Audrey Capital

About

Audrey Capital is an angel investment and research company founded in 2008 by Matt Mullenweg, the co-creator of WordPress and CEO of Automattic ^{1 2}. The firm is based in San Francisco, California, and operates as Mullenweg’s personal angel investment vehicle ². In addition to Mullenweg, the firm’s partners include Naveen Selvadurai, co-founder of Foursquare, and Audrey Kim ^{3 4}.

Audrey Capital typically invests at the seed or pre-seed stage, with check sizes generally ranging from $25,000 to $75,000 ⁵. The firm has made over 100 investments across its history, with notable exits including Ring (acquired by Amazon), GitLab (IPO 2021), Typekit (acquired by Adobe), Pointy (acquired by Google), and Getaround (IPO 2022) ^{3 6 7}.

In addition to investing, Audrey Capital funds the Audrey Scholars program, which provides tuition scholarships to children of parents or guardians who have contributed significantly to open source ⁸. The program was founded to commemorate WordPress’s 20th anniversary and currently supports 9 scholars, with plans to expand as the firm’s investments become liquid ⁸. The program leverages a provision in the U.S. gift tax code that allows direct education payments without counting toward gift limits ⁸.

Mullenweg has stated that Audrey Capital returns fund profits to the Scholars program to sponsor tuition for aspiring entrepreneurs ².

Stated Thesis

Audrey Capital publicly describes its mission as “empowering visionary entrepreneurs and groundbreaking technologies that solve real problems” ¹. The firm states it is “committed to the principles of open source — championing transparency, collaboration, and community-driven innovation” and invests in “companies and initiatives that embrace these values and contribute to a more open, accessible digital ecosystem” ¹.

The firm’s stated investment criteria focus on four elements: innovative solutions to existing challenges, strong founding teams with clear vision and execution abilities, significant growth and impact potential, and alignment with open source, user empowerment, and technological advancement values ¹.

Audrey Capital’s stated focus areas include web technologies and infrastructure, content management systems, e-commerce solutions, developer tools, digital productivity, and open source software ¹.

Mullenweg has said that when evaluating investments, he looks for “great entrepreneurs” ⁹ and that “all good companies are more motivated by impact than money” ⁹. He has also stated that the qualities he values most are “work ethic, taste, integrity, and curiosity,” saying “I believe that you can learn anything in the world” if someone possesses those four traits ¹⁰.

Inferred Thesis

Based on 20 verified investments where the source, year, and Audrey Capital or Mullenweg’s participation can be confirmed from primary or press sources, the following patterns emerge. This represents roughly 20% of the reported 100+ total investments attributed to Mullenweg across aggregator databases; the sample is too small for reliable sector percentages, so qualitative observations are provided instead.

Sector observations (20 verified investments): Developer tools and web infrastructure are the dominant thread — Typekit (web fonts), SendGrid (email API), GitLab (DevOps), Creative Market (design assets), Chartbeat (analytics), NPM (JavaScript package manager), AppFlowy (open source productivity), and Stripe (payments) all serve developers or web businesses. Consumer companies form a significant secondary cluster — Calm (meditation), DailyBurn (fitness), Hipmunk (travel), Sonos (audio hardware), and Ring (home security). Healthcare and digital therapeutics appear with Mindset Health, Spiraldot Health, and BillionToOne. EdTech is represented by Memrise. Enterprise mobile (Enterproid) and cybersecurity (Nord Security) round out the portfolio.

Stage distribution: Overwhelmingly seed stage. The $25K–$75K check size is consistent with angel participation in early rounds. The majority of verified investments are seed rounds, with occasional growth-stage participation in companies like Sonos and SpaceX ^{5 3}.

Open source as the strongest signal: A disproportionate share of the verifiable portfolio consists of open source companies or developer infrastructure: GitLab, NPM, AppFlowy, Typekit, Creative Market, SendGrid. This behavioral pattern is more pronounced than the stated thesis suggests and represents a genuine preference rooted in Mullenweg’s identity as the creator of WordPress.

Geographic concentration: Portfolio companies are predominantly US-based, with some international outliers — Memrise (UK), Mindset Health (Australia), Pointy (Ireland), Nord Security (Lithuania) ^{3 11 12 13}.

Co-investor patterns: Mullenweg has co-invested repeatedly with Ron Conway/SV Angel (Hipmunk, Typekit), Tim Ferriss (DailyBurn), and founder-angels including Paul Buchheit, Sam Altman (Hipmunk), Tom Preston-Werner, and Steve Chen (AppFlowy) ^{14 15 16}.

Exits: The firm has achieved several notable exits. Ring was acquired by Amazon, GitLab went public in October 2021 (Mullenweg served on the board), Typekit was acquired by Adobe in 2011, DailyBurn was acquired by IAC, Pointy was acquired by Google, Groupcard was acquired by InComm, and Getaround went public in 2022 ^{3 6 7 15 13}.

Notable gap — stated vs. actual thesis: While the firm emphasizes open source values, a substantial portion of the portfolio has no obvious open source connection — Calm, DailyBurn, Hipmunk, Scorbit, Ring, Sonos, SpaceX, Mindset Health. This suggests a significant secondary thread of personal-interest investments in consumer products, wellness, and hardware alongside the core open source / developer tools thesis.

Portfolio

Note: This table represents approximately 25-30% of the 100+ investments reported by aggregator databases. Dates marked “~” are approximate, based on company founding dates, earliest known funding rounds, or aggregator data; exact investment dates are not publicly confirmed for those entries.

In Their Own Words

On the firm’s mission (Audrey Capital website): “We’re committed to the principles of open source — championing transparency, collaboration, and community-driven innovation.” ¹

On what he looks for (Startup Grind fireside chat): “When making an investment, I look for great entrepreneurs.” ⁹

On company motivations (Startup Grind fireside chat): “All good companies are more motivated by impact than money.” ⁹

On the qualities he values most (The Tim Ferriss Show, Episode 190, 2016): “If someone has those four things — work ethic, taste, integrity, and curiosity — I believe that you can learn anything in the world.” ¹⁰

On the role of investors (ma.tt blog, September 2024): “Investors are amazing, they’re the fuel of entrepreneurship and capitalism.” ²¹

On evaluating investors (ma.tt blog, September 2024): “Investors, even ‘private equity’ ones can be okay, but just like with anything, there are good ones and bad ones, so it is worthwhile to look into their track record.” ²¹

On VCs and disruption (ma.tt blog, January 2012): “The hackers and engineers of Y Combinator are doing what hackers and engineers do to any industry, they’re efficiently and ruthlessly disrupting the traditional model.” ²²

On why he joined GitLab’s board (October 2017): “GitLab’s powerful momentum and scaling have a lot of parallels to Automattic and WordPress in their early days. WordPress had to battle a lot of competitors, and ultimately came out on top as a successful company on an open source business model. I hope to help GitLab achieve the same triumph.” ²³

What Founders Say

No independently sourced founder testimonials found. Audrey Capital’s website does not feature founder testimonials.

Sources