# Kelly Smith

> Kelly Smith is a Series A investor at Curious Office Partners backing Software and Advertising. See 5 investments, check sizes, portfolio. Updated Aug 2026.

- Type: Angel Investor
- Fund: [Curious Office Partners](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/curious-office-partners)
- Location: Las Vegas, United States
- Total investments: 5
- Last investment: Dec 2011
- Lead investor: 0%
- Last updated: Aug 2026
- LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/kellysmith
- X (Twitter): http://twitter.com/curiousoffice
- Website: http://www.kellysmith.com
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kellyedwardsmith

Kelly Smith is a Series A investor at Curious Office Partners in Las Vegas focused on Software and Advertising. Kelly is a "Designer Founder" of several start-ups and is the founder of Curious Office, a Seattle seed stage incubator and investment firm. As a designer and product development expert, Kelly takes an active interest optimizing around the development/design intersection. He is aTechStars mentor, a co-founder of a YCombinatorcompany and an occasional speaker on the subjects of design, start-ups and company building. He is most recently the founder of Zapd, which is venture backed by Madrona Venture Partners and Second Avenue Partners. Zapd was twice Apple's App of the Week, was an Editor Staff Pick and was a top 10 lifestyle app in several countries. He co-founded MadRaces which was sold to BetaWorks and also Scoutzie which was accepted as a 2012 YCombinator company. He was also the founder and designer of Inkd.com and Imagekind, which is the largest market for buying and selling art (acquired by CafePress in 2007). In 2000 he founded an online video company called RocketVox which was acquired by thePlatform (a wholly owned subsidiary of Comcast). Previously, Kelly served as VP Product Marketing for Myrio (Siemens Nokia IPTV division) and worked at RealNetworks from 1994-1999 in various marketing and business development roles. Curious Office has invested in SEOmoz, Bonanza, Sparkbuy, Buuteeq, ooBible, Imagekind, Wishpot, CoolSpotters, Shelfari (acquired by Amazon) and FeedDigest. He is a board member or advisor for PressPlane, NetConcepts, SEOmoz and Rouxbe.

## Round sizes

| Stage | Round size |
| --- | --- |
| Series A | $1M–$2M |

## Investment focus

### Industry

| Industry | Investments | Share |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Software | 2 | 40% |
| Advertising | 2 | 40% |
| SEO | 1 | 20% |
| Mobile | 1 | 20% |
| Tourism | 1 | 20% |

18 industries tracked in total.

### Stage

| Stage | Investments | Share |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Series A | 4 | 80% |
| Angel | 1 | 20% |

### Country

| Country | Investments | Share |
| --- | --- | --- |
| United States | 4 | 80% |
| Israel | 1 | 20% |

## Investments

| Company | Description | Amount | Stage | Date | Website |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 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. | $1.7M | Series A | Sep 01, 2008 |  |
| Fanzter | Fanzter Inc. is an American software company that designs and develops consumer-focused mobile and web products. Fanzter's best-known products include Coolspotters.com and the popular iOS applications CoolPapers, Streaks, and Summizer. Fanzter's corporate headquarters are located in Unionville, Connecticut. | $2M | Series A | Jan 01, 2008 |  |
| Moz | Moz provides analytics software to track all of a website's inbound marketing efforts—search marketing, link building, social media, and brand mentions—on one platform. Moz Analytics tracks each effort with beautiful data visualizations, insights into competitors' data, and actionable recommendations to improve each effort'sperformance.Dedicated to helping people do better marketing, Moz creates easy-to-use tools, tutorials, and educational resources for learning inbound marketing—and fosters the web’s most vibrant online marketing community. With offices in Seattle, Washington, and Portland, Oregon, Moz supports over 20,000 customers and 300,000 community members worldwide.The company received an A round of financing from Ignition Partners and Curious Office in September 2007 to build their Linkscape web index. | $1.1M | Series A | Sep 01, 2007 |  |
| Shelfari | Shelfari, Inc is a division of Amazon that runs Shelfari, a social network for book lovers. | $1M | Series A | Mar 25, 2007 |  |

5 of 5 investments shown.

## Co-investors
- [Second Avenue Partners](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/second-avenue-partners) — VC Fund, 2 deals together
- [Alliance of Angels](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/alliance-of-angels) — VC Fund, 1 deal together
- [Amazon](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/amazon) — VC Fund, 1 deal together
- [Founders' Co-op](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/founders-co-op) — VC Fund, 1 deal together
- [Foundry Group](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/foundryvc) — VC Fund, 1 deal together
- [Glassdoor](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/glassdoor) — VC Fund, 1 deal together

## About Curious Office Partners

VC Fund · Seattle, United States

Curious Office is both a seed stage investment firm and a software development company.

2 contacts available at Curious Office Partners.

| Name | Title | Profile |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Adrian Hanauer | Co-Founder | https://shizune.co/investors/profile/adrian-hanauer |
| Kelly Smith | Co - Founder | https://shizune.co/investors/profile/kelly-smith |

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## FAQ

### What does Kelly Smith invest in?

Kelly Smith invests primarily in Software, Advertising and SEO startups, most often at Series A and Angel stage. Most of the 5 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 Kelly Smith's check size?

Kelly Smith typically joins rounds of $1M–$2M 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 Kelly Smith participates in.

### When did Kelly Smith last invest?

The most recent investment recorded for Kelly Smith closed in Dec 2011. Shizune tracks 5 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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