# Carlos Castellanos

> Carlos Castellanos is a Series A investor at Samsung NEXT (Irvine) backing FinTech and Software. See 36 investments, check sizes, portfolio. Updated Aug 2026.

- Type: Angel Investor
- Fund: [Samsung NEXT](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/samsungnext)
- Location: Irvine, United States
- Total investments: 36
- Last investment: Aug 2025
- Lead investor: 22%
- Last updated: Aug 2026
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/carlos-castellanos-37675a7/

Carlos Castellanos is a Venture Capitalist at Samsung Next

## Round sizes

| Stage | Round size |
| --- | --- |
| Seed | $850k–$22M |
| Series A | $8M–$40M |
| Venture - Series Unknown | $86k–$35M |

## Investment focus

### Industry

| Industry | Investments | Share |
| --- | --- | --- |
| FinTech | 11 | 31% |
| Software | 9 | 25% |
| Financial Services | 7 | 19% |
| Payments | 5 | 14% |
| Blockchain | 5 | 14% |

53 industries tracked in total.

### Stage

| Stage | Investments | Share |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Series A | 9 | 25% |
| Seed | 8 | 22% |
| Venture - Series Unknown | 8 | 22% |
| Pre-Seed | 6 | 17% |
| Series B | 3 | 8% |

7 stages tracked in total.

### Country

| Country | Investments | Share |
| --- | --- | --- |
| United States | 22 | 61% |
| Argentina | 3 | 8% |
| Singapore | 3 | 8% |
| United Kingdom | 2 | 6% |
| Japan | 1 | 3% |

7 countries tracked in total.

## Investments

| Company | Description | Amount | Stage | Date | Website |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Atomic | Atomic is a provider of personalized investment management services that lets companies embed investment accounts into their services. It allows companies to offer their end-users a disciplined way to invest with them. Atomic was founded in 2020 by David Dindi in San Francisco, CA. | $30M |  | Aug 27, 2025 |  |
| Reality Defender | Reality Defender is the market leader in deepfake detection, protecting enterprises and governments from realtime deepfake and agentic fraud. Sign up for free access at https://www.realitydefender.com/apiAwards: 2025 - Gartner: Recognized as Market Leader in Deepfake Detection 2025 - JPMorgan: Inducted into Hall of Innovation 2025- World Economic Forum: Named Technology Pioneer 2025 - USA DIU + Japan MOD: 1st Place "Global Innovation Challenge" 2024 - RSA Conference: 1st Place “Most Innovative Startup” 2024 - SINET16 Innovator Award 2023 - SXSW 1st Place "Artificial Intelligence, Voice, & Robotics Technologies" | $85.6K | Venture - Series Unknown | Apr 03, 2025 |  |
| Method Financial | Method Financial is a financial connectivity API for consumer liability data + payments. Method provides connectivity to consumer credit and liability accounts, enabling end-to-end refinance experiences, real-time account data access, and one-click checkout. | $42M | Series B | Jan 23, 2025 |  |
| Music AI | Music AI is a software development company that provides artificial intelligence solutions for music and audio technology. | $40M | Series A | Jan 22, 2025 |  |
| MiSalud | MiSalud offers a unique combination of personalized preventative wellness services, along with traditional healthcare via Spanish speaking physicians. | $8M | Series A | Dec 09, 2024 |  |
| Wildfire Systems | Wildfire is on a mission to reward organic commerce everywhere. We help companies monetize their users with white-label cash back and coupon services. Wildfire makes it easy for our partners’ users to save money and earn cash back from their favorite apps and websites. | $16M | Series B | Oct 28, 2024 |  |
| Mawari | Mawari is a pioneer in cloud rendering and streaming technology for interactive AR experiences. Mawari provides an AR-focused streaming SDK that renders 3D content in the cloud and delivers it efficiently to devices. Core to the AR Streaming SDK is Mawari’s unique, patent-pending compression technology that minimizes the weight of 3D content andenables real-time rendering and streaming to smartphones and AR glasses. | $10.8M | Venture - Series Unknown | Sep 26, 2024 |  |
| Vsim Technology | Vsim Technology offers physics simulations technologies for AI, robotics, VFX, research and the industrial metaverse. | $21.5M | Seed | Sep 25, 2024 |  |
| point.me | point.me is the maker of an online search tool that makes it easy to discover real-time reward flight options.With point.me, you can not only compare all your points and miles options in the same simple format you’re used to seeing for paid flights, you can also see step-by-step guides and videos on exactly how to choose the best deal, transferyour points, and book your reward flight across dozens of frequent flyer programs. | $15M | Series B | Sep 18, 2024 |  |
| Knot | Knot is for when there's knot an API - change card on file information, cancel subscriptions, change passwords, and more. Knot spun out of Millions. |  | Series A | Sep 05, 2024 |  |

10 of 36 investments shown.

## Co-investors
- [Y Combinator](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/y-combinator) — VC Fund, 8 deals together
- [QED Investors](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/qed-investors) — VC Fund, 4 deals together
- [Borderless Capital](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/algo-capital) — VC Fund, 3 deals together
- [Borderless Capital](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/borderless-capital) — VC Fund, 3 deals together
- [Gaingels](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/gaing) — VC Fund, 3 deals together
- [RiverPark Ventures](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/riverpark-ventures) — VC Fund, 3 deals together

## About Samsung NEXT

VC Fund · Mountain View, United States

Samsung NEXT Ventures is an investment arm of Samsung NEXT, a multifaceted innovation group within Samsung Electronics dedicated to identifying new growth opportunities that will define the next decade. The firm prefers to invest in artificial intelligence, fintech, blockchain, health technology, infrastructure, and media technology sectors.

5 contacts available at Samsung NEXT.

| Name | Title | Profile |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Carlos Castellanos | Venture Capitalist | https://shizune.co/investors/profile/carlos-castellanos-672c |
| Nick Nigam | Principal, Seed to Series B Venture Capital Investments | https://shizune.co/investors/profile/nick-nigam |
| Yonatan Machado | Senior Investment Director | https://shizune.co/investors/profile/yonatan-machado |
| Ajay Singh | Director | https://shizune.co/investors/profile/ajay-singh-3 |
| Alicia Garabedian | Venture Operations Manager | https://shizune.co/investors/profile/alicia-garabedian |

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## FAQ

### What does Carlos Castellanos invest in?

Carlos Castellanos invests primarily in FinTech, Software and Financial Services startups, most often at Series A and Seed stage. Most of the 36 investments tracked by Shizune back companies in United States. The Investment Focus section breaks down every industry, stage and country in the portfolio.

### What is Carlos Castellanos's check size?

Carlos Castellanos typically joins rounds of $850k–$22M at Seed, $8M–$40M at Series A and $86k–$35M at Venture - Series Unknown. These ranges are 10th–90th percentile round sizes calculated from confirmed public funding rounds, so they are a realistic guide to the rounds Carlos Castellanos participates in.

### When did Carlos Castellanos last invest?

The most recent investment recorded for Carlos Castellanos closed in Aug 2025. Shizune tracks 36 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 Aug 2026 and is updated monthly. Spotted something off? Use the “Suggest an edit” link near the top of the page.

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