# Chris Howard

> Chris Howard is a seed investor at Ritual Capital backing Software and Artificial Intelligence. See 31 investments, check sizes, portfolio. Updated Aug 2026.

- Type: Angel Investor
- Fund: [Ritual Capital](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/ritual-capital)
- Location: San Francisco, United States
- Total investments: 31
- Last investment: Nov 2025
- Lead investor: 10%
- Last updated: Aug 2026
- LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/chrisfhoward
- X (Twitter): http://twitter.com/chrisfhoward
- Website: https://x.com/chrisfhoward
- Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/chrisfhoward

Chris Howard is a seed investor at Ritual Capital in San Francisco focused on Software and Artificial Intelligence. Chris Howard is the founder and Partner of Fuel Capital. Chris earned his bachelor’s degree in Psychology from Occidental College and an M.B.A. from the University of Washington where he was a McGowan Scholar.

## Round sizes

| Stage | Round size |
| --- | --- |
| Seed | $1.8M–$5.8M |
| Pre-Seed | $2M–$3M |
| Series A | $6M–$18M |

## Investment focus

### Industry

| Industry | Investments | Share |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Software | 17 | 55% |
| Artificial Intelligence | 8 | 26% |
| Information Technology | 6 | 19% |
| Machine Learning | 4 | 13% |
| Internet | 3 | 10% |

83 industries tracked in total.

### Stage

| Stage | Investments | Share |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Seed | 18 | 58% |
| Series A | 7 | 23% |
| Pre-Seed | 4 | 13% |
| Funding Round | 1 | 3% |

### Country

| Country | Investments | Share |
| --- | --- | --- |
| United States | 20 | 65% |
| Canada | 1 | 3% |
| Kazakhstan | 1 | 3% |
| United Kingdom | 1 | 3% |

## Investments

| Company | Description | Amount | Stage | Date | Website |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Sim | Sim is a software development company that provides an artificial intelligence platform to automate workflow and sync data. It is an open-source platform for designing, testing, and deploying AI agent workflows. It offers a visual, drag-and-drop canvas—similar to design tools—which lets developers connect large language models with various apps andlogic blocks. Users can integrate Sim with over 500 tools, such as Slack, Gmail, Supabase, and Pinecone, enabling autonomous agents that interact with real-world data and systems. The platform supports both hosted and self-hosted models, giving teams flexibility in choosing how and where their AI runs. Workflows built in Sim can be triggered manually, via scheduled events, or by webhooks, and they can be exposed as APIs or chat interfaces. Sim combines a no-code visual interface with production-grade capabilities like structured output, logging, and debugging, allowing teams to iterate quickly and scale their AI systems. | $7M | Series A | Nov 14, 2025 |  |
| Nozomio | How do you discover the future of software engineering? We're building it.Language models can write code better than most humans, but they often destroy codebases due to poor context management and understanding. The future isn't about replacing developers - it's about empowering them to orchestrate AI agents effectively.We're creating systems that enable small teams of developers to manage large-scale agent operations across the entire software lifecycle - from development to QA, security audits, and deployment.It's called Nozomio. | $6.2M | Seed | Oct 01, 2025 |  |
| Oway | Oway is a rideshare freight platform that uses AI to automatically coordinate and sell unused space in trucks to businesses at up to a 50% discount compared to traditional LTL freight shipping. It's a $100B problem in the US alone, with every year up to 50% of all the truck space in the country going empty or unused despite massive supplychain shortages.The American logistics industry is extremely fragmented with little automated coordination between carriers. Oway focuses on building an ecosystem that takes inefficiency (unused truck space) and turns it into a decentralized shipping platform that enables significantly faster and cheaper deliveries for small batch freight shipments up to 12 pallets. For carriers, integrating Oway can immediately increase annual revenues by up to 30% with almost no impact to existing delivery schedules.In a technical sense, Oway applies stochastic spread optimization and real-time liquidity modeling to dynamically price freight shipments, effectively functioning as a decentralized market maker optimizing expected value across variable supply constraints. It provides a simple UI and API for businesses to leverage this tool for any means. | $4M | Seed | Aug 22, 2025 |  |
| Cartage | Cartage is an AI operating system for shippers & 3PLs that automates routine tasks and connects users to carriers. | $2.4M | Seed | Oct 10, 2024 |  |
| Synch | Synch is a supplier of an integrated Global Trade Management (GTM) system that unifies a company's revenue stack. | $3M | Seed | Mar 12, 2024 |  |
| Outset | AI-powered user research | $3.8M | Seed | Oct 26, 2023 |  |
| Checkmate | Checkmate's a browser extension that generates you personalized deals based on who you are at 100k online stores. Your data's everywhere. Put it to work. Tell Checkmate about yourself in 30 seconds and start saving everywhere. | $15M | Series A | May 25, 2023 |  |
| Checkmate | Checkmate's a browser extension that generates you personalized deals based on who you are at 100k online stores. Your data's everywhere. Put it to work. Tell Checkmate about yourself in 30 seconds and start saving everywhere. | $5M | Seed | Sep 26, 2022 |  |
| Firstparty | Firstparty is a B2B software startup that builds marketing automation tools for data-driven growth teams. Firstparty was founded in 2021. | $5.8M | Seed | Apr 26, 2022 |  |
| Fly.io | Fly.io offers an Application Delivery Network (ADN) intended to help website owners get connected with their customers easily. The company's application delivery network uses a global network of servers to accept visitor traffic, run middleware on requests, then route them to backend applications, enabling website owners to direct theirvisitors to their respective sites securely and in a few clicks. | $12M | Series A | Aug 01, 2021 |  |

10 of 31 investments shown.

## Co-investors
- [Y Combinator](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/y-combinator) — VC Fund, 14 deals together
- [SV Angel](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/sv-angel) — VC Fund, 7 deals together
- [Liquid 2 Ventures](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/liquid2-ventures) — VC Fund, 5 deals together
- [Scribble Ventures](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/scribble-ventures) — VC Fund, 4 deals together
- [Initialized Capital](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/initialized-capital) — VC Fund, 3 deals together
- [Pioneer Fund](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/pioneer-fund) — VC Fund, 3 deals together

## About Ritual Capital

VC Fund

Ritual Capital is a seed-stage venture fund that invests in creators creating iconic brands.

1 contacts available at Ritual Capital.

| Name | Title | Profile |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Chris Howard | Founder and Managing Director | https://shizune.co/investors/profile/chris-howard |

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## FAQ

### What does Chris Howard invest in?

Chris Howard invests primarily in Software, Artificial Intelligence and Information Technology startups, most often at Seed and Series A stage. Most of the 31 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 Chris Howard's check size?

Chris Howard typically joins rounds of $1.8M–$5.8M at Seed, $2M–$3M at Pre-Seed and $6M–$18M at Series A. These ranges are 10th–90th percentile round sizes calculated from confirmed public funding rounds, so they are a realistic guide to the rounds Chris Howard participates in.

### When did Chris Howard last invest?

The most recent investment recorded for Chris Howard closed in Nov 2025. Shizune tracks 31 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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