical topics and has lectured at Stanford, Harvard, MIT, and Tufts, as well as keynoted Twitter Flight, AppsWorld, AnDevCon, EclipseCon, and others. Find him on Twitter at @JeffSeibert.

David Tisch is the Managing Partner of BoxGroup, a New York City-based early stage investment fund. BoxGroup is an investor in over 200 seed-stage companies, including Vine, Blue Apron, Sunrise, Warby Parker, Harry’s, Oscar, Behance, Handy and more. David is also the co-founder and Chairman of Spring, a mobile marketplace where customers shopdirectly within the app from a curated community of brands. Spring was named by Apple as one of the Best Apps of 2014.In 2014, David was named Head of Startup Studio at Cornell Tech, the University’s New York City-based graduate campus focused on digital technologies and the information economy. He is also Entrepreneur in Residence for Wharton’s Entrepreneurship Program.David is the co-founder of TechStars NYC and has served on numerous boards, including Mayor Bloomberg’s Advisory Council on Technology, the Investor Board of Venture for America, and the Entrepreneurship board at NYU. He graduated from the University of Pennsylvania and New York University School of Law, and currently lives in New York City

Elad Gil is the Co-Founder of Color Genomics. He previously worked at Twitter as a Vice President. Elad Gil attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Paul Buchheit co-founded social network aggregator FriendFeed, along with three other former Google employees. He is also an investor in FriendFeed and participated in a $5 million Series A round in February 2008.He was the 23rd employee at Google, where he created Gmail and implemented many of its innovative features. He developed the originalprototype of Google AdSense, and was responsible for Google's famous "Don't be evil" motto in a meeting.

Alexis Ohanian is the President and Founder of 776 Foundation. He previously worked at reddit as an Executive Chair and Board Member. Alexis Ohanian attended the University of Virginia.

Jude Gomila is currently CEO and Founder of the startup Golden.

Kevin Lin is the Co-Founder and CEO of Metatheory. He previously worked at Everyday Ventures as an Owner and Manager. Kevin Lin attended Yale University.

Jeff Schox is the founder of Schox Patent Group, a boutique patent firm focused on startups, and the founding partner at Schox Venture Capital, which invests $100-500K in clients of Schox Patent Group. Jeff is also the founding partner at Trucks Venture Capital, which invests $1-2M in startups that are building the future of transportation. Jeffhas made 100+ angel investments in startups, including Twilio (first investor, IPO), Cruise (acquired), Ambient (first investor), Celsee (acquired), eero (acquired), Helium, Luminous (first investor), Molekule (acquired), NeuMoDx (acquired), Omada, Vicarious (acquired), and Zendrive (first investor).

Arjun Sethi is the Co-CEO of Kraken Digital Asset Exchange. He attended the University of Maryland.

Peter Thiel Is the Managing Partner of The Founders Fund. He previously worked at Stanford Law School as a Visitor. Peter Thiel attended Stanford University.

Avichal is Managing Partner at Electric Capital. He is a serial entrepreneur and technology executive. Avichal sold two companies and was most recently Director of Product at Facebook, which acquired his company Spool in 2012. He previously worked at Google on search ranking and ads ranking, is part-time at YCombinator, and an active angelinvestor.Avichal's firm, Electric Capital, focuses on cryptocurrencies that are rooted in technological utility. Electric performs deep technological diligence, such as compiling code, profiling nodes, and analyzing blockchains with in-house software. The founders of Electric have started and sold five companies, have been investing in cryptocurrencies since 2013, and are investors in Anchor, Bitwise, Chia, Coda, dYdX, Dfinity, Oasis, Thunder and many other crypto projects.

Nadav Ben-Chanoch - Partner @ Pareto Holdings

Brad Flora is a Visiting Partner at Y Combinator. He is a former Co-Founder and CEO of Perfect Audience. Mr. Flora received a BA from Princeton University in English and an MS in Journalism from Northwestern.

blah - teh software was teh busted and they didn't want to fix it or hire someone to fix it, odd folks, these.

Sam Altman is the CEO and co-founder of OpenAI. He is a Partner of Apollo Projects. Altman was the president of Y Combinator from 2016 through 2019. Sam Altman attended Stanford University.

Advisory CTO and Angel Investor

Mark Cuban is the founder of Fireside, Chairman and Founding Partner of AXS TV, and the Owner of Dallas Mavericks. He previously worked at Broadcast.com as a Co-Founder. Mark Cuban attended the Indiana University Bloomington.

Christian Dahlen is a business angel. He provides expert capital and venture advice to B2B SW startups in Silicon Valley and in Germany. He is a member of the Band of Angels, Silicon Valley's oldest seed funding organization. Christian was a VP at SAP and held various roles in business strategy and operations. Prior to SAP, he was theGeneral Manager for the Internet and phone business of Kabel Deutschland (KDG), Germany's largest cable operator. He joined KDG from Excite@Home, and before that was with McKinsey & Co.

Sahin Boydas is the Head of RemoteTeam at Gusto.

Taavet Hinrikus is co-founder and CEO of TransferWise. Prior to starting TransferWise, Taavet was Skype’s director of strategy until 2008, starting as its first-ever employee. One of the World Economic Forum's Tech Pioneers, Taavet is an adviser to Prime Minister of Estonia on the digital agenda. He’s also a mentor and angel investor; hisinvestments include Tweetdeck, Mendeley, OMGPOP, Property Partner, Sunrise, Improbable and Mapillary.