# Kauffman Fellows

> Kauffman Fellows is a VC fund in Palo Alto backing Biotechnology and Mobile. See 6 investments, check sizes, portfolio and contact details. Updated Aug 2026.

- Type: VC Fund
- Location: Palo Alto, United States
- Total investments: 6
- Last investment: Jan 2021
- Lead investor: 0%
- Last updated: Aug 2026
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/kauffman-fellows-program
- X (Twitter): https://twitter.com/kauffmanfellows
- Website: http://kauffmanfellows.org

Kauffman Fellows is a world-wide network of innovation investors who provide smart, connected capital to fuel entrepreneurial change.

## Contacts

5 contacts available for Kauffman Fellows. Shizune tracks 87 team members at Kauffman Fellows. Sign up free to unlock them: https://app.shizune.co/sign-up/investor-profiles/find-team-emails/kauffman-fellows?utm_source=investor_profile

## Round sizes

| Stage | Round size |
| --- | --- |
| Seed | $2M–$5M |
| Series B | $20M–$22M |

## Investment focus

### Industry

| Industry | Investments | Share |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Biotechnology | 2 | 33% |
| Mobile | 1 | 17% |
| Travel | 1 | 17% |
| FinTech | 1 | 17% |
| Genetics | 1 | 17% |

19 industries tracked in total.

### Stage

| Stage | Investments | Share |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Seed | 2 | 33% |
| Series B | 2 | 33% |
| Angel | 1 | 17% |

### Country

| Country | Investments | Share |
| --- | --- | --- |
| United States | 3 | 50% |
| Egypt | 1 | 17% |
| Brazil | 1 | 17% |

## Team

| Name | Title | Investments | Profile |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Imraan Ahmed | Kauffman Fellow, Class 20 | 2 | https://shizune.co/investors/profile/imraan-ahmed-nyc |
| Shubhang Shankar | Fellow | 6 | https://shizune.co/investors/profile/shubhang-shankar |
| Aaron Applbaum | Member Class 25 | 43 | https://shizune.co/investors/profile/aaron-applbaum |
| Ambar Amleh | Fellow, | 10 | https://shizune.co/investors/profile/ambar-amleh |
| Andrew Gershfeld | Kauffman Fellow | 16 | https://shizune.co/investors/profile/andrew-gershfeld |

## Investments

| Company | Description | Amount | Stage | Date | Website |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Flash | Flash reinvented the food vouchers in Brazil creating an all in one instrument leveraging a MasterCard, a daily used App and an HR platform | $22M | Series B | Jan 22, 2021 |  |
| elves | Elves is a travel app that helps travelers experience exciting destinations authentically with hyper-local customer service through the support of local travel experts in chat 24/7. By unlocking the knowledge of local travel experts combined with the scalability of Ai, Elves’s mandate is to deliver authentic travel experiences for all bybuilding the world’s largest knowledge base of how to do just that. Through the app, Elves users also have access to essential services as they travel like hotel and flight booking, restaurant and outings reservations, and Covid requirements. | $2M | Seed | Sep 17, 2020 |  |
| Sidecar Health | Sidecar Health is an insurtech company that provides a personalized health insurance platform. Its platform offers customizable plans based on coverage needs and budget while being completely transparent about medical costs and payouts with comparable coverage and permits fast and easy transactions through a credit card to charge medical expensesupfront at the doctor's office and pharmacy of their choice, enabling consumers to get suitable and affordable health insurance plans.The company was founded in 2018 and is headquartered in El Segundo, California . | $20M | Series B | Jul 23, 2020 |  |
| elves | Elves is a travel app that helps travelers experience exciting destinations authentically with hyper-local customer service through the support of local travel experts in chat 24/7. By unlocking the knowledge of local travel experts combined with the scalability of Ai, Elves’s mandate is to deliver authentic travel experiences for all bybuilding the world’s largest knowledge base of how to do just that. Through the app, Elves users also have access to essential services as they travel like hotel and flight booking, restaurant and outings reservations, and Covid requirements. | $2M | Seed | Dec 01, 2017 |  |
| Catalog | Catalog is a developer of a data conversion and storage platform used to offer the next generation of digital data archives and computation. Its platform facilitates the encoding of data and information into DNA format and makes it economically attractive to use DNA as the major medium for long-term archival of data that enables customers to storedigital information in DNA molecules. It brings cutting-edge synthetic biology technologies to the world of information storage and computation.The company was founded in 2016 and is headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts. | $5M | Seed | Jul 12, 2017 |  |
| Ligandal | Ligandal's mission is to create personalized gene therapies to cure disease. We are driving the discovery and delivery of a broad array of gene therapies, genetic materials, and gene-specific payloads with unprecedented precision at the cellular and sub-cellular level. Our ligand discovery engine allows for rapid design ofdiagnostically-responsive materials, capable of shuttling a variety of nucleic acid and protein payloads (including CRISPR and mRNA) to specific cell types. We are initially applying this technology to gene editing indications in hematology and immuno-oncology. | $330K | Angel | Aug 09, 2016 |  |

6 of 6 investments shown.

## Co-investors
- [Dubai Angel Investors](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/dubai-angel-investor) — VC Fund, 2 deals together
- [Emaar](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/emaar) — VC Fund, 2 deals together
- [Tiger Global Management](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/tiger-global) — VC Fund, 2 deals together
- [ACME Capital](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/acme-capital) — VC Fund, 1 deal together
- [Anorak Ventures](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/anorak-ventures-2) — VC Fund, 1 deal together
- [Acasia Group](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/cairo-angels) — VC Fund, 1 deal together

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## FAQ

### What does Kauffman Fellows invest in?

Kauffman Fellows invests primarily in Biotechnology, Mobile and Travel startups, most often at Seed and Series B 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 Kauffman Fellows's check size?

Kauffman Fellows typically joins rounds of $2M–$5M at Seed and $20M–$22M at Series B. These ranges are 10th–90th percentile round sizes calculated from confirmed public funding rounds, so they are a realistic guide to the rounds Kauffman Fellows participates in.

### How do I contact Kauffman Fellows?

Public channels for Kauffman Fellows include LinkedIn, X (Twitter) and the website linked on this profile. 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.

### Who are the partners at Kauffman Fellows?

The team at Kauffman Fellows includes Imraan Ahmed (Kauffman Fellow, Class 20), Shubhang Shankar (Fellow) and Aaron Applbaum (Member Class 25), among 87 team members tracked by Shizune. The Team section lists each member with their title, investment count and links.

### 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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