Bob Young
Angel Investor
Raleigh, United States
Bob Young is a seed investor in Raleigh focused on Software and E-Commerce. Bob Young is the founder and CEO of Lulu.com, a premiere international marketplace for new digital content on the Internet, with more than 300,000 recently published titles and more than 15,000 new creators from 80 different countries joining each week.Lulu.com, founded in 2002, is Young's most recent endeavour. The success of this companyhas earned Young notable recognition; he was named one of the "Top 50 Agenda-Setters in the Technology Industry in 2006" and was ranked as the fourth "Top Entrepreneur for 2006," both by Silicon.com.In 1993, Young co-founded Red Hat (NYSE: RHT), the open-source software company that gives hardware and software vendors a standard platform on which to certify their technology. Red Hat is a Fortune 500 company and chief rival to Microsoft. His success at Red Hat won him industry accolades, including nomination as one of Business Week's "Top Entrepreneurs" in 1999.Before founding Red Hat, Young spent 20 years at the helm of two computer-leasing companies that he founded. His experiences as a high tech entrepreneur combined with his innate marketing savvy led to Red Hat's success. His book, "Under the Radar", chronicles how Red Hat's open source strategy successfully won wide industry acceptance in a market previously dominated by proprietary binary-only systems. Young has also imparted the lessons learned from his entrepreneurial experiences through his contributions to the books to "You've GOT to Read This Book!" and "Chicken Soup for the Entrepreneur's Soul."In 2000, Young co-founded the Center for Public Domain, a non-profit foundation created to bolster healthy conversation of intellectual property, patent and copyright law, and the management of the public domain for the common good. Grant recipients included the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Creative Commons, the Free Software Foundation, and the Future of Music Coalition.Young graduated from the University of Toronto in 1976 prior to beginning his career in the computer finance arena.In 2003, Young purchased the Hamilton Tiger-Cats of the Canadian Football League and currently serves as the league's vice chairman.In addition to enjoying fly fishing, Young collects calculators and antique typewriters, a nod to his beginnings as a typewriter salesman and can usually be found sporting a pair of red socks. However, instead of red on his head, Young now tips his orange hat.
- Total investments:
- 16
- Last investment:
- Lead investor:
- 6%
Last updated:
For AI agents: llms.txt
Industries Bob Young invests in
Stages Bob Young invests in
Countries Bob Young invests in
Round sizes
Contacts
| Type | Contact | Validation |
|---|---|---|
| Work email | ||
| Personal email | ||
| Work phone | ||
| Personal phone | ||
| Socials |
Round size
- Seed
- $1.1M–$38M
- Series A
- $1M–$45M
Investment Focus
Industry
- Software 3 (19%)
- E-Commerce 2 (13%)
- Social Media 2 (13%)
- Enterprise Software 2 (13%)
- Artificial Intelligence 2 (13%)
Stage
- Seed 8 (50%)
- Series A 4 (25%)
- Series B 1 (6%)
Country
- United States 9 (56%)
- Brazil 1 (6%)
- Ireland 1 (6%)
- Singapore 1 (6%)
Investments
| Company | Description | Round | Links |
|---|---|---|---|
| Building AGI, AI as Service, Generative AI | $37.5M / Seed / Dec 01, 2023 | ||
| AppFlowy provides an open source collaborative work management tool that enables users to create apps that suit offers built on a community-driven toolbox, including templates, plugins, themes, and more. | $6.4M / Seed / Nov 16, 2023 | ||
| Rocket.Chat is a fast-growing enterprise communication and collaboration platform that is now installed on over 500k servers and counts over 12m users worldwide as well as having an active, passionate community of over 1k developer-contributors who help Rocket.Chat’s core team of developers to constantly improve the product. Rocket.Chat’s long-termvision is to replace email with a real-time federated communications platform and to establish a marketplace that will nurture app-building and offer services to enable businesses to be built using Rocket.Chat.The platform improves internal and external communication within a controlled and secure environment. Users can run Rocket.Chat on-premises or on cloud and a range of features are at their disposal to tailor their platform: individual and group communication, video conferencing, file uploading, screen sharing, LiveChat, and integration with a variety of different communications platforms. | $10M / Series A / Sep 21, 2023 | ||
| Bluesky is a new social media platform. | $8M / Seed / Jul 05, 2023 | ||
| ResearchHub is a tool for the open publication and discussion of scientific research that rewards users with ResearchCoin for publishing, reviewing, criticizing, and collaborating in the open. The company accelerates the pace of scientific research by creating incentives that encourage academics and citizens. | $5M / Seed / Jun 15, 2023 | ||
| Building AGI, AI as Service, Generative AI | $5.6M / Seed / May 05, 2023 | ||
| NocoDB is an open-source Airtable alternative that transforms existing databases into a smart spreadsheet. The company was founded in 2021 and is headquartered in San Francisco, California, United States. | $10.5M / Seed / Oct 10, 2022 | ||
| W4 Games helps to support the open-source Godot ecosystem by giving businesses the goods and services they require on a commercial level. | $8.5M / Seed / Sep 13, 2022 | ||
| Rutter develops a universal API that integrates with every commerce, accounting, and payments platform. It enables users to connect to any platform and get a holistic view of any business. | $27M / Series A / Mar 15, 2022 | ||
| Printify is the world's most famous print-on-demand platform designed to help anyone with an internet connection unlock the freedom that comes with opening your own online business. And because it’s completely risk free, more than 10 million people have signed up to open their stores! We created Printify so that anyone can create greatproducts, drive sales, and unlock their freedom. Printify has been on a steep growth curve since 2015, and now with more than 700 employees, three offices, and an amazing diverse team spread around Europe, we’re continuing to go from strength to strength. The Financial Times has ranked us as a Best Startup Employer for the last 4 years in a row, and we’re headquartered in Riga with investment backing from Richard Branson, Index Ventures, and some of the best angel investors from Silicon Valley and beyond. | $45M / Series A / Dec 01, 2021 | ||
| See all 16 investments → | |||
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FAQ
What does Bob Young invest in?
Bob Young invests primarily in Software, E-Commerce and Social Media startups, most often at Seed and Series A stage. Most of the 16 investments tracked by Shizune back companies in United States. The Investment Focus section breaks down every industry, stage and country in the portfolio.
What round sizes does Bob Young invest in?
Bob Young typically joins rounds of $1.1M–$38M at Seed and $1M–$45M at Series A. These are whole funding-round sizes, not Bob Young's own check, which is rarely disclosed: the 10th–90th percentile of the confirmed public funding rounds Bob Young took part in.
How do I contact Bob Young?
Public channels for Bob Young include LinkedIn and X (Twitter). For a verified work email and phone number, create a free Shizune account — contact data is searched across 20+ sources and validated before delivery, so your outreach lands in the right inbox.
When did Bob Young last invest?
The most recent investment recorded for Bob Young closed in Dec 2023. Shizune tracks 16 investments in total for this profile, including round sizes, stages and portfolio companies, all sourced from confirmed public funding rounds and refreshed monthly.
Is Shizune's investor data accurate?
Yes — every stat on this profile is calculated from confirmed public funding rounds monitored across hundreds of sources since 2020. This profile was last refreshed in Oct 2026 and is updated monthly. Spotted something off? Use the “Suggest an edit” link near the top of the page.
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