Top 50 Recruiting Angel Investors in United States in January 2026

Elad Gil is the Co-Founder of Color Genomics. He previously worked at Twitter as a Vice President. Elad Gil attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Kyle Vogt is the CEO of The Bot Company.

Jack Altman is the founder and CEO of Lattice.

Jason Calacanis is the Founder and CEO of Inside.com and Launch. He previously worked at Weblogs as a Co-Founder and CEO. Jason Calacanis attended Fordham University.

Sam Altman is the CEO and co-founder of OpenAI. He is a Partner of Apollo Projects. Altman was the president of Y Combinator. Sam attended Stanford University.

Jessica Livingston is a Co-founding partner. She is also the organizer of Startup School, the big annual startup conference, and the author of Founders at Work, a collection of interviews with successful startup founders.

Tikhon Bernstam is an American entrepreneur who cofounded the companies Scribd and Parse.

Michael Lynton is CEO of Sony Entertainment, where he oversees Sony's global entertainment businesses, including Sony Music Entertainment, Sony/ATV Music Publishing and Sony Pictures Entertainment. Lynton is also Chairman and CEO of Sony Pictures Entertainment (SPE), managing the studio's overall global operations, which includemotion picture, television and digital content production and distribution, home entertainment acquisition and distribution, operation of studio facilities, and the development of new entertainment products, services and technologies.At Sony Pictures Entertainment, Lynton has focused on digital transformation, worldwide growth, content diversity and financial discipline, leading the studio through an era of innovation and success, putting Sony Pictures on the cutting edge of an industry experiencing rapid technological and global change.Sony Pictures' Motion Picture Group has enjoyed a remarkable run in the past several years, releasing such hits as Best Picture Oscar® nominees American Hustle, Captain Phillips, and The Social Network, as well as blockbuster franchises like The Amazing Spider-Man, Grown-Ups, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, and The Smurfs.Between movies and TV, SPE received 26 nominations for the 2014 Golden Globes® and won seven awards, more than any other studio.Sony Pictures Television (SPT) is one of the television industry's leading content providers. It produces and distributes programming in every genre, around the world and for a multitude of platforms. In addition to one of the industry's largest libraries of award-winning feature films, television shows and formats, SPT boasts a current program slate that includes top-rated daytime dramas and game shows, landmark off-network series, original animated series and critically acclaimed primetime dramas, comedies and telefilms. In addition to its U.S. production business, SPT has 19 wholly-owned or joint venture production companies in 13 countries.SPT's worldwide media networks include 150 channel feeds available in 178 countries, reaching more than 1.3 billion cumulative households worldwide. Popular channel brands include AXN, Animax, and SET (Sony Entertainment Television), as well as the studio's ad-supported VOD service, Crackle.Sony Pictures Home Entertainment distributes Sony Pictures produced and third-party acquired theatrical and non-theatrical product on Blu-ray Disc, DVD and other digital media globally. Among the more than 3,500 titles in SPHE's catalog are the Spider-Man and Men In Black franchises, the Seinfeld TV series, and film classics on such as Lawrence of Arabia, Taxi Driver and Close Encounters of the Third Kind.Sony Pictures is also home to Imageworks, the only major studio Academy Award®-winning in-house visual effects unit.Under Lynton, Sony Pictures has been an industry leader in the migration to digital entertainment, from production and distribution to the introduction of new formats. The studio championed the industry's UltraViolet digital entertainment format, helped re-introduce 3D to the entertainment industry and is deeply engaged in the rapidly expanding 4K marketplace.Prior to joining Sony Pictures, Lynton worked for Time Warner and served as CEO of AOL Europe, President of AOL International and President of Time Warner International.From 1996 to 2000, Lynton served as Chairman and CEO of Pearson plc's Penguin Group, where he oversaw the acquisition of Putnam, Inc. and extended the Penguin brand to music and the Internet.Lynton joined The Walt Disney Company in 1987 and started Disney Publishing, serving as its President. From 1992 to1996, he served as President of Disney's Hollywood Pictures.Lynton holds a Bachelor of Arts in history and literature from Harvard College and a Masters of Business Administration from Harvard Business School.Lynton is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and serves on the boards of the American Film Institute, the Smithsonian Board of Regents, the Harvard Board of Overseers, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, J. Paul Getty Trust, USC School of Cinematic Arts and the RAND Corporation.In addition, he sits on the board of directors of Snapchat and Ares Management, L.P.Lynton resides in Los Angeles with his wife, Elizabeth Jamie Alter Lynton, and their three daughters, Eloise Lynton, Maisie Lynton and Lucinda Lynton.

Drew Houston is co-founder and CEO of Dropbox. Since founding the company in 2007 with Arash Ferdowsi, Drew has led the company’s growth from a simple idea to a service used by over 600 million people around the world. Drew received his bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from MIT in 2006. After graduating, he turnedhis frustration with carrying USB drives and emailing files to himself into a demo for what became Dropbox. Today, Dropbox is one of the world's leading business collaboration platforms, with 15 million paying subscribers and nearly 3000 employees across 12 global offices.

David Windley is the President at Caldwell. He attended San Francisco State University, Lam Family College of Business.

James Beshara is the founder of Magic Mind.

Rudy Gadre is Partner at Founder's Co-op. Rudy Gadre is an active angel Investor and is also an Advisor to startups. Rudy Gadre served as Vice President and General Counsel of Facebook, where Rudy Gadre was responsible for all legal matters since January 2006. In 1999, he joined Amazon and served as its Vice President and Associate GeneralCounsel for Business Development, intellectual property, and new technologies. He was the Principal Legal Negotiator for Amazon's most significant strategic alliances and joint ventures, where Rudy Gadre oversaw the development and licensing of patents and other intellectual property, and was responsible for all legal aspects of Amazon's new technology initiatives. From September 1994 to February 1999, Rudy Gadre worked at Perkins Coie LLP, as an Associate in the technology business group. At Perkins, he represented clients ranging from startups to Fortune 100 companies in a diverse array of matters, including joint ventures, development, protection and licensing of intellectual property, and mergers and acquisitions. Rudy Gadre served as Vice President of Business Operations at Evri, Inc, from September 2008 to July 2010. He serves as a Member of Strategic Advisory Board at Syntonic Limited. He served as a Director of Jobaline.com Inc. He served as an Independent Director of The W Fund. He is a passionate supporter of the Seattle technology ecosystem. He was recognized by Washington Law and Politics magazine as a "Super Lawyer" in 2003 and 2004. Rudy Gadre holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics from Franklin and Marshall College and graduated from the University of Washington School of Law.

Aaron Levie is Chief Executive Officer, Cofounder and Chairman at Box, which he launched in 2005 with CFO and cofounder Dylan Smith. He is the visionary behind the Box product and platform strategy, incorporating the best of secure content collaboration with an intuitive user experience suited to the way people work today. Aaron leads the companyin its mission to transform the way people and businesses work so they can achieve their greatest ambitions. He has served on the Board of Directors since April 2005.Aaron attended the University of Southern California from 2003 to 2005 before leaving to found Box.

Hans Robertson serves startups as an investor and advisor. He is the former chief operating officer and the vice president of products at Meraki. Previously, he served EMC as the group product manager.Prior to EMC, Robertson was an accounts manager at VMware. He holds a bachelor’s degree in computer science and a Master of Engineering degree fromMassachusetts Institute of Technology.

Eric Wu is the President of Opendoor. He previously worked at Trulia.com as a Head of Geo/Social Products. Eric Wu attended the University of Arizona.

Paul Graham is the Founder of Y Combinator.

Jacob Gibson is the Co-Founder and Partner of Better Tomorrow Ventures. He is a former co-founder and COO at NerdWallet. He attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Diego Piacentini has served as Senior Vice President, International Consumer Business, since February 2012. From January 2007 until February 2012, Diego Piacentini served as Senior Vice President, International Retail, from November 2001 until December 2006, he served as Senior Vice President, Worldwide Retail and Marketing and, from February 2000until November 2001, he served as Senior Vice President and General Manager, International. Prior to joining Amazon.com, Piacentini was Vice President and General Manager of Apple Computer Europe, where he headed operations for Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Piacentini joined Apple Computer in 1987. He held several financial management positions both in Apple Italy and at a European level through 1993. Piacentini served as Sales Director for Apple Italy in 1994 and was promoted to the post of General Manager for Apple Italy in May 1995.Piacentini holds a degree in economics from Bocconi University of Milan. An Italian national, he has traveled and worked across Europe, Asia and North America.n Senior Vice President of International Consumer at Amazon.com Inc. since February 2012.

Ilya Sukhar currently works as the General Partner for Matrix Partners. He previously worked at Y Combinator as a part-time partner.

Michael Seibel is the Managing Director and Group Partner of Y Combinator. He previously worked at Socialcam as a CEO. Michael Seibel attended Yale University.

Avichal is Managing Partner at Electric Capital. He is a serial entrepreneur and technology executive. Avichal sold two companies and was most recently Director of Product at Facebook, which acquired his company Spool in 2012. He previously worked at Google on search ranking and ads ranking, is part-time at YCombinator, and an active angelinvestor.Avichal's firm, Electric Capital, focuses on cryptocurrencies that are rooted in technological utility. Electric performs deep technological diligence, such as compiling code, profiling nodes, and analyzing blockchains with in-house software. The founders of Electric have started and sold five companies, have been investing in cryptocurrencies since 2013, and are investors in Anchor, Bitwise, Chia, Coda, dYdX, Dfinity, Oasis, Thunder and many other crypto projects.

Daniel Gross is the Co-Founder of Pioneer. He previously worked at Y Combinator as a Head of AI.

Emmett Shear was the Founder and CEO of Twitch (www.twitch.tv), the world’s leading video platform and community for gamers. Mr. Shear was also a Co-Founder of Justin.tv and a part-time Partner at venture capital firm Y Combinator, where he advises fledgling startups on product and strategy. Mr. Shear graduated from Yale University in 2005 and in2012 was included in Forbes Magazine on their 30 under 30 list. Twitch launched in 2011, and in 2014 The Wall Street Journal cited the brand as having the 4th largest peak internet traffic in the U.S.

Lauren DeLuca is a Founder and Managing Partner of Motivate Venture Capital, a Chicago-based Pre-Seed and Seed investor.He co-founded a family of niche FinTech firms and was an active Angel investor. In 2012, he co-founded Sailfish Systems, a managed services and market data provider for trading firms, banks, and hedge funds. Sailfish merged withVictory Networks in 2013 to serve clients across the US and Europe. The combined business was ultimately sold to QuantHouse, a Paris-based trading technology provider, in 2017.He co-founded Oxford Intelligence Partners at the beginning of 2015, a boutique stock market-analytics firm. Clients included many Fortune 500 companies before a successful exit to Q4 Inc., a Toronto-based strategic acquirer serving 1000+ clients. His personal Angel portfolio spans a multitude of B2B/B2C verticals and contains over thirty early- and growth-stage businesses, including Chime, HomeChef, TradingView, Appcast, Popular Pays, DeskPass and PostProcess Technologies. He received my MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University and holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science from the University of Notre Dame where he graduated Cum Laude in 2001.

Anna Marie Wagner is a SVP, Corporate Development at Ginkgo Bioworks. He Attended Harvard Business School.

Greg Brockman is the President, Chairman and Co-Founder of OpenAI. He previously worked at Stripe as a CTO. Greg Brockman attended Harvard University.

Paul Buchheit co-founded social network aggregator FriendFeed, along with three other former Google employees. He is also an investor in FriendFeed and participated in a $5 million Series A round in February 2008.He was the 23rd employee at Google, where he created Gmail and implemented many of its innovative features. He developed the originalprototype of Google AdSense, and was responsible for Google's famous "Don't be evil" motto in a meeting.

Dave McClure is the founder of Practical Venture Capital and has been an investor and entrepreneur in Silicon Valley for over twenty-five years. Previously he was the founding partner of 500 Startups, a global VC firm and startup accelerator with over $500M in assets under management. Dave has invested in hundreds of companies around the world,including more than 15 unicorns and 5 IPOs. He was named by Forbes as one of the top VCs in the world in 2016 and 2017 (Forbes Midas List). Before 500 Startups, Dave worked at Founders Fund and PayPal, and he graduated from the Johns Hopkins University in 1988 with a BS in engineering and applied mathematics.

Jonathan is the Founder of Torch Capital. A long time entrepreneur and investor, he has spent his career at the intersection of the media, technology and entertainment industries. He is the Co-Founder of digital media company InsideHook and has spent a decade as an active early stage investor and advisor to a number of New York and LA's topstart-ups.

Justin Mateen is the Cofounder and former CMO of Tinder, the world's largest dating platform. In 2021, and 2022 Business Insider ranked Mateen as the best early stage investor in the US, placing him at the number 1 spot on the top 100 list of US Seed Investors both years. In 2020, Forbes included Mateen on their list of the decade's top10 tech entrepreneurs. Fast Company has listed him as one of the most creative people in business.Founded in 2012, Tinder is the highest grossing app on Apple's app store since 2017 and was valued at over $40 Billion dollars in 2021.

Shannon Sweeney Offen - Investment Banker @ SunTrust Robinson Humphrey

Ellen Levy is the Managing Director of Silicon Valley Connect.

David King is a Founder of Highlighter. He attended University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign for Computer Engineering.

Ben Walton - Co-founder @ Styck

Axel Sven Springer

Kevin Patrick Mahaffey is the Founder of Lookout and SNR. He is also the Executive Chairman of Stork Club and an Investor.

Laszlo Bock is the CEO and Co-Founder of Humu, a company that nudges people towards better work habits—unlocking the potential of individuals, teams, and organizations. His New York Times bestselling book, WORK RULES! Insights from Inside Google to Transform How You Live and Lead, has been published in more than 25 languages and garnered numerous“book of the year” honors. From 2006 to 2016, Laszlo was Senior Vice President of People Operations and a member of Google’s management team, growing the company from 6,000 to 72,000 employees. During his tenure, Google was recognized over 150 times as an exceptional employer, including being named the #1 Best Company to Work for in the United States seven times.Laszlo is credited with creating the field of “People Analytics”, the application of academic-quality rigor and Google-paced innovation to people management. He also led the development of what is now known as Google for Jobs.In 2010 he was named “Human Resources Executive of the Year” and in 2015 the “HR Professional of the Decade.” He (briefly) was ranked #1 in the world in the video game Assassin’s Creed.Laszlo earned a bachelor’s degree in international relations from Pomona College, graduating in three years, and an MBA from the Yale School of Management.

John Jahr

Ryan Holmes is the CEO and Founder of HootSuite. Thought leader, dog lover and serial entrepreneur, he has redefined the face of social media - bringing Twitter, Facebook and other social networks out of the dorm room and into the boardroom.Holmes has grown HootSuite from a lean startup to a global leader in social media with 8 million users,including 79 of the Fortune 100 companies. A college drop-out, he started a paintball company and pizza restaurant before founding Invoke Media, the company that developed HootSuite in 2009.Today, Holmes is an authority on the social business revolution, quoted in The New York Times and Wall Street Journal and called upon to speak at TEDx and SXSW Interactive Conferences. An angel investor and advisor, he mentors startups in Canada and around the world. Through HootSuite University, Holmes partners with major universities to deliver social media coursework to the next generation of business leaders.

Tom Friel is a Member of the Advisory Board at DocuSign.

Brian Spaly is the General Partner of Brand Foundry Ventures and Executive Chairman of Tecovas. He is a former CEO at TrunkClub. He attended Princeton University and Stanford University.

Thomas D. Lehrman is the Board Director at Gerson Lehrman Group.He is a Co - Founder and former Co - Chief Executive Officer of Gerson Lehrman Group, Inc. Thomas Lehrman most recently served as Director of the Office of WMD Terrorism at the U.S. Department of State and previously as a member of the professional staff on the President's WMDCommission. Earlier in his career, he worked as a Financial Analyst at Tiger Management. He is also a Co - Founder & Board Member of the Brooklyn Excelsior Charter School and the Hillhouse Scholars Program. Thomas Lehrman is a Chartered Financial Analyst and graduated from Duke University and Yale Law School.

Russell Fradin is the Vice Chairman of Carbon Health. From October 2005 to April 2010, Russell co-founded and served as Chief Executive Officer of Adify Corporation, an on-line advertising company sold to Cox Enterprises. Prior to that time, Russell was comScore’s Executive Vice President of Corporate Development, Senior Vice President ofBusiness Development at Wine.com and Vice President of Business Development at Flycast Communications. Russell currently serves as a Member of the Board of Directors at comScore, TubeMogul and CoachArt and has previously served on the boards of Udemy, Outside.in and several others. Russell holds a B.S. degree in Economics from the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania.

David Wieland is the co-founder and managing partner of Motivate Ventures, a venture capital firm in Chicago. David is a serial technology entrepreneur with three exits (RIVS, Powersurge Technologies and InnFlux). He is the co-founder, former chairman, and investment committee member of VitalizeVC (fka IrishAngels.). BA Philosophy, Government NotreDame. MBA Northwestern / Kellogg.

Howard Tullman has over 45 years of start-up, management, IPO and turn-around experience and an extensive operations background in web development, online services, large-scale information assembly and delivery systems, database design and implementation and the development, creation and production of all types and formats of multimedia, computergames and audio/video digital content. He has designed and developed GUI and natural user interfaces, interactive and immersive games and instruction systems and other electronic entertainments, training products and services, as well as other information-based products and services in a variety of fields including automotive, insurance, CRM, employment, real estate, consumer goods and social media.

Joe Mansueto founded Morningstar in 1984. He has served as chairman since the company’s inception and as chief executive officer from 1984 to 1996 and again from 2000 to present.Under Mansueto’s leadership, Morningstar has been named twice to Fortune magazine’s “100 Best Companies to Work For” list, in 2011 and 2012. The Chicago Tribunerecognized Morningstar as one of the top 100 workplaces in the Chicago area in 2010, 2011, and 2012, and Crain’s Chicago Business listed Morningstar in its Fast Fifty feature in 2007, 2008, 2009, and 2011. Morningstar won the 2010 AIGA Chicago Chapter Corporate Design Leadership Award, which recognizes forward-thinking organizations that have advanced design by promoting it as a meaningful business policy.Mansueto was the recipient of the PLANSPONSOR Lifetime Achievement Award in 2013. In 2010, Mansueto received the Tiburon CEO Summit award, MutualFundWire.com named him ninth on its list of the 100 Most Influential People of the year, and Chicago magazine listed Mansueto among its top 40 Chicago pioneers over the past four decades. In 2007, SmartMoney magazine recognized Mansueto in the “SmartMoney Power 30,” its annual list of the 30 most powerful forces in business and finance. He received the Distinguished Entrepreneurial Alumnus Award from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business in 2000

Brendan Wallace is the Co-Founder and Managing Partner at Fifth Wall. Brendan Wallace attended Princeton University.

Julia Hartz hopes to inspire people to live more by building the world's largest marketplace of live experiences. Since founding Eventbrite in 2006 with Kevin Hartz and Renaud Visage, the company has generated over $3 billion in gross ticket sales, with more than $200 million tickets processed to events and experiences around the globe.A key to this growth and success is the people of Eventbrite (fondly referred to as The Britelings), which has grown to nearly 400 employees in six offices around the world.Julia cultivates and advocates for Eventbrite's award-winning culture (voted Best Places to Work in the San Francisco Bay Area five years running). She has been honored as one of Inc.'s 35 under 35 in 2014 and Fortune's Most Powerful Women Entrepreneurs in 2013.Julia is also a frequent speaker on live experiences, consumer trends and entrepreneurship, and has been recently featured in Forbes, Fortune, Bloomberg and Inc. Magazine. Previous to Eventbrite, Julia was a TV development executive at MTV and FX Networks.

Joel Peterson is the Founding Partner of Whitman Peterson.

Joshua G. James is the Founder of Silicon Slopes Venture Fund. He previously worked at Adobe Systems as an SVP, GM, and Founder Omniture Business Unit. Joshua G. James attended Brigham Young University.