# Rough Draft Ventures

> Rough Draft Ventures is a VC fund backing Software and Health Care. See 136 investments, check sizes, portfolio and contact details. Updated Aug 2026.

- Type: VC Fund
- Location: Cambridge, United States
- Total investments: 136
- Last investment: Oct 2024
- Lead investor: 3%
- Last updated: Aug 2026
- LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/company/2864054
- X (Twitter): http://twitter.com/roughdraftvc
- Website: http://roughdraft.vc
- Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/RoughdraftVC

Rough Draft Ventures is a student-led team that funds technology-focused university entrepreneurs. They invest checks through founder-friendly SAFEs via their network of student fellows, supplying the brightest student founders across the US with meaningful resources, access to education, and one of their earliest support systems.The company wasfounded in 2012 and is based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States.

## Contacts

5 contacts available for Rough Draft Ventures. Shizune tracks 10 team members at Rough Draft Ventures. Sign up free to unlock them: https://app.shizune.co/sign-up/investor-profiles/find-team-emails/rough-draft-ventures?utm_source=investor_profile

## Round sizes

| Stage | Round size |
| --- | --- |
| Seed | $120k–$3.5M |
| Pre-Seed | $25k–$1.9M |

## Investment focus

### Industry

| Industry | Investments | Share |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Software | 33 | 24% |
| Health Care | 20 | 15% |
| Artificial Intelligence | 18 | 13% |
| Information Technology | 15 | 11% |
| Internet | 11 | 8% |

188 industries tracked in total.

### Stage

| Stage | Investments | Share |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Seed | 86 | 63% |
| Pre-Seed | 25 | 18% |
| Funding Round | 5 | 4% |
| Series A | 3 | 2% |
| Convertible Note | 3 | 2% |

7 stages tracked in total.

### Country

| Country | Investments | Share |
| --- | --- | --- |
| United States | 111 | 82% |
| Canada | 1 | 1% |

## Team

| Name | Title | Investments | Profile |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Daniella Cohen | Managing Partner | 1 | https://shizune.co/investors/profile/daniella-cohen-3c75 |
| David Oates | Student Team Member | 0 | https://shizune.co/investors/profile/david-oates-2 |
| Denali Tietjen | Student Team Member | 0 | https://shizune.co/investors/profile/denali-tietjen |
| Gregory Karelitz | Mentor | 0 | https://shizune.co/investors/profile/gregory-karelitz |
| Jennifer Wei | Student Team Member | 0 | https://shizune.co/investors/profile/jennifer-wei |

## Investments

| Company | Description | Amount | Stage | Date | Website |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Playfair | We offer the world first Social Finance Ranking API to S-Tier hedge funds globally. Clients subscribe annually for the best financial signals derived from social media today. We are on a mission to create a historical performance ranking for every person on the planet discussing financial markets. | $150K | Pre-Seed | Oct 19, 2024 |  |
| Hinkal | Hinkal is a self-service dApp and SDK that allows liquid funds, institutions, whales, and consumers to run their strategies privately on their favorite dApps. | $4.1M | Seed | Nov 15, 2023 |  |
| UpSide | UpSide is the personal AI search engine that unlocks the full potential of individuals and teams. | $160K | Pre-Seed | Nov 10, 2023 |  |
| Empower Sleep | Empower Sleep provides personalized sleep care online |  | Pre-Seed | Jan 31, 2023 |  |
| Valley | A Digital Silicon Valley | $3.2M | Pre-Seed | Nov 01, 2022 |  |
| Portabl | Portabl blends financial application sign up and account maintenance into a single function backed by decentralized identity standards. | $3.2M | Pre-Seed | Sep 19, 2022 |  |
| EdVisorly | EdVisorly is a revolutionary platform, boosting community college to university student transfer success. EdVisorly empowers community college students with the tools to discover transfer friendly 4 year universities, directly engage with university transfer counselors and admissions teams, and build accurate course roadmaps for admissions to theirtarget bachelor's degree programs. |  | Pre-Seed | Aug 01, 2022 |  |
| Out Of The Box Education | Out Of The Box is a consumer edtech startup founded out of MIT. We bring classroom learning and playing experiences to children anywhere, through a learning platform with personalized content (software) and an award-winning classroom-in-a-box (hardware) that transforms any space into a learning and playing environment. |  | Pre-Seed | Mar 31, 2022 |  |
| SoundMind | SoundMind is a mental health platform that provides personalized music therapy to help individuals manage stress, anxiety, and trauma. The platform is aimed primarily at students and marginalized communities, and the company believes that music has the power to promote mental wellness. SoundMind is part of the Ed-Tech space and is dedicated tomaking music therapy accessible to all. It serves as a data driven solution for organizations to track their members overall wellness and give users their reset and refocus moments instantly. It was founded in 2020 and is based in Los Angeles, California. | $800K | Pre-Seed | Mar 01, 2022 |  |
| Out Of The Box Education | Out Of The Box is a consumer edtech startup founded out of MIT. We bring classroom learning and playing experiences to children anywhere, through a learning platform with personalized content (software) and an award-winning classroom-in-a-box (hardware) that transforms any space into a learning and playing environment. | $20K | Pre-Seed | Oct 31, 2021 |  |

10 of 136 investments shown.

## Co-investors
- [Dorm Room Fund](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/dorm-room-fund) — VC Fund, 23 deals together
- [Techstars](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/techstars) — VC Fund, 8 deals together
- [Y Combinator](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/y-combinator) — VC Fund, 8 deals together
- [General Catalyst](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/general-catalyst-partners) — VC Fund, 6 deals together
- [SV Angel](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/sv-angel) — VC Fund, 6 deals together
- [Alumni Ventures](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/alumni-ventures-group) — VC Fund, 5 deals together

## Similar investors

### Similar industry
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### Similar stage
- [Antler](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/antler-be9c) — VC Fund
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### Similar country
- [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
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## FAQ

### What does Rough Draft Ventures invest in?

Rough Draft Ventures invests primarily in Software, Health Care and Artificial Intelligence startups, most often at Seed and Pre-Seed stage. Most of the 136 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 Rough Draft Ventures's check size?

Rough Draft Ventures typically joins rounds of $120k–$3.5M at Seed and $25k–$1.9M at Pre-Seed. These ranges are 10th–90th percentile round sizes calculated from confirmed public funding rounds, so they are a realistic guide to the rounds Rough Draft Ventures participates in.

### How do I contact Rough Draft Ventures?

Public channels for Rough Draft Ventures 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 Rough Draft Ventures?

The team at Rough Draft Ventures includes Daniella Cohen (Managing Partner), David Oates (Student Team Member) and Denali Tietjen (Student Team Member), among 10 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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