# Thomas Layton

> Thomas Layton is a Series A investor in San Francisco backing Software and Information Technology. See 11 investments, check sizes, portfolio. Updated Aug 2026.

- Type: Angel Investor
- Location: San Francisco, United States
- Total investments: 11
- Last investment: Apr 2025
- Lead investor: 0%
- Last updated: Aug 2026
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thomas-layton-4a824a48

Thomas Layton is a Series A investor in San Francisco focused on Software and Information Technology. Since June 2007, Thomas Layton has served as the Chief Executive Officer of Metaweb Technologies, Inc. He served as CEO of OpenTable from 2001 to June 2007.Previously, Thomas was a co-founder of CitySearch, Inc. which later merged with Ticketmaster and is now a subsidiary of USA Networks. Prior to his experience at Ticketmaster-CitySearch,Thomas was with Score Learning Corporation, a leading educational services company, where he served first as Chief Financial Officer and later as President and Chief Operating Officer.Thomas holds an MBA from the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University and a BS from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

## Round sizes

| Stage | Round size |
| --- | --- |
| Seed | $300k–$26M |
| Series A | $3M–$30M |
| Series B | $9M–$10M |

## Investment focus

### Industry

| Industry | Investments | Share |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Software | 4 | 36% |
| Information Technology | 4 | 36% |
| Service Industry | 3 | 27% |
| Internet | 2 | 18% |
| E-Commerce | 2 | 18% |

32 industries tracked in total.

### Stage

| Stage | Investments | Share |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Series A | 5 | 45% |
| Seed | 4 | 36% |
| Series B | 2 | 18% |

### Country

| Country | Investments | Share |
| --- | --- | --- |
| United States | 8 | 73% |
| Algeria | 1 | 9% |

## Investments

| Company | Description | Amount | Stage | Date | Website |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Hostie | Hostie is an AI-first customer experience platform designed for restaurants, automating guest inquiries, reservations, and takeout orders. We proudly partner with some of the world’s top restaurants, including Flour + Water, Nisei, Slanted Door, ILIS, and more. Co-founded by a product designer-turned-restaurateur and an AI engineer, Hostie blendshospitality expertise with cutting-edge technology to enhance restaurant operations. | $4M | Seed | Apr 29, 2025 |  |
| PipeDreams | PipeDreams is the next gen, tech-powered home services provider. We buy businesses with amazing teams and use technology to grow them into industry leading organizations.Founded in 2020: The PipeDreams team comes from companies like Nextdoor, Bain, and Roto-Rooter. We have a deep understanding of small business dynamics and unique insights intothe local marketing, technology, and M&A needed to disrupt home services.Backed by world class investors: Our team is well capitalized with funding from top Silicon Valley VCs and Angel Investors. We’re hard at work pursuing our opportunity in a highly fragmented, $830B industry in desperate need of modernization. | $25.5M | Series A | Mar 26, 2024 |  |
| PipeDreams | PipeDreams is the next gen, tech-powered home services provider. We buy businesses with amazing teams and use technology to grow them into industry leading organizations.Founded in 2020: The PipeDreams team comes from companies like Nextdoor, Bain, and Roto-Rooter. We have a deep understanding of small business dynamics and unique insights intothe local marketing, technology, and M&A needed to disrupt home services.Backed by world class investors: Our team is well capitalized with funding from top Silicon Valley VCs and Angel Investors. We’re hard at work pursuing our opportunity in a highly fragmented, $830B industry in desperate need of modernization. | $25.5M | Seed | Mar 26, 2024 |  |
| Yassir | Yassir is a transportation service that utilizes a mobile app to enable users to book drivers and travel safely.The company's app locates local drivers that provide on-demand convenience and food delivery, allowing Algerians to travel anywhere they want and get food delivered on-demand.Founded in 2016 by Amel Delli, El Mahdi Yettou,Mustapha Baha, and Noureddine Tayebi and is based in Algiers, Alger, Algeria. | $30M | Series A | Nov 29, 2021 |  |
| Novi Connect | Novi is the leading platform for AI-driven product discoverability, helping brands ensure their products are recommended by AI systems across the shopping platforms where consumers increasingly discover and buy. Novi structures, optimizes, and distributes product data so it can be accurately understood and surfaced by AI systems across shoppingplatforms. By transforming fragmented product information into category-specific, AI-readable formats, Novi ensures products are consistently represented wherever consumers search, browse, and shop. Novi also strengthens each brand’s digital footprint by increasing citation presence and consistency across platforms, driving measurable gains in visibility, traffic, and conversion. Novi is building the product data foundation that AI-powered commerce runs on. Founded in 2020 and headquartered in San Francisco, CA, Novi is backed by Tiger Global, Defy, Greylock, and other leading venture firms. | $10.3M | Series A | Sep 07, 2021 |  |
| NextLesson | NextLesson’s mission is to make learning relevant and engaging. Built for teachers of K-12 students, NextLesson offers relevant curriculum that immerses students in real-world problem solving through topics they care about. | $2.9M | Seed | Sep 02, 2015 |  |
| Hearsay Systems | Founded in 2009, Hearsay Systems is reinventing the human-client experience in financial services. The Hearsay Client Engagement Platform empowers over 200,000 advisors and agents to authentically and intelligently grow business relationships by proactively guiding and capturing the last mile of digital communications. The world’s leading financialfirms—including Allstate, New York Life, Morgan Stanley, and Charles Schwab—rely on Hearsay’s SaaS platform to scale their reach, optimize sales engagements, and deliver exceptional client service in a consistent and compliant manner. Headquartered in San Francisco, Hearsay has a globally distributed team with members in San Francisco, Salt Lake City, Seattle, New York, Toronto, London, Budapest and Manila. Founded in 2009, Hearsay is backed by Sequoia Capital, NewView Capital, and Salesforce Ventures. | $3M | Series A | Feb 03, 2011 |  |
| Coolboard.com | Founded in June 1999, CoolBoard.com is a leading provider of outsourced community solutions that enable Web sites and Web businesses to turn passive visitors into active members and customers. CoolBoard's unique suite of services enable Web sites to turn user interaction into valuable dynamic content which attracts new visitors, drivestransactions, and strengthens customer relationships.CoolBoard.com provides a unique suite of community building solutions for larger commercial web sites as well as personal Web sites and small web businesses that enable them to rapidly and easily build active communities. | $10M | Series B | May 09, 2000 |  |
| SquareTrade | SquareTrade is an independent warranty provider for consumer electronics and appliances. It doesn't matter where you purchased your item, online auction or brick and mortar, the item is eligible for a SquareTrade warranty. | $9M | Series B | Apr 10, 2000 |  |
| Demandline.com | Demandline.com™ based on a single, powerful idea: small, growing companies get no respect! Big companies receive better prices, selection, and service, while the rest of us often pay top dollar for poor service, poor selection, and no-name brands.More and more, small companies do matter: businesses with fewer than 100 employees account for over90% of all the companies in the U.S. and over one third of the revenues. Together, they represent a formidable force, but divided, their voices are drowned out by the din of big company marketing machines.So with all due apologies to the producers of the movie "Network," They're mad as hell and They're not going to take it anymore. | $10M | Series A | Mar 21, 2000 |  |

10 of 11 investments shown.

## Co-investors
- [WndrCo](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/wndrco-llc) — VC Fund, 3 deals together
- [Canvas Prime](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/canvas-venture-fund) — VC Fund, 2 deals together
- [Greylock](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/greylock) — VC Fund, 2 deals together
- [Plural](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/plural-9df0) — VC Fund, 2 deals together
- [Burst Capital](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/burst-capital) — VC Fund, 1 deal together
- [CD&R LLP](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/clayton-dubilier-rice) — VC Fund, 1 deal together

## Similar investors

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

### Similar stage
- [Antler](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/antler-be9c) — VC Fund
- [Alumni Ventures](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/alumni-ventures-group) — VC Fund
- [General Catalyst](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/general-catalyst-partners) — VC Fund

### Similar country
- [Algerian Startup Fund](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/algerian-startup-fund) — VC Fund
- [Unpopular Ventures](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/unpopular-ventures) — VC Fund
- [Alumni Ventures](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/alumni-ventures-group) — VC Fund

## Featured in investor lists
- [All Investors in Algeria](https://shizune.co/investors/investors-algeria)
- [Software Angel Investors in Algeria](https://shizune.co/investors/software-angel-investors-algeria)
- [Enterprise Investors in Algeria](https://shizune.co/investors/enterprise-investors-algeria)
- [Enterprise Angel Investors in Algeria](https://shizune.co/investors/enterprise-angel-investors-algeria)
- [SaaS Investors in Algeria](https://shizune.co/investors/saas-investors-algeria)
- [SaaS Angel Investors in Algeria](https://shizune.co/investors/saas-angel-investors-algeria)

## FAQ

### What does Thomas Layton invest in?

Thomas Layton invests primarily in Software, Information Technology and Service Industry startups, most often at Series A and Seed stage. Most of the 11 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 Thomas Layton's check size?

Thomas Layton typically joins rounds of $300k–$26M at Seed, $3M–$30M at Series A and $9M–$10M at Series B. These ranges are 10th–90th percentile round sizes calculated from confirmed public funding rounds, so they are a realistic guide to the rounds Thomas Layton participates in.

### When did Thomas Layton last invest?

The most recent investment recorded for Thomas Layton closed in Apr 2025. Shizune tracks 11 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.

# About Shizune
Shizune.co is an investor database. Core features:
- 48,091 startup investors (angels, VCs, accelerators, and others)
- Email, phone, LinkedIn (for intros), socials, and other contact data
- Updated daily from public funding news
- CSV and Excel export

The User can access the full database FOR FREE after signing up: shizune.co