# Ron Pragides

> Ron Pragides is a seed investor at BlackHawk Network backing Software. See 221 investments, check sizes, portfolio. Updated Aug 2026.

- Type: Angel Investor
- Fund: [BlackHawk Network](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/blackhawk-network)
- Location: San Francisco, United States
- Total investments: 221
- Last investment: Apr 2026
- Lead investor: 8%
- Last updated: Aug 2026
- LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/ronpragides
- X (Twitter): http://twitter.com/mrp
- Website: https://mr-p.medium.com/
- Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/ron.pragides

Ron Pragides is a seed investor at BlackHawk Network in San Francisco focused on Software and Artificial Intelligence. Operator/Investor/Advisor. Led pre-IPO teams at: BigCommerce, Twitter, Salesforce.TRUSTLY - Senior Vice President of Engineering. Led a global team of 130+ to enable online banking payments as an alternative to credit & debit cards. CARTA - Vice President of Engineering responsible for its flagship product. Led a global team ofEngineers across San Francisco, Palo Alto, New York, Rio, and Waterloo.APPDIRECT - Vice President of Engineering. Led a global team of 200+ across San Francisco, Montréal, Buenos Aires, and Pune.BIGCOMMERCE - Senior Vice President of Engineering. Scaled the Engineering team from 65 to 130 across San Francisco, Sydney, and Austin.TWITTER - Director of Engineering thru its IPO. Responsible for the Engineering Services teams: Trust & Safety, User Services, Content Management Tools, Platform Intelligence, Open Source Programs, Developer Productivity.SALESFORCE - Joined pre-IPO Salesforce when Engineering team was ~36 individuals. As Senior Director, he was responsible for a large portion of the Salesforce Platform. Ron also worked closely with the corporate development team (Salesforce Ventures) on mergers & acquisitions.

## Round sizes

| Stage | Round size |
| --- | --- |
| Seed | $2.1M–$9M |
| Pre-Seed | $700k–$4M |
| Series A | $10M–$32M |

## Investment focus

### Industry

| Industry | Investments | Share |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Software | 78 | 35% |
| Artificial Intelligence | 46 | 21% |
| SaaS | 37 | 17% |
| Information Technology | 33 | 15% |
| FinTech | 29 | 13% |

221 industries tracked in total.

### Stage

| Stage | Investments | Share |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Seed | 99 | 45% |
| Series A | 52 | 24% |
| Pre-Seed | 20 | 9% |
| Series B | 18 | 8% |
| Venture - Series Unknown | 8 | 4% |

10 stages tracked in total.

### Country

| Country | Investments | Share |
| --- | --- | --- |
| United States | 140 | 63% |
| Canada | 13 | 6% |
| United Kingdom | 7 | 3% |
| Israel | 5 | 2% |
| India | 2 | 1% |

14 countries tracked in total.

## Investments

| Company | Description | Amount | Stage | Date | Website |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Cnuic Technologies | Cnuic Technologies has developed a working prototype of a completely new type of photolithography device. | $3M | Pre-Seed | Apr 28, 2026 |  |
| Noon | Noon operates in the product design software, developing an AI-native tool for digital product teams. It focuses on bridging design and engineering workflows by integrating live code from a company's codebase and design system into a collaborative canvas. | $44M |  | Apr 01, 2026 |  |
| Swarm Aero | Swarm Aero is an aerospace and defense company that develops large-scale unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) swarms to operate in coordinated drone swarms for defense, logistics, and sensing missions. The company builds large uncrewed aircraft and supporting software that allow multiple drones to collaborate and perform tasks as a coordinated networkrather than as independent vehicles. These systems use onboard computing, sensors, and artificial intelligence to enable autonomous flight behaviors and collective decision-making among groups of drones. The technology platform includes aircraft hardware, swarm coordination software, and command-and-control tools that allow operators to deploy and manage large numbers of drones. A swarm node architecture integrates edge computing and distributed sensors on each vehicle so that drones can communicate with one another, share environmental data, and adapt their behavior during missions. Through this system, operators can translate mission objectives into coordinated flight patterns and task assignments executed by the swarm.Swarm Aero’s aircraft and software systems support applications such as intelligence gathering, environmental monitoring, cargo delivery, communications relay, disaster response, and security operations. The platform is designed to enable operations in environments where communications may be limited or conditions change rapidly, allowing autonomous drones to coordinate actions and adjust routes in real time. | $35M | Series A | Mar 11, 2026 |  |
| Guild.ai | Our mission is simple: to make building with AI as open and collaborative as open source. We’re creating tools for the next generation of intelligent systems—built for developers who value craft, reliability, scale, and community. By opening up the AI development process, we’re enabling teams to move faster, ship with confidence, and learn fromeach other as they build what’s next. | $30M | Series A | Mar 03, 2026 |  |
| Völur | Völur is an AI-based technology company that optimizes the cutting and processing of sustainable meat. This technology helps meat producers create value by getting the most out of every animal which reduces the need for animals, increases yields, and improves demand satisfaction while reducing inventory levels. |  | Venture - Series Unknown | Mar 03, 2026 |  |
| Smack Technologies | Smack's domain-specific models assess multimodal data streams in real time, transforming them into campaign-informed decisions across the kill chain within seconds. | $32M | Series A | Mar 02, 2026 |  |
| Ditto AI | Ditto AI is a personalized AI matchmaking service that curates one ready-to-go date each week based on user preferences. It combines AI insights and professional matchmakers to provide verified and private campus dating experiences. | $9.2M | Seed | Feb 03, 2026 |  |
| Ditto | Ditto develops an AI-driven experiential date planning platform that is designed to deliver personalized social engagement. | $9.2M | Seed | Feb 03, 2026 |  |
| YO Labs | YO is a multi-chain DeFi yield optimizer that allocates user deposits into a curated set of yield-generating pools across several blockchains, rebalancing them to target the best risk-adjusted yield using Exponential.fi’s risk ratings. It is positioned as an automated “set-and-forget” yield layer that abstracts away chain selection, strategymanagement, and rebalancing for both end users and integrators like wallets or fintech apps. | $10M | Series A | Dec 14, 2025 |  |
| Fastbreak AI | Fastbreak.ai is a SaaS Sports Scheduling Platform. | $40M | Series A | Nov 07, 2025 |  |

10 of 221 investments shown.

## Co-investors
- [Alumni Ventures](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/alumni-ventures-group) — VC Fund, 17 deals together
- [Y Combinator](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/y-combinator) — VC Fund, 17 deals together
- [Sequoia Capital](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/sequoia-capital) — VC Fund, 11 deals together
- [Inovia Capital](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/inovia-capital) — VC Fund, 10 deals together
- [LAUNCH](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/launch-co) — VC Fund, 10 deals together
- [BoxGroup](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/boxgroup) — VC Fund, 9 deals together

## About BlackHawk Network

VC Fund · Pleasanton, United States

Blackhawk Network, Inc. provides prepaid and payments products in the United States and Canada. It offers card-based financial solutions and third-party prepaid cards. Its products include the gift card mall with premium-branded retail gift cards, general-purpose gift cards, ticket and sports cards, telecommunications cards and phones, andprepayment reloadable debit cards. The company offers automated and kiosk-based services, such as DVDPlay, CoinMaster, ATMs, and in-store banks, as well as ACH payment network called Fast Forward. It also offers its digital content through gift card malls. The company markets its products through retail network of grocery, mass, drug, convenience, and specialty retailers. Blackhawk Network, Inc. was formerly known as Blackhawk Marketing Services, Inc. and changed its name to Blackhawk Network, Inc. in August 2006. The company was founded in 2001 and is headquartered in Pleasanton, California. It has additional offices in New Jersey; Germany; Chicago, Illinois; Toronto, Canada; Mexico City, Mexico; London, the United Kingdom; Paris, France; and Sydney, Australia. Blackhawk Network, Inc. operates as a subsidiary of Blackhawk Network Holdings, Inc.

5 contacts available at BlackHawk Network.

| Name | Title | Profile |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Bill Lupo | Vice President Tranasctional Sales | https://shizune.co/investors/profile/bill-lupo-2 |
| Cory Gaines | Chief Product Officer | https://shizune.co/investors/profile/cory-gaines |
| David McLaughlin | CFO | https://shizune.co/investors/profile/david-mclaughlin-f5bc |
| Harel Kodesh | Interim Chief Technology Officer | https://shizune.co/investors/profile/harel-kodesh |
| Nik Sathe | CTO & Product | https://shizune.co/investors/profile/nick-sathe |

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## FAQ

### What does Ron Pragides invest in?

Ron Pragides invests primarily in Software, Artificial Intelligence and SaaS startups, most often at Seed and Series A stage. Most of the 221 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 Ron Pragides's check size?

Ron Pragides typically joins rounds of $2.1M–$9M at Seed, $700k–$4M at Pre-Seed and $10M–$32M 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 Ron Pragides participates in.

### When did Ron Pragides last invest?

The most recent investment recorded for Ron Pragides closed in Apr 2026. Shizune tracks 221 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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