Kirby Winfield
Founding General Partner @ Ascend
Seattle, United States
Kirby Winfield is a seasoned startup operator and angel investor.Early in his career, Kirby was a founding team member and operating executive at back-to-back tech IPOs, with Go2Net (GNET) and Marchex (MCHX). He is also a two-time venture capital-backed CEO, with AdXpose (DFJ, Ignition) acquired by comScore (SCOR), and most recentlyDwellable (Maveron, VersionOne) acquired by HomeAway (AWAY).As an angel investor, Kirby served as a Board Director of real estate startup Sharper Agent (sold to LEDR/Z), and has invested in and advised dozens of seed stage startups in travel, ad tech, and SaaS. He current serves as a Board Director for technology-enabled marketing company Spectrio, on behalf of the Riverside Company, a global private equity firm.He is an active Techstars mentor, and a passionate Board Member (and Board Chair-Elect) at Special Olympics of Washington, as well as Board Member at the Haring Center Capital Campaign, and Board Advisor at the Friendship Circle of Washington. In his free time, Kirby coaches youth soccer and baseball, and enjoys running, tennis, and traveling with his wife, son and daughter.
- Total investments:
- 29
- Last investment:
- Lead investor:
- 31%
Last updated:
For AI agents: llms.txt
Industries Kirby Winfield invests in
Stages Kirby Winfield invests in
Countries Kirby Winfield invests in
Round sizes
Contacts
| Type | Contact | Validation |
|---|---|---|
| Work email | ||
| Personal email | ||
| Work phone | ||
| Personal phone | ||
| Socials |
Round size
- Seed
- $1.4M–$4M
- Angel
- $405k–$1.5M
- Pre-Seed
- $217k–$3.8M
Investment Focus
Industry
- Software 10 (34%)
- SaaS 9 (31%)
- Information Technology 4 (14%)
- Artificial Intelligence 4 (14%)
- B2B 3 (10%)
Stage
- Seed 10 (34%)
- Pre-Seed 7 (24%)
- Angel 2 (7%)
- Series A 2 (7%)
- Funding Round 2 (7%)
Country
- United States 19 (66%)
- Canada 1 (3%)
- United Kingdom 1 (3%)
Investments
| Company | Description | Round | Links |
|---|---|---|---|
| Velou brings product catalogs to life with AI-powered data enrichment, enabling retailers, brands and marketplaces to create intelligent catalogs that transform customer interactions. Seamlessly integrating with ecommerce and marketing technologies, Velou’s solution enhances acquisition, personalization, conversion, and retention by optimizing thedata that drives performance. In retail, success isn’t just about the technology—it’s about the quality of the data behind it. Velou’s AI-enriched product data acts as a force multiplier, ultimately fostering stronger brand loyalty and driving business growth. Our retail-specific models automate product merchandising, continuously learn and optimize catalogs, and ensure product attributes, descriptions, and metadata are accurate, comprehensive, and primed for performance marketing. | $4M / Seed / Jan 11, 2024 | ||
| Panda AI develops a B2B artificial intelligence platform designed to simplify work and combine various tasks. The platform uses natural language processing to help teams stay on the same page, enabling businesses to combine various apps and simplify workflow. | $760K / Seed / Jun 15, 2023 | ||
| Whalesync is the developer of a SaaS platform created to sync data between all tools. Their application makes it easy for enterprises to sync their business data without fuss by rapidly enabling sync from Airtable to Webflow, Notion, and other platforms. | $1.8M / Pre-Seed / Jan 26, 2023 | ||
| Keyplay provides a novel approach to account research to businesses tired of B2B waste and eager to pursue gtm excellence as buyer rigour. | $3M / Seed / Dec 07, 2022 | ||
| Hedgehog builds an open, secure, and fully automated network fabric that brings hyperscaler efficiency to any AI datacenter.Modern AI workloads demand a fundamentally new approach, tuned specifically for absolute performance and reliability. To make operations effortless, we deliver hyperscaler abstractions—like VPCs and declarative provisioning.This empowers cloud-native teams to use familiar tools and move at the speed of software, rather than the CLI.Crucially, our open architecture guarantees total hardware flexibility, permanently eliminating vendor lock-in. We let teams focus on delivering value instead of tweaking complex configurations. Hedgehog delivers the turnkey network AI needs. | $3.8M / Pre-Seed / Nov 22, 2022 | ||
| SafeDigit helps last mile logistics companies quickly integrate with the platforms their customers love.But we don't just stop at API connectors — we'll even help you launch your own apps and plugins across all major eCommerce marketplaces like Shopify, Wix and WooCommerce!Instead of juggling multiple 3rd party apps and APIs, you canfocus on your core service while our platform handles integrations for you. Win and retain customers by integrating with their systems across eCommerce, POS, ERP, TMS, WMS and more! | $1.1M / Pre-Seed / Jul 18, 2022 | ||
| Pongo enables developers to add semantic search to their AI applications, without needing to worry about embeddings, vector database, syncing metadata, GPU infrastructure, and data ingestion pipelines. We leverage our proprietary search techniques to ensure developers get the right information for their AI apps with each query. | $385K / Pre-Seed / May 16, 2022 | ||
| Pongo enables developers to add semantic search to their AI applications, without needing to worry about embeddings, vector database, syncing metadata, GPU infrastructure, and data ingestion pipelines. We leverage our proprietary search techniques to ensure developers get the right information for their AI apps with each query. | $405K / Angel / May 16, 2022 | ||
| BearTax is an easy to use cryptocurrency tax software for individuals and accountants to calculate gains and file taxes on capital gains. BearTax is integrated with major cryptocurrency exchanges via secure APIs and file uploads. It can consolidate trades, review missing sources, match buys and sells smartly and can calculate gain-loss information.BearTax works with USA, Australian, Japanese and Canadian tax periods, support their native currencies. With a global user base, it aims to become the platform of choice for accountants and individuals dealing with crypto taxes. | $3.2M / Seed / Mar 08, 2022 | ||
| Hest Outdoors brings the comforts of home to the outdoors. The company develops and delivers high-performance and well-designed products to improve enjoyment and experience outdoors. It was founded in 2016 and is headquartered in Seattle, Washington. | $2M / Seed / Nov 03, 2021 | ||
| See all 29 investments → | |||
Co-Investors
About Ascend
Ascend is a pre-seed venture capital firm investing in SaaS 3.0: (vertical AI agents and applications), Gen AI 2.0 ("fast followers" in horizontal AI/infrastructure), and Frontier AI (AI applied to the physical world's hardest problems). Kirby Winfield, Founding General Partner; Associate Nate Bek; and Partner and Chief of Staff Jen Haller work to support portfolio founders on their journey from the idea stage to seed, series A, and beyond - connecting them with customers, talent, and Silicon Valley venture capital. Preferred stage is pre-seed, preferred check $250-$750K, and we focus primarily on Seattle-area founders.
Ascend Contacts
| Name | Phone | Socials | |
|---|---|---|---|
Gavin Hewitt
Operating Partner
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Kirby Winfield
Founding General Partner
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FAQ
What does Kirby Winfield invest in?
Kirby Winfield invests primarily in Software, SaaS and Information Technology startups, most often at Seed and Pre-Seed stage. Most of the 29 investments tracked by Shizune back companies in United States. The Investment Focus section breaks down every industry, stage and country in the portfolio.
What round sizes does Kirby Winfield invest in?
Kirby Winfield typically joins rounds of $1.4M–$4M at Seed, $405k–$1.5M at Angel and $217k–$3.8M at Pre-Seed. These are whole funding-round sizes, not Kirby Winfield's own check, which is rarely disclosed: the 10th–90th percentile of the confirmed public funding rounds Kirby Winfield took part in.
How do I contact Kirby Winfield?
Public channels for Kirby Winfield include LinkedIn 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.
When did Kirby Winfield last invest?
The most recent investment recorded for Kirby Winfield closed in Jan 2024. Shizune tracks 29 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 Oct 2026 and is updated monthly. Spotted something off? Use the “Suggest an edit” link near the top of the page.
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