Christopher Michel
Managing Director @ Nautilus Ventures
San Francisco, United States
Christopher Michel is a seed investor at Nautilus Ventures in San Francisco focused on Mobile and Internet. Christopher P. Michel is an American investor, entrepreneur and photographer. He is the founder of Affinity Labs and Military.com and runs Nautilus Ventures, a seed venture fund. In 1999, he founded Military.com, an online portal for servicemembers, veterans and their families. In 2006, Michel founded Affinity Labs, which runs a portfolio of onlineprofessional communities. The first, launched in March 2007, was PoliceLink.com. Both Military.com and Affinity Labs were purchased by Monster Worldwide.Michel serves as a Director of Dale Carnegie, Catchlight, Kixeye, and 3D Robotics. He previously served on the boards of Castlight Health (NYSE: CSLT), International Data Group (IDG), the United Service Organizations (USO), United States Naval Institute (USNI), Tugboat Yards, the USS Arizona Memorial Fund, the U.S. Navy Memorial Foundation, Alliance Health & EZ Board. He was also an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Harvard Business School during the 2010–2011 school year.Michel also serves on the Presidents’ Circle of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. In addition, he's an advisor to the Center for Investigative Reporting (CIR), American Public Media's Marketplace, Adventurers and Scientists for Conservation, and a variety of other for and non-profit organizations.Prior to his business career, Michel served as a Naval Flight Officer in the United States Navy. While on active duty, Michel flew as a Navigator, Tactical Coordinator and Mission Commander aboard the P-3C Orion aircraft. Following his operational tour, he worked in The Pentagon as Aide to the Chief of the Naval Reserve.In 2005, Michel's The Military Advantage: A Comprehensive Guide to Your Military & Veterans Benefits was published by Simon & Schuster. He is also one of three protagonists in Bill Murphy's book, The Intelligent Entrepreneur: How Three Harvard Business School Graduates Learned the 10 Rules of Successful Entrepreneurship, published by Henry Holt in 2010. In addition, he was a longtime columnist in Proceedings magazine.Michel is also a photographer. His collection includes photographs from extreme locations like the North & South Poles, Everest, The Korean DMZ, Papua New Guinea, and at the edge of space (aboard a U-2 Spy Plane). He's also had the opportunity to photograph a variety of global leaders, including the 14th Dalai Lama. His photographs can be found online at his gallery.[9] His photographs have been used by National Geographic, the Smithsonian, the New York Times, the BBC, Outside Magazine, and others. His "Flying Emperor" photograph was the 2nd place finisher in the Picture of the Year 2014.Michel is the Editor at Explorers, a site dedicated to adventure travel and a member of the Explorers Club. He has also published a number of fine art books, including 90 Degrees South, Monochromatic, Roof of the World, Stranger in a Strange Land, etc. Michel also serves as the Photo Editor-at-Large for The Bold Italic.Michel earned his commission from the NROTC program at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he graduated Phi Beta Kappa and was selected as the distinguished naval graduate. He also holds an MBA from the Harvard Business School and an honorary doctorate from Tiffin University. Michel was named a Henry Crown Fellow of the Aspen Institute and serves as a life member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
- Total investments:
- 13
- Last investment:
- Lead investor:
- 0%
Last updated:
For AI agents: llms.txt
Industries Christopher Michel invests in
Stages Christopher Michel invests in
Countries Christopher Michel invests in
Contacts
| Type | Contact | Validation |
|---|---|---|
| Work email | ||
| Personal email | ||
| Work phone | ||
| Personal phone | ||
| Socials |
Investment Focus
Industry
- Mobile 3 (23%)
- Internet 3 (23%)
- B2B 2 (15%)
- Marketing 2 (15%)
- Social Media 2 (15%)
Stage
- Seed 5 (38%)
- Angel 3 (23%)
- Series A 3 (23%)
- Series C 1 (8%)
- Funding Round 1 (8%)
Investments
| Company | Description | Round | Links |
|---|---|---|---|
| Overclock Labs develops tools for automating how companies manage cloud infrastructure so they can save time, costs, and focus on what they’re good at. Using Overclock's DISCO (Distributed Infrastructure for Serverless Computing Operations), a company can integrate multiple cloud service providers together to reduce costs and increaseperformance. Disco allows customers to seamlessly deploy applications between various Cloud providers such as Amazon Web Services, Google Compute Platform, IBM SoftLayer, or private clouds at any time, to enjoy the best offerings from all providers. | $1.3M / Seed / Nov 21, 2017 | ||
| Madison Reed is a beauty company revolutionizing the way women color their hair. The fast-growing startup uses technology, a proprietary ammonia-free formula, and a team of licensed colorists to deliver salon-quality hair color to homes nationwide for under $25. Headquartered in San Francisco, Madison Reed is a privately held company backed bytop-tier venture capital firms including Norwest Venture Partners, True Ventures and Maveron.Founded in 2013, Madison Reed started with a simple mission: To create a luxurious prestige hair color made with ingredients you can feel good about. Madison Reed’s conditioning formula is crafted without ammonia, parabens, resorcinol, PPD, phthalates, and gluten.The entire color and hair care line is enriched with argan oil, keratin, and ginseng root extract to protect and pamper hair. Its products can be found online, on mobile, and through select retailers including Sephora, QVC, and Ulta Beauty.It was founded in 2013 and headquartered in San Francisco, California. | Series C / Oct 25, 2016 | ||
| Sendbloom is a sales automation platform that helps inside sales representatives and SDRs prospect, segment, and nurture target accounts. We're getting our clients more qualified opportunities per rep at a fraction of the time and cost. | $1.3M / Seed / Jan 15, 2015 | ||
| Nuzzel is a professional news discovery service used by many of the top influencers in media, technology, and finance.Nuzzel was named one of the best apps of the year by Google Play, the New York Times, Fast Company, and Time Magazine.Nuzzel is backed by top Silicon Valley investors including Andreessen Horowitz, CRV, Homebrew, LowercaseCapital, Uncork Capital, Marc Benniof, and Max Levchin. | $1.7M / Seed / Jun 12, 2014 | ||
| Health Gorilla is a Federally Qualified Health Information Network and California QHIO providing permitted access to patient-centric data. Our commitment is to promote national clinical interoperability while ensuring consumer privacy by adhering to the Cures Act and Trusted Exchange Framework Common Agreement (TEFCA). | $500K / Angel / Sep 02, 2013 | ||
| Scripted provides original written content for small and large businesses. Order anything from tweets to white papers, and everything in between. | $4.5M / Series A / Jun 04, 2013 | ||
| Vurb’s mission is to create a smarter, more connected mobile world that empowers people to do more of what they want all in one app. Vurb enables people to find, plan, and do by connecting them to the most relevant information and tools from apps and services in a single mobile experience. The company was founded in 2011 by Bobby Lo and was thewinner of TechCrunch Disrupt NY 2014. Vurb is based in San Francisco and is financially backed by Redpoint Ventures, Max Levchin, Drew Houston, Data Collective, and other Silicon Valley luminaries.We're hiring! vurb.com/jobs | $2M / Seed / Feb 20, 2013 | ||
| 3DR makes advanced drone technology easily accessible to the construction, mining, and surveying industries for use in data analysis. It helps users in land mapping and site scanning services in collecting accurate aerial data of the Jobsite, turning urns the drone photos into maps, models, point clouds, and providing comprehensive onboarding andongoing support, enabling clients to take the batter and informed decisions related to construction sites.It was founded in 2009 and headquartered in Berkeley, California. | $5.1M / Series A / Nov 05, 2012 | ||
| Connected is a personal relationship manager that brings all your contacts and conversations together in one place.Connected was born from the realization that the story of success in almost every business endeavor starts with relationships. Maybe it's your buddy that introduces you to a potential customer that becomes a landmark deal. Oryour biz dev counterpart at a large firm who turns out to be a former classmate and helps you secure a key partnership. Or discovering an old friend who is in your industry and the ideal VP for your company.Yet how many of these situations feel serendipitous? And do you really feel in control of your network? Connected was developed to help you maximize the potential of your relationships by helping you build rapport with new people, stay in touch with the important people in your network, and find the right person for the task at hand.With the advent of social networking, we are able to connect with more people than ever before in all stages of our lives. This creates new possibilities of staying in touch with your network. Yet at the same time it means more noise and information from every single person you may have ever interacted with. You need the right tools to manage these contacts and ensure the most important ones are surfaced to you when they matter. | $500K / Angel / Jun 29, 2011 | ||
| BranchOut lets people capture and share everyday moments in the workplace through photos, news and updates. These moments create Professional Timelines, living narratives of who we are at work. BranchOut allows people to bring their careers to life by showcasing the professional moments that define them.BranchOut is the largest professionalcommunity on Facebook with more than 30 million users. BranchOut allows people to build their professional brands by sharing photos and posts that dynamically showcase their professional skills, expertise and accomplishments. | $6M / Series A / Sep 17, 2010 | ||
| See all 13 investments → | |||
Co-Investors
About Nautilus Ventures
Nautilus Ventures is a seed stage venture capital firm founded by Christopher Michel. Nautilus Ventures portfolio companies include Palantir, GoodReads (Amazon), Castlight Health, Alliance Health, 3D Robotics, Blue Bottle, Peek, Tinker, Scripted, BranchOut, Relay, Doctor On Demand, Ne Timeas, Madison Color, HealthCPA, Course Hero, Verbify, CRReality, Chegg, RelateIQ, Flour & Water, Park Tavern, Ruby Ribbon, The Cavalier, etc. Michel serves as a Director of International Data Group, Dale Carnegie, Tugboat Yards, Kixeye, 3D Robotics and Castlight Health.
Nautilus Ventures Contacts
| Name | Phone | Socials | |
|---|---|---|---|
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Christopher Michel
Managing Director
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FAQ
What does Christopher Michel invest in?
Christopher Michel invests primarily in Mobile, Internet and B2B startups, most often at Seed and Angel stage. Most of the 13 investments tracked by Shizune back companies in United States. The Investment Focus section breaks down every industry, stage and country in the portfolio.
How do I contact Christopher Michel?
Public channels for Christopher Michel include LinkedIn, X (Twitter) and Facebook. 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 Christopher Michel last invest?
The most recent investment recorded for Christopher Michel closed in Nov 2017. Shizune tracks 13 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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