Shawn Fanning
Angel Investor
San Francisco, United States
Shawn Fanning is an American computer programmer, entrepreneur, and angel investor. He developed Napster, one of the first popular peer-to-peer ("P2P") file sharing platforms, in 1999. The popularity of Napster was widespread and Fanning was featured on the cover of Time magazine. The site in its initial free P2P incarnation was shut downin 2001 after the company's unsuccessful appeal of court orders arising from its encouraging the illegal sharing of copyrighted material. A paid subscription version of the site followed, and was purchased by Rhapsody on December 1, 2011. Following his involvement with Napster, he joined, and invested in, a number of early-stage technology startup companies.
- Total investments:
- 12
- Last investment:
- Lead investor:
- 0%
Last updated:
For AI agents: llms.txt
Industries Shawn Fanning invests in
Stages Shawn Fanning invests in
Countries Shawn Fanning invests in
Contacts
| Type | Contact | Validation |
|---|---|---|
| Work email | ||
| Personal email | ||
| Work phone | ||
| Personal phone | ||
| Socials |
Investment Focus
Industry
- Mobile Apps 3 (25%)
- Internet of Things 3 (25%)
- Hardware 2 (17%)
- Software 2 (17%)
- Wireless 2 (17%)
Stage
- Seed 4 (33%)
- Series A 3 (25%)
- Angel 1 (8%)
- Series C 1 (8%)
- Funding Round 1 (8%)
Investments
| Company | Description | Round | Links |
|---|---|---|---|
| Helium is an Internet-of-Things developer platform for building the network and transferring IoT device data. The platform building the peer-to-peer wireless network to simplify connecting anything to the internet by rewarding anyone to become a network operator. It provides wireless coverage for low power Internet of Things (IoT) devices and earnsa new cryptocurrency, Helium, from your living room.Helium tokens by verifying network transactions, adding new blocks to the blockchain, and performing other tasks. The Proof-of-Coverage is a unique work algorithm that uses radio waves to validate Hotspots are providing legitimate wireless coverage. | $15M / Series C / Jun 12, 2019 | ||
| Sproutling provides tools that help parents by providing real-time insights about their child through wearable monitors. It creates thoughtfully-designed products to help make parents more effective. Their first product, The Sproutling Baby Monitor, is really the first-of-its-kind baby monitor that not only monitors a baby and their environment,but learns and predicts a baby’s sleep patterns such as when they should expect their baby to wake up, or an optimal time to put them to sleep so that they can get better quality sleep.The company was founded in 2012 and is headquartered in San Francisco, California. | $6.6M / Venture - Series Unknown / Jan 29, 2015 | ||
| SonicEnergy, Inc. is a wireless power startup that transmits power to charge electronic devices over-the-air. Its ultrasonic technology comprises a transmitter, which emits a high-frequency sound that is inaudible to users and their pets; and transmits power directly to receivers requesting power, which convert power to usable electrical energyusing energy-harvesting technology.It was founded in 2012 and headquartered in Santa Monica, California. | $10M / Series A / Oct 30, 2014 | ||
| Helium is an Internet-of-Things developer platform for building the network and transferring IoT device data. The platform building the peer-to-peer wireless network to simplify connecting anything to the internet by rewarding anyone to become a network operator. It provides wireless coverage for low power Internet of Things (IoT) devices and earnsa new cryptocurrency, Helium, from your living room.Helium tokens by verifying network transactions, adding new blocks to the blockchain, and performing other tasks. The Proof-of-Coverage is a unique work algorithm that uses radio waves to validate Hotspots are providing legitimate wireless coverage. | $2.8M / Seed / Nov 01, 2013 | ||
| Sproutling provides tools that help parents by providing real-time insights about their child through wearable monitors. It creates thoughtfully-designed products to help make parents more effective. Their first product, The Sproutling Baby Monitor, is really the first-of-its-kind baby monitor that not only monitors a baby and their environment,but learns and predicts a baby’s sleep patterns such as when they should expect their baby to wake up, or an optimal time to put them to sleep so that they can get better quality sleep.The company was founded in 2012 and is headquartered in San Francisco, California. | $2.6M / Aug 27, 2013 | ||
| SonicEnergy, Inc. is a wireless power startup that transmits power to charge electronic devices over-the-air. Its ultrasonic technology comprises a transmitter, which emits a high-frequency sound that is inaudible to users and their pets; and transmits power directly to receivers requesting power, which convert power to usable electrical energyusing energy-harvesting technology.It was founded in 2012 and headquartered in Santa Monica, California. | $985K / Debt Financing / Apr 22, 2013 | ||
| Uber develops, markets, and operates a ridesharing mobile application that allows consumers to submit a trip request that is routed to crowd-sourced partner drivers.Its smartphone application connects drivers with people who need a ride. Its application enables users to arrange and schedule transportation and/or logistics services withthird-party providers. They take on big problems to help drivers, riders, delivery partners, and eaters get moving in more than 600 cities around the world. It also provides Windows Phone App, iPhone App, Blackberry App, and Android App. Uber serves customers in North, Central, and South Americas as well as Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and the Asia PacificGarrett Camp, Oscar Salazar, and Travis Kalanick founded UberCab in March 2009 which became Uber Technologies in October 2010, with its headquarters in San Francisco California, and an engineering center in Bengaluru in India as well as a regional office in Singapore. | $1.3M / Angel / Oct 15, 2010 | ||
| BranchOut lets people capture and share everyday moments in the workplace through photos, news and updates. These moments create Professional Timelines, living narratives of who we are at work. BranchOut allows people to bring their careers to life by showcasing the professional moments that define them.BranchOut is the largest professionalcommunity on Facebook with more than 30 million users. BranchOut allows people to build their professional brands by sharing photos and posts that dynamically showcase their professional skills, expertise and accomplishments. | $6M / Series A / Sep 17, 2010 | ||
| Wavii automatically generates status updates for celebrities, companies, politicians, and more. Wavii accomplishes this with proprietary Natural Language Processing (NLP) technology that reads articles and blogs across the web, de-duplicates each story, and figures out what's happening with these topics. For example, a political victory,breakup, acquisition, or new product release.In the same way that people use Facebook to follow friends, Wavii allows you to follow the topics you care about. | $2M / Seed / Jul 01, 2010 | ||
| A live social space where people build communities around shared interests through video, audio, and chat. | $8.3M / Seed / Jun 01, 2010 | ||
| See all 12 investments → | |||
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FAQ
What does Shawn Fanning invest in?
Shawn Fanning invests primarily in Mobile Apps, Internet of Things and Hardware startups, most often at Seed and Series A stage. Most of the 12 investments tracked by Shizune back companies in United States. The Investment Focus section breaks down every industry, stage and country in the portfolio.
How do I contact Shawn Fanning?
Public channels for Shawn Fanning include LinkedIn, X (Twitter) and Facebook. 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 Shawn Fanning last invest?
The most recent investment recorded for Shawn Fanning closed in Jun 2019. Shizune tracks 12 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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