SV Angel

About

SV Angel is a San Francisco-based venture capital firm founded by Ron Conway in 2009, when Conway converted his personal investment vehicle into a formal venture fund and raised $10 million from outside investors ¹². Conway’s investing career predates the firm: he began angel investing in the mid-1990s, raised $4 million for his first fund (Adam Ventures) in 1997, and founded Angel Investors LP in 1998, which made early bets on Google and PayPal ³⁴.

The firm was co-founded with David Lee, who served as Managing Partner from 2007 to 2015 ⁵⁶. In 2012, Conway publicly stated that SV Angel was “David’s fund” ⁶. Lee departed in May 2015, and Topher Conway — Ron’s son, who had been at the firm since 2009 — was elevated to Co-Managing Partner ⁵⁷.

SV Angel raised six seed funds, with its sixth and most recent seed fund closing at $53 million in November 2016 ⁸. In June 2018, the firm announced it would stop raising external funds entirely, with Ron and Topher Conway investing their own capital in smaller checks of $25,000 to $100,000 per company ¹⁹. Three partners — Brian Pokorny, Kevin Carter, and Robert Pollak — departed as active partners at that time ⁹.

In March 2022, SV Angel reversed course by raising $269 million for its first-ever growth equity fund (SV Angel Growth I), led by Managing Partner Ashvin Bachireddy, who joined from Geodesic Capital ¹⁰¹¹. The growth fund targets Series B and later rounds with $5 million to $20 million check sizes ¹⁰. In January 2025, SV Angel raised $330 million for its second growth fund (SV Angel Growth II), with commitments from 94 investors ¹².

In December 2024, Ronny Conway — Ron’s other son, previously a partner at Andreessen Horowitz and founder of A.Capital — joined SV Angel as Managing Partner overseeing firm operations ¹³. The current investment team also includes General Partners Mike Sho Liu (formerly of Qatalyst Partners and Roblox) and Andrea Wang (formerly of General Catalyst), and Principal Sourav Gupta ⁷.

As of March 2026, SV Angel has invested in 791 companies over approximately 27 years, averaging 29 new investments annually over the last decade ¹⁴. The firm has 77 unicorns in its portfolio, 32 companies that have gone public, and 270 portfolio companies that have been acquired ¹⁴.

SV Angel’s seed fund typically invests $200,000 in early-stage companies ¹⁵. The firm does not take board seats and does not lead investment rounds ¹⁵. The firm describes its approach as “hyper-engaged, founder-focused, and community-oriented” ¹⁶.

Stated Thesis

SV Angel publicly describes itself as “advocates for founders” and organizes its work around five core principles ¹⁷:

1. Sweat the details — “No job is too small” when helping founders; the team follows up quickly to ensure portfolio company success ¹⁷.
2. Advocate for founders — Prioritize founder needs by supporting leaders “as whole people, not just entrepreneurs” ¹⁷.
3. Nourish the network — Function as a “routing layer” for the technology ecosystem, reducing friction to benefit the broader community ¹⁷.
4. Do the right thing — Foster inclusive communities where participants hold each other to high standards ¹⁷.
5. Show up when it matters — Provide strongest support at critical inflection points including M&A, key hires, business development, and financing ¹⁷.

The firm states it seeks “founders who share our values and personify their products,” emphasizing “passionate leaders with long-term vision who lead by example” ¹⁵. SV Angel describes its investment focus as “software-based companies in consumer and enterprise sectors,” and states that its portfolio is “primarily US-based” but welcomes companies outside Silicon Valley ¹⁵.

On board seats, Topher Conway has stated: “We think that at some point in the business, the boardroom will get contentious and the founder and the board won’t agree on something. And so we never want to put ourselves in that position” ¹⁸. The firm characterizes itself as “valuation and ownership insensitive” at the seed stage ¹⁸.

Ron Conway’s investment priority is explicit: “People first, idea second, market size third” ⁴¹⁹. Topher Conway has echoed this: “A founder’s grit and determination, not the environmental conditions, are the key factors in their success” ²⁰.

SV Angel also emphasizes its “Inflection Point Approach” — concentrating support at moments where “a single decision or connection can dictate the course of a company” ²¹.

Inferred Thesis

The following analysis is based on 155 portfolio companies listed on SV Angel’s website ²², categorized by primary sector. With 791 total investments reported by Tracxn ¹⁴, this represents approximately 20% of the full portfolio — the publicly highlighted portion, which likely skews toward the firm’s most notable investments.

Sector Allocation (computed from 155 verified portfolio entries)

• Enterprise SaaS / Developer Tools / Infrastructure: 49 companies (32%) — Stripe, Databricks, Rippling, Notion, Figma, Slack, Okta, Asana, GitHub, Retool, Vercel, PagerDuty, Elastic, Cockroach Labs, Zapier, Amplitude, Lattice, Ironclad, Drata, Carta, Segment, Pilot, Mux, Replit, Augment Code, Zip, Lightning AI, Apollo.io, Deel, Mercury, Guideline, Human Interest, Mercor, Tecton, Modular, Tabular, Kumo, Snorkel, Decagon, Magical, Checkr, Gusto, Newfront Insurance, Mandolin, Coactive, Netic, dev/agents, Browser Use, Sesame
• AI / Machine Learning: 22 companies (14%) — OpenAI, Anthropic, Mistral AI, ElevenLabs, Harvey, Sierra, Hugging Face, Character.AI, Adept, World Labs, Together AI, Hippocratic AI, HeyGen, Captions, Skild AI, SSI, Black Forest Labs, The Bot Company, Applied Compute, Cerebras, Parallel, Reflection
• Consumer Internet / Social / Media: 16 companies (10%) — Google, Meta, Twitter, Snapchat, Pinterest, Reddit, Patreon, Credit Karma, Hims, Course Hero, GOAT, Eventbrite, Polymarket, Kalshi, Oscar, Ethos
• Fintech / Payments / Crypto: 14 companies (9%) — Square, Coinbase, Affirm, Brex, Chainalysis, Dapper Labs, OpenSea, Uniswap, NEAR Protocol, Anchorage Digital, Wise, Revolut, Aztec, Yuga Labs
• Marketplaces / E-commerce / Logistics: 13 companies (8%) — Airbnb, DoorDash, Instacart, Faire, StockX, Warby Parker, Flexport, ShipBob, Roofstock, Bowery, Vetcove, Snapdocs, IO
• Health / Biotech: 12 companies (8%) — Flatiron Health, Mammoth Biosciences, Benchling, Color, Grail, Cedar, Pearl Health, Ribbon Health, Formation Bio, Cellanome, Periodic Labs, Abridge
• Defense / Aerospace / Autonomous: 6 companies (4%) — Anduril, Applied Intuition, Cruise, Boom, Astranis, Flock Safety
• Other (HR, Real Estate, Climate, etc.): 23 companies (15%) — Dropbox, Twilio, Twitch, The Trade Desk, BetterUp, Watershed, Standard AI, Covariant, Armada, Veriff, Method, Iru, Traversal, humans&, and others

Stage Distribution

According to Tracxn data ¹⁴: SV Angel has made 439 seed-stage investments (56% of total), 211 Series A investments (27%), and 32 Series B investments (4%), with the remainder at later stages. The firm is overwhelmingly a seed-stage investor, though the 2022 and 2025 growth funds have expanded its later-stage presence.

Geographic Concentration

SV Angel states its portfolio is “primarily US-based” ¹⁵. The firm is headquartered in San Francisco and has historically concentrated on Bay Area startups, though the portfolio includes companies headquartered elsewhere in the US and a small number of international companies (Wise and Revolut in UK/Europe, Mistral AI in France).

Check Size

• Seed fund: Typical check of $200,000 ¹⁵. From 2018 to 2022, the firm invested with personal capital at $25,000–$100,000 per company ⁹.
• Growth fund: $5 million to $20 million, targeting Series B and C rounds ¹⁰.

Investment Volume

SV Angel invests at far higher volume than typical venture firms. Signal by NFX describes the firm as investing in “100+ companies per year” compared to the 10–20 typical of traditional VCs ². Tracxn reports 37 new investments in 2025 and an average of 29 per year over the last decade ¹⁴.

Co-Investor Patterns

Given SV Angel’s non-lead, small-check approach at seed, the firm frequently co-invests with virtually every major seed and Series A fund in Silicon Valley. The growth fund’s initial investments included companies also backed by Andreessen Horowitz, Sequoia, and other top-tier firms ¹⁰.

Notable Gaps Between Stated and Actual Thesis

• SV Angel emphasizes being “valuation and ownership insensitive” ¹⁸, which is consistent with its small check sizes and non-lead approach — this is genuinely differentiated from most seed funds that seek ownership targets.
• The stated thesis focuses on “software-based companies” ¹⁵, but the portfolio includes significant hardware-adjacent and deep-tech companies (Anduril, Boom, Astranis, Cerebras, Applied Intuition), biotech (Mammoth Biosciences, Formation Bio, Grail), and crypto/Web3 (Dapper Labs, OpenSea, Uniswap, Yuga Labs). The actual portfolio is broader than the stated focus suggests.
• The firm’s AI concentration (14% of highlighted portfolio) is significant and growing, with many of the most recent investments in AI companies (SSI, Black Forest Labs, Skild AI, Applied Compute, The Bot Company).

Portfolio

The following table includes all 155 companies listed on SV Angel’s portfolio page ²², supplemented by additional sourced entries. Companies are categorized by sector and listed with investment year where known.

Note: This table includes all 155 companies listed on SV Angel’s portfolio page plus Lio from cross-referenced startup profiles. Investment years use the company’s founding year as a proxy where the specific investment date is unknown, marked with “~YYYY (founded)”. SV Angel has invested in 791 companies total per Tracxn ¹⁴; this table represents approximately 20% of the full portfolio, biased toward the firm’s most notable investments.

In Their Own Words

Ron Conway on investment philosophy:

“I think all angel investors should care about is adding value to the entrepreneur. Making money is a byproduct of adding value to an entrepreneur.” ¹⁹

Ron Conway on evaluating founders:

“People first, idea second, market size third.” ⁴¹⁹

“I don’t even try to evaluate the idea, I just look at the founder… great founders can make almost any idea work.” ²⁶

“Entrepreneurs are born, not made. They need innate traits like drive, ambition, aggression, and toughness.” ²⁶

“The characteristics of the founders are the most important trait about a company.” ²⁰

Ron Conway on success rates:

“About 60% of all the companies we invest in go out of business; we don’t make a nickel. Another 30% of them, maybe we will get our money back. And it’s that slight balance, 10% to 20%, that you make more than you put in, and it’s enough to pay for all the ones that went out of business.” ²⁷

Ron Conway on network building:

“How you build the network is having a good reputation. The first company I invested in, I stood by those founders, and then those founders recommended me to other founders.” ²⁷

“The founder network is kind of like the Mafia. They all talk to each other, and they tell each other who the value-adding investors are, and that’s been very good for SV Angel.” ²⁷

Topher Conway on board seats:

“We think that at some point in the business, the boardroom will get contentious and the founder and the board won’t agree on something. And so we never want to put ourselves in that position.” ¹⁸

Topher Conway on founder grit:

“A founder’s grit and determination, not the environmental conditions, are the key factors in their success.” ²⁰

Topher Conway on reputation:

“Your reputation is your biggest asset… work ethic, responsiveness, how you treat other people, how you treat entrepreneurs.” ²⁰

Topher Conway on the role of VCs:

“We need to understand that tech founders are leading the next industrial revolution and investors should be honored that they get to be a part of it.” ²⁰

“VCs should be in the background.” ²⁰

SV Angel on the 2018 market shift:

“Today there are thousands of firms and individuals investing in seed rounds. Seed investors are raising larger funds, becoming more ownership-focused and investing primarily on adoption and traction.” ⁹

Ashvin Bachireddy on the growth fund:

“A goal of this fund is to take the DNA of the seed fund and bring it to the growth stage.” ¹⁰

What Founders Say

Brian Chesky, Co-Founder and CEO of Airbnb:

“Without Ron Conway, Airbnb wouldn’t be what it is today. Ron is much more than a Rolodex — Ron acts like a guardian angel for an entire generation of founders.” (Source: Airbnb Newsroom, 2019) ²³

“The Man Upstairs. Thank you, Ron Conway.” (Said at a 2013 tech industry award show, looking up to the ceiling where Conway was sitting) ²³

Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI:

“I am reasonably confident OpenAI would have fallen apart without [Ron Conway and Brian Chesky’s] help; they worked around the clock for days until things were done. They stopped me from making several mistakes and made none themselves.” (Source: Fortune, January 2025) ²⁵

Ben Horowitz, Co-Founder of Andreessen Horowitz:

“Speaking as an entrepreneur, if I were to start a firm today and could only have one investor, it would be Ron Conway.” (Source: a16z blog) ²⁸

David Weiden, Co-Founder of Tellme Networks:

“My personal opinion is that I’m not sure we would have made it without Ron.” (Source: a16z blog) ²⁸

Florian Otto, CEO of Cedar:

“SV Angel is more than an investor — they are a trusted partner to me and Cedar… If I ever start a new company they are the first investors I’ll give a call.” (Source: SV Angel website) ¹⁷

Guillermo Rauch, CEO of Vercel:

“Since day one, SV Angel has rolled up their sleeves to support Vercel’s growth… I can always rely on them for help when I am solving my toughest challenges.” (Source: SV Angel website) ¹⁷

Tara Viswanathan, Co-Founder of Rupa Health:

“From recruiting support to intros to just being a shoulder to lean on whenever we need — the team at SV Angel has been amazing partners since day one. As we’ve grown and brought on many more investors, I still text and talk with the team frequently. During fundraises, when other investors demanded space in the round, SV Angel helped us make room so we could craft the best round possible, even if it was at the cost of some allocation to them.” (Source: SV Angel Approach page) ²¹

Cody Stegman, Co-Founder of Coactive:

“Their network of founders and industry luminaries is incredible and has opened doors I didn’t even know existed. Working with them at Coactive has been invaluable, and I highly recommend working with them to help tilt the scales of building a category-defining company from impossible to possible.” (Source: SV Angel Approach page) ²¹

Note: The Chesky and Altman quotes are independently sourced. The Horowitz and Weiden quotes come from an independent a16z blog post. The Otto, Rauch, Viswanathan, and Stegman quotes come from SV Angel’s own website, which is a biased source — these are the firm’s selected testimonials. No independently sourced negative or critical founder testimonials were found in this research pass.

Sources