# Dan Shapiro > Dan Shapiro is a seed investor at Robot Turtles (Seattle) backing Internet and Software. See 6 investments, check sizes, portfolio. Updated Aug 2026. - Type: Angel Investor - Fund: [Robot Turtles](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/robot-turtles) - Location: Seattle, United States - Total investments: 6 - Last investment: Jun 2018 - Lead investor: 0% - Last updated: Aug 2026 - LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/danshapiro - X (Twitter): http://twitter.com/danshapiro - Website: http://danshapiro.com - Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/shapiro.dan Dan Shapiro is a seed investor at Robot Turtles in Seattle focused on Internet and Software. Dan Shapiro is the CEO and primary turtle wrangler at Robot Turtles, a company created when he accidentally launched the bestselling board game in Kickstarter. He has previously spent time leading a Google subsidiary that operates comparison shopping products. Dan Shapiro joined Google when they bought his previous company, Sparkbuy, a comparisonshopping website, where he was founder and CEO.Before Sparkbuy, Dan Shapiro was founder and CEO of Ontela, a pioneering mobile imaging company, where he was named CEO of the Year by MobileBeat. Ontela was frequently recognized including the Dow Jones Top 10 in Wireless list, the CTIA award for Best Social Networking Application, and Breakthrough Startup of the Year by the WTIA.Prior to founding Ontela, Dan Shapiro managed development of the RealArcade service at RealNetworks, enabling thousands of end-users to play classic games such as Monopoly, Scrabble, and Rollercoaster Tycoon on their desktops. He arrived at RealNetworks by way of Wildseed, where he managed software development for the Identity Cellular Phone. Dan Shapiro started his career at Microsoft working on Windows 98, Windows 2000, and Windows XP.Dan Shapiro's articles have been published in the Washington Post, Wireless Week, and the Seattle PI, and he is a frequent speaker at conferences and events. He serves on the board of the non-profit Washington Technology Industry Association. He is a mentor for the Founder's Institute, 500 Startups, and Techstars. Dan Shapiro has been awarded eleven U.S. patents, and received his B.S. in Engineering from Harvey Mudd College. ## Round sizes | Stage | Round size | | --- | --- | | Seed | $1.1M–$1.4M | | Angel | $425k–$1.3M | ## Investment focus ### Industry | Industry | Investments | Share | | --- | --- | --- | | Internet | 3 | 50% | | Software | 3 | 50% | | SaaS | 2 | 33% | | B2B | 1 | 17% | | iOS | 1 | 17% | 25 industries tracked in total. ### Stage | Stage | Investments | Share | | --- | --- | --- | | Seed | 3 | 50% | | Angel | 2 | 33% | | Series B | 1 | 17% | ### Country | Country | Investments | Share | | --- | --- | --- | | United States | 5 | 83% | | Israel | 1 | 17% | ## Investments | Company | Description | Amount | Stage | Date | Website | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | SparkToro | SparkToro™ is a new software company from Moz founder, Rand Fishkin. Their mission is to make it easier to discover the websites, blogs, podcasts, social accounts, and publications that reach your audience.They created SparkToro to help people do better marketing. Specifically, they want to assist organizations of all kinds to quickly andaccurately identify where their audience spends time and pays attention, so marketing efforts can be better targeted and more effective. They think it sucks that so much of web marketing today is “buy ads on Facebook and Google.” That duopoly makes marketing less creative, less interesting, and less fruitful. It’s great for Google and Facebook’s bottom line, but that’s where the benefit ends. | $1.3M | Angel | Jun 07, 2018 | | | Skilljar | Skilljar is a customer training platform for enterprises to accelerate product adoption and improve customer retention. Their cloud learning management system (LMS) makes it easy to create courses, distribute to web and mobile devices, and track results. It helps to accelerate product adoption, automate onboarding workflows, reduce support costs,and increase long-term customer satisfaction.Skilljar solution allows users to offer courses from their own domain or from the solution’s content management system. The solution includes the option for the users to sell their course via a built-in e-commerce module, which enables direct deposit into the user’s account and corporate invoicing for customers wishing to send payment through a company. It also offers customizable course pages that include user’s branding. Courses include video, audio, live training, and instructor-led training.Founded in 2013, the company is headquartered in Seattle, WA. | $1.1M | Seed | Nov 19, 2013 | | | Apptentive | Apptentive’s Mobile Customer Experience software empowers companies to build brands customers love by understanding their behavior and expectations. The product gives brands the opportunity to listen to, engage with, and retain their customers through intelligently timed surveys, messages, and prompts. Integrated into thousands of mobile apps,Apptentive helps companies proactively engage customer segments, track customer sentiment, boost app ratings, drive downloads, and earn loyalty. The company powers millions of customer interactions every month for companies including Buffalo Wild Wings, eBay, Intercontinental Hotels Group, Philips, Saks Fifth Avenue, and Viacom. The company is based in Seattle, Washington. | $1.2M | Seed | Dec 11, 2012 | | | Vizify | SteamFunk Labs Inc., doing business as Vizify, operates an online portal that provides users to create their interactive profile. The company was incorporated in 2011 and is based in Portland, Oregon. | $1.4M | Seed | Mar 03, 2012 | | | Smore | Smore makes it simple to create gorgeous newsletters, collaborate with colleagues, and analyze results. It's an easy way to ensure consistency and accountability communication and to transform the way your audience engages with your content. Smore has over 2 million users creating over 100,000 newsletters each month. | $425K | Angel | Dec 01, 2011 | | | Inkd.com | Inkd (formerly Pressplane) has two main products: Inkd, a true "buy & sell" community (rather like CafePress, Zazzle, Etsy and even stock image companies) wherein designers upload print creative and businesses can download and use the content as a cost effective alternative to hiring a designer, and Zapd, an app that allows users tocreate instant, themed websites straight from their iPhones. | $3.5M | Series B | Jun 28, 2011 | | 6 of 6 investments shown. ## Co-investors - [Second Avenue Partners](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/second-avenue-partners) — VC Fund, 1 deal together - [Social Leverage](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/social-leverage) — VC Fund, 1 deal together - [Starve Ups](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/starve-ups) — VC Fund, 1 deal together - [Techstars](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/techstars) — VC Fund, 1 deal together - [Union Bay Partners](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/union-bay-partners) — VC Fund, 1 deal together ## About Robot Turtles VC Fund 1 contacts available at Robot Turtles. | Name | Title | Profile | | --- | --- | --- | | Dan Shapiro | CEO | https://shizune.co/investors/profile/dan-shapiro | ## Similar investors ### Similar industry - [Reach Capital](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/reach-capital) — VC Fund - [Antler](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/antler-be9c) — VC Fund - [GSV Ventures](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/gsv-acceleration) — VC Fund ### Similar stage - [Antler](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/antler-be9c) — VC Fund - [Alumni Ventures](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/alumni-ventures-group) — VC Fund - [Right Side Capital Management](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/right-side-capital-management) — VC Fund ### Similar country - [OurCrowd](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/ourcrowd) — VC Fund - [Entrée Capital](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/entree-capital) — VC Fund - [Pitango VC](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/pitango-venture-capital) — VC Fund ## Featured in investor lists - [Education Angel Investors in Israel](https://shizune.co/investors/education-angel-investors-israel) ## FAQ ### What does Dan Shapiro invest in? Dan Shapiro invests primarily in Internet, Software and SaaS startups, most often at Seed and Angel stage. Most of the 6 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 Dan Shapiro's check size? Dan Shapiro typically joins rounds of $1.1M–$1.4M at Seed and $425k–$1.3M at Angel. These ranges are 10th–90th percentile round sizes calculated from confirmed public funding rounds, so they are a realistic guide to the rounds Dan Shapiro participates in. ### When did Dan Shapiro last invest? The most recent investment recorded for Dan Shapiro closed in Jun 2018. Shizune tracks 6 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. # About Shizune Shizune.co is an investor database. Core features: - 48,091 startup investors (angels, VCs, accelerators, and others) - Email, phone, LinkedIn (for intros), socials, and other contact data - Updated daily from public funding news - CSV and Excel export The User can access the full database FOR FREE after signing up: shizune.co